Last 10 Games

[juckerrules]

Last 10 games of the regular season also happen to have half of them against the 3 next best teams in the AAC. At SMU, & the 2 Houston & Wichita State games.
Time to see how tourney ready the Cats are.

I don't really expect 10-0 (although I think they are capable) ..you'd think these slow starts have to catch up to them on the road against a decent opponent.
What are we ok with? 8-2? That would be 27-4 overall going into the conference tourney.

What's your best guess.....if you had no spread money in the game.

 

[Cin City]

Obviously 10-0 would have everyone on a next level of excitement. Realistically, its possible but I think 8-2 is a confident possibility.The @ Wichita game is a red flag, but its winnable. The other one, and I know I'll get grilled here and its ok to grill me. @UConn Saturday. I hope its just a stupid feeling that passes and I KNOW UCONN IS ABSOLUTE TRASH. However, it concerns me. I hope to rescind this feeling Saturday afternoon. So take your shots...im well deserving of them assuming we take care of business. Good day.

 

[Bearcat513]

I think 9-1 is attainable with only @WSU being a loss.

I know it's not 100% fair to make the assumption but if Temple can go to Dallas and get a W, the Bearcats can. Just can't start slow and get down 10-2 before the first timeout. That goes for all the games, really.

I really don't see us losing at home. My thought for this team was if we play Witchita State three times and win twice, we'll be a 3 seed.

 

[GarradJ21]

9-1 with a loss @WSU. The only other loss I would be ok with is @ Houston. I think we smash @SMU.

 

[waterhead]

Last 10 games of the regular season also happen to have half of them against the 3 next best teams in the AAC. At SMU, & the 2 Houston & Wichita State games.
Time to see how tourney ready the Cats are.

I don't really expect 10-0 (although I think they are capable) ..you'd think these slow starts have to catch up to them on the road against a decent opponent.
What are we ok with? 8-2? That would be 27-4 overall going into the conference tourney.

What's your best guess.....if you had no spread money in the game.

I think 8-2 would be my over under right now give or take 1. WSU on senior night will be difficult. Outside of that I would expect 1 loss somewhere. It's just not that easy going through conference road games when you are the target everyone is shooting for. You have to be even that much more ready. We have 2 senior nights away, we have teams fighting for a tourney bid, we have some that will help the other team perhaps salvage a bad season etc.

These are not excuses to lose...they are excuses to get even tougher than we have been already. I think 8-2 would be VERY respectable. 7-3 would be a bit of a letdown. Anything better than 8-2 will be excellent!

 

[GarradJ21]

I think 8-2 would be my over under right now give or take 1. WSU on senior night will be difficult. Outside of that I would expect 1 loss somewhere. It's just not that easy going through conference road games when you are the target everyone is shooting for. You have to be even that much more ready. We have 2 senior nights away, we have teams fighting for a tourney bid, we have some that will help the other team perhaps salvage a bad season etc.

These are not excuses to lose...they are excuses to get even tougher than we have been already. I think 8-2 would be VERY respectable. 7-3 would be a bit of a letdown. Anything better than 8-2 will be excellent!

Completely agree.

 

[waterhead]

Last 10 games of the regular season also happen to have half of them against the 3 next best teams in the AAC. At SMU, & the 2 Houston & Wichita State games.
Time to see how tourney ready the Cats are.

I don't really expect 10-0 (although I think they are capable) ..you'd think these slow starts have to catch up to them on the road against a decent opponent.
What are we ok with? 8-2? That would be 27-4 overall going into the conference tourney.

What's your best guess.....if you had no spread money in the game.

There was a time I thought 4 losses would equal a 4 seed. I am starting to think it may be closer to the 3 and 4 bubble. 5 losses might put us on the 4 or 5 bubble. 3 losses on the 2 or 3 bubble. No more losses has to almost put us on the 1 and 2 bubble I would think.

Remember...we have not played a majority of our hardest games in conference yet. Whatever respect (or disrespect) we are getting now SHOULD only get better if we can look good over the closing stretch.

At the end of the season...top 10 rpi, top 10 Kenpom, and a good record against both columns should be a very very nice resume. As far as rpi is concerned I don't think we can lose more than 1 game and end in the top 10...but Kenpom we may be able to with 2 more losses.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

I'll say 8-2 to stick with my original 27-4 prediction. However, at this point I can't call which games we would lose.

 

[justinhub2003]

Our resume is very whack still.


So I think we really need to go 9-1

I think it is concerning that we've played 21 games already and our best win is #44 SMU. We really need to pick up 2 more Tier 1 wins. So wether it be WSU and @houston or @SMU, I don' t care. I just want to protect home court and steal at least 1 of our 3 Tier A games left, but 2 is most preferable.

If the committee truly uses the RPI Tier system, I'll feel good about us. But Kenpom has not been our friend when it comes to quality wins.


Also we need WSU utterly dominate the rest of its games. at this point I don't care about SMU getting in, I want WSU to be a tier 1 win in both home and away games

 

[waterhead]

Our resume is very whack still.


So I think we really need to go 9-1

I think it is concerning that we've played 21 games already and our best win is #44 SMU. We really need to pick up 2 more Tier 1 wins. So wether it be WSU and @houston or @SMU, I don' t care. I just want to protect home court and steal at least 1 of our 3 Tier A games left, but 2 is most preferable.

If the committee truly uses the RPI Tier system, I'll feel good about us. But Kenpom has not been our friend when it comes to quality wins.


Also we need WSU utterly dominate the rest of its games. at this point I don't care about SMU getting in, I want WSU to be a tier 1 win in both home and away games

I agree with you on SMU and WSU.

What I am wondering about is the RPI vs other metrics committee formula. I thought the other metrics were being brought into consideration by virtue of them changing the breakdown of the tiers. RPI did not consider road or home advantage where other metrics like Kenpom did...so they adjusted what columns 1-4 would look like based off of advanced metrics.

Is this inaccurate? Would it matter at that point (after the tiers were adjusted) how each team looks on Kenpom or other advanced metric sites? They already adjusted the RPI formula to account for it.

 

[justinhub2003]

I agree with you on SMU and WSU.

What I am wondering about is the RPI vs other metrics committee formula. I thought the other metrics were being brought into consideration by virtue of them changing the breakdown of the tiers. RPI did not consider road or home advantage where other metrics like Kenpom did...so they adjusted what columns 1-4 would look like based off of advanced metrics.

Is this inaccurate? Would it matter at that point (after the tiers were adjusted) how each team looks on Kenpom or other advanced metric sites? They already adjusted the RPI formula to account for it.

The answer is we have no idea.

Add in that the new Tier System is flawed.

Team A is 9-2 vs Tier 1&2 teams
Team B is 8-3 vs Tier 1&2 teams

Team A looks like the clear better team right? But then you examine the quality of those wins even further and you see that Team B might only have 8 Tier 1&2 wins but they came against Texas, Florida, Michigan st, Miami Fl, Florida St, Etc

And Team A wins came against: Buffalo, Wyoming, UCLA, Temple, UCF, memphis,


This is why they will have to dig deeper because ranking just on the tier System is not a true reflection of reality.

 

[waterhead]

The answer is we have no idea.

Add in that the new Tier System is flawed.

Team A is 9-2 vs Tier 1&2 teams
Team B is 8-3 vs Tier 1&2 teams

Team A looks like the clear better team right? But then you examine the quality of those wins even further and you see that Team B might only have 8 Tier 1&2 wins but they came against Texas, Florida, Michigan st, Miami Fl, Florida St, Etc

And Team A wins came against: Buffalo, Wyoming, UCLA, Temple, UCF, memphis,


This is why they will have to dig deeper because ranking just on the tier System is not a true reflection of reality.

Right. But nothing has changed there. Top 50 and top 100 rpi was always the starting point. Dissecting the results was going to happen and still will. Advanced metrics is going to help the lesser conference to a degree by giving us more chances in those columns...but the dissecting of wins and losses will continue.

 

[sedziobs]

The RPI group system is a starting point, an initial sorting method. Therefore, it is extremely important, but it doesn't in itself determine the final outcome. Nothing is a "true reflection of reality". There's 351 teams playing a 35 or so game schedule. There's no way to definitively rank teams.

The committee has laid out its tools for us, so we might as well consider those first. Kenpom is on the team sheet, and the committee can use it. We should be relieved by that because we are #6 in Kenpom. However, the vast majority of the team sheet is RPI-based. The four groups really stand out:
https://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/files/images/2017/12/04/team_sheet_guide1.pdf

 

[cincrulz11]

The RPI group system is a starting point, an initial sorting method. Therefore, it is extremely important, but it doesn't in itself determine the final outcome. Nothing is a "true reflection of reality". There's 351 teams playing a 35 or so game schedule. There's no way to definitively rank teams.

The committee has laid out its tools for us, so we might as well consider those first. Kenpom is on the team sheet, and the committee can use it. We should be relieved by that because we are #6 in Kenpom. However, the vast majority of the team sheet is RPI-based. The four groups really stand out:
https://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/files/images/2017/12/04/team_sheet_guide1.pdf

and even though we hate rpi, it probably favors us this year. makes the buffalo win much much better, wyoming win is better, temple wins are better.


our kenpom resume, outside of being ranked 6th, is pretty shabby.

 

[waterhead]

The RPI group system is a starting point, an initial sorting method. Therefore, it is extremely important, but it doesn't in itself determine the final outcome. Nothing is a "true reflection of reality". There's 351 teams playing a 35 or so game schedule. There's no way to definitively rank teams.

The committee has laid out its tools for us, so we might as well consider those first. Kenpom is on the team sheet, and the committee can use it. We should be relieved by that because we are #6 in Kenpom. However, the vast majority of the team sheet is RPI-based. The four groups really stand out:
https://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/files/images/2017/12/04/team_sheet_guide1.pdf

Thanks for the team sheet info. It really can tell the optimistic fan why we should be hesitant and the pessimist fan why to be optimistic.

We don't have high quality wins yet. We have a chance...but we need Houston and WSU to keep winning to be honest. I am not sure we should be rooting for SMU at this point (at least in games against those other two teams). We can root for them but they have been inconsistent and lost a significant player. Houston has a better chance IMO to be a tourney team right now. If SMU goes on a run that could change...they still have some talent left on the team.

Same goes for column 2...we need the highest ranked and highest probable teams to go on a run. WE need some quality to go with our quantity.

 

[sedziobs]

our kenpom resume, outside of being ranked 6th, is pretty shabby.

Right, but Kenpom isn't meant to be used like a resume. It's intended as a stand-alone ranking. RPI is not meant to be used to rate the team itself, only a team's opponents.

From Mr. Pomeroy himself:

The user can’t put any trust in a team’s actual ranking but must look at the underlying data: who a team has played and who it has beaten. And thus, things like record vs. top 50 teams are deemed more important than a team’s own RPI rank. But in doing so, one puts trust in an opponent’s RPI ranking, the very thing the user is told to ignore for the team in question.

Through repetition over three decades, this construct has been ingrained in the at-large selection process so that few people question it

My rankings are designed to stand on their own, but if you are interested in assessing a team’s quality wins and losses, the tier approach is a more fair way of thinking.

 

[cincrulz11]

Right, but Kenpom isn't meant to be used like a resume. It's intended as a stand-alone ranking. RPI is not meant to be used to rate the team itself, only a team's opponents.

yes the 6 ranking should speak for itself based on what his rankings are supposed to stand for.


but we all know it doesn't unfortunately (at least to casual fans and im not going to give the committee members much more credit than that).




i almost put in an edit in that post after reading what i wrote cause i knew a response like this was coming.

 

[waterhead]

Right, but Kenpom isn't meant to be used like a resume. It's intended as a stand-alone ranking. RPI is not meant to be used to rate the team itself, only a team's opponents.

From Mr. Pomeroy himself:

It's a double edged sword right now. I can only hope WSU, Houston, and SMU win every other game outside of ours. Every time we beat one of them it adds to our quantity but reduces quality. Every time we lose...it adds to their quality and reduces our quantity.

I say lets win them all and hope they each win the max amount they can outside of that. If we are wondering who to root for (outside of our games) it should be the higher ranked team.

 

[sedziobs]

If we are wondering who to root for (outside of our games) it should be the higher ranked team.

But what if SMU or Houston beating Wichita helps them get into the field? I think that might be preferred. It's hard to say.

Edit: Well, 3 of those 4 games have already been played. Only Wichita @ SMU is left.

 

[waterhead]

But what if SMU or Houston beating Wichita helps them get into the field? I think that might be preferred. It's hard to say.

Edit: Well, 3 of those 4 games have already been played. Only Wichita @ SMU is left.

Good lord my head hurts....yes...lol! Too much to put it all into one category for sure. Obviously as things get more clear we may need one thing to happen over the other. I was just speaking in general.

We are 10 games out. When we need to fine tune this...we can start factoring that in to who we root for. Way too many variables right now...I agree.

We want as many tourney teams as we can get and as high ranked as we can get. We need to maximize the shit out of our schedule. We need other teams to maximize the shit out of theirs. There will be some winners and losers but I want quality right now since it seems we might have the quantity.