MUScoop
MUScoop => Hangin' at the Al => Topic started by: DarkWarrior on January 28, 2019, 12:16:39 PM
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AS OF 1/28/2019
AP = #10
COACHES POLL = #9
I realize rankings don't mean a whole lot in the big picture but they do provide both notoriety for MU and a bit of a check on our progress. I for one am very excited to have MU in a Top 10 position.
Congrats to the team and to WOJO!
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Yep, great.
Now win the next game!
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There's no banner for it, but it's still a big deal and a nice mid-season reward for the guys. Congrats to the team and to Wojo. This is well deserved. Let's see if they can keep making that number smaller!
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Nova moving up in the rankings as well. This has all the makings for a great showdown if we can both win our next 2 games!
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Just like the olden days.
Coach McGuire would be proud.
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Some quick data for yas: We've made it into the AP top 10 in six other seasons this century. NCAA tourney seeds ranged from 3 through 8 in those years. The highest AP ranking we've obtained this century is #8, in three different seasons. Another fun fact is that we haven't been higher than AP #8 since...1977-78. Depending on what happens in the intervening two weeks, the Villanova game may be a chance to reach our highest AP ranking since the late 70s.
This is exciting.
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Fire (up) Wojo!
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Some quick data for yas: We've made it into the AP top 10 in six other seasons this century. NCAA tourney seeds ranged from 3 through 8 in those years. The highest AP ranking we've obtained this century is #8, in three different seasons. Another fun fact is that we haven't been higher than AP #8 since...1977-78. Depending on what happens in the intervening two weeks, the Villanova game may be a chance to reach our highest AP ranking since the late 70s.
This is exciting.
20 weeks all together.
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Staff needs to start texting all those stud 2020 recruits.....
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I have to visit a customer in Roanoke, Virginia tomorrow, should I stop in to VT and say he to Buzz?
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Best part of our ranking, we replaced the Hillbilly at 10
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Pretty nifty info, babyblue. Never in a million years did I think this team would see a top ten ranking. Very happy to say that I was wrong. Hope we are still top ten going into NCAA.
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There's no banner for it
Well, no wonder TC left!
Never in a million years did I think this team would see a top ten ranking. Very happy to say that I was wrong. Hope we are still top ten going into NCAA.
Hope we are top one coming out of NCAA!
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Pretty nifty info, babyblue. Never in a million years did I think this team would see a top ten ranking. Very happy to say that I was wrong. Hope we are still top ten going into NCAA.
I was thinking we had a top 20-30 team at best with a 6 seed being the best we would do...and I would have been good with that.
I don't think we are playing our best ball...if Sacar can start finishing around the hoop more consistently, Markus continues to learn the pg position, Joey plays complete games, and injuries don't interfere we can get better. Fun times.
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I posted this in other thread, probably makes more sense here.
Top 10 appearance marks the 164th time MU has appeared in the top 10 in the AP poll, which is 19th best in NCAA history. Notre Dame is 18th, with 166 top ten appearances.
135 of those 164 appearances happened from 1970 to 1979
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https://amp.jsonline.com/amp/2698925002?__twitter_impression=true
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The women are also in the top 10! Obviously the first time ever with both programs in the top 10. How many schools have done that? Not many, and not a small catholic school I am guessing? Both teams deserve big crowds the rest of the season! Could the men sellout the rest of the way?
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Could the men sellout the rest of the way?
Probably not. MU will lose a game and everyone will want to fire Wojo again.
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I have to visit a customer in Roanoke, Virginia tomorrow, should I stop in to VT and say he to Buzz?
Yes and send him our love .
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Probably not. MU will lose a game and everyone will want to fire Wojo again.
This made me laugh. It’s so true. If we win it’s the toughest ticket in town. If we lose......it’s ticket giveaway time!
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We gotta beat Butler. Man is the target gonna be huge. Butler, at home, coming off 2 losses, chance to get a really good win.
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The women are also in the top 10! Obviously the first time ever with both programs in the top 10. How many schools have done that? Not many, and not a small catholic school I am guessing? Both teams deserve big crowds the rest of the season! Could the men sellout the rest of the way?
The Women are only averaging 1,800 fans a game and that's with two sellouts figured in there. There need to be a lot more fans at the last 4 home games - this is a phenomenal team that deserves more support. I'd really like to see senior day on Feb. 24th sellout for them also.
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I would be shocked if not sold out the rest of the way. Great atmosphere and winning is great combination.
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Cannot hurt Recruiting.
Hey Jalen Johnson, if you’re looking for a top 10 program to showcase your talents, don’t have to go far now!!
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I think this is great! Obviously ranking are more gravy or icing. But lots of fun. I wonder if we could get any higher...some great teams have to lose...perhaps if we win the next 3.
BUT... we are obviously over-ranked. We have to admit there has been a bit of fairy dust sprinkled on the Marquette in 2018-2019 season.
NOTE: I lived in Columbia, South Carolina in 1997...USC won the SEC regular season, beat Kentucky twice...but became the first 2 seed to lose to a 15 (Coppin State). They were over-achievers living on fairy dust.
MU doesn't have to suffer that fate.
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I think this is great! Obviously ranking are more gravy or icing. But lots of fun. I wonder if we could get any higher...some great teams have to lose...perhaps if we win the next 3.
BUT... we are obviously over-ranked. We have to admit there has been a bit of fairy dust sprinkled on the Marquette in 2018-2019 season.
NOTE: I lived in Columbia, South Carolina in 1997...USC won the SEC regular season, beat Kentucky twice...but became the first 2 seed to lose to a 15 (Coppin State). They were over-achievers living on fairy dust.
MU doesn't have to suffer that fate.
Trying to decide if the second portion was teal worthy or not.
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I agree to an extent. We're not one of the top 10 teams in the country, but our resume certainly stacks up with anyone and I think we're deserving of the ranking.
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It is odd. The metrics are not in Marquette's favor due to 3 blowout losses, a lack of blowout wins, and a couple of cupcakes that were narrower margins than expected. Marquette played a solid OOC schedule and why 11-2. 7-1 in the Big East. The record is worthy of the rankings. The record and the metrics are not synced.
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BUT... we are obviously over-ranked. We have to admit there has been a bit of fairy dust sprinkled on the Marquette in 2018-2019 season.
Are we? For that to be the case, the teams behind us have to be underranked. So who's underranked?
Kansas without Azubuike? They are 6-4 in their last 10 with bad losses to ASU & WVU.
Virginia Tech? Their entire resume is a win over Purdue.
Houston, Texas Tech, Buffalo, LSU, NC State? Their resumes are built on soft schedules. Marquette has as many top-25 kenpom wins as those 5 teams combined.
Villanova, Louisville, Purdue? They've come on strong of late, but haven't a run of results like the 15-1 stretch that vaulted us into the top-10.
Iowa State, Maryland, Mississippi State, Florida State? They've all had their highs, but recent results certainly don't warrant being ahead of us.
That leaves Wisconsin as the only other top-25 team behind us. I think it's a hard case to rank them ahead of us on merit.
Honestly, if you base rankings on body of work, there's a better case for us being underrated than overrated. Nevada and Kentucky both have some blemishes on their resumes that make us look pretty good by comparison...
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We have a top 10 resume. I wouldn't argue with anyone who said we have more of a top 25 team. Personally, I think that's better than the reverse.
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I really cannot figure anything out this season. I was thinking that it was a lot of bad teams out there, including the BE, but now think it might be a very large number of average teams this season. Truthfully, I am enjoying the ride and will share my feelings on this season after the final game. I do not think it is fair to throw out negatives at this time, nor do I think it is accurate to throw out crazy praise. Maybe MU is the 10th best average team in the country. If so, I hope they end up the 1st best in March/April.
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I am delighted for our 10/9 rankings . It helps in many ways. If we can keep putting up no loss weeks we will drive it even higher.
My general view of the rankings, is that outside of a handful of teams each year that are head and shoulders above every one else, the rest of the rankings are more a function of the trend of the teams etc. MU has a lot going for it in terms of the roster we are competing with, yes there are some very athletic type teams that may deliver a beat down every once in a while. However, for the most part we match up well with most of the ranked teams and have definitely earned the respect we are getting.
Xavier was able to get themselves in the top 5-7 in the last few years under a similar set of circumstances. They caught an unlucky draw in the tournament and had to go up against a very athletic Florida State team last year and lost early.
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The Women are only averaging 1,800 fans a game and that's with two sellouts figured in there. There need to be a lot more fans at the last 4 home games - this is a phenomenal team that deserves more support. I'd really like to see senior day on Feb. 24th sellout for them also.
Well, they are playing at home on Friday February 8 (Georgetown) and Sunday, February 10 (Nova). If you are in town for NMD, you have zero excuses not to catch at least one of those games.
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Who outside of the top ten is clearly better than us? Honeslty I don't think anyone else ranked under us is clearly better at this point. Nevada shouldn't be there. I think the major drop off is after the top 5. After that though no ones really clearly better so I would disagree we are obviously over ranked
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We have a top 10 resume. I wouldn't argue with anyone who said we have more of a top 25 team. Personally, I think that's better than the reverse.
Not really I mean I'd rather have a legit top ten team ranked in the 20s than a top 25 team overperforming and ranked top.ten. the legit top ten team has a better shot to.go deep in the tournament
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Not really I mean I'd rather have a legit top ten team ranked in the 20s than a top 25 team overperforming and ranked top.ten. the legit top ten team has a better shot to.go deep in the tournament
Meh. Maybe.
Top 10 resume gets you a better seed and also shows that you clearly have beaten quality teams
A top 10 roster might just never put it all together
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Not really I mean I'd rather have a legit top ten team ranked in the 20s than a top 25 team overperforming and ranked top.ten. the legit top ten team has a better shot to.go deep in the tournament
I don't care about rankings. I said top 10 resume. Meaning I'd rather be a team that is top 25 caliber that wins more games than they should than a team that is top 10 caliber that loses more games than they should.
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I'm in the boat with those that think we have earned our ranking based on our wins and losses but aren't really one of the top 10 teams in the country. We certainly deserved to be ranked higher than Villanova, but if we played them on a neutral floor right now, I think we'd lose. In mid-December, I would think we'd win.
Anyway, I don't worry too much about the rankings anyway. I would love to win a Big East crown, regular season or tournament would be fine by me.
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once again, who outside of the top ten is a "real" top ten team that should be ranked in the top ten and is clearly better than us.
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once again, who outside of the top ten is a "real" top ten team that should be ranked in the top ten and is clearly better than us.
KenPom would tell you that all the following teams currently ranked below us are actually better than us:
Purdue
Virginia Tech
Iowa State
Wisconsin
Texas Tech
Louisville
Kansas
Auburn
Nebraska
Houston
Villanova
Buffalo
Maryland
LSU
Cincinnati
Florida State
Mississippi State
Florida
TCU
Iowa
Baylor
Ohio State
NC State
Oklahoma
Now I would say we have a better resume than all of those teams and I don't agree that all those teams are better than us. But having watched a lot of them my eye test would rank Virginia Tech, Kansas (w/ Doke, not sure w/o him), Auburn, LSU, Florida State, and Mississippi State as good as or maybe even a little better than us. All IMHO of course. But I think we certainly belong in the conversation.
I agree with your earlier post about there being a clear break at the top. Though I think the break is after the top 7 teams. I think Michigan State belongs in that top level as does Kentucky. Kentucky started off rocky but I have watched a couple of their recent games and they look a lot better. Think they only get stronger as the season goes on. I think the difference between the 8th best team and the 25th best team is pretty small this season.
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I'm in the boat with those that think we have earned our ranking based on our wins and losses but aren't really one of the top 10 teams in the country. We certainly deserved to be ranked higher than Villanova, but if we played them on a neutral floor right now, I think we'd lose. In mid-December, I would think we'd win.
Anyway, I don't worry too much about the rankings anyway. I would love to win a Big East crown, regular season or tournament would be fine by me.
That's possible regarding Nova. I think them, Louisville, and Purdue are all playing excellent right now. I wouldn't want to see any on a neutral. I think Houston and maybe Texas Tech are also there. But I think we might be better than Nevada and UNC too.
Somewhere between 8-15 feels pretty accurate and I'm not sure there's much separation between those teams. Whatever looks best for Marquette is best in my opinion.
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Well, they are playing at home on Friday February 8 (Georgetown) and Sunday, February 10 (Nova). If you are in town for NMD, you have zero excuses not to catch at least one of those games.
I hope a lot of people agree with you - their attendance at their last home game on Sun. Jan. 20th was only 1451 :(. And they only had 1613 there for the game against rival DePaul on January 4th. This is a great team that is so much fun to watch and not many people have come out to see them play this year. Their average attendance was 1865 last year so it's about the same now. The team has made a great leap in their results this year and has been nationally ranked all season yet the attendance hasn't really seen a jump so far. There are only 4 more home games left - I promise you'll have fun if you come out and root this team on.
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KenPom would tell you that all the following teams currently ranked below us are actually better than us:
Purdue
Virginia Tech
Iowa State
Wisconsin
Texas Tech
Louisville
Kansas
Auburn
Nebraska
Houston
Villanova
Buffalo
Maryland
LSU
Cincinnati
Florida State
Mississippi State
Florida
TCU
Iowa
Baylor
Ohio State
NC State
Oklahoma
Now I would say we have a better resume than all of those teams and I don't agree that all those teams are better than us. But having watched a lot of them my eye test would rank Virginia Tech, Kansas (w/ Doke, not sure w/o him), Auburn, LSU, Florida State, and Mississippi State as good as or maybe even a little better than us. All IMHO of course. But I think we certainly belong in the conversation.
I agree with your earlier post about there being a clear break at the top. Though I think the break is after the top 7 teams. I think Michigan State belongs in that top level as does Kentucky. Kentucky started off rocky but I have watched a couple of their recent games and they look a lot better. Think they only get stronger as the season goes on. I think the difference between the 8th best team and the 25th best team is pretty small this season.
What exactly has Auburn shown you? Lol.
They basically just lose to every good team they play.
Florida state?? Miss State?? crap even LSU has been hardly impressive.
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I think maybe those teams at their best I'd agree with, but Auburn, Florida State, Virginia Tech, and Mississippi State haven't been consistent enough to convince me you'll get their best effort any given night. LSU I just haven't seen beat anyone significant. Zero top-25 wins is rough.
We had a rough go at St John's, but the one thing this team does is give consistent effort. When the shots aren't there, the defense is. When the defense isn't, Markus is. With rare exception, Marquette is going to give a winning effort every night. That doesn't mean they'll always win, but they consistently give themselves chances to win. It won't always impress the metrics, but it's how you get and stay highly ranked.
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What exactly has Auburn shown you? Lol.
They basically just lose to every good team they play.
Florida state?? Miss State?? crap even LSU has been hardly impressive.
This is all based on eye test, not actual results. Kentucky at Auburn was one of the best games I watched all season. As was Duke at Florida State. LSU had an ugly loss to OK state in November and has looked great since then. None of this is anything but my opinion from watching a handful of games.
But I would be careful to throw stones. There's a reason why KenPom and others rank us in the 30s and 40s. Plenty would look at our wins and say "yeah they've won a lot but they haven't looked impressive doing it."
I think maybe those teams at their best I'd agree with, but Auburn, Florida State, Virginia Tech, and Mississippi State haven't been consistent enough to convince me you'll get their best effort any given night. LSU I just haven't seen beat anyone significant. Zero top-25 wins is rough.
We had a rough go at St John's, but the one thing this team does is give consistent effort. When the shots aren't there, the defense is. When the defense isn't, Markus is. With rare exception, Marquette is going to give a winning effort every night. That doesn't mean they'll always win, but they consistently give themselves chances to win. It won't always impress the metrics, but it's how you get and stay highly ranked.
I agree with a lot of this. We do what we need to in order to get the W every night....unless we don't, then we look really bad from the start. A lot of the teams in our range struggle with consistency.
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TAMU
I respect your stance on the rankings discussion. This is a strange year, and the difference between 10-40 or 50 is quite small. As I mentioned in earlier post, I am going with the flow and hope they keep winning. I will add, I do hope some folks do not get ahead of themselves and they keep expectations realistic.
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I was thinking we had a top 20-30 team at best with a 6 seed being the best we would do...and I would have been good with that.
I don't think we are playing our best ball...if Sacar can start finishing around the hoop more consistently, Markus continues to learn the pg position, Joey plays complete games, and injuries don't interfere we can get better. Fun times.
Agree about Sacar scoring more, but it seems to me he needs more help on his outside shot. I know we already have plenty of options there, but it would be great to have another capable outside shooter. Coach Nelson did wonders for JJJ's outside shot and can do the same for Sacar. At the end of the day, I don't really care how he scores but I rarely feel confident when he launches from 3.
We're gonna be even better next year with the addition of Koby and a hopefully healthy Greg so if Sacar can improve his 3's, all the better!
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We have a top 10 resume. I wouldn't argue with anyone who said we have more of a top 25 team. Personally, I think that's better than the reverse.
Yes and yes
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This is all based on eye test, not actual results. Kentucky at Auburn was one of the best games I watched all season. As was Duke at Florida State. LSU had an ugly loss to OK state in November and has looked great since then. None of this is anything but my opinion from watching a handful of games.
But I would be careful to throw stones. There's a reason why KenPom and others rank us in the 30s and 40s. Plenty would look at our wins and say "yeah they've won a lot but they haven't looked impressive doing it."
I agree with a lot of this. We do what we need to in order to get the W every night....unless we don't, then we look really bad from the start. A lot of the teams in our range struggle with consistency.
Well yeah any teams can look good one game. Looks at some of FSUs losses. crap I think Nova clocked them.
LSU needed a miracle against trash mizzou.
The reason for the metrics not liking us is they are simply flawed.
Honestly winning every close game is the sign of a good team. We are probably due to lose one eventually. But aside from the Creighton fluke(we then controlled OT) we’ve been the team to consistently make the plays down the stretch and basically always led in the final minutes of all close games.
That’s how we are constructed. 3 elite shooters, solid Defense, length and rebounding, a super star player and top flight free throw shooters. We are built to win the close ones.
On the other hand you have Auburn, built to hope they are hot otherwise lose to all quality teams they face.
I get it’s your opinion. Just adding more perspective.
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It’s also worth noting we’ve covered in 6 of our 7 BE wins(missed Hall by .5)
So while we’ve played a lot of close games, we were technically expected to.
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I'd rather win every game by 1-2 points and look ugly doing it than beat a few in blowouts but lose 1/3 of our games. Not sure the metrics are rewarding the right things.
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I'd rather win every game by 1-2 points and look ugly doing it than beat a few in blowouts but lose 1/3 of our games. Not sure the metrics are rewarding the right things.
In essence, the system you are advocating for is the RPI. Rewards record and record of opponents, ignores how you win.
It's a bit of a conundrum. Strictly rewarding wins regardless of score was clearly a faulty model. But the models that reward margins also have holes. The NET currently is that something in the middle. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction, I believe. Though I still want to see a regressive formula for margin of victory.
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In essence, the system you are advocating for is the RPI. Rewards record and record of opponents, ignores how you win.
It's a bit of a conundrum. Strictly rewarding wins regardless of score was clearly a faulty model. But the models that reward margins also have holes. The NET currently is that something in the middle. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction, I believe. Though I still want to see a regressive formula for margin of victory.
Brew, I haven't studied the NET much this season - but it seems to me that non-con SOS is way less important than it was with RPI. Obviously you still need to challenge yourself with some tough non-con games, but with NET, wouldn't there be some benefit to basically playing all of your buy games against god awful 300+ RPIish teams, and pounding them, as opposed to playing decent teams in the 150-250 range.
Basically a rags and riches type non-con. Play your tough games like we did against Indiana, Kansas, Louisville, Wisconsin, K State and Buffalo - but then fill out the rest of your non-con with garbage teams and just pound them. I am talking purely from a numbers perspective - not what is best for actually building a winning team.
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I've been thinking the same of late. Va Tech is the poster child for this, but UW also benefited from absolutely hammering the bottom tier cupcakes.
When looking at teams in the past, it was pretty clear that RPI and SOS had a strong correlation. Now NET and SOS seem to just be different metrics. I'll be honest, when I was looking at the last few teams in my last S-Curve, I couldn't really separate Creighton, Arizona, and Butler. Very different profiles, but hard to really say whose is best. Ultimately, I picked Creighton on strength of schedule. It was the one thing that really jumped off the page. I'll be interested to see how that plays in come March 17.
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I've been thinking the same of late. Va Tech is the poster child for this, but UW also benefited from absolutely hammering the bottom tier cupcakes.
When looking at teams in the past, it was pretty clear that RPI and SOS had a strong correlation. Now NET and SOS seem to just be different metrics. I'll be honest, when I was looking at the last few teams in my last S-Curve, I couldn't really separate Creighton, Arizona, and Butler. Very different profiles, but hard to really say whose is best. Ultimately, I picked Creighton on strength of schedule. It was the one thing that really jumped off the page. I'll be interested to see how that plays in come March 17.
For sure. Certainly not advocating for playing terrible teams, as that probably is not good for anybody, really. I do hope the Committee puts more stock in SOS as opposed to years past, as it seems its not built into NET nearly at all, and was a huge factor in RPI.
Pounding terrible teams isn't what should put you in the tournament.
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Has RPI been completely abandoned by the tournament committee? Or are they still going to use it to a lesser extent in conjunction with the other metrics?
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Is the RPI even in existence out there? It would be interesting to see a side-by-side comparison of this year's teams ranked by NET vs. RPI.
NM, just checked it out.
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Is the RPI even in existence out there? It would be interesting to see a side-by-side comparison of this year's teams ranked by NET vs. RPI.
NM, just checked it out.
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_Men.html
MU is #17.
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Has RPI been completely abandoned by the tournament committee? Or are they still going to use it to a lesser extent in conjunction with the other metrics?
From what they've said, completely abandoned. I've listened to interviews with Dan Gavitt & he's indicated while it was worthwhile for its time, the rise of analytic models show that its time is done.
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http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_Men.html
MU is #17.
Interesting...Wisconsin-Madison is #29 RPI. And Kansas is #1.
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Interesting...Wisconsin-Madison is #29 RPI. And Kansas is #1.
A good example how SOS matters in RPI. Kansas is also #1 in SOS.