ESPN Bubble watch on MWC

[seattlecowboy]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bubblewatch

Mountain West Conference
Teams that should be in: San Diego St
Work left to do: Colorado St, Boise State

We keep getting asked about Wyoming. The tenor is typically one of polite curiosity, as opposed to overwrought outrage, but the answer is the same either way: The Cowboys just aren't even close. Two wins over Colorado State are the strongest thing on their resume. The rest of it is a mix of a non-starter RPI in the high 70s, a nonconference schedule ranked in the 320s, and just three top-100 wins. Wyoming is a really fun team with a really unfortunate resume.

San Diego St [21-6 (11-3), RPI: 19, SOS: 55] The state of the Mountain West means it's hard for San Diego State to do much more than hang on from here on out. How so? On Feb. 14, the Aztecs handled Colorado State at home, which is probably the closest thing to a marquee win the rest of the conference offers. After Tuesday's win over New Mexico, the Aztecs are 11-3 in league play with a top-25 RPI figure, a solid overall schedule number, and one of the best per-possession defenses in the country -- the best of Steve Fisher's tenure, which is saying something. If this team could score every now and then, well, imagine the possibilities.

Colorado St [22-5 (9-5), RPI: 27, SOS: 95] Winning at Viejas Arena is a lot to ask of any team. It wasn't really asked of Colorado State prior to Saturday, and the bracket gods won't punish them for losing, either. But with a schedule slightly too full of cupcakes, with just four top-100 wins total, and without a single remaining regular-season opponent ranked inside the RPI top 150 (and, after Wednesday's win at Fresno, just one ranked higher than No. 243), that SDSU game was CSU's last obvious chance to make the kind of splash that might nudge them away from the bubble for good. Now, at a crucial moment of the season, the Rams have a bunch of high-risk, no-reward scenarios.

Boise State [19-7 (9-4), RPI: 39, SOS: 102] The Broncos took a massive hit last last week, losing at Fresno State and its sub-200 RPI, which, when you're thrusting your way onto the bubble in mid-February, is the exact kind of thing you want to avoid. It need not be a backbreaker, though. Wednesday's win at UNLV was a nice rebound, and prevented a further slide below the cut line or off the bubble entirely. Two home games against Nevada and New Mexico are unlikely to move the needle, but a trip to San Diego State

 

[LanderPoke]

Who is CSU's signature OOC win? UTEP? NMSU? CU? This blows my mind

Who is Boise's signature OOC win? Idaho? WTF

The ONLY thing they have is a home win over SDSU. We're undefeated vs. both of them. This is utterly baffling to me. I will never understand the logic behind leaving Wyoming out of the conversation. Boise played a couple good teams, but LOST. and looking at CSU's schedule is NOTHING SPECIAL! this blows my mind

 

[calpoke25]

Thanks seattlecowboy. Some people don't seem to have come to terms yet with truly how bad our schedule was and the reality that we just aren't an at large team this year.

The criteria are the same every year. This isn't some outrage or mystery. Every year the committee makes it clear they value teams that go out and challenge themselves in OOC and pick up big road wins. You make your schedule with that in mind. Taking off the brown and gold glasses and its pretty easy to see Wyoming doesn't have a NCAA resume right now. The unfortunate thing is I think our team when healthy is a NCAA team but we didn't schedule like a NCAA team.

 

[calpoke25]

Who is CSU's signature OOC win? UTEP? NMSU? CU? This blows my mind

Who is Boise's signature OOC win? Idaho? WTF

The ONLY thing they have is a home win over SDSU. We're undefeated vs. both of them. This is utterly baffling to me. I will never understand the logic behind leaving Wyoming out of the conversation. Boise played a couple good teams, but LOST. and looking at CSU's schedule is NOTHING SPECIAL! this blows my mind

And CSU is by no means a lock either but they at least made a smarter schedule.

 

[NowherePoke]

Who is CSU's signature OOC win? UTEP? NMSU? CU? This blows my mind

Who is Boise's signature OOC win? Idaho? WTF

The ONLY thing they have is a home win over SDSU. We're undefeated vs. both of them. This is utterly baffling to me. I will never understand the logic behind leaving Wyoming out of the conversation. Boise played a couple good teams, but LOST. and looking at CSU's schedule is NOTHING SPECIAL! this blows my mind

I think they are both on thin ice though. Boise's signature OOC win was St. Mary's. Better than anything on our resume, but not earth shattering.

CSU's primary advantage right now is that they don't have the bad losses that we do. They don't have many quality wins, which I think will be their undoing, but their only sub 100 loss is to UNM on the road. By contrast we lost to USU (RPI = 160) and most damagingly AFA (RPI = 246). We don't have any OOC Top 100 victories and only 3 overall. CSU only has 2 OOC Top 100 wins and 4 overall, so they are hardly in as good a shape as their RPI indicates.

Their SOS is going to decline pretty dramatically from here on out and they will likely enter the MWCT with a RPI in the low 30's, a SOS of 120 or so, and very few quality wins. That is a resume that is pretty similar to USM and Toledo last year and neither were really that close to making it. If they lose in the first round of the MWCT in a 4/5 or 3/6 matchup I think they are NIT bound.

Boise is also in big trouble. They are projected to enter the MWCT with a RPI in the high 40's and a SOS of 115. They have only 3 Top 100 wins (although the quality of their three wins is better than CSU's 4 as St. Mary's on the road is much more impressive than UTEP or Georgia St. at home) and three bad losses (@FSU, USU at home, and Loyola on a neutral court).

I think CSU is probably fine if they win their first MWCT game (or if they beat USU in Logan, those projections assume a loss there). I think BSU needs to beat SDSU on the road (unlikely) or notch a quality win in the MWC which would likely mean a win in the semi's over either WYO or SDSU to reach the final.

Obviously there are a lot of variables for teams on the edge of the bubble like this, but I think the MWC is closer to being a one bid league than a three bid league.

Pokes need to win the MWCT, it's just that simple. However, BSU fans should shut the fuck up, because their resume is not that impressive.

I do think if Wyoming wins out until the MWCT title game that the conversation would be dramatically different, but that's kind of an unrealistic expectation. If that happened however, the Pokes would have an RPI around 50 or so with a SOS around 150 (assuming they play either BSU/CSU in the 2nd round and lose to SDSU in the final). In that scenario, all three teams would be among the last group on the bubble and while the Pokes would have the lowest RPI and SOS of the three they would have a couple of things in their favor:

1. 4-0 against the other two. This wouldn't matter if CSU/BSU were safely in, but I think all three would be among the last group and that could be a solid differentiating factor.

2. 2-2 without Nance. Pokes would be 25-7 overall (D2 games don't count) in that scenario, but 23-5 with Nance and their one truly bad loss would be without Nance. It's true that Boise has been without Drmic, but the committee won't care about Drmic because he won't be playing in the NCAA. The Wyoming team that would be in the NCAA would include Nance.

 

[cali2wyo]

If we could've snuck out a win against smu or cal and won at either air force or in Logan (or both) this thread would be a lot different....

 

[LanderPoke]

Thanks seattlecowboy. Some people don't seem to have come to terms yet with truly how bad our schedule was and the reality that we just aren't an at large team this year.

The criteria are the same every year. This isn't some outrage or mystery. Every year the committee makes it clear they value teams that go out and challenge themselves in OOC and pick up big road wins. You make your schedule with that in mind. Taking off the brown and gold glasses and its pretty easy to see Wyoming doesn't have a NCAA resume right now. The unfortunate thing is I think our team when healthy is a NCAA team but we didn't schedule like a NCAA team.

CSU gets TONS of cred because their OOC is slightly less shitty than ours? It still make no sense to me. If they lost any one of their OOC games it would have been considered a 'bad' loss.

and Boise challenged themselves a little, but still lost! I still don't get it

 

[WilyWapiti]

The whole conference sucked big green donkey dicks with their OOC scheduling and performance.

If SDSU wins it all, are we a one bid conference?

WW

 

[NowherePoke]

If we could've snuck out a win against smu or cal and won at either air force or in Logan (or both) this thread would be a lot different....

The Cal game is probably the biggest one. Pokes were right there and frankly didn't play well. Changing the result itself is worth about 10-12 spots in the RPI, but Cal has a chance to finish in the Top 100 and adding an additional Top 100 road win would do wonders for the resume.

If the Pokes were a little closer to the bubble, the AFA game could be explained away with the absence of Nance.

 

[POKE FAN]

Who is CSU's signature OOC win? UTEP? NMSU? CU? This blows my mind

Who is Boise's signature OOC win? Idaho? WTF

The ONLY thing they have is a home win over SDSU. We're undefeated vs. both of them. This is utterly baffling to me. I will never understand the logic behind leaving Wyoming out of the conversation. Boise played a couple good teams, but LOST. and looking at CSU's schedule is NOTHING SPECIAL! this blows my mind

We're on the same wavelength here. CS-ewe's schedule is NOTHING SPECIAL, yet they're sitting at at RPI/SOS of 27/95. Who were their true OOC road tests and how'd they fare? They won the Great Alaska Shootout against teams who are currently 10-17, 10-17 and 13-12. Big deal. This is why I've never been a fan of the RPI.

Boise and CS-ewe are showing in Lunardi's bracketology today. I'd love to see the selection committee's explanation as to why they left Wyoming out should the most favorable scenario play out where WYO runs the table in conference, finishing above either/both Boise and/or CS-ewe, AND beating either of those teams AGAIN in the MWC tourney. A head-to-head sweep (APPLES-to-APPLES comparison) of two teams under serious consideration for at-large right now.

They say they don't take conferences into consideration during evaluations, but then why are selection committee members asking conference commissioners to rank the teams in their respective conferences:

WCC Commissioner Jamie Zaninovich (from ESPN.go.com):

What Zaninovich is forthcoming about is what he believes are the important measuring sticks for teams trying to receive at-large berths and higher seeds in the tournament:

* What he will pay attention to is regular feedback from the conferences he is covering. Two weeks ago, he chatted with Pac-12 and Big 12 representatives. "I'll ask them, 'Rank your teams for me and give me a sense of what their seed range is,'" he said.

 

[NowherePoke]

The whole conference sucked big green donkey dicks with their OOC scheduling and performance.

If SDSU wins it all, are we a one bid conference?

WW

I think it's a possibility if CSU loses @ USU (Morrill's final game) and then in the first round of the MWCT. Otherwise I think the league is probably a two bid league (SDSU/CSU).

 

[TSpoke]

Who is CSU's signature OOC win? UTEP? NMSU? CU? This blows my mind

Who is Boise's signature OOC win? Idaho? WTF

The ONLY thing they have is a home win over SDSU. We're undefeated vs. both of them. This is utterly baffling to me. I will never understand the logic behind leaving Wyoming out of the conversation. Boise played a couple good teams, but LOST. and looking at CSU's schedule is NOTHING SPECIAL! this blows my mind

We're on the same wavelength here. CS-ewe's schedule is NOTHING SPECIAL, yet they're sitting at at RPI/SOS of 27/95. Who were their true OOC road tests and how'd they fare? They won the Great Alaska Shootout against teams who are currently 10-17, 10-17 and 13-12. Big deal. This is why I've never been a fan of the RPI.[/b]

What Zaninovich is forthcoming about is what he believes are the important measuring sticks for teams trying to receive at-large berths and higher seeds in the tournament:

* What he will pay attention to is regular feedback from the conferences he is covering. Two weeks ago, he chatted with Pac-12 and Big 12 representatives. "I'll ask them, 'Rank your teams for me and give me a sense of what their seed range is,'" he said.

This has been something I have been talking about and one reason I don't like the RPI. While they played shitty teams with 10-17 records we played some with 1-24, 5-19 records. Both teams are shitty but ours are much more shitty. The rpi treats the difference between a 250 rpi team and a 350 rpi team as the same as a 1 rpi team and a 100 rpi team. If there was some way to normalize all RPI's over 250 or 200 or so and treat them all the same in my mind that would be better(I know there is a way, I just want someone to do it). They are all shitty and should be treated the same.

But this is the system we have to work within and we have some absolutly terrible teams we played and that killed us.

 

[Cosmic Cowboy]

Who is CSU's signature OOC win? UTEP? NMSU? CU? This blows my mind

Who is Boise's signature OOC win? Idaho? WTF

The ONLY thing they have is a home win over SDSU. We're undefeated vs. both of them. This is utterly baffling to me. I will never understand the logic behind leaving Wyoming out of the conversation. Boise played a couple good teams, but LOST. and looking at CSU's schedule is NOTHING SPECIAL! this blows my mind

I am 1000% in your corner. WHAT THE FUCK HAS CSU DONE???? Played nobody, been swept by us, and have been rewarded because the nobody teams they've played are a little less shitty then the ones we played? They also got BSU twice due to scheduling which helps them out a little too. I fucking hate all of this bullshit :willybs: :willybs: :willybs: :bs:


There's really only one thing left to do. Kick everyone's ass till the bitter fucking end and force ourselves into this bullshit conversation led by computers not human beings. I'm so pissed about all of this. I'd be totally baffled if we win out, go to the tourney champ game, lose, and get snubbed. It'd just make no fucking sense especially if BSU and CSU get worked in the tourney. Good thing is there's still a little time before I have a total meltdown with a chance of something good happening :evil: :evil: :evil:

 

[BackHarlowRoad]

CSU gets TONS of cred because their OOC is slightly less shitty than ours? It still make no sense to me. If they lost any one of their OOC games it would have been considered a 'bad' loss.

and Boise challenged themselves a little, but still lost! I still don't get it

Slightly less shitty? We are complaining about their schedule because they played teams with 10-17 records.

We played teams that are 1-23, 8-19, 6-20 (twice), and two teams that aren't even D-1.

It's not that CSU's OOC schedule was "special", it is that ours was embarrassingly bad.

Also, losing to quality opponents is different than losing to Air Force by more than 20 points.

 

[TSpoke]

I do think if Wyoming wins out until the MWCT title game that the conversation would be dramatically different, but that's kind of an unrealistic expectation. If that happened however, the Pokes would have an RPI around 50 or so with a SOS around 150 (assuming they play either BSU/CSU in the 2nd round and lose to SDSU in the final). In that scenario, all three teams would be among the last group on the bubble and while the Pokes would have the lowest RPI and SOS of the three they would have a couple of things in their favor:

1. 4-0 against the other two. This wouldn't matter if CSU/BSU were safely in, but I think all three would be among the last group and that could be a solid differentiating factor.

2. 2-2 without Nance. Pokes would be 25-7 overall (D2 games don't count) in that scenario, but 23-5 with Nance and their one truly bad loss would be without Nance. It's true that Boise has been without Drmic, but the committee won't care about Drmic because he won't be playing in the NCAA. The Wyoming team that would be in the NCAA would include Nance.

This is what I have been saying. Before I had said if we finished 14-4 and made the championship game we would be in for sure but that was before one of the 4 losses was to AF. But I still think that if we do this we will be close on the bubble with an RPI around 40 with 4 top 50 wins(beating CSU or BSU in the tournament). CU also has a chance if they can string some wins together to become a top 100 team giving us another good win. Then if they factor in the loss of Nance that could help us tremendously too.

All the analyists are right to say we are not in the conversation because they don't expect us to finish the season the way I think we will. If we do finish winning out and win two games at the tourney will will force ourselves back into the conversation.

That being said, instead of winning 6 games in a row lets win 7.

 

[TSpoke]

CSU gets TONS of cred because their OOC is slightly less shitty than ours? It still make no sense to me. If they lost any one of their OOC games it would have been considered a 'bad' loss.

and Boise challenged themselves a little, but still lost! I still don't get it

Slightly less shitty? We are complaining about their schedule because they played teams with 10-17 records.

We played teams that are 1-23, 8-19, 6-20 (twice), and two teams that aren't even D-1.

It's not that CSU's OOC schedule was "special", it is that ours was embarrassingly bad.

Also, losing to quality opponents is different than losing to Air Force by more than 20 points.

Those D-2 games don't count in RPI or SOS which is why we schedule them (in theory instead of 300+ RPI teams but that didn't happen this year)

 

[LanderPoke]

Who is CSU's signature OOC win? UTEP? NMSU? CU? This blows my mind

Who is Boise's signature OOC win? Idaho? WTF

The ONLY thing they have is a home win over SDSU. We're undefeated vs. both of them. This is utterly baffling to me. I will never understand the logic behind leaving Wyoming out of the conversation. Boise played a couple good teams, but LOST. and looking at CSU's schedule is NOTHING SPECIAL! this blows my mind

I am 1000% in your corner. WHAT THE FUCK HAS CSU DONE???? Played nobody, been swept by us, and have been rewarded because the nobody teams they've played are a little less shitty then the ones we played? They also got BSU twice due to scheduling which helps them out a little too. I fucking hate all of this bullshit :willybs: :willybs: :willybs: :bs:


There's really only one thing left to do. Kick everyone's ass till the bitter fucking end and force ourselves into this bullshit conversation led by computers not human beings. I'm so pissed about all of this. I'd be totally baffled if we win out, go to the tourney champ game, lose, and get snubbed. It'd just make no fucking sense especially if BSU and CSU get worked in the tourney. Good thing is there's still a little time before I have a total meltdown with a chance of something good happening :evil: :evil: :evil:

+1 I love all the emojis btw

 

[Cosmic Cowboy]

Yeah if we do indeed win out and get into the championship game everyone better look the FUCK OUT!!! Cause we will be on FIRE :fuel: :fuel: :fuel: :fuel: :fuel: :fuel: :fuel:

It'd be hard for me to see us losing that game if that was indeed the case. Our team would've really dug deep already and be in a zone we can't really fathom. Something deep inside would be brewing and its hard to stop something like that.

 

[stymeman]

Win the tourney, that's our #1 Goal!!!!!!! My problem is why do we continue to get punished for playing a 300 RPI team, if they were 275 at the time we played them, why don't they lock that in when we played them, but if they keep losing and drop to 300+ that goes against us, we can't control what they do after we play them(hence CU, DU and NMSU) etc..
it's just not fair, but life isn't...lol

 

[Cosmic Cowboy]

CSU gets TONS of cred because their OOC is slightly less shitty than ours? It still make no sense to me. If they lost any one of their OOC games it would have been considered a 'bad' loss.

and Boise challenged themselves a little, but still lost! I still don't get it

Slightly less shitty? We are complaining about their schedule because they played teams with 10-17 records.

We played teams that are 1-23, 8-19, 6-20 (twice), and two teams that aren't even D-1.

It's not that CSU's OOC schedule was "special", it is that ours was embarrassingly bad.

Also, losing to quality opponents is different than losing to Air Force by more than 20 points.

Those D-2 games don't count in RPI or SOS which is why we schedule them (in theory instead of 300+ RPI teams but that didn't happen this year)

I'm in total agreement that these d-2 games have to stop. They do NOTHING for us. I'd rather schedule SJSU another game if I wanted one more scrimmage....FUCK