Which Big East draw gives us the best chance at an NCAA bid?

[auburnmarquette]

So if the wisdom of the crowd is right in this poll, then the second most important game by far must be Butler beating Seton Hall to give us a chance for a bye with a win over Creighton.

Has anyone told Creighton about the unwritten rule that you can't guard seniors on senior day and they need to leave Rowsey open for 40?

Come to think of it, we better not tell Rowsey he is allowed to gun for 40 on senior day. Love him to death, but a few more passes like that drive and backward toss to Hauser would be nice - Hauser's 6-game 24 of 35 from behind the arc is insane.

[auburnmarquette]

My ideal scenario is DePaul round 1 (win), Nova round 2. I think we need a marquee win to feel safe, and Nova has been vulnerable since Booth went down. I don't think a win against another upper-mid BEast team as the 5th/6th seed moves the needle enough, especially with bid stealer potential.

Creighton -> DePaul -> Nova is our most likely path to the tourney IMHO.

Agreed - booth came back the last three games but is 8 for 25 and has 4 assists and 6 turnovers, so the hand may still be hurting.

[skianth16]

I think we're in pretty equivalent situations with a Creighton W, Depaul W in 7/10 game, Nova L as we are with a Creighton W, PC L in 3/6 game.  I'd probably take Depaul W then Nova L if I had to chose between the two.  But I do think that that 3 v 6 game versus PC would basically be playing for our tourney lives...we win that we're almost certainly in.  We'd need to beat Depaul and then Nova to feel that confident in the other scenario. 

Creighton W, Depaul W, Nova L: 19-13; RPI: 60, SOS: 25

Creighton W, Providence L: 18-13; RPI: 63, SOS: 26

Creighton W, Providence W, Xavier L: 19-13; RPI: 50, SOS: 18

Wow, we get a 13 point lift from beating PC and improving the SOS with a loss to X? I wouldn't have thought just one win in the BET would be able to get us to an RPI of 50.

EDIT - After seeing the big lift we would get if we beat PC in the BET, I played with some scenarios on RPI Wizard to see if there were opportunities for other big, single game RPI lifts, and it seems like there is some weird math going on. I wanted to see where we might have been if we had gotten a win against X or Nova and these are the results I got:

- Win @ Xavier: RPI 56
- Win @ Nova: RPI 56
- Win vs Xavier: RPI 53
- Win vs Nova: RPI 53
- Win vs PC: RPI 52

Maybe it has to do with the timing of the games in the schedule, but it seems weird to me that A) winning at home helps our RPI more and B) beating PC gives us a bigger lift than beating X or Nova. Does anyone know why there is a bigger impact for beating PC?

[mikekinsellaMVP]

Wow, we get a 13 point lift from beating PC and improving the SOS with a loss to X? I wouldn't have thought just one win in the BET would be able to get us to an RPI of 50.

EDIT - After seeing the big lift we would get if we beat PC in the BET, I played with some scenarios on RPI Wizard to see if there were opportunities for other big, single game RPI lifts, and it seems like there is some weird math going on. I wanted to see where we might have been if we had gotten a win against X or Nova and these are the results I got:

- Win @ Xavier: RPI 56
- Win @ Nova: RPI 56
- Win vs Xavier: RPI 53
- Win vs Nova: RPI 53
- Win vs PC: RPI 52

Maybe it has to do with the timing of the games in the schedule, but it seems weird to me that A) winning at home helps our RPI more and B) beating PC gives us a bigger lift than beating X or Nova. Does anyone know why there is a bigger impact for beating PC?

Because we would pass one extra team in the RPI by beating Providence: Providence.

[skianth16]

Because we would pass one extra team in the RPI by beating Providence: Providence.

That makes some sense why we could end up at 52 and not 53, but I'm still surprised that the lift from beating PC is essentially equal to the lift from beating Xavier or Nova. Maybe the bigger impact there is just the win, regardless of who it's over.