Play in the finals and we are in - Katz

[mubb3434]

So apparently if we get to the finals with wins over St.Johns, Xavier, and Creighton/Hall we are in...

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=14919495

[RushmoreAcademy]

[The Lens]

I had us dead after

Creighton
Nova
@Butler

How many lives do we have?  If we get in at 8-10 with a 70+ RPI, no one can ever question the Big East's legitimacy.

Still, I'm taking the under.  Conf Champ Week always gets blown out of proportion and then it seems like Sunday 5pm rolls around and everything resets and order is restored. 

[WarriorPride68]

Andy Katz is a Rodent but we can let that slide for now

[NavinRJohnson]

He lays out an interesting and probably valid case. Unfotunately, this team is nowhere near good enough to pull it off.

[hdog1017]

Still don't see Marquette making the tournament as an at-large.  There's going to be at least a couple conference tournament champions that will steal bids.  Northern Iowa and Iona come to mind already. 

[WarriorPride68]

Holy sheet. Hadn't looked at RPI in abit.

ASU - #95 (15-16)

UCLA - #99 (15-16)

G'Town - #103 (14-17)

all ahead of Marquette (#106) because of their top 20 SOS

[Badgerhater]

I don't care who you are, a team with a sub-500 record in conference play does not deserve an at-large in the NCAA.  It is an 18-game grind against your NCAA peers and a losing record shows that you didn't measure up.

So what if 8-10 vs. 9-9 is last-second hoop by DePaul.  Losses don't come with an asterisk.

[The Lens]

And no disrespect to Katz but he's doing 7-10 of these conferences previews and talking up storylines.  I doubt he's measuring one action (MU going 3-1) against all the other conference's results.

[mu03eng]

Holy sheet. Hadn't looked at RPI in abit.

ASU - #95 (15-16)

UCLA - #99 (15-16)

G'Town - #103 (14-17)

all ahead of Marquette (#106) because of their top 20 SOS

This is why you don't schedule 7 sub 300 RPI teams, ever

[wadesworld]

Our schedule is not what kept us out of the NCAA Tournament.

[marq4life]

I don't care who you are, a team with a sub-500 record in conference play does not deserve an at-large in the NCAA.  It is an 18-game grind against your NCAA peers and a losing record shows that you didn't measure up.

So what if 8-10 vs. 9-9 is last-second hoop by DePaul.  Losses don't come with an asterisk.

If they went 3-1 in the BET tournament they would be .500 though

[marq4life]

Our schedule is not what kept us out of the NCAA Tournament.

Correct but it gave us no chance in the first place. 

[wadesworld]

Correct but it gave us no chance in the first place.

If we didn't lose to Belmont at home, Creighton at home (no shame in losing to Creighton at home, but we had that game won and gave it away), and DePaul at home, we're dancing.  We had a very good shot.  Heck, we could've still lost that Belmont game and simply not given up the DePaul and Creighton games and we're dancing.  We had our chances.  We didn't take advantage.

[GGGG]

Correct but it gave us no chance in the first place. 

That is simply not true.  It made it harder, but very likely will have made no difference whatsoever.

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

If we didn't lose to Belmont at home, Creighton at home (no shame in losing to Creighton at home, but we had that game won and gave it away), and DePaul at home, we're dancing.  We had a very good shot.  Heck, we could've still lost that Belmont game and simply not given up the DePaul and Creighton games and we're dancing.  We had our chances.  We didn't take advantage.

If we would have won just one of those games, we'd be squarely on the bubble - WITH THIS SCHEDULE.  If we had won one of those games plus didn't play the little sisters of the poor 7 times, we'd be solidly in the field. Its pretty simple, really.

[Babybluejeans]

If we didn't lose to Belmont at home, Creighton at home (no shame in losing to Creighton at home, but we had that game won and gave it away), and DePaul at home, we're dancing.  We had a very good shot.  Heck, we could've still lost that Belmont game and simply not given up the DePaul and Creighton games and we're dancing.  We had our chances.  We didn't take advantage.

Yep. Schedule did us no favors with the RPI, but RPI isn't relevant at this point. We simply didn't win when we had a few wins sitting on the table. That's the difference between dancing and sweating out getting into even the NIT.

[GooooMarquette]

We got this.

[MUBigDance]

My 2 cents
(and opinions about the rest of this season are worth something in that range).

-- No way --

<But> I am still rooting for a sweep to steal a spot. And a scary 15 seed for some over-rated #2 perhaps?

[MerrittsMustache]

If we would have won just one of those games, we'd be squarely on the bubble - WITH THIS SCHEDULE.  If we had won one of those games plus didn't play the little sisters of the poor 7 times, we'd be solidly in the field. Its pretty simple, really.

You're assuming that MU would have beaten all of the non "little sisters of the poor" teams. One-third of MU's losses have been to teams with an an RPI of 97+ with 3 of those at home.

[KampusFoods]

My 2 cents
(and opinions about the rest of this season are worth something in that range).

-- No way --

<But> I am still rooting for a sweep to steal a spot. And a scary 15 seed for some over-rated #2 perhaps?

Can't tell, but are you implying that we'd be a 15 seed should we win the big east tournament?

[Badgerhater]

If they went 3-1 in the BET tournament they would be .500 though

Conference tournaments wins (without winning the championship) are extra credit and you only need extra credit in major basketball conferences if you didn't do your work right the first time.

[Badgerhater]

If we would have won just one of those games, we'd be squarely on the bubble - WITH THIS SCHEDULE.  If we had won one of those games plus didn't play the little sisters of the poor 7 times, we'd be solidly in the field. Its pretty simple, really.

If we had upgraded to include a Green Bay, Milwaukee or even a South Dakota State (beat TCU and Minnesota) in early season play, the chances of getting beat in any of those games would have been quite high.   Remember when we barely beat IUPUI?

[wadesworld]

You're assuming that MU would have beaten all of the non "little sisters of the poor" teams. One-third of MU's losses have been to teams with an an RPI of 97+ with 3 of those at home.

Exactly.  The schedule did exactly what it was intended to do.  Get some early season wins and leave us with no bad losses heading into conference play.  We could've played ourselves into the tournament but we failed to do so.

[oldwarrior81]

I replaced 5 of the lowest home games (Grambling, Maine, Chicago St, Presbyterian, Stetson) with 5 more games against IUPUI (rpi=188).

IUPUI was a struggle that MU won in OT.  How many of the 5 additional games would MU have won?   If MU went 3-2 in those games the rpi would pretty much be unchanged.  If they went 4-1 it's still an rpi of 94.   Even if they won all 5 additional games against teams 120-130 spots ahead of the actual opponents, the rpi was still pretty high at 82.

If I replaced those same bottom 5 rpi teams with a much better team in Belmont (rpi=100). 
How would MU have done with those better teams in Nov & Dec?   The comparable teams on the schedule beside Belmont were Arizona State, LSU and Georgetown.  None of them easy wins.
If MU went 5-0 in the added games against teams with an rpi of 100,  they would have a current rpi of 61.  4-1 record and the rpi would have been 73. 3-2 would be an ending rpi of 83.


MU finished 12-7 at home. With rpi home wins get credit for .6 wins.  Home losses count for 1.4 losses
That 12-7 home record translates to 7.2 wins, and 9.8 losses a rpi adjusted winning percentage of .423