Did We Really Want The Double Bye?

[Tugg Speedman]

Of course the answer is yes, but the consolidation price is not bad either.

I saw the possible seedings for the BE on ESPNU for only a few seconds so I could have this wrong.  Correct me if I do.

As the #5 seed, it looks like we play the winner of Uconn/Prov, two teams we have beat.  Then we could play the #8 seed, which is G-Town, another team we beat. 

As the #5 seed our draw is great, we could be potentially looking at two very winnable game against "name teams" (unconn and g-town).  In the long run this could do us more good as it could solidly get us off the 8/9 seed for the big dance so we don't have to play a #1 seed in the second round.



Thoughts?

[mu_hilltopper]

Uhh .. I think you're off.

http://www.muscoop.com/index.php?topic=18874.0;topicseen

You might be right about the first game, the winner of UConn/Prov (or Rutgers) .. but the 2nd game would be versus #4 Pitt, not the #8 seed.

[MU111]

If I had to guess, Rutgers is probably going to lose their last game (against Pitt) and St. John's should win theirs (DePaul), which would mean a second round game with the winner of UConn/St. John's.  If we win our first game, we play Pitt, whereas, if we had received the double bye, we probably would've ended up playing Pitt our first game.

In that case, it might be a good thing that we don't have a chance of getting 4th but I'm definitely not excited with the prospects of playing UConn again, either.

[MU111]

Nevermind about St. John's-- I didn't realize Rutgers has the tie-breaker over them.

[PGsHeroes32]

If Uconn wins saturday we dont play them.

[marquette99]

Mu curler - I actually believe if we'd finished 4th it would have had to be against pitt or whoever beat them. The reason I say yes, is the worse case as a 4 would be one loss against a 5 or whover beat them.  Its much more damaging if as a 5 we lose to a 12 or 13.  I certainly don't think we are on the bubble, but that would really kill our momentum and drop our seed. I also don't want to have to play up to 4 games on back-to-back nights.  But I'm back to "who would have thought we'd get one bye" before the season began.

[MU111]

Mu curler - I actually believe if we'd finished 4th it would have had to be against pitt or whoever beat them. The reason I say yes, is the worse case as a 4 would be one loss against a 5 or whover beat them.  Its much more damaging if as a 5 we lose to a 12 or 13.  I certainly don't think we are on the bubble, but that would really kill our momentum and drop our seed. I also don't want to have to play up to 4 games on back-to-back nights.  But I'm back to "who would have thought we'd get one bye" before the season began.

You're right-- I was just assuming that Pitt would win their first game in that scenario.  Now that you mention it, a 12/13 loss could be worse than a loss to the 5 seed as a 4.  Good call though.  Who would have thought we'd even have a shot at the double bye going into tonight when the season started?

[jaygall31]

If Uconn wins saturday we dont play them.

good, i dont need to see UCONN again

[BrewCity83]

I'm pretty sure that Pitt is likely to pass WVU, so we'll end up with WVU for our 2nd game (if we advance).

[MARQKC]

If we win can two next week in NYC, we play 'Cuse Friday night. I recall we played them pretty well in front of 29,000 in their barn, lost by five, decided as a team to forego haircuts, and won 9 of our next 10, including 3 OT road wins. (Make that 10 of 11 if we win Saturday.) You could make a pretty good case that the last Orange game was the watershed/turning-point game of our season. If we can win two next week in the Garden, that game next Friday night will be something to watch. We may not win, but we will not be outworked, or outspirited.