Are Butler AND Providence must win games to make NCAA?

[Floorslapper]

Barring winning the Big East tournament, my vote is Yes.

[Its DJOver]

It doesn't matter how we get to 10 as long as we get to 10.
Its significantly harder if we don't win, but still do-able

[mu03eng]

absolutely and unequivocally they are not. We don't even have to win one of the two this week. It would certainly be very nice and going 0-2 puts us behind the eight ball but under no circumstances are they both must win....it's just silly to think they are.

[tower912]

In the context that winning them makes it easier to get to 10, it sure would be helpful.    A path exists even if MU loses both, so not actually.   

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

6-3 or better: Lock
5-4: should be in,  but no guarantee
4-5: Highly unlikely but theoretically possible with a run to the BET Championship
3-6 or worse: Need to win the BET


I'm really not lying or making things up. Everything above is true. Not an opinion,  it's math (assuming the committee doesnt make us the biggest snub in NCAA history).


So no. Winning these two games is not a requirement of making the dance. We could lose both (and two more after that) and still make the dance.

All they being said,  let's just win them both and give ourselves some breathing room

[Floorslapper]

absolutely and unequivocally they are not. We don't even have to win one of the two this week. It would certainly be very nice and going 0-2 puts us behind the eight ball but under no circumstances are they both must win....it's just silly to think they are.

Hope we don't have to find out if you are right.  Personally feel it is absurd to say we don't need to even win 1 to make the NCAA.  Lose both and our resume is pretty weak.  Chances of us beating Hall and Creighton or road are forecast at less than 35% probability.  55% chance of beating Creighton at home.  Furthermore, expect Creighton's RPI/Pomeroy ranking will take a hit after they likely rack up 3 losses against Nova and Xavier.

Way I see it, we won't have any wins over Top 25 RPI teams, and best case we could hope for would be 4 wins over Top 50 RPI (Hall twice and Creighton twice). 

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

6-3 or better: Lock
5-4: should be in,  but no guarantee
4-5: Highly unlikely but theoretically possible with a run to the BET Championship
3-6 or worse: Need to win the BET


I'm really not lying or making things up. Everything above is true. Not an opinion,  it's math (assuming the committee doesnt make us the biggest snub in NCAA history).


So no. Winning these two games is not a requirement of making the dance. We could lose both (and two more after that) and still make the dance.

All they being said,  let's just win them both and give ourselves some breathing room

/ end thread.  Pin to top of scoop.

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

Hope we don't have to find out if you are right.  Personally feel it is absurd to say we don't need to even win 1 to make the NCAA.  Lose both and our resume is pretty weak.  Chances of us beating Hall and Creighton or road are forecast at less than 35% probability.  55% chance of beating Creighton at home.  Furthermore, expect Creighton's RPI/Pomeroy ranking will take a hit after they likely rack up 3 losses against Nova and Xavier.

Way I see it, we won't have any wins over Top 25 RPI teams, and best case we could hope for would be 4 wins over Top 50 RPI (Hall twice and Creighton twice).

Except we do.  Seton Hall is 19 in.

And regarding the bolded, team's RPI generally don't drop much by losing to top 3 RPI teams, which both Nova and X are. 

[Floorslapper]

6-3 or better: Lock
5-4: should be in,  but no guarantee
4-5: Highly unlikely but theoretically possible with a run to the BET Championship
3-6 or worse: Need to win the BET


I'm really not lying or making things up. Everything above is true. Not an opinion,  it's math (assuming the committee doesnt make us the biggest snub in NCAA history).


So no. Winning these two games is not a requirement of making the dance. We could lose both (and two more after that) and still make the dance.

All they being said,  let's just win them both and give ourselves some breathing room

If we lose to both Butler and Providence (AT HOME much less), to be a lock in your scenario, we would have to finish out the Year 6-1, or 5-2 (should be in).  Personally, I don't feel very confident that MU is much of a lock to finish out the year 5-2, after the Butler and Prov game.

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

If we lose to both Butler and Providence (AT HOME much less), to be a lock in your scenario, we would have to finish out the Year 7-1, or 6-2 (should be in).  Personally, I don't feel very confident that MU is much of a lock to finish out the year 6-2, after the Butler and Prov game.

Sure.  But must win games mean they are must win.  Games won't be must win until MU has 9 BE losses.

Not winning these next two games makes the road much more difficult, no doubt.

[CTWarrior]

We technically will have no must wins at least until we get to the Big East Tournament, but I don't love our chances if we don't win the next two. 

Lose the next two and I don't think we'll make it, partially because it means we're just not that good. 

Split the next two, and we have to have one of the remaining three against Creighton and Seton Hall and not slip up against SJU, Georgetown or DePaul.

Win the next two and we have some significant breathing room, plus the likelihood that we're pretty good.

[brewcity77]

6-3 or better: Lock
5-4: should be in,  but no guarantee
4-5: Highly unlikely but theoretically possible with a run to the BET Championship
3-6 or worse: Need to win the BET


I'm really not lying or making things up. Everything above is true. Not an opinion,  it's math (assuming the committee doesnt make us the biggest snub in NCAA history).


So no. Winning these two games is not a requirement of making the dance. We could lose both (and two more after that) and still make the dance.

All they being said,  let's just win them both and give ourselves some breathing room

This is absolutely correct. If I were putting numbers on it, I'd say...

6-3: 100%
5-4: 90%
4-5: 25%
3-6: Only with BET

[Floorslapper]

Sure.  But must win games mean they are must win.  Games won't be must win until MU has 9 BE losses.

Not winning these next two games makes the road much more difficult, no doubt.

Fair enough.  Not must wins in the literal sense.  Yet I sure don't like our chances of making it if we can't beat just one of Butler or Providence on our home court.

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

Fair enough.  Not must wins in the literal sense.  Yet I sure don't like our chances of making it if we can't beat just one of Butler or Providence on our home court.

I agree. 0-2 this would would be brutal and we'd be in bad shape.  But 5-2 or better in the last 7 would get it done.

2-0 or even 1-1 this week gives us quite a bit more room for error.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

If we lose to both Butler and Providence (AT HOME much less), to be a lock in your scenario, we would have to finish out the Year 6-1, or 5-2 (should be in).  Personally, I don't feel very confident that MU is much of a lock to finish out the year 5-2, after the Butler and Prov game.

I agree with this argument. If we get swept this week, I won't feel very confident in our chances. 5-2 during any stretch of the Big East is a tall ask and losing to Providence and Butler at home would be two more data points that say we aren't that good of a team. However, if I were to rank our remaining games from hardest to easiest, I would say:

@Seton Hall
Providence
@Creighton (I think Krampelj injury really hurts them, we'll see)
Butler
@Georgetown
Creighton
@Saint John's
@DePaul
St. John's

IMHO, our next three games are 3 out of the 4 toughest left on our schedule. If we lost our next 3 (I don't expect to), I wouldn't be terribly surprised if we went 5-1 (or 6-0) in our final 6.

I'm expecting 6-3 the rest of the way. I think 8-1 is possible (though I would be shocked) and I think worst case scenario is 4-5.

If we go 2-0 this week, my expectation will shift to 7-2.

[GooooMarquette]

We could go 0-9 and then run the table at the BET.

So our first must-win game will be the first game of the BET, unless we have secured an at-large bid first.  If we have already secured an at-large bid, then we simply won't have any single must-win game.

[muwarrior69]

6-3 or better: Lock
5-4: should be in,  but no guarantee
4-5: Highly unlikely but theoretically possible with a run to the BET Championship
3-6 or worse: Need to win the BET


I'm really not lying or making things up. Everything above is true. Not an opinion,  it's math (assuming the committee doesnt make us the biggest snub in NCAA history).


So no. Winning these two games is not a requirement of making the dance. We could lose both (and two more after that) and still make the dance.

All they being said,  let's just win them both and give ourselves some breathing room

We won 20 in '16 and we were out, but wining 18 this year and we are in. Please explain.

[bilsu]

I voted no. I also think we have a good chance of losing both games. We need to split with Creighton, beat an overrated Seton Hall and not screw up against DePaul, Georgetown and St John's to get to 10 wins. It would not surprise me as much to sweep Creighton as it would to win one of the next two games.

[GooooMarquette]

We won 20 in '16 and we were out, but wining 18 this year and we are in. Please explain.

I don't know TAMU's reason, but it might have something to do with a much stronger non conference SOS.  Per Realtime RPI, our current SOS is 13.  I can't remember when it was anywhere near that high.

[BM1090]

We won 20 in '16 and we were out, but wining 18 this year and we are in. Please explain.

Same reason we won 19 last year and were  pretty comfortably in. Better SOS and computer numbers.

[#UnleashSean]

In the sense that having a realistic shot at going I'd see we need to win 1

[mu03eng]

We won 20 in '16 and we were out, but wining 18 this year and we are in. Please explain.

We won 20 against the softest schedule not found on a rich persons toilet paper dispenser. We had zero quality wins, this year we have 3 on the books with the chance at 5 more. Two years ago the Big East wasn't great this year it's very good.

Ultimately though it's cause of SoS is great. I did a whole run down two years ago and if we had played 3 buy games that we're at least 250 or better we would have been dancing...and/or not lost to f'ing DePaul

[BM1090]

We won 20 against the softest schedule not found on a rich persons toilet paper dispenser. We had zero quality wins, this year we have 3 on the books with the chance at 5 more. Two years ago the Big East wasn't great this year it's very good.

Ultimately though it's cause of SoS is great. I did a whole run down two years ago and if we had played 3 buy games that we're at least 250 or better we would have been dancing...and/or not lost to f'ing DePaul

While i do agree with most of this, @ PC with Dunn and Bentil was most certainly a quality win. Butler and PC at home were solid wins too.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

We won 20 in '16 and we were out, but wining 18 this year and we are in. Please explain.

Short answer, we played a much tougher schedule this season.

To illustrate how much tougher:

In 15-16, our non-conference opponents went a total of 162-240 (.403) against D1 competition

So far this season our non-conference opponents have gone 118-112 (.513) against D1 competition. That number should get better as our cupcakes get to play weaker teams in conference play and some of our better teams (Purdue and Wichita State) are ripping through their conferences. (But the Vadgers may drag us down a bit!)

Not only that but the Big East is stronger too.

In 15-16, our Big East opponents went a total of 86-27 (.761) against non-conference D1 opponents

So far this season (SJU still has to play Duke), our Big East opponents have gone a total of 91-20 (.820) against non-conference D1 opponents

[D'Lo Brown]

We're currently counting the @SJ game as a stone cold lock but it's basically a coin flip with probably (53% chance we win). They have been in every game.

Also, the @GT game is being counted as a lock but, not like we really blew them out at home either.

I'm just saying, if we lose both of these upcoming games we still have a tough slate of games on the road. If we lose both, then the two games I mentioned above must be absolute locks plus a quality win against Creighton or Seton Hall.