Shoot, Gtown beating Creighton tonight

[Golden Avalanche]

Just like when Butler looked like it might lose to DePaul, I fail to see how this is (and that would've been) a bad thing.  Had Butler lost to DePaul that'd give them losses to both St. John's and DePaul this year.  If we beat them at home (not sold we will) and take care of business this year against DePaul and St. John's, that gives us 2 games of cushion on them in the BE standings.

I'm no longer worried about getting into the NCAA Tournament.  If we don't get there that's on us.  If we can't get 5 wins out of at DePaul and Georgetown, home and away against St. John's, Providence, and Xavier, and home against Butler and Creighton then we don't deserve to be dancing.

I want a top 2 finish in the BE.  Butler losing to DePaul would've been huge for that.  Nova losing to DePaul would've been huge for that.  Creighton losing to Georgetown is huge for that.

You and I are thinking alike. Things have very much changed for Marquette over the last 10 days. A cliche would say "the breaks" are going our way and that would necessitate a second look at possibilities.

Butler is truly finding a way to win but it seems built on cards. This doesn't look like a 14 win team. Wouldn't be a stretch to see them go 5-4 in their back half. Combine that with the Jays still needing to find a way to win without Watson and MU could very well find themselves surging higher then anyone could have hoped for back in October.

[Benny B]

Honestly feeling awful for Creighton. possible final four team destroyed by an ACL. they'll fall from the ranks and possibly out of the tourney. blowout loss to craptown?? wow was mo that good. ugh anyways. very sad to see. looks like the big east is down to one maybe two eletes

It's Marquette 2009 all over again... only our injury wasn't this early in the regular season.  Creighton may not be an odds-on FF team any longer, but they still have time to right the ship and make a deep run into March.  We didn't have that luxury.

[Boozemon Barro]

Creighton is going to have some problems the rest of the year. Reminds me of when Dominic James got hurt his senior year. We had a really good team with a lot of good players, but without the point guard we were disjointed on offense. Creighton has time to get it figured out, but they don't have anyone that can get to the lane consistently which means they will struggle to find open shots.

[brewcity77]

Creighton has time to figure it out, but also won't have Watson able to rejoin the team in March (as James did, albeit to questionable effectiveness).

[MUBurrow]

I know I'm too dumb on this stuff, and there probably isn't a short answer, but for RPI, does it hurt a team like MU when a team below them beats a team above them? E.g. if MU sweeps DePaul and splits with Butler, does it hurt our RPI if Butler drops a game to DePaul?

[brewcity77]

I know I'm too dumb on this stuff, and there probably isn't a short answer, but for RPI, does it hurt a team like MU when a team below them beats a team above them? E.g. if MU sweeps DePaul and splits with Butler, does it hurt our RPI if Butler drops a game to DePaul?

Most of conference play is fairly irrelevant as far as who wins. At the end of the season, all the Big East teams will play each other home and away, and there will be a total of 90 wins and 90 losses. Because pretty much everyone will have a winning overall record (at the moment only SJU and DePaul have losing records on the season) these games will help the outcome as you continue to play opponents with good records, but who wins and loses is fairly insignificant.

The bulk of what matters in RPI is what happens in November and December, then the rest of the season boosts that up (or drains it in a weak conference). That's why teams like Green Bay can be top-10 RPI teams early in the season but will always fall back in the pack by March.

[MU82]

Patton hardly played against MU.  If u wanna say luke is better than patton, dueto a couple shot fakes than fine.

Let's say things were reversed. Let's say Patton played great in that game, got Luke in foul trouble and ended up having a dominant performance while Luke didn't.

What would you say if one of your fellow Scoopers countered with: "Luke hardly played against CU. If u wanna say patton is better than luke, dueto a couple shot fakes than fine"?

Of course, most Scoopers graduated college and can write more legibly than that, but you get my point.

[bilsu]

So people say the Big East is the toughest conference therefore Creighton is going to collapse?

Maybe not stated well, but every Big East game is tough to some extent. My view of Creighton is that they are now not quite as good as last year's NIT team. They already lost home games to Villanova and MU, so they are likely to lose at those two away games. I am not sure about the rest of their schedule, but I see them struggling. I also believe Seton Hall is going to struggle. To me they are fighting for the 5th bid. The Big East could get 6 bids, which would bode well for both of them.

[Mr. Sand-Knit]

Let's say things were reversed. Let's say Patton played great in that game, got Luke in foul trouble and ended up having a dominant performance while Luke didn't.

What would you say if one of your fellow Scoopers countered with: "Luke hardly played against CU. If u wanna say patton is better than luke, dueto a couple shot fakes than fine"?

Of course, most Scoopers graduated college and can write more legibly than that, but you get my point.

Exactly agree i tend to use a body of work, the other poster chose to use one game.  We r in agreement. 

[mu03eng]

Maybe not stated well, but every Big East game is tough to some extent. My view of Creighton is that they are now not quite as good as last year's NIT team. They already lost home games to Villanova and MU, so they are likely to lose at those two away games. I am not sure about the rest of their schedule, but I see them struggling. I also believe Seton Hall is going to struggle. To me they are fighting for the 5th bid. The Big East could get 6 bids, which would bode well for both of them.

I think Creighton still finishes top 4 in the Big East, too much talent on that team for them not to. There schedule isn't quite as favorable as ours but they still play DePaul twice, St Johns, Providence and Georgetown at home.

[MUMountin]

Most of conference play is fairly irrelevant as far as who wins. At the end of the season, all the Big East teams will play each other home and away, and there will be a total of 90 wins and 90 losses. Because pretty much everyone will have a winning overall record (at the moment only SJU and DePaul have losing records on the season) these games will help the outcome as you continue to play opponents with good records, but who wins and loses is fairly insignificant.

The bulk of what matters in RPI is what happens in November and December, then the rest of the season boosts that up (or drains it in a weak conference). That's why teams like Green Bay can be top-10 RPI teams early in the season but will always fall back in the pack by March.

A few minor additions:

There are minor preferences between the BE opponents as to how they affect our RPI, due to the common opponents that we have.  Thus, this year, Georgetown, Butler, and Creighton will have a slightly larger impact on our RPI than the rest of the league.  But otherwise, as brew notes, it is largely irrelevant in the computation itself.

That said, where it might matter more is in where it lands certain teams on a larger scale.  For better or worse, people still look at how teams fared versus buckets of RPI ranks: 1-50, 51-100, etc.  Thus, where it might make some subjective difference is if a team is on the cusp of one of those tiers, it may be better for them to win to move up, even if that brings another team a little further down.  For instance, Seton Hall is currently hovering in the low 40s.  Since we went 1-1 against them, we probably had a preference for them to win against a team like Butler last night, since that would help solidify SH's position in the top 50 (and hopefully as a bubble team) and not drop Butler's rank too much.  Alas, the Pirates let us down.

[Benny B]

Most of conference play is fairly irrelevant as far as who wins. At the end of the season, all the Big East teams will play each other home and away, and there will be a total of 90 wins and 90 losses. Because pretty much everyone will have a winning overall record (at the moment only SJU and DePaul have losing records on the season) these games will help the outcome as you continue to play opponents with good records, but who wins and loses is fairly insignificant.

The bulk of what matters in RPI is what happens in November and December, then the rest of the season boosts that up (or drains it in a weak conference). That's why teams like Green Bay can be top-10 RPI teams early in the season but will always fall back in the pack by March.

We really need to sticky an RPI explanation somewhere.  Otherwise, I may need to break out the marbles again.