How MU can be a tourney team

[Jay Bee]

Did some quick work on some of the RPI implications of our 2016-17 sked vs. last year... certainly a nice boost in the schedule compared to last year's awful slate:

http://latenighthoops.com/marquettes-schedule-improved-2016-17/#.WBSzxC0rJhE

[bilsu]

You're wrong multiple times here

I was expected to be challenged on this. Remember my post was in response to someone who said 19 wins and we are in with our schedule. That is 19-11 regular season and if I hold him to 19 wins it is 19-12 with a first round Big East tournament loss. Give him the benefit of doubt and MU is 20-11 after a second round loss.

Last year Butler got in with 21 wins and the other 4 Big East teams had more than that. How do you get an at large bid. First of all you have to avoid bad losses or at least limited them to one or two. Perhaps more importantly you have to beat someone good. The committee looks at how you fared against other teams in the NCAA field. A loss at home to a team ranked 100 or above is a bad loss. Let us assume the top 5 teams in the Big East are going to get bids and MU finishes 6Th. That gives MU 10 games against teams in the NCAA field, or 11 if they make the second round of the Big East tournament so let us assume that. They play Wisconsin so that is 12 games. Mich and Pitt are predicted to make the tournament, so if we play Pitt in the second game that is 14 out of 32 games. As explained above we have 12 losses.

Assuming we avoid that bad loss, we have only two wins against teams in the NCAA tourney field. That of course is ignoring the possibility that one of our buy games make the field, but none of them are predicted to. So does no bad losses (18-0) against non NCAA tournament teams and a 2-12 record against teams in the field get us the 6Th Big East bid? Last year we had four wins against the tournament field (Wisconsin, Providence twice and Butler).

Last year we played 11 Big East games against NCAA tournament teams and WI and Iowa, which was 13 out of 33 games and we went 4-9 against those 13 teams. Losing to DePaul and Belmont at home were bad losses and maybe even Creighton (NCAA tournament teams are expected to win their home games against non NCAA tournament teams). Therefore, I believe my statement is correct that 19 wins does not result in an NCAA tournament team. The second part of my statement, which I also think you were challenging is that our schedule does not compare to the old Big East.

Now I selected the 2011/12 season, because that was the first one that I found the MU media guide for that we made the tournament. In that year we played 15 games out of 32 games against teams in the tourney. We lost to Louisville in our first Big East tournament game. We went 9-6 in those games. 15 out of 32  is better than 14 out of 32, but not a big difference.

However in that year the Big East only got 8 bids and I know they got more than 8 bids in other years. Also, I believe (did not verify) that the old Big East teams in general had more higher seeds (1-4) than New Big East. Winning 9 quality games is a huge difference over what a team with 19 wins will accomplish. You may not like my statement, but if you truly think about it 19 wins (9-9 Big East record, which is not likely to be a top 5 finish) is not likely going to result in an NCAA bid.

I think the minimum is 21 wins. With last years schedule we would of needed 24 wins, so predicting a bid for 21 wins is reflecting that our schedule has taken a big jump in quality over last year's schedule. I just do not see us getting a bid with only 19 wins, except if we lost some key games when a significant player was out with an injury.

Edit: inserted random paragraph breaks.

[warriorchick]

I was expected to be challenged on this. Remember my post was in response to someone who said 19 wins and we are in with our schedule. That is 19-11 regular season and if I hold him to 19 wins it is 19-12 with a first round Big East tournament loss. Give him the benefit of doubt and MU is 20-11 after a second round loss. Last year Butler got in with 21 wins and the other 4 Big East teams had more than that. How do you get an at large bid. First of all you have to avoid bad losses or at least limited them to one or two. Perhaps more importantly you have to beat someone good. The committee looks at how you fared against other teams in the NCAA field. A loss at home to a team ranked 100 or above is a bad loss. Let us assume the top 5 teams in the Big East are going to get bids and MU finishes 6Th. That gives MU 10 games against teams in the NCAA field, or 11 if they make the second round of the Big East tournament so let us assume that. They play Wisconsin so that is 12 games. Mich and Pitt are predicted to make the tournament, so if we play Pitt in the second game that is 14 out of 32 games. As explained above we have 12 losses. Assuming we avoid that bad loss, we have only two wins against teams in the NCAA tourney field. That of course is ignoring the possibility that one of our buy games make the field, but none of them are predicted to. So does no bad losses (18-0) against non NCAA tournament teams and a 2-12 record against teams in the field get us the 6Th Big East bid? Last year we had four wins against the tournament field (Wisconsin, Providence twice and Butler). Last year we played 11 Big East games against NCAA tournament teams and WI and Iowa, which was 13 out of 33 games and we went 4-9 against those 13 teams. Losing to DePaul and Belmont at home were bad losses and maybe even Creighton (NCAA tournament teams are expected to win their home games against non NCAA tournament teams). Therefore, I believe my statement is correct that 19 wins does not result in an NCAA tournament team. The second part of my statement, which I also think you were challenging is that our schedule does not compare to the old Big East. Now I selected the 2011/12 season, because that was the first one that I found the MU media guide for that we made the tournament. In that year we played 15 games out of 32 games against teams in the tourney. We lost to Louisville in our first Big East tournament game. We went 9-6 in those games. 15 out of 32  is better than 14 out of 32, but not a big difference. However in that year the Big East only got 8 bids and I know they got more than 8 bids in other years. Also, I believe (did not verify) that the old Big East teams in general had more higher seeds (1-4) than New Big East. Winning 9 quality games is a huge difference over what a team with 19 wins will accomplish. You may not like my statement, but if you truly think about it 19 wins (9-9 Big East record, which is not likely to be a top 5 finish) is not likely going to result in an NCAA bid. I think the minimum is 21 wins. With last years schedule we would of needed 24 wins, so predicting a bid for 21 wins is reflecting that our schedule has taken a big jump in quality over last year's schedule. I just do not see us getting a bid with only 19 wins, except if we lost some key games when a significant player was out with an injury.

TLDR.  Paragraphs are your friend.   

[Jay Bee]

TLDR.  Paragraphs are your friend.   

Holy isht! I just skipped it all. May have set a world record, so lthough I can't speak to content, length was impressive (nh)

[Newsdreams]

Holy isht! I just skipped it all. May have set a world record, so lthough I can't speak to content, length was impressive (nh)

Old trick for permitting submit so much documentation that it will scare government official and get approval....

[bilsu]

TLDR.  Paragraphs are your friend.   

I am not worried about my English or any other poster's English on this site.

[Marcus92]

I expected to be challenged on this.

Remember, my post was in response to someone who said 19 wins and we are in with our schedule. That is 19-11 regular season — and if I hold him to 19 wins, it is 19-12 with a first round Big East tournament loss. Give him the benefit of doubt and MU is 20-11 after a second round loss.

Last year, Butler got in with 21 wins and the other 4 Big East teams had more than that. How do you get an at large bid? First of all, you have to avoid bad losses — or at least limit them to one or two. Perhaps more importantly, you have to beat someone good. The committee looks at how you fared against other teams in the NCAA field.

A loss at home to a team ranked 100 or above is a bad loss. Let us assume the top 5 teams in the Big East are going to get bids and MU finishes 6th. That gives MU 10 games against teams in the NCAA field, or 11 if they make the second round of the Big East tournament. So let us assume that. They play Wisconsin, so that is 12 games. Mich and Pitt are predicted to make the tournament — so if we play Pitt in the second game that is 14 out of 32 games.

As explained above, we have 12 losses. Assuming we avoid that bad loss, we have only two wins against teams in the NCAA tourney field. That, of course, is ignoring the possibility one of our buy games make the field, but none of them are predicted to. So does no bad losses (18-0) against non-NCAA tournament teams and a 2-12 record against teams in the field get us the 6th Big East bid?

Last year we had 4 wins against the tournament field (Wisconsin, Providence twice and Butler). We played 11 Big East games against NCAA tournament teams, plus Wisconsin and Iowa — which was 13 out of 33 games — and we went 4-9 against those teams.

Losing to DePaul and Belmont at home were bad losses, and maybe even Creighton (NCAA tournament teams are expected to win their home games against non-NCAA tournament teams). Therefore, I believe my statement is correct that 19 wins does not result in an NCAA tournament team.

The second part of my statement, which I also think you were challenging, is that our schedule does not compare to the old Big East. Now, I selected the 2011-12 season, because that was the first season that I found the MU media guide for in which we made the tournament.

That year we played 15 games out of 32 games against teams in the tourney. We lost to Louisville in our first Big East tournament game. We went 9-6 in those games. 15 out of 32  is better than 14 out of 32, but not a big difference. However, in that year the Big East only got 8 bids and I know they got more than 8 bids in other years. Also, I believe (did not verify) that the old Big East teams in general had more higher seeds (1-4) than the new Big East.

Winning 9 quality games is a huge difference over what a team with 19 wins will accomplish. You may not like my statement. But if you truly think about it, 19 wins (9-9 Big East record, which is not likely to be a top 5 finish) is not likely to result in an NCAA bid. I think the minimum is 21 wins.

With last year's schedule, we would have needed 24 wins. So predicting a bid for 21 wins is reflecting that our schedule has taken a big jump in quality. I just do not see us getting a bid with only 19 wins, except if we lost some key games when a significant player was out with an injury.

Some thoughtful stuff in here. Format/presentation is a key part of effective communication and persuasion. This edit for basic grammar took me approximately 3 minutes.

[Jay Bee]

Gazed through the paragraphed version of bilsu's post... still a complete disconnect from the relevant/real world. Yeeeesh

[brewcity77]

I was expected to be challenged on this.

Probably because you know you are wrong, but you aren't sure why.

Remember my post was in response to someone who said 19 wins and we are in with our schedule. That is 19-11 regular season and if I hold him to 19 wins it is 19-12 with a first round Big East tournament loss. Give him the benefit of doubt and MU is 20-11 after a second round loss.

Actually, it wasn't, it was in reference to the number of home losses. But if you want to talk about me saying 19-20 should be enough, that's a fair discussion.

Last year Butler got in with 21 wins and the other 4 Big East teams had more than that.

Number of wins alone is a poor metric, but Texas got in with 20, Vanderbilt, Syracuse, and Oregon State with 19. All as many or fewer than we had last year. They played in comparable conferences, so clearly our number of wins wasn't the problem. However, they also played tougher non-con schedules. Number of wins has to be team specific. Last year Butler was able to get in with 21 (and likely would have been in with 20) and this year we will be able to get in with 19-20.

How do you get an at large bid. First of all you have to avoid bad losses or at least limited them to one or two. Perhaps more importantly you have to beat someone good.

That's just wrong. What matters is strength of schedule and total wins. That's it. If you have a strong enough schedule and win enough games, you will get in. Period, point, blank.

You can say "but what if you lose to X, Y, and Z", well, if my schedule is strong enough, I can weather those losses because I beat A, B, and C. This upcoming year, what if we lose to a team in the 200-250 range like Howard, but beat Villanova? They wash. At the end of the day, it's simply SOS and number of wins.

The committee looks at how you fared against other teams in the NCAA field. A loss at home to a team ranked 100 or above is a bad loss. Let us assume the top 5 teams in the Big East are going to get bids and MU finishes 6Th. That gives MU 10 games against teams in the NCAA field, or 11 if they make the second round of the Big East tournament so let us assume that. They play Wisconsin so that is 12 games. Mich and Pitt are predicted to make the tournament, so if we play Pitt in the second game that is 14 out of 32 games. As explained above we have 12 losses. Assuming we avoid that bad loss, we have only two wins against teams in the NCAA tourney field. That of course is ignoring the possibility that one of our buy games make the field, but none of them are predicted to. So does no bad losses (18-0) against non NCAA tournament teams and a 2-12 record against teams in the field get us the 6Th Big East bid?

This is a lot of words that says nothing, other than to reinforce a past narrative that at the very least is false today. It would be an incredibly interesting resume, but yes.

Last year we had four wins against the tournament field (Wisconsin, Providence twice and Butler). Last year we played 11 Big East games against NCAA tournament teams and WI and Iowa, which was 13 out of 33 games and we went 4-9 against those 13 teams. Losing to DePaul and Belmont at home were bad losses and maybe even Creighton (NCAA tournament teams are expected to win their home games against non NCAA tournament teams). Therefore, I believe my statement is correct that 19 wins does not result in an NCAA tournament team.

The problem wasn't the 4-9 record. The problem wasn't the bad losses. The problem was the non-con SOS that meant before the season started we needed 22 or 23 wins to get in. If only someone had realized this last year. Wait...someone did:

My estimation is that Marquette probably needs to win 22-23 games just to be on the NCAA bubble, and that's assuming they don't lose to one of these teams.

I told everyone over a year ago that we would need 22-23 wins to get in last year. Had we beat DePaul and Belmont (or any other two teams) we would have been dancing. I'm telling you right now that this year we need 19-20 wins because of our improved SOS. Feel free to ignore it, but you are stuck in an old thought process that is not accurate.

The second part of my statement, which I also think you were challenging is that our schedule does not compare to the old Big East. Now I selected the 2011/12 season, because that was the first one that I found the MU media guide for that we made the tournament. In that year we played 15 games out of 32 games against teams in the tourney. We lost to Louisville in our first Big East tournament game. We went 9-6 in those games. 15 out of 32  is better than 14 out of 32, but not a big difference. However in that year the Big East only got 8 bids and I know they got more than 8 bids in other years. Also, I believe (did not verify) that the old Big East teams in general had more higher seeds (1-4) than New Big East. Winning 9 quality games is a huge difference over what a team with 19 wins will accomplish.

Okay, this is a lot of fluff and talk without any understanding again. You have to understand, when it comes to a bid, you need to look at numbers. Look at what I posted above. We are playing about the same number of top teams in this league and fewer bad teams because the league is a round-robin with 10 teams. The only way you can say our schedule does not compare to the old Big East is because of the names on the front of the jerseys, not the quality of teams in the league or the product on the court. Take a look at the number of top-25 teams per Pomeroy we hosted at the BC in the last four years of the old Big East and the first four years (including this year projected) in the new Big East:

2010: 2
2011: 4
2012: 2
2013: 3
-------
2014: 2
2015: 4
2016: 2
2017: 3

OMFG It's the SAME!!!!!!!1!!11!!!! The new Big East is not a barrier to us making the tournament. Only the Big 12's teams have consistently better odds than we do of getting in.

You may not like my statement,

I don't, but that's because it is inaccurate and outdated.

but if you truly think about it 19 wins (9-9 Big East record, which is not likely to be a top 5 finish) is not likely going to result in an NCAA bid. I think the minimum is 21 wins.

I think the 9-9 Big East record is a must, but 19 will have us on the bubble and likely in, 20 and we'll definitely be in. Your minimum is wrong.

With last years schedule we would of needed 24 wins, so predicting a bid for 21 wins is reflecting that our schedule has taken a big jump in quality over last year's schedule. I just do not see us getting a bid with only 19 wins, except if we lost some key games when a significant player was out with an injury.

I covered this above, but last year was 22-23 and this year is 19-20. I'm confident we'd have been in last year with 22. I didn't think so earlier in the season, but looking at the resumes, if you take away our two sub-100 losses to Belmont and DePaul, we'd have been dancing. No question about it. Every year, the bubble gets softer. No reason to think that won't happen this year, so no reason to think 19 wins won't be enough to get us in.

Our league is stronger almost across the board this year (sorry PC and DPU) and we have a much tougher non-con SOS. As I noted above, other teams are getting in with 20 or fewer wins, and that's happening every year. With our league strength, our improved non-con, there's no way we can't be one of those teams. Forget your bad losses, because again, if we lose one of those game we're expected to win and still get to 19-20 wins, that means we will win a game we're expected to lose.

[real chili 83]

I need a bloody after reading this page.

[bilsu]

In the brief history of the new Big East
St. Johns was left out with a 10-8 conference record and 20 wins. They lost in the first round of the Big East tournament. Maybe they were the victim of it being the first year of the new conference and the conference was not getting the respect it deserved as it got only 4 bids. In the conference's three year history every other team with at least 10 conference wins got an NCAA bid.

In each of the the three years the 6Th place team has finished 9-9 and those have been the only 9-9 teams.
MU 17-15 including a first round Big East tournament loss.
Creighton  18-14 including a first round Big East tournament loss
Both failed to get bids, but obviously they were below the 19 win mark.
Xavier earned the 6Th bid for the league in the league's 2ND year by winning two Big East tournament games, which got them to 21 wins before the NCAA tournament.
Three year history of the Big East the minimum wins has been 21. I think it is safe to say, if you finish 9-9 you have to win at least 1 Big East tournament game to get a bid.

[Herman Cain]

In the brief history of the new Big East
St. Johns was left out with a 10-8 conference record and 20 wins. They lost in the first round of the Big East tournament. Maybe they were the victim of it being the first year of the new conference and the conference was not getting the respect it deserved as it got only 4 bids. In the conference's three year history every other team with at least 10 conference wins got an NCAA bid.

In each of the the three years the 6Th place team has finished 9-9 and those have been the only 9-9 teams.
MU 17-15 including a first round Big East tournament loss.
Creighton  18-14 including a first round Big East tournament loss
Both failed to get bids, but obviously they were below the 19 win mark.
Xavier earned the 6Th bid for the league in the league's 2ND year by winning two Big East tournament games, which got them to 21 wins before the NCAA tournament.
Three year history of the Big East the minimum wins has been 21. I think it is safe to say, if you finish 9-9 you have to win at least 1 Big East tournament game to get a bid.

One of the reasons I don't understand why gave up our 31st game.

Win 11 non conference, Minimum 9 wins in conference and 1 BET tournament game.

[brewcity77]

St. John's was a snub, but they were a 1-seed in the NIT, so you can't be any closer to the tournament than they were. Xavier was a 6-seed, they weren't even close to missing out, and conference tournaments are always overrated for seeding. Xavier was in without question at 19 wins. Not even remotely debatable. If they lose to Butler, they were still looking at a 8-9 seed at worst.

It's a case by case basis. Marquette's case this year is that 19 wins will have them on the bubble and 20 will have them in.

[brewcity77]

One of the reasons I don't understand why gave up our 31st game.

Win 11 non conference, Minimum 9 wins in conference and 1 BET tournament game.

Because number of wins is not a metric. It's only relevant in relation to the schedule you play. If Marquette added Grambling, it would make their schedule worse and the extra win would hurt their chances of going to the Tournament. Marquette could play 27 total games, go 9-9 in conference, and as long as the SOS was high enough, 16-17 wins would get them in.

[bilsu]

One of the reasons I don't understand why gave up our 31st game. Win 11 non conference, Minimum 9 wins in conference and 1 BET tournament game.

I also wondered if this was a mistake. The argument that adding a 250+ team just down grades the schedule and that is a greater negative than the extra win may be valid argument. In the end it only matters if you are vying with other teams for the last spot. At that point all of those teams have warts. However, it is my understanding that the reason we do not have the 31st game is that Wojo did not want to play it in the conference season. There are two sides to that issue. Wojo did not want to worry about a non-conference game during the conference season and I can see his point in that. However, having a so called easy game after having to play two extremely tough games may be needed for team confidence. Personally, I like watching my team play, so I would of rather had the 31st game. Had we dropped one of the bunnies last year we would of been 19-13 and I rather have the 20th win. In the end, as it would be in most cases, it had no effect on last season's post season prospects.

[bilsu]

St. John's was a snub, but they were a 1-seed in the NIT, so you can't be any closer to the tournament than they were. Xavier was a 6-seed, they weren't even close to missing out, and conference tournaments are always overrated for seeding. Xavier was in without question at 19 wins. Not even remotely debatable. If they lose to Butler, they were still looking at a 8-9 seed at worst.

It's a case by case basis. Marquette's case this year is that 19 wins will have them on the bubble and 20 will have them in.

You may be right, but by winning two conference tournament games they added two quality wins and three quality games to their resume. I would also be interested in knowing, if someone would be so kind to look it up, what Xavier's strength of schedule was that year vs. MU's projected strength of schedule this year. They may or may not be comparable.

[brewcity77]

You may be right, but by winning two conference tournament games they added two quality wins and three quality games to their resume. I would also be interested in knowing, if someone would be so kind to look it up, what Xavier's strength of schedule was that year vs. MU's projected strength of schedule this year. They may or may not be comparable.

Looking around, Xavier was 28 in RPI that year with a non-conference SOS ranking of 37. They went 10-3 in non-conference. Here's the breakdown by range, with losses noted in red.

1-25: 0 opponents
26-50: 3 opponents
51-100: 2 opponents (74 UTEP)
101-200: 6 opponents (117 Long Beach State, 132 @Auburn)
201-300: 2 opponents
301+: 0 opponents

The beauty of that schedule was that they had 6 opponents in the 101-200 range and no sub-300 opponents. They didn't have any real marquee matchups, but also didn't have any real dogs. They also had two bad losses, but going 3-0 against teams in the 26-50 range (Cincinnati, Stephen F Austin, Murray State) offset those losses.

Now let's look at our projected breakdown:

1-25: 1 opponent
26-50: 2 opponents (including SMU/Pitt)
51-100: 2 opponents
101-200: 2 opponents
201-300: 4 opponents
301+: 1 opponent

About the same quality at the top, the only real difference is their advantage in terms of teams in the 101-200 range with us having more in the 201-300 range. However, we'll also have a stronger conference schedule this year based on projections, as there is only one team ranked lower than 70 in the Big East for 2016-17, as opposed to four teams in 2014-15.

Not having those 300+ teams on the schedule is a huge advantage. I also wouldn't be surprised to see teams like Howard and Houston Baptist end up being pretty decent wins (maybe sneak into the top-200) when all is said and done. And it bears repeating, last year we had 6 sub-300 teams. That's a huge drain on the RPI.

[bilsu]

Looking around, Xavier was 28 in RPI that year with a non-conference SOS ranking of 37. They went 10-3 in non-conference. Here's the breakdown by range, with losses noted in red.

1-25: 0 opponents
26-50: 3 opponents
51-100: 2 opponents (74 UTEP)
101-200: 6 opponents (117 Long Beach State, 132 @Auburn)
201-300: 2 opponents
301+: 0 opponents

The beauty of that schedule was that they had 6 opponents in the 101-200 range and no sub-300 opponents. They didn't have any real marquee matchups, but also didn't have any real dogs. They also had two bad losses, but going 3-0 against teams in the 26-50 range (Cincinnati, Stephen F Austin, Murray State) offset those losses.

Now let's look at our projected breakdown:

1-25: 1 opponent
26-50: 2 opponents (including SMU/Pitt)
51-100: 2 opponents
101-200: 2 opponents
201-300: 4 opponents
301+: 1 opponent

About the same quality at the top, the only real difference is their advantage in terms of teams in the 101-200 range with us having more in the 201-300 range. However, we'll also have a stronger conference schedule this year based on projections, as there is only one team ranked lower than 70 in the Big East for 2016-17, as opposed to four teams in 2014-15.

Not having those 300+ teams on the schedule is a huge advantage. I also wouldn't be surprised to see teams like Howard and Houston Baptist end up being pretty decent wins (maybe sneak into the top-200) when all is said and done. And it bears repeating, last year we had 6 sub-300 teams. That's a huge drain on the RPI.

Thank you.
That does may the schedule look better than I thought it was. Part of my opinion is from looking at the preseason poll in which we only play four teams (three of them twice) in the top 25. It still will come down to beating some teams in the top 25. Assuming we go 19-11 the part that bothers me is that I have to assume we are not beating the 7 preseason ranked teams.

[keefe]

TO's must be reduced. Then, we've got a chance.

I agree that this is crucial for success.

Last year was exasperating...

[Goose]

Need to step up full court and force TO's. We cannot sit back and play prevent half court D.

[keefe]

Need to step up full court and force TO's. We cannot sit back and play prevent half court D.

One of the hallmarks of Al's teams was stifling defense. Every game we got at least one of both a 5 second inbound call and a 10 second backcourt trap. Nothing electrified the Arena more than our smothering D.

[GGGG]

Need to step up full court and force TO's. We cannot sit back and play prevent half court D.

I would agree that we have to extend the defense, but I wouldn't extend full court except as an occasional change up. 

[GoldenDieners32]

1. 10 or less TO per game
2.  Fast Break points need to be high
3. Everyone needs to rebound
4. Beat Wisconsin

[wadesworld]

1. 10 or less TO per game
2.  Fast Break points need to be high
3. Everyone needs to rebound
4. Beat Wisconsin

1) Won't happen.
2) Won't happen.  Need to send at least 4 to the boards.
3) Yes.  Which makes 2 very tough.
4) Unimportant towards getting to the Tournament.

[Galway Eagle]

1) Won't happen.
2) Won't happen.  Need to send at least 4 to the boards.
3) Yes.  Which makes 2 very tough.
4) Unimportant towards getting to the Tournament.

3 can happen if we create a lot of turnovers

4 are you saying that beating a quality opponent isn't important to making the tournament?