Sporting News: Marquette is an under-the-radar Final Four Contender

[Aughnanure]

http://www.sportingnews.com/college-basketball/article/2010-02-05/there-s-plenty-great-college-basketball-we-ll-take-more-good

Marquette is the only unranked team on. Wisconsin gets the love as well.

Marquette
Current rank: NR
OK, the Golden Eagles have work to do if they're even to make the field of 65. They're far too flawed and way too reliant on the jump shot to make any sort of sizable run in March. But Marquette has a manageable schedule in front of it and could prove to be the sort of feisty nightmare that takes a mediocre seed into the tournament's second week. The Golden Eagles rarely make mistakes, averaging just over 10 turnovers a game, and they don't get blown out. Their eight losses have come by a combined 25 points. A team that doesn't beat itself and is always competitive? That sounds like the sort of team that can steal a few wins come tourney time.

Wisconsin
Current rank: 16
No. 13 Ohio State is the better answer out of the Big Ten, but the Buckeyes seem a bit too obvious considering they'd be getting much more attention if Evan "The Villain" Turner hadn't missed six games with a back injury. The Badgers have yet to accomplish much away from the Kohl Center, but they're dealing with a serious injury of their own. They'll only get better if second-leading scorer Jon Leuer is able to return healthy. Bo Ryan-coached teams consistently outperform their seed in the tournament as well.

Georgia Tech
Current rank: 21
This program is generating a reputation as one that rarely plays to the level of its talent, but it has also been disrupted by a few one-and-dones. Derrick Favors will likely be another one-and-doner, but before he bolts he can help Gani Lawal, Iman Shumpert and a strong collection of role players sustain a nice run in March. But do the Yellow Jackets have the consistency? Their 4-4 start in the ACC suggests this team can beat—or get beaten by—anybody on any given night.

Baylor
Current rank: 20
The addition of Michigan transfer Ekpe Udoh and his 13.9 points and 10.7 rebounds per game gives the Bears the floor balance they lacked during a disappointing season last year. Baylor beat Texas in Austin, nearly toppled Kansas State and played Kansas about as tough as anyone has in Lawrence. LaceDarius Dunn and Tweety Carter are the type of streaky shooters that could make the Bears a menace if they catch fire in March.

[TallTitan34]

Their eight losses have come by a combined 25 points.

 

I don't get why we are listed when the first sentence says we can't make a sizeable run in March.

[reinko]

How can this be?  After the Depaul loss, according to many 'Scoopers this team was:

~Pathetic
~Beaten by a Div. III school
~Had a coach with sh!t for brains
~Had no business making the NIT, let alone the NCAA
~Embarrassing representatives of the university

Missing any?

[4everwarriors]

Had Maymon transferred to Central Florida, they'd be included for next season.

[Cooby Snacks]

Cooby Snacks: Smoking crack is no impediment to gaining employment at Sporting News.

[MarquetteDano]

I thought it was funny they said the Badgers always outperform their seed on Ryan coached teams.  That is true when the higher seed you are due to play gets knocked off by a 13 seed each time.  Wasn't last year the only year Ryan has ever beaten a higher seed?

[HoopsMalone]

I would not want to play us in March at all.  We are very beatable though as we are not very good at rebounding and getting stops.  Putting together 4 wins in the tourney would be a lot for this team, unless Otule and Cadougan really break out.  The logic might be, though, that we almost beat 3 teams that may be one or two seeds at their place (WVU, Cuse, Nova) so on a neutral court, who knows?

A Sweet 16 sleeper is probably more realistic rather than a Final Four.  

[cheebs09]

Had Maymon transferred to Central Florida, they'd be included for next season.

I wouldn't call them under the radar though, I think Tim would make sure they were getting the press deserve.

In all seriousness I can't think of how someone has us mentioned in the final four, even under the radar. If we got to the Sweet Sixteen I'd be on cloud nine.

[Pakuni]

How can this be?  After the Depaul loss, according to many 'Scoopers this team was:

~Pathetic
~Beaten by a Div. III school
~Had a coach with sh!t for brains
~Had no business making the NIT, let alone the NCAA
~Embarrassing representatives of the university

Missing any?

Lacking in, um, sphere-like objects down below.

[tower912]

Who are the 1 seeds?   Kentucky, Kansas, and........?    Beyond those two, who do you seriously fear on a neutral court?    I am not saying it is going to happen, but  considering how we have played Wiscy (3), Nova (1-2-3), WVU (2-3-4), G-town (3-4) and Syracuse (1-4), we have shown we can give anybody a game.    Keep TO's below 10, shoot over 40% from 3, don't get rolled on the boards, and anything can happen.    Kentucky and Kansas scare me because of Aldrich and Cousins.   Anybody else, we have a slugger's chance.   Getting in may be a bigger challenge than getting out of the first weekend.   Just win, baby.

[GGGG]

I think Marquette has the ability to beat anyone if we are shooting well.  I don't think we have the personnel to make the type of run needed to get to the Final Four.

[damuts222]

 We dont have the size/bulk to make it to the Final Four but we could make it to the Sweet Sixteen with our shooting and ball movement.

[ChicosBailBonds]

How can this be?  After the Depaul loss, according to many 'Scoopers this team was:

~Pathetic
~Beaten by a Div. III school
~Had a coach with sh!t for brains
~Had no business making the NIT, let alone the NCAA
~Embarrassing representatives of the university

Missing any?

That DePaul loss may end up keeping us out of the tournament.   A lot of golf left

[NersEllenson]

If this team finishes 10-8 in Big East, and overall 19-9 - there is ZERO reason why they should not get into the tournament.  I don't care if they lost to DePaul.  The fact they have played and should have beaten at least 2 likely Number 2 seeds - WVU and Villanova - and were competitive with Syracuse (on the road), who I feel is going to be the Number 1 seed of the whole tourney + wins over Georgetown and Xavier and considering that 8 of their losses we know will have been by 3 points on average...enough said.

[Benny B]

That DePaul loss may end up keeping us out of the tournament.   A lot of golf left

Too many people place too much emphasis on bad losses.  A bad loss hurts you in one of two ways: 1) RPI and 2) "all else equal" scenarios.

The DePaul loss has about a .0118 effect on MU's RPI.  Regardless of which site you pull your rating from, that amounts to a 8-10 place jump.  So instead of 59, MU could be 49 today.  A 60 RPI and winning record in the BE still gets you onto the committee's "bubble" list.  At that point, the only way a DePaul loss hurts you is if there is another team out there with nearly the same resume and no bad losses competing with MU for the last tourney slot -- a very unlikely scenario.  

The DePaul loss isn't going to keep MU out of the tournament any more than a DePaul win in Chicago would have guaranteed a tournament berth.  Forget about DePaul and focus on the remaining schedule... that's what's going to decide whether you're playing on the road or at home the first week of the post-season.

[Mayor McCheese]

Who are the 1 seeds?   Kentucky, Kansas, and........?    Beyond those two, who do you seriously fear on a neutral court?    I am not saying it is going to happen, but  considering how we have played Wiscy (3), Nova (1-2-3), WVU (2-3-4), G-town (3-4) and Syracuse (1-4), we have shown we can give anybody a game.    Keep TO's below 10, shoot over 40% from 3, don't get rolled on the boards, and anything can happen.    Kentucky and Kansas scare me because of Aldrich and Cousins.   Anybody else, we have a slugger's chance.   Getting in may be a bigger challenge than getting out of the first weekend.   Just win, baby.

Kentucky has more than just Cousins that scares me.  Wall, Patterson, Bledsoe.. the list goes on and on.  Best Team in the Country.

[PGsHeroes32]

Right now the best team in the country is easily Syracuse. They would be a match up nightmare for Kentucky as well. But that said Kentucky would definitly scare me the most in a match up with Marquette.

[CrazyEcho]

I love how the article calls him Evan "The Villain" Turner (nickname given by Club Trillion author Mark "The Shark" Titus.  

[mikeDEANmeminger]

Keep TO's below 10, shoot over 40% from 3, don't get rolled on the boards, and anything can happen.    

HA, if it were only that  easy....

[MU B2002]

I love how the article calls him Evan "The Villain" Turner (nickname given by Club Trillion author Mark "The Shark" Titus.  

nm

[79Warrior]

If this team finishes 10-8 in Big East, and overall 19-9 - there is ZERO reason why they should not get into the tournament.  I don't care if they lost to DePaul.  The fact they have played and should have beaten at least 2 likely Number 2 seeds - WVU and Villanova - and were competitive with Syracuse (on the road), who I feel is going to be the Number 1 seed of the whole tourney + wins over Georgetown and Xavier and considering that 8 of their losses we know will have been by 3 points on average...enough said.

I think 19-9 would put us right on the bubble. No way is 19-9 a lock for the NCAA, especiallly with a lousy RPI.

[tower912]

15-8 with 7 games to go.   19-9 is not an option.

[mu_hilltopper]

The DePaul loss has about a .0118 effect on MU's RPI. 

Benny .. not doubting you, but how does that .0118 jive with this website:

http://www.rpiforecast.com/teams/Marquette.html

It lists DePaul as MU's biggest RPI drag.  Honestly, I don't fully understand the #s..

[ChicosBailBonds]

Too many people place too much emphasis on bad losses.  A bad loss hurts you in one of two ways: 1) RPI and 2) "all else equal" scenarios.

The DePaul loss has about a .0118 effect on MU's RPI.  Regardless of which site you pull your rating from, that amounts to a 8-10 place jump.  So instead of 59, MU could be 49 today.  A 60 RPI and winning record in the BE still gets you onto the committee's "bubble" list.  At that point, the only way a DePaul loss hurts you is if there is another team out there with nearly the same resume and no bad losses competing with MU for the last tourney slot -- a very unlikely scenario.  

The DePaul loss isn't going to keep MU out of the tournament any more than a DePaul win in Chicago would have guaranteed a tournament berth.  Forget about DePaul and focus on the remaining schedule... that's what's going to decide whether you're playing on the road or at home the first week of the post-season.

I'm not sure I agree with that.  It's a mathematical formula, they don't throw out the high and the low and allow for a mulligan.  If they did, then DePaul wouldn't hurt.  Unfortunately, DePaul is the biggest drag on our RPI right now.  I think the NC State game might be the second biggest drag.

[wojosdojo]

Wow... someone actually talks about us.

I find it funny how were talking about a final four run when at the beginning of the year people were saying we were 87th in the country, 12 BE, and missing the NIT.. I guess this negitivity just makes mu want to prove them wrong.

I really think were better than a 12 (we got a few votes for espn top 25) seed and even if we are a 12, look what arizona did last year. We've proved we coulda/should won at wvu and at home with nova. Like this guy said, we don't get blown out (lost by more than 5 once; 9) and we can play with anyone.

[TheButlerDidIt]

Just my personal opinion that if we finish 6th or higher, we are in. The committee will probably take the top 7 Big East finishers; just to be sure, I'd hope we could finish higher than 6th. Lot's of work to do.

[PuertoRicanNightmare]

To paraphrase Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction, let's not sucking each others dicks just yet.

We could very easily finish up 3-4 or 2-5 the rest of the way. Seton Hall is tough on the road, St. John's is not going to be a pushover, Cincy is a load at home and we've got a very, very tough game on Saturday, not to mention a Louisville team with a lot of history of success at the Bradley Center and an improved Pitt team.

[Eye]

Before I even read the remainder of the article and thread (and I'm sure that it's been commented on already), consistently outperform their seed? Huh? They've beaten one higher-seeded team in his time there. And without looking it up, they lost as a 2 to a 7 in UNLV. At best it's a push. Now on to the rest of the article and thread.

[Benny B]

Benny .. not doubting you, but how does that .0118 jive with this website:

http://www.rpiforecast.com/teams/Marquette.html

It lists DePaul as MU's biggest RPI drag.  Honestly, I don't fully understand the #s..

I'm not saying that DePaul isn't the biggest "drag" on MU's RPI, all I'm saying is that had MU won at Allstate, their RPI would be about .0118 ratings percentage index points higher, which translates into a 8-10 place jump based on today's RPI rankings (might be more tomorrow, might be less).  Note (to Chicos) -- I didn't say anything about excluding outliers.

The website you linked, I looked at it for the first time just now.  Obviously, it's a forecasting site based on expected W/L's over the remaining schedule, but I haven't yet read how to interpret the numbers.

My point is that MU should be concerned with presenting a solid resume going into Selection Sunday, not dwelling over how horrible the loss at DePaul was.  MU isn't going to be excluded from the conversation in Indy based on RPI (resulting from the loss at DePaul) assuming they end the season strong.  Nor will they be excluded from the tourney simply because they lost to DePaul.

[ChicosBailBonds]

I'm not saying that DePaul isn't the biggest "drag" on MU's RPI, all I'm saying is that had MU won at Allstate, their RPI would be about .0118 ratings percentage index points higher, which translates into a 8-10 place jump based on today's RPI rankings (might be more tomorrow, might be less).  Note (to Chicos) -- I didn't say anything about excluding outliers.

The website you linked, I looked at it for the first time just now.  Obviously, it's a forecasting site based on expected W/L's over the remaining schedule, but I haven't yet read how to interpret the numbers.

My point is that MU should be concerned with presenting a solid resume going into Selection Sunday, not dwelling over how horrible the loss at DePaul was.  MU isn't going to be excluded from the conversation in Indy based on RPI (resulting from the loss at DePaul) assuming they end the season strong.  Nor will they be excluded from the tourney simply because they lost to DePaul.

I understand and largely agree with you.  My concern is that it comes down to team X and team Y and they try to compare.  Both have similar resumes but one has about as crappy a loss as you can get and the other doesn't.  That could come back to bite us.  I hope we win enough at the end here so it's a moot point. 

[Pakuni]

I understand and largely agree with you.  My concern is that it comes down to team X and team Y and they try to compare.  Both have similar resumes but one has about as crappy a loss as you can get and the other doesn't.  That could come back to bite us.  I hope we win enough at the end here so it's a moot point. 

you may be right.
but when you start looking at "bubble" teams, it's very unlikely that MU is alone with a bad loss. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if most have a bad loss ... thus making them bubble teams.
Look at Lunardis last four in and out today and their bad losses.

Marquette ... Depaul (RPI 153)
Notre Dame ... Loyola-Marymout (209)
South Florida ... Central Michigan (181)
Okie State ... Tulsa (62 ... not a bad loss, but their worst)
Dayton ... St. Joe's (176)
Cincy ... St. John's (91) ... not really a bad loss yet, but could become one if the Johnnies falter
Old Dominion ... George Mason (130)
Louisville ... Western Carolina (93) .. with their remaining sked (5 games with opponents RPI 217 or worse), this will be a bad loss in a month

So, really, six of eight have a "bad" loss and the seventh could by the end of the season.
The DePaul loss could cost MU in the sense it's another loss (and not a win), but I don't think in and of itself will be a determining factor.

p.s. As you can see above, there certainly are losses crappier than DePaul.

[NersEllenson]

What's really sad is that so much emphasis is placed on RPI, when it is a flawed system.  Just go look at Dayton's results/body of work compared to ours, and tell me they deserve to be in the tourney more than we do?  MU gets killed due to having played 6 teams with RPI's ranging from 200-330, with 3 of those 6 being in the 300-330 range - Presbyterian, MD Eastern Shore and Grambling.  Lastly, if Providence can win a few games, we will at least show more 2 more wins in the 50-100 category.  Thankfully, our remaining games are all against Top 100 RPI;s, though only Pitt and Lville are in the Top 50.

I still say 4-3 the rest of the way and a 19-9 finish will get us in the tourney.  Our record in our last 10 games would be 7-3, therefore playing well going into the tourney.  This is where our close losses may "help" our cause...hard not to look at MU notice/credit on some level MU losing to Villy and WVU 3 games by a combined 5 points.

[Tom Crean's Tanning Bed]

Note too both ND's and USF worst losses were at home as well.  Doesn't really make the DePaul loss more justifyable on our end, but I would think the committee would have to view a home loss to a sub-150 team worse than a road loss to a sub-150 team.

I don't like ND's chances much.  Sure, they are 6-5 in conference play, but they are absolutely brutal away from the Joyce Center (only 2 road/neutral wins were by 1 over USF and over SLU in Chicago). And they still have to go to Seton Hall (solid at home), Louisville, Georgetown (on a Saturday, and GTown is 4-0 on Saturdays), and Marquette (on Senior Day).  Even if they win out their home slate, they still have to steal a road game at some point, and none of those are going to be easy to steal.  

If Marquette can get Saturday's game and get to 7-5, we will firmly control our tourney destiny.  

[4everwarriors]

Under the radar FF contender? Huh? Without any big men we're more like completely known by other teams. No surprises here. If anyone here seriously thinks we're still dribbling in Indy in late March, they should beg, borrow, steal, and 2nd mortgage the house, take the proceeds directly to Vegas and lay it on MU.

[Benny B]

What's really sad is that so much emphasis is placed on RPI, when it is a flawed system.  Just go look at Dayton's results/body of work compared to ours, and tell me they deserve to be in the tourney more than we do?  MU gets killed due to having played 6 teams with RPI's ranging from 200-330, with 3 of those 6 being in the 300-330 range - Presbyterian, MD Eastern Shore and Grambling.  Lastly, if Providence can win a few games, we will at least show more 2 more wins in the 50-100 category.  Thankfully, our remaining games are all against Top 100 RPI;s, though only Pitt and Lville are in the Top 50.

I still say 4-3 the rest of the way and a 19-9 finish will get us in the tourney.  Our record in our last 10 games would be 7-3, therefore playing well going into the tourney.  This is where our close losses may "help" our cause...hard not to look at MU notice/credit on some level MU losing to Villy and WVU 3 games by a combined 5 points.

I think the whole RPI thing is blown out of proportion.  As humans, we want a simple answer to every question, and simplest way to rank 347 basketball teams is the RPI.  But you're right, no matter how good the calculation is, it is still flawed.

Fortunately, the committee realizes this and wholeheartedly agrees that RPI is not the end-all-be-all.  Otherwise, how do you explain them excluding teams with a top-30 RPI over the past decade?

The media over-hypes RPI because they live in a 30-second world.  Even a two-hour Sportscenter dedicated to Men's Hoops wouldn't have time to scrutinize schedules and compare bodies of work.  However, the committee does have the time, and that's what matters.