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Bracketology 2017

Our boy Eamonn Brennan has updated his Bubble Watch.

Wake Forest [14-9 (5-6), RPI: 28, SOS: 13] Danny Manning's rebuilding labors, now in their third year, are beginning to bear fruit. The Demon Deacons' mix of good-to-great offense and mediocre-to-bad defense has actually put them right in the meat of the curve -- they're 0-6 against the RPI top 25, and 0-8 against the top 100, but don't have a sub-70s RPI loss to their name, either. Luke Kennard's game-winning 3 on Jan. 28 cost Manning the marquee win his team desperately needed. Still, the RPI's love of the Deacs' schedule provides a bubble foundation upon which Wake can build. All it needs are the wins.
 
My point was that, yes, the 14 [losses] is not a good look (I think Georgia got an at-large bid with that many losses one year after a deep SEC tournament run)

Six teams since 2005 have gotten an at-large bid with 14 losses.

but the main thing is we haven't beaten anybody that is good this year. All those games against quality opponents have no point if you can't dig up a quality win among the bunch. If you're going to say "But we've played a tough schedule!" you also have to acknowledge that we've had more opportunities to notch a quality win than most, and we have failed at every opportunity.

You can agree with it or disagree with it, but historically the committee has not punished teams with the RPI we've got or the SOS we've got for a lack of quality wins.

And beating "anybody good" is very much in the eye of the beholder. Miami and Charleston are inches away from being RPI Top 50 wins
 
The really frustrating thing is how terrible the RPI is. I mean we're 0-8 against top 100 RPI teams but have five wins against top 100 teams on KenPom. That's a pretty big difference.
 
Don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but we have 5 RPI Top 100 wins (Miami, Charleston, Bucknell, GT, NCSt)
 
Brennan mistakenly wrote top 100. He meant top 50.
 
Our boy Eamonn Brennan has updated his Bubble Watch.

Wake Forest [14-9 (5-6), RPI: 28, SOS: 13] Danny Manning's rebuilding labors, now in their third year, are beginning to bear fruit. The Demon Deacons' mix of good-to-great offense and mediocre-to-bad defense has actually put them right in the meat of the curve -- they're 0-6 against the RPI top 25, and 0-8 against the top 100, but don't have a sub-70s RPI loss to their name, either. Luke Kennard's game-winning 3 on Jan. 28 cost Manning the marquee win his team desperately needed. Still, the RPI's love of the Deacs' schedule provides a bubble foundation upon which Wake can build. All it needs are the wins.

Yeah, I didn't check the RPI stuff myself - just relied on the bolded part above.
 
Would be nice if we could get Louisville with their players suspended like at UVA last night. :thumbsup:
 
WF should be favored in 2 of its last 7 games and underdog in the other 5. Of course, they should only be slight underdogs at Clemson & at VT. Still, if the games go according to chalk, WF should finish the season 7-11, 16-14. If that happens, I would think they need at least a couple of wins in the ACCT to get an NCAA bid. Failing that, I would think that chances would be extremely good for an NIT bid. They really need to beat NC State & Pitt at home and find at least one more win somewhere to get to at least 17-13....and that would need some more work in the ACCT for an NCAAT bid.
 
Our boy Eamonn Brennan has updated his Bubble Watch.

Wake Forest [14-9 (5-6), RPI: 28, SOS: 13] Danny Manning's rebuilding labors, now in their third year, are beginning to bear fruit. The Demon Deacons' mix of good-to-great offense and mediocre-to-bad defense has actually put them right in the meat of the curve -- they're 0-6 against the RPI top 25, and 0-8 against the top 100, but don't have a sub-70s RPI loss to their name, either. Luke Kennard's game-winning 3 on Jan. 28 cost Manning the marquee win his team desperately needed. Still, the RPI's love of the Deacs' schedule provides a bubble foundation upon which Wake can build. All it needs are the wins.

Brennan has 24 teams as "locks" or "should be in" from a total of 8 conferences. Assuming those 8 conferences are won by locks or "should be in" that leaves 20 at large bids up for grabs.

Brennan lists 36 teams with "work left to do" from a total of 8 additional conferences. Assuming those 8 conferences are won by teams with "work left to do," you are looking at 20 spots for 28 teams.

Allowing for 4 tournament upsets by non bubble teams in a total of 16 conferences, that leaves 20 spots for around 32 teams.
 
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Brennan has 24 teams as "locks" or "should be in" from a total of 8 conferences. Assuming those 8 conferences are won by locks or "should be in" that leaves 20 at large bids up for grabs.

Brennan lists 36 teams with "work left to do" from a total of 8 additional conferences. Assuming those 8 conferences are won by teams with "work left to do," you are looking at 20 spots for 28 teams.

Allowing for 4 tournament upsets by non bubble teams in a total of 16 conferences, that leaves 20 spots for around 32 teams.

16 spots for 28 teams, not 20 spots for 32 teams. You're reducing the number of spots while keeping the bubble teams constant, but adding four bubble teams.
 
16 spots for 28 teams, not 20 spots for 32 teams. You're reducing the number of spots while keeping the bubble teams constant, but adding four bubble teams.

32 auto bids:

16 from conferences with no bubble teams.
8 from locks/near locks
4 from bubble teams in conferences with no locks/near locks
4 from non bubble teams that upset bubble team in conference tourney

36 at large spots:
24 locks or near locks from 8 conferences = 16 at large bids and 8 automatic bids.
36 bubble teams from the 8 conferences above and 8 additional conferences = 20 at large bids and 4 auto bids.

That's 32 bubble teams (take out the 4 auto bids) for 20 spots.
 
16 spots for 28 teams, not 20 spots for 32 teams. You're reducing the number of spots while keeping the bubble teams constant, but adding four bubble teams.

The upsets are taking auto bids that would have gone to bubble teams. That means 4 bubble teams get kicked back into the pool competing for those 20 spots.
 
Yeah that's the point of a hypothetical - would your opinion be different on this Wake team if instead of playing (and losing) to Xavier and Northwestern, we had scheduled two relative patsies at home and won?

I'd feel better about having 20 wins, but my opinion would still stand about us not beating anybody to this point.
 
Six teams since 2005 have gotten an at-large bid with 14 losses.



You can agree with it or disagree with it, but historically the committee has not punished teams with the RPI we've got or the SOS we've got for a lack of quality wins.

And beating "anybody good" is very much in the eye of the beholder. Miami and Charleston are inches away from being RPI Top 50 wins

Historically it hasn't, but how many teams in that history did it have to consider that were 0-6 against T25 and 0-8 against T50?
 
The upsets are taking auto bids that would have gone to bubble teams. That means 4 bubble teams get kicked back into the pool competing for those 20 spots.

I realized that as I was posting it, and tried to delete the comment but couldn't figure it out. Computers are tough stuff.
 
Historically it hasn't, but how many teams in that history did it have to consider that were 0-6 against T25 and 0-8 against T50?

Sort of meaningless discussion because if we get to 17-13 and 8-10 in the ACC, it is very unlkely we won't have at least one RPI top 50 win.

But regardless, as posted before one comp would be 2014-15 Georgia. They went 0-5 against the RPI top 50, had a weaker SOS than we will, yet were #37 in RPI and made the tournament as a 10 seed.

And before you say it, playing more top 50 teams but failing to beat them is not a bad thing. It just shows our strength of schedule was extremely high, something the committee has valued higher than yes, even top 50 wins
 
I still don't really understand why losing to everyone you play that's better than you and beating everyone you play that's worse than you doesn't affirm that you're roughly playing to that spot.

If you theoretically played everyone in the country and beat the bottom 321 teams while losing to the top 29 teams, wouldn't you be roughly the 30th best team?
 
I still don't really understand why losing to everyone you play that's better than you and beating everyone you play that's worse than you doesn't affirm that you're roughly playing to that spot.

If you theoretically played everyone in the country and beat the bottom 321 teams while losing to the top 29 teams, wouldn't you be roughly the 30th best team?

Unfortunately there are a lot of people who look at win %'s in a nonsensical and misguided way with the tournament. I've seen arguments made that 6-6 against top 50 is better than 6-11 when the teams both have 13 losses on the year. Obviously the 6-11 team has just lost to better teams and played a better schedule, but people are so programmed to look at W/L percentage that they don't realize it sometimes.
 
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