Stomp The Lunatic

Purdue is about to start their Big 10 Tournament – as they will face Minnesota (ironically / sadly, the team that beat the Boilers last week to help Michigan State share the conference regular season title with Purdue).  Here’s hoping the Boilers come out well for this one – the Gophers are a good team so it will not be an easy win.

BOILER UP!!!!

March Madness can be so cruel.  The VCU Rams went 16-2 in conference and 25-6 in the season to earn the conference regular season championship and #1 seed in the Atlantic 10 tournament.  They had won 12 games straight games since a road loss to Rhode Island back in January.

So, who ends up being the 8 seed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament – the Rhode Island Rams, one of the two teams in conference to have beaten VCU.   And unfortunately for the local team, Rhode Island apparently had the recipe for beating VCU – since they did it against today 71-65.  So, Rhode Island end up being the Rams that move on in the tournament, and VCU sadly has to go home and see if their great season is enough to win an At-Large bid.

VCU has a pretty solid profile for a small conference team – not only have they won their conference, they have victories over fellow bubble teams Temple and Texas (who they beat on the road).  They also only loss by 1 on the road to St. John’s and by 8 on the road to Virginia (who is likely a #1 seed).  They also have a good NET rating of 31 as of yesterday.  They should be in the NCAA Tournament – but being a small conference team, this loss sadly puts them squarely on the bubble.

This upset means two things – while Dayton and Davidson have NET rankings in the 60s, the reality is that VCU was probably the only realistic at-large team from the Atlantic 10.  So, a bid has been stolen – even if we do not know who will be the team that steals that bid.    It also means it is going to be a very long two days in Richmond for VCU and their fans as they hope the Selection Committee invites them to the dance.

Don’t get me wrong – there are still some bubble teams that are more than alive – looking to continue to squeeze their way into the Dance.  But as the Big 12, Big East and ACC head to their Semi-Final games, it is time to get to watch some of the games that will shape the top part of the bracket.

ACC – If you want to see some of the best basketball in the country – just turn on the ACC tournament – three of the teams in the race for a #1 seed are all here – Virginia will play Florida State, and then we get to watch Duke play North Carolina for a third time (this time, hopefully with a healthy Zion Williamson).  Great basketball!!!!!

Big 12 – Iowa State playing Kansas State in one of the semi-finals is no surprise (and should be a great game).  But West Virginia shocking the field to play Kansas is another.  At 14-19, the Mountaineers are not a bubble team making a push, they are truly a gate crasher trying to sneak into the party without a ticket.  If they can beat Kansas today, they will be won shocking win away from stealing the Big 12 bid – and leaving another bubble team at home

That being said – the stories like West Virginia (and maybe more importantly, St. Mary’s) always remind me of one important note.  Every year, we will talk about the team that gets snubbed by the Selection Committee and the team that probably doesn’t deserve to be there.  I am sure I will have opinions about that in my blog next week.  But every bubble team needs to realize that if they do not make the tournament, it is because they allowed their fate to rest in the Selection Committee.  Because of the Conference Tournaments, almost every Division I team (there are a couple conferences who do not allow their last place teams to play-in) and certainly every bubble team controls their destiny and has a simple way to dance – win the quarterfinals, semi-finals and conference championships.  You win 3 games – you play your way into the tournament.  It is that simple.  If you are 17-14 and lose in your quarter-final, you did not get snubbed – you didn’t play your way into the tournament.  That might seem harsh – especially if you play in a conference like the ACC where that route goes through Virginia, Duke and North Carolina.  But we are talking about playing for a National Championship – you have to beat those type of caliber teams in March.

OK – back to previewing.

Big East – the Big East bubble teams that won their way in the crazy Big East bubble race were Seton Hall and Xavier.  So, their rewards are Xavier gets to play Villanova to strengthen their profile, and Seton Hall draws Marquette – both real chances to beat top quality teams.  But as I just said above – why leave it to the Committee – they have a line of sight to the tournament by winning two more games.

Big 10 – With their final on Sunday, they are just starting their quarterfinals.  Minnesota will try to upset my Boilers, Ohio State will try to upset Michigan State, and Iowa will try to take out Michigan.  If any of these bubble teams win today, I would have to imagine that probably punches their ticket to the dance based on where the bubble is.  Then, of course, we have Nebraska playing Wisconsin – where the Cornhuskers will try to show their conference record doesn’t matter – just keep winning to steal a bid.

SEC – The SEC has a mix of games against teams likely already in (like Missisippi State vs Tennessee).  But there is also going to be three bubble teams trying to get to the semi-finals as Florida plays LSU, Alabama plays Kentucky, and South Carolina plays Auburn.  I suspect that despite the seeds, Florida is the safest team at the moment from the SEC bubble – Alabama and South Carolina really need today’s games to help make a statement.

Others – I am still finding the Pac 12 tournament fascinating.  Oregon plays Arizona State and Colorado plays Washington – but because of the weak NET rankings, it is unclear if winning in the semi-finals gets any of these bubble teams in.  And teams like Houston, Nevada, and Buffalo (would love to throw VCU into this mix – but they are not as safe as the other three) try to make sure their league’s bid is not stolen by a team trying to crash the party.

And that will lead into the weekend – if you are lucky enough to be playing on Saturday (unless you are in the Ivy, SEC, Atlantic 10, Sun Belt, Big 10, or American conferences who are playing their semi-finals Saturday), you win your game and you are heading to the NCAA Tournament – no need to sweat out Selection Sunday.   You will be your conference’s champion and have earned your ticket to the dance.

Enjoy the games!!!!!

The Big 12 is watching last place West Virginia continue to advance – they knocked off co-champs Texas Tech to reach the semi-finals.  And right now, that could mean Texas – who is trying to pull the upset of their own – they are tied with Kansas.

Minnesota managed to come back to keep their bubble hopes alive by beating Penn State in overtime.

Alabama came from way down at halftime to shock Ole Miss – every time I think the Tide’s chances are done, they do something remarkable like come back from 14 down at halftime.

The Big East evening games appear to be blow outs.  I was a little surprised at how flat St. John’s came out – losing to Marquette by 32 points.  Seton Hall looks determined to separate themselves from the bubble – up 25 on Georgetown at halftime.

And yet all I can think of – how dominant is Zion Williamson – I stopped watching the game and moved to the Texas / Kansas game because Williamson was hitting everything – welcome back, Zion!!!!

 

As I get home and review the scores of this afternoon’s games, there were some interesting outcomes.  While some of them looked like they were great games (like Florida State beating Virginia Tech 65-63 in overtime), I am going to stick to the bubble.  All the FSU / VT game tells me is that both teams play tenacious defense, and are both going to be difficult teams to beat in the tournament (unless their offenses go completely cold and it is just a question of if the ball ever goes in the basket for either team).

Editor’s note: I did not watch these games – these are purely analyses from what I am seeing in the ESPN recaps.  If I ream them for their stat department saying silly things, I should give them credit for their writers doing the recaps.  These are simply the Lunatic’s analysis from what he views from the score.

• Villanova 73, Providence 62 – It looks like Providence kept this game closer for most of the game than what the final score suggests.  But Providence might have needed better than a decent performance.
• Ohio State 79, Indiana 75 – With a little over 7 minutes left in the game, the Buckeyes were up by 20 points.  Then, the Hoosiers stormed back to cut the lead all the way down to 2 before the Buckeyes finished off the game from the line.  So many thoughts.  At the end of the day, OSU won – this was critical for them, they had to show they could win now that Kaleb Wesson was back from his three game suspension – and they did.  If that makes the committee ignore the three games he was out, the Buckeyes are probably in.  As for the Hoosiers, is it possible that a 7 minute stretch in a losing effort saved their season.  I think that if they had been blown out by 20, they probably would be done.  Now they are in the boat that I think Oklahoma is in – a NET ranking that says that they should be in with a profile that says they should be out.  This result means the Hoosiers went 8-13 in the Big 10.  I will have to evaluate the teams the way I think the Committee will look at them – but I just don’t know that being 5 games under 500 in conference says that you are tournament ready.
• Virginia 76, North Carolina State 56 – the Wolfpack had the opposite of Indiana in this game.  NC State was beating what might be the top team in the country by 2 points at halftime.  And then everything went wrong in the second half.  Before this game, the Wolfpack’s profile screamed I can beat the teams I am supposed to, but I can’t beat any of the top teams.  This game didn’t do anything to change the profile.
• Iowa St 83, Baylor 66 – The Cyclones jumped out to a first half lead and never looked back.  I suspect Baylor is still safe – they had one of the safer profiles on the bubble.  But not the best lasting impression.
• Florida 66, Arkansas 50 – Florida had been struggling so they needed a win – and they got one.  Arkansas needed to get a win in order to make the Committee take a closer look at them – and they obviously did not get that win.
• Xavier 63, Creighton 61 – The Musketeers were down 7 with just 2:20 in the game, and then they came charging back.  Xavier went on a 10-1 run to finish the game, and they are still alive in the Big East Championship.  Still struggling to interpret the Big East bubble – this game showed these two teams are so close to each other.  Not sure all of them can get in though.  At a minimum, this bumped Xavier’s profile slightly and hurt Creighton’s profile slightly.
• Kansas State 70, TCU 61 – TCU led by 2 at halftime but Kansas State rallied in the second half to beat the bubble game.  This would have been a big win for the Horned Frogs.  Don’t think the loss hurts them – but it certainly isn’t the win that could have solidified their profile and improved their standing on the bubble.
• Washington 78, USC 75 – Really, Washington.  I kept thinking that I don’t really need to think hard about the Huskies – the Pac 12 champion has to be in right.  So, very thankful that the Trojans didn’t upset them today and cause the Pac 12 tournament to turn into a Bid Stealing tournament where their champion was potentially out for good.  Still think the Huskies are safe – but it looks like the Pac 12 tourney could be fun to watch just for the drama.
• Nebraska 69, Maryland 61 – Lets face it – with a 6-14 conference record, the only reason the Cornhuskers are here is because their NET ranking is in the top 80.  But have to admit that beating Maryland is better than some of the bubble teams are doing – they beat a locked team.  If they beat Wisconsin tomorrow, things might start to become interesting on the Big 10 bubble.
• Memphis 83, Tulane 68 – If Memphis wants to get noticed as a smaller conference team and a NET ranking of 53, they are going to need to win tomorrow against UCF.   But this is obviously big for them – while beating Tulane doesn’t get them in, losing to Tulane certainly would have knocked them out.

Looks like there are a lot more good games tonight – whether you want to watch bubble teams like Alabama, Mississippi,  Colorado, St. John’s, Minnesota, Syracuse, Texas, Arizona State, Iowa, Seton Hall, Oregon and Georgetown make their case to be considered (and I might have missed a bubble team in that run down).  Or if you simply want to see Zion Williamson play (then you get to watch him and Syracuse – double bonus!)  Or you want to see locks play – Louisville is playing UNC right now (should be a fantastic game).  Tonight should have a lot of great games!!!!!!!!

Then today is the day to watch!!!!!

If your team is not playing today (and not one of the teams that are playing their quarterfinal games tomorrow), then I am sorry – your season is over.  Your profile now has to stand on its own – no more chances to convince the committee.  You will be watching – probably hoping as many of the bubble teams lose horrifically to give your team a chance.  This doesn’t mean you are not getting in – it simply means your fate is no longer in your hands.

Otherwise, today is the quarterfinals for most of the major conferences.  You will get to see great bubble matchups like Indiana vs Ohio State..  You will get to see bubble teams take their shot at a top team like North Carolina State vs Virginia.  Today matters a lot.

The committee says the games in November and December matter as much as the games in March – and they do a good job of sticking to that.  But they are human – and recency bias matters.  If the committee thinks that Ohio State and Indiana are right next to each other based on their profile, and the Hoosiers go out and beat the Buckeyes by 20 points – it is very simple who the Committee will put in first.

So, if you are a fan of a bubble team – cheer on your team today.  Today’s game is important – this is your last chance to make a lasting impression on the Selection Committee – you want it to be good.  Good luck to all of your teams!!!!

Many of the bubble games happened while I was at work – so I didn’t get to see them, but some comments from looking at the scores:

• Normally when two bubble teams meet in the Conference Tournaments, it helps give a ranking.  I was looking to see which team was for real – North Carolina State or Clemson.  Both have great NET rankings and very little top victories to show for it.  And both went 9-9 in the ACC (so they both won the games they were supposed to win).  You have to give NC State a lot of credit to come back to win the game by 1 at the end.  But they also won the game on a controversial foul call – from the replays, I am not sure he is even touched – tough to call that with 2.6 seconds left in a 1 point game.  So, NC State probably feels a little safer – but I can’t tell from this outcome if both teams deserve to be in, or if both teams should be on the bubble cut line – what I can say is there is very little difference between these teams (which is what I would have said before the game).
• That being said, the Big East showed exactly what not to do in a conference tournament game between two bubble teams.  Butler entered the game at 16-15 with a net ranking of 63 – because 3rd through last in the Big East is all between 9-9 and 7-11, almost the entire Big East shows up in the bubble discussion.  Butler looked like they might still have a chance with a good performance.  But they still were on the weak side of the bubble, so you have to do well.  Losing by 23 to fellow bubble team Providence (net ranking 75) was not the way to separate yourself from the other bubble teams.  If you are on the bubble, you might survive a loss – but you are not surviving a 23 point loss to finish at 16-16.
• Looks like the rest of the bubble is doing what they need – many of them are playing in their conference play-in games (very dangerous games since you don’t get lots of credit for winning these games but you can see your chances severely damaged if you lose) – and while a few teams have struggled (Colorado by 5, TCU by 3 – all the late night games featuring Syracuse and St. John’s are close), they all have managed to pull out the win.  Those are critical victories – you need to win the games you are supposed to win so you can get a free-roll opportunity (well – assuming you don’t get blown out of the water) to upset a team that is highly ranked to improve your profile.
• I have no clue of what to make of the Big 12 – Oklahoma was one of those teams with really good stats from a ranking perspective, but a 7-11 conference record.  I thought that with some of the teams on the bubble, they might be safe.  Then they lost 72-71 to last place West Virginia (13-19) when their last second three-pointer to tie the game was ruled that the player was on the line and it was only a two point basket (that’s a tough way to lose – hit an emotional shot to tie the game just to have replay overrule the call).  The Big 12 is tough – but is it so tough that a team that goes 7-12 in conference should get in the tournament.  I know that they say conference records don’t matter – but something about this doesn’t feel right – it is going to be a nervous next few days for Sooners’ fans.

I love statistics – and I think you can use statistics to really understand the great game of college basketball.  That being said, I don’t completely understand the ESPN statistics department.

ESPN Stat Department’s Paul Sabin’s commitment to BPI model is admirable – but mis-guided.  Here are a couple comments that make this statistical model look bad.

“Highest leverage game of the day is TCU vs Oklahoma State. With a win BPI projects TCU has a 82 pct chance to make the tournament. With a loss, that drops to 5 (!)”

First of all, this is ridiculous.  TCU has a net ranking of 47, a 19-12 record with a horrible 7-11 record in the Big 12, and only 3 Quadrant 1 Wins with a sweep against Iowa State and a road victory against Texas.  So, I might agree with the model that if they lose to 12-20 Oklahoma State that their chances significantly decrease – maybe even to 5%.  But are we really going to say that beating that team jumps them to 82%.  I guess maybe they were saying that TCU was an 82% chance to make the tournament before this game, so if they win – they stay at 82%.  And while I think I might say TCU is in the field – I am not sure I am at the point to say that I would give them an 82% chance,

To be fair, this has always been my complaint about how ESPN uses the BPI model – I have seen times where they will state the in-game part of their model says a team has a 99% chance of winning – just to watch the other team come back.  It moves too quickly to the extremes.

“With the win BPI projects that Wofford will most likely be a 5 or 6 seed. BPI still gives UNC Greensboro a 60 percent chance of an at-large bid due to its resume highlighted by its SOR rank of 30 entering today.”

I will go deeper into this because of the next quote.  But UNC Greensboro might have a high BPI score, but they have a NET ranking of 57 with only 2 quadrant 1 wins.  I love the little guys – I would much rather watch a 28-6 UNC Greensboro team get a chance that a 17-14 major conference team that is getting recognized for pulling out a couple of the many chances they got against the top teams.

But this statement makes the BPI model look stupid.  The Southern Conference has never received an at-large bid.  Even when Davidson in 1996 was 25-3, won the regular season and were upset in the conference championship final by Western Carolina, Davidson was snubbed by the Selection Committee.  And UNC Greensboro did not win the Southern Conference regular season champion – Wofford, the team that beat them in the championship – went undefeated.  While we don’t know how the NET ranking is going to be used, there were very few small conference schools that had a ranking over 50 that still got an at-large.  Yet, UNC Greensboro has a 60% chance of bucking all that history and get the Southern Conference’s first at-large bid ever.  I will be happy if UNC Greensboro gets a chance – but are we really supposed to believe when it has never happened before, that this team has a 60% chance…….   Really!?!?!?!?!?!?!  But this gets me to the thing that really pushed my buttons.

“Blind Resumes: Team A: 4-3 against Quad1, 26-0 otherwise. Team B: 2-6 against Quad1, 24-0 otherwise. Both lost in conference tournament final. Team A is Gonzaga who may get a No. 1 seed and Team B is UNC Greensboro who may get left out. ESPN’s Strength of Record (SOR) has the two ranked 8th and 31st respectively.”

This is one of the most extreme misuse of cherry picking statistics that you want to make your point.  First of all, while the concept of the blind resume is fun (and I have even done it before on my blog), it is not realistic.  At the end of the day, the Selection Committee is not blind – they look at the entire profile – and this blind resume hides a few key differences…..So, lets dig deeper.

Team A (Gonzaga) is ranked #2 by the NET ranking (as much as ESPN might love their BPI – the NCAA uses their own ranking).  Team B (UNC Greensboro) has a NET ranking of 57.  There is a big difference between 2 and 57.

Gonzaga’s Quadrant 1 4-3 record is a 2 point victory over #3 Duke, a 3 point loss to #6 Tennessee, a 13 point loss at #7 UNC, a 14 point victory at #34 St. Mary’s, the surprising 13 point loss in the WCC championship to St. Mary’s, a 11 point victory at #54 Creighton, and a 13 point victory at #72 San Francisco.

UNC Greensboro’s Quadrant 1 2-6 record is a 17 point loss at #5 Kentucky, a 6 point loss at #14 LSU, three losses of 29 pts, 30 pts and 12 points to #13 Wofford. a 10 point loss at #41 Furman, a 4 point victory on a neutral court against Furman, and a 7 point victory at #71 East Tennessee State.  Is ESPN really trying to say that beating Duke (at a time when people felt Duke might be unbeatable), St. Mary’s, Creighton, and San Francisco is almost the same as beating Furman and East Tennessee State.  UNC Greensboro deserves credit for playing a tight game against LSU and forcing Wofford to go on an amazing run at the end of the conference championship.  But they also were blown out in three of those top games against Kentucky and Wofford.  You can’t simply look at record – who you played and how close you played matters.

But lets keep going – ETSU is 2-0 against Quadrant 2 – their home wins against Furman  (10 pts) and East Tennessee State (1 pt)  Gonzaga is 6-0 against Quadrant 2 – with home wins against St. Mary’s, Pac 12 champion Washington, San Francisco, a neutral court victory against Arizona, and road games against BYU and San Diego.- and the only one of those games that they didn’t win by double digits was the one against Washington (their average margin of victory in those 6 games was 23.2 points).  There is a big difference between winning 6 of these games by an average of 23.2 points vs. winning 2 of these games by an average of 5 points (against 2 teams that are not at the same level as the 6 that Gonzaga played).

But I am not done.  Lets look at the rest of the those games.  UNC Greensboro certainly won the games they were supposed to win – going 22-0 against Quadrant 3 and Quadrant 4.  In those 22 games, they had an average victory of 11.5 points, with 5 of them being by 20+ points, and another 3 by 10+ points.  That means that 14 of them were within single digits.

Gonzaga went 20-0 against those two Quadrants.  Their average margin of victory was 32.3 points – where 16 of their 20 wins were by 20+ points, and 3 of them were by 10+ points (only the one game against Illinois was single digits).  Is ESPN really trying to say that winning 95% of your games by double digits is a similar profile to winning 36% of your games.

One more point of comparison – now it is my turn to cherry pick.  This is completely unfair – but I am on a rant.  Lets look at same opponents.  Sadly, they really didn’t have many – in fact, my tired eyes can only see one – #311 North Alabama.  UNC Greensboro snuck out a 53-48 victory against North Alabama.  Gonzaga won 96-51.  While one game is not a fair comparison (Gonzaga crushed St. Mary’s in the regular season and still lost by 13 in the championship game), it is still a comparison point – and on that comparison point, the teams are not close.

These profiles are nowhere close to similar.  They might have a 26-0 record vs. a 24-0 record – which looks the same.  But the teams Gonzaga played in that were slightly tougher, and Gonzaga won 19 of those 26 games by 20+ points.  UNC Greensboro won 5 of them by 20+ points.  We could argue if Gonzaga’s profile says it should be a #1 seed.  There are very few teams that could have beat almost everyone they play by 20+ points, beat Duke by 2 and lose to Tennessee by 3.  It might be fair to say that maybe there are 4 teams out there that could have done that (which would knock the Zags to a 2 seed), but they are firmly one of the best teams in the country.

UNC Greensboro had a great season – but they more often than not were blown out when they played a top 20 team, and they didn’t destroy the weaker opponents that you would expect a tourney team to do.  To prove that discussion, lets look at fellow bubble team Indiana – with a NET ranking of 51 and a 17-14 record.  They only played 9 games in Quadrants 3 and 4 – winning them all.  4 of those were by 20+, 3 of them were by 10+ points, and the two that were close were Illinois and Northwestern – their average margin was 23.4 points in this group (more than double UNC Greensboro’s margin).  Indiana’s problem is that they have so many losses – but based on these 9 games, it looks like if you gave the Hoosiers the schedule that UNC Greensboro played, they would have been more dominant in those games.

 

Doing a blind resume test – picking out records – and saying they look the same is just not fair.  You can’t look at these resumes blindly – If I go 1-1 against Duke and North Carolina – that is simply different that going 2-0 in road games against San Francisco and East Tennessee State.  I can’t compare those records even though I am trying to fairly group the teams into groups.  I have to look at each game and each result.

It can be fun when you do it by two teams that are really close to each other and give a few more details.  But picking the #2 team and the #57 team in the rankings saying they have similar records in Quadrant 1 and the remaining Quadrants and wondering why they are considered to be so different is a poor use of statistics – and really make it look like the ESPN Stats Department has no clue of what they are talking about.

The NET ranking is definitely an improvement in a computer ranking system – I am glad that the Selection Committee will be using more analytics than the very unsophisticated RPI ranking.  If you want proof of this and the fatal flaw of the RPI, you can look at the top.  As of last night’s games, the #1 team in the NET ranking was Virginia (who has only lost two games this season – both to Duke).  The #1 team according to the RPI is Kansas at 23-8.  To be fair, the Jayhawks are not a bad team, but #1 in the country is a stretch.  We could all argue if Virginia, Gonzaga, Duke, UNC (or a couple others) are the best team in the country – I think even Jayhawks’ fans would be willing to admit that all of those teams currently are better than Kansas based on their records.

So, why are the Jayhawks so high in the RPI – because of its fatal flaw.  The RPI is heavily weighted towards strength of schedule.  While I could argue that some of those teams are better than Kansas – it would be hard to find a tougher schedule  Kansas played at Kentucky, at Arizona State, vs Tennessee, Michigan State and Marquette on a neutral court, home against Wofford and Villanova – and that is just their non-conference games.  It doesn’t include their 10 Quadrant 1 games from the Big 12 regular season.  They only played 2 games against Quadrant 4 teams and 4 against Quadrant 3 teams.  Just to continue on that point.  Even Duke (who seems to always play a tough non-conference schedule), still had 5 victories against the Quadrant 4 teams.  The Jayhawks schedule this year is just brutal.

But playing a brutal schedule does not mean you should be the #1 team – maybe you should be praised for your courage (or criticized for being insanely ambitious – there is probably a fine line here although Kansas is talented enough each year to take on this challenge and survive it), but you still have to beat almost everyone.

North Carolina State is the example on the opposite side – they currently have a RPI ranking of 104 – they have 10 games against Quadrant 4 teams, and 5 more against Quadrant 3 (they even lost 2 of those games to Georgia Tech and Wake Forest).  But at the end of the day, the Wolfpack went 9-9 in the ACC (10-9 if you include today’s crazy 18 point comeback against Clemson – they were down 18 and managed to hit two free throws at the end of the game to win by 1) – any team that can win more often than lose in the ACC is better than 104th.

But that also brings out the flaw of the NET ranking.  They probably aren’t the 32nd best team either.  While they went 10-9 in the ACC, they went 0-7 against Virginia, Duke, UNC, Virginia Tech, Louisville and Florida State.  Basically, the Wolfpack won the games they were supposed to – and that led them to a pretty decent record.  We could debate things, but I can imagine we can find some teams that have a worse NET ranking that might deserve to be ahead of the Wolfpack.

The problem here is that the NET ranking looks at more predictive metrics such as scoring margin.  And no matter how you try to cap it, it is hard.  When you beat multiple bad teams by 50 points, it still looks good.   And when you play a team like Virginia or Duke, you can lose by 10 points – and compared to the rest of the country statistically – that looks like a solid performance.

Another example here is Penn State.  Despite a 14-17 record, they are 49th in the NET ranking.  If you look closer at their schedule, they played 15 games against Quadrant 1 teams – but they won 3 of them and lost 7 of those by single digits – so they were competitive in 10 of those games.   If you play at team like Michigan that on average wins by 12 points, and you beat Michigan by 6 points – your adjusted possession statistics go through the roof.

And that becomes the complication with all these ratings.and why the Selection Committee is so important.  There are 353 teams in Division I basketball – and obviously there is a big difference between playing Virginia and Chicago State.  But teams eventually play the schedule that they have (and the games against their conference are forced) – so how do you compare a 30 point victory to Chicago State to a 6 point loss to Virginia – what outcome is better.  If you can solve this problem, there are probably lots of media outlets (and maybe some Vegas books) that would like to pay you some money.

That being said, I am still glad that the committee moved to the NET ranking.  It might still be tricked by teams that have great adjusted scoring margins – but I think it still gives a better ranking system.  Just realize it still isn’t perfect.  It is simply a great start.

The #1 team in the country had won 21 straight games.  Including the WCC semifinal, Gonzaga was 17-0 against conference opponents, with the closest game being a 12 point victory at San Diego.  But at the end of the day, college basketball games are not played on paper, they are played on the court.

The Saint Mary’s Gaels have beaten the #1 Gonzaga Bulldogs 60-47 in Las Vegas to take the WCC Conference Tournament Championship and book their ticket to the dance.  With the game close at 40-39, Jordan Ford and Jordan Hunter led the Gaels to a 10-4 run to expand the lead to 7 with just 6 minutes left, and St. Mary’s managed to play smothering defense to make sure the Zags didn’t make any heroic final runs.

The Gaels looked like they were squarely on the bubble – their NET ranking was 37th, but they were only 1-6 in Quadrant 1 games (and that was a road victory against New Mexico State).  But Quadrant 1 wins do not matter if you win your Conference Tournament.  The Gaels are dancing – with what is likely going to be one of the most stunning upsets of Championship Week!!!!!   Congratulations to Saint Mary’s – the WCC Champions!!!!