The past three seasons (10-11, 11-12, 12-13), Marquette has lost a total of three games to teams that didn't end up in the NCAA Tourney that year. They were:
Sat, Mar 5, 2011 @Seton Hall L85-72
Mon, Dec 19, 2011 @LSU L67-59
Wed, Dec 19, 2012 @Green Bay L49-47
That's one game each season, all true road games, and all by single digits. While there's no doubt that both OSU and Wisconsin will be playing in March, Arizona State, San Diego State, and New Mexico are all questionable.
On the other side of the coin, when it comes to non-conference victories, each year we had at least one quality win by seemingly any standard. The current season's trademark victory against GW (itself far from an NCAA lock) is hardly worthy of a tourney resume.
That said, while I am generally an eternal optimist when it comes to MU, this year isn't looking too good. Barring wins on the road against the likes of Villanova, Creighton, and perhaps a few other top-tier Big East teams, we could be in trouble.
I'm thinking we need a 13-5 conference season to make up for a sub-par (to be generous) non-conference schedule. Thoughts?
13-5 might do it. 12-6 will bubble at best. 13-5 will need to have some quality wins, and right now this team has none.
anything less than 12-6 and two wins in the BE Tourney spells NIT.
12-6 (20-11) plus a game in the BE tournament
14-4. Gotta be an no-doubter conference record with the complete dearth of wins of any quality in the non-league schedule. Think St. John's a couple of years ago.
Getting hopes up that a lot of what's wrong is fixed, we might be good enough to limp into a play-in game at 12-6 or 13-5, add the year to our NCAA banner and keep the streak going, and forget everything else. 99 days till opening day.
Quote from: chapman on December 22, 2013, 02:57:33 PM
Getting hopes up that a lot of what's wrong is fixed, we might be good enough to limp into a play-in game at 12-6 or 13-5, add the year to our NCAA banner and keep the streak going, and forget everything else. 99 days till opening day.
But wait...but wait...Two straight sweet 16's and an elite 8...this was supposed to be our year...what happened....Oh we have Samford coming in--everything will be looking better then.
Quote from: willie warrior on December 22, 2013, 07:08:48 AM
13-5 might do it. 12-6 will bubble at best. 13-5 will need to have some quality wins, and right now this team has none.
GW is getting votes in the AP poll. might turn out to be a better win that we thought at the time... lets hope they keep it up.