1/3rd point of BEast - making sense of the standings

[Real Chilly Podcast]

So we're one third of the way through the Big East season, and to me it seems as if the tiers of teams are becoming quite clear.

I suppose some of it depends on the future of Melo, but even without him, I still think Syracuse is the deepest and most complete team in the BEast.  However, if Melo is out the remainder of the season, I could see that Regular Season title very much up for grabs.

I think that G'town is a tad overrated, and that we'll see some of the teams having slow starts begin to accumulate W's


how they stack up (and predicted end of season record)

Balanced and Tournament-ready
1. Syracuse (15-3)
2. Marquette (14-4)

Good Teams -- Fighting for double-bye
3. WVU (12-6)
4. GTown (12-6)
5. UConn (12-6)
6. Cinci (11-7)
7. 'Ville (10-8)

Mediocrity at its finest
8. Nova (10-8)
9. Seton Hall (10-8)
10. Notre Dame (9-9)
11. Rutgers (8-10)
12. USF (8-10)
13. Pitt (6-12)


Rebuilding??
14. Providence (3-15)
15. St. Johns (3-15)
LOL. DePaul (3-15)

[🏀]

1/3rd point? We playing 21 BE games this season?

WVU and GTown are on our level. Syracuse is their own level and halfway through BE play.

[Real Chilly Podcast]

ah, sorry about the faulty fractions... guess we're actually at the 4/9ths point of the season (I'm always off by a ninth)

I don't think WVU or GTown's backcourts are even close to ours, and I see our frontcourt as only slightly worse than each of those two teams.

I would agree Syracuse is in a tier of it's own, but I would also argue that we may be the best equipped team to beat them in a BEast Tournament showdown, given matchups and recent history

the reason I think we are a notch above WV,GTown, UConn, Cinci, UofL, is simply that our offense has an established continuity and rhythm, something that I don't think these 5 teams can say as of yet this season.  All five may be better rebounders and defenders, but I think that over the 5 game win streak, we have definitely shown growth in the defensive and rebounding areas, and closed the gap with those teams, while consistently being better offensively than each one of them.

These five teams can't score with us if we protect the ball and have good shot selection, only way we lose is if we beat ourselves, we are better than the rest of the teams on our schedule

[slack00]

Here's how I'd rank and group the teams right now based on their tourney resumes.  My data comes from WarrenNolan.com.

Record is listed first.  I define "T50" as RPI Top 50 Record.  I define "T100 +/-" as RPI Top 100 wins minus ALL losses.  R/N is Road/Neutral record.  I define a "bad loss" as being outside of the top 100.  These are decent indicators when ranking how teams would fare against other tourney teams.

#1 or 2 NCAA Seed
1. Syracuse – In a class by themselves, 21-1, 1 RPI, 4-0 T50, +9 T100, 7-1 R/N

#3 to 8 NCAA Seed
2. Georgetown – 15-3, 14 RPI, 5-2 T50, +2 T100, 5-2 R/N, no bad losses
3. Marquette – 17-4, 13 RPI, 3-3 T50, +4 T100, 6-3 R/N, no bad losses
4. West Virginia – 15-5, 11 RPI, 4-4 T50, +4 T100, 4-4 R/N, 1 bad loss (RPI 103 - borderline)
5. Seton Hall – 15-4, 9 RPI, 3-2 T50, +2 T100, 5-4 R/N, no bad losses
6. Connecticut – 14-5, 19 RPI, 3-1 vs RPI top 50, +2 T100, 4-4 R/N, 2 bad losses (RPI 128, 161)

#9 to 12 NCAA seed
7. Louisville – 15-5, 41 RPI, 3-3 T50, +0 T100, 3-3 R/N, 1 bad loss (RPI 125)

Bubble NCAA Seed
8. Cincinnati – 15-6, 92 RPI, 2-4 T50, -1 T100, 5-2 R/N, 2 bad losses (RPI 171, 270)

NIT
9. Notre Dame – 12-8, 98 RPI, 2-4 T50, -5 T100, 1-7 R/N, 2 bad losses (RPI 122, 128)

No Tourney
10. Villanova – 10-10, 78 RPI, 1-6 T50, -8 T100, 2-8 R/N, 1 bad loss (RPI 239)
11. South Florida – 11-9, 75 RPI, 1-4 T50, -6 T100, 2-8 R/N, 3 bad losses (RPI 124, 127, 129)
12. Pittsburgh – 11-9, 102 RPI, 0-4 T50, -8 T100, 4-4 R/N, 2 bad losses (RPI 128, 168)

No Chance
13. Rutgers – 11-9, 129 RPI, 2-3 T50, -6 T100, 2-6 R/N, 3 bad losses (RPI 108, 110, 119)
14. Providence  – 12-8, 125 RPI, 1-6 T50, -7 T100, 3-5 R/N, 1 bad loss (RPI 171)
15. DePaul – 10-9, 168 RPI, 0-6 T50, -9 T100, 4-4 R/N, 1 bad loss (RPI 114)
16. St. Johns – 8-11, 171 RPI, 0-5 T50, -10 T100, 1-5 R/N, 3 bad losses (RPI 152, 155, 212)

By all of these metrics, Seton Hall belongs more with the second group than either Louisville or Cincinnati does.  I would argue that Louisville has the best opportunity to move up should they get healthier.  Likewise, teams 9-12 have an opportunity to move up a level based on who they play against in the second half of the Big East season as well as their potential to beat those teams.