The Dude wrote:

Bubble time.  Lunardi and Jerry Palm have Dayton VCU  and The Bonnies on the bubble, with Davidson IN as the auto-qualifier.   The A10 year after year seems to be in the same predicament and year after year we seem to get 2 or 3 teams in (barely)

Palm has Davidson a 9 seed, so they look fairly safe if they lose in the A10 Tourney.   A Dayton vs VCU final, might get 3 teams in, but its going to be tough.

The Quad 1 system, set up to jam as many Power 5s as possible in, has not kept either guy from keeping no Quad 1 North Carolina (0-7) out nor 14-14 Oklahoma from making bubble lists.  So now, if you lose almost all your Quad 1 games, it doesn't seem to even matter. but if you are 3-8 it gets used to jam in some rubbish Power 5 resumes.

Lunardi has 6 Quad 1 wins Rutgers a 9 seed, Palm has them out, I think edge to Lunardi there - no way Rutgers would be out with their resume under these criteria. 

The bubble is now almost entirely Power 5s, Murray St would probably get left out at 26-2 with 1 bad loss, and 14-14 Oklahoma in with 1 more good win, just the way the NCAA wants it, pretend the tourney is about cinderella but jam in as many $ schools as possible.  Don't look now but here comes Syracuse creeping to the bubble for the 300th year in a row. 

Not creeping... 6-22 Georgia.

Jerry Palm is terrible at forecasting the tourney and seeds. I wouldn’t even bother looking at or quoting anything he says. He made his career by recreating and publishing the RPI so he tends to try to give too much credit to the RPI (which isn’t even used anymore).

That said, it’s true that the subjective measure is almost always used to screw over the non BCS teams.

If Lundardi is correct, it would mean UNC gets in by going 1-7 vs Q1 games and 5-7 vs Q1 and 2, but one Q4 loss (in February), while Dayton gets left out because of 3 bad losses all in the first two weeks, even though they are 2-2 vs Q1 and 7-5 Q1/2. So in that comparison the lack of bad losses counts for more than the good wins…

But then Belmont, which also NO bad losses would get left out according to Lunardi. So if Dayton is below UNC because of bad losses, despite better record vs the top teams, then why isn’t UNC below Belmont because of the bad loss with same number of good wins?  Like UNC, Belmont has 1 Q1 win (in 3 chances, unlike the 8 chances UNC has had) and a better total record vs Q1 and 2 (4-5) than UNC (5-7).  There’s almost no way to justify it, except for the better record vs Q2 (though same number of Q3 wins, albeit in more chances). 

And the crazy thing is, Belmont isn’t even in Lunardi’s next EIGHT out, while UNC with a remarkably similar or worse  resume is so in that they don’t even have to play in the play in game. (Again, if he’s right).


As for the A10, Lunardi currently has it as one bid regardless of conference tourney. I suspect he’s wrong. 

He has Davidson ranked one spot behind the last bubble team on his S-Curve, but look at their resume vs UNC.

Davidson vs Q1: 2-1 (UNC 1-7)
Davidson vs Q2: 3-3 (UNC 4-0)
Combined Q1/2: Davison 5-4, UNC 5-7
Davidson vs Q3 and 4: 16-0.   UNC 15-1.


So Davidson had more Q1 wins and a winning record vs Q1.  Davidson has no bad losses, UNC has one. 
Davidson has just as many Q1/2 wins, despite 3 fewer games.

But according to Lunardi, UNC is 7 spots ahead. 

It makes no sense unless you understand all of it as basically BS designed to give the benefit of the doubt to BCS teams and not to everyone else.  I happen to think he’s wrong about UNC being so high, but they also get a lot more chances to improve their resume with apparently no penalty for losing - not even to Pittsburgh.

Last edited by Free Quebec (2/23/2022 12:51 pm)

Yes which is why some of the talk on here about how we should be competing for NCAA bids by year 3 doesn’t appreciate how much harder it’s gotten for an A-10 team to get an at large bid.  The days of getting 6 teams in the NCAAs are OVER.

Look at a team like the Bonnie’s that went down a spot in the NET after thoroughly handling the Rams last night. For an A-10 team to make it as an AL you need an almost perfect OOC, hope others in the A10 do as well, and then not lose once to a bottom half A10 team (especially at home).

The 2014 Tourney team went 4-5 in Q1 and 4-3 in Q2. Why we’d still probably get in today as a play-in  is that we went undefeated in Q3 and Q4 games, however the A10 was ridiculously strong that year. The worst team by KenPom was Fordham at 201. Some of those Q2 wins might be Q3s or Q4s today and some of the Q2 losses might also be Q3s.

I agree that the A10 will never likely send 6 teams again.  

And here's the part that's inherently unfair...while teams look to improve to the point where they are playing their best ball in March, it's what happens to most mid-majors in November and December that will largely determine if there is even a chance of earning an at large.

It's very simple, conferences like the A10 need to generate big OOC wins in order to realistically be considered.  I should add, while not losing a humiliating number of Q3 and Q4 games.  This season is not the season to complain about the A10 getting few bids.  They crapped the OOC bed on the whole.  Meanwhile, the West Coast Conference and Mountain West Conference each have 4 schools that may very well go dancing.  Nobody would be complaining if the A10 sent 4 teams.  So, let's not make this about midmajors not having a chance.  It's not a level playing field, but it's still very possible to overcome.

In the case of the A10, yes Dayton has impressive wins but it also has 3 Q4 losses.  To UMass-Lowell, Lipscomb and Austin Peay, all at Dayton Arena.  You can overlook one and hold your breath over two, but three is really hard to ignore.  And, I've loved this Dayton team from the beginning so it's not like I have it out for them.   Against the other A10 contenders (I am including the two Saints though Bonaventure has a tall mountain to climb while the Bills are falling fast), they are 3-2 with a Davidson game remaining.  VCU beat Syracuse which is just OK this season but faltered in its chances to earn real attention getting wins against Baylor and UConn.  They split with Dayton and Davidson while getting blown out by the Bonnies.  The Bonnies are 3-2 against the top conference teams, 3-3 if I stick Richmond in that group.  They have a nice win over Marquette but losses to UCONN, Virginia Tech and Northern Iowa.  SLU is up to 9 losses and UMASS is one of them.  They are 1-4 against the top conference teams including recent consecutive losses to the Bonnies that all but ended their at large hopes.

So in addition to the fact that the number of attention getting OOC wins is paltry, you also have a situation where no teams within the conference, aside from Davidson, seem to be dominating within the conference.  The Wildcats are 3-1 against the top conference teams, have a marquis win over Alabama (better at the time that they won it), have good losses to San Francisco and NM State, and really just one lousy loss at URI.  It's really the sole A10 resume that screams "at large."

DC Native wrote:

The fact is that these decisions are all about money. The bigger name teams simply put more butts in seats and increase TV viewership. Rather than expecting the NCAA to keep more mediocre power conference teams out, which will never happen, conferences like the A10 need a solution that will keep more low majors out. There are just too many conferences in D1, all of which have auto bids. Personally, I think they should hold a separate tournament for the bottom 20 conferences in D1. None of those teams have any hope of winning a championship anyway. Another option would be to simply do away with auto bids. Both solutions would keep in the mediocre power conference teams but also benefit the A10. The A10 has four teams worthy of the NCAA tournament this year, but I'm sure at least a couple of them will be left out.

Not sure I like that idea. What it would do, it would open 20 or so more at large bids, and the A10 would get more spots but at the following cost:

1. The conference tourneys have some great drama, you'd lose most of that.  When G'town won last year, it was great drama.   A lot of the drama is the auto ticket.

2. You'd lose the fun of the massive underdogs, UMBC vs UVA was a lot of fun, not sure Kentucky vs a Power 5 16th seed 6 games under .500 would be much fun.

3.  The at large field feels about right now, in terms of size.  You'd be sliding the bubble down 20 spots, that would put in another 15 Power 5 teams and 5 or so other teams.  Right now, we get a lot of big drama games, among some pretty good teams (the very top of the A10, Michigan vs Rutgers etc etc)

They will never do it but they should cap the At Large bigs for the Power 6 (including Big East) at 28, leaving 8 spots or more for the rest of the country.,  What they'd rather do is give all 36 spots to big $ schools.  In your solution it would be about 57 out of 68, and the last 11 spread mostly around MWC WCC A10 American. 

I want to see that 12 vs 5 game of some bloated SEC school vs Cornell, I think that's a lot of what makes the tourney so great.   

DC Native wrote:

Another solution would be to have the auto bids from the worst 16 conferences play two games on the weekend that the bigger conferences have their tournaments to whittle them down to 4 teams. The lower conferences usually have their tournaments the week before anyway. Adding the auto bids from the top 16 conferences, there would be 20, leaving 44 at large bids. To make sure the extra at large bids are not filled by power 5 bottom feeders, you could make teams with losing records in their conference ineligible.

Well, that would basically be the same thing.  If you win your conference tourney, you should be in the actual Dance.

There's some pretty good 8-10 in league teams every year not sure I'd outright ban them either, but how about a team like North Carolina that's 1-7 in Quad 1? what's the point of having the Quad 1 if losing almost every game doesn't prevent your at large chances?  How about Oklahoma who has so many chances and has lost almost all of them too?

North Texas, 1-1 vs Quad 1, 20-4, #38 Net, that's the team that belongs in, that this criteria is set up to make sure they're out.  No one has them even near a bubble.  They have the record, the computer #s, they won at UAB and hung with Kansas on the road, and won virtually every game, but this criteria will never allow any team like that to get in.

Its not like they can schedule a lot of Quad 1 games, so basically you're saying to them "you have no chance your entire regular season is meaningless.  The A10 teams have to be near perfect now, and a team like that has to be literally perfect, I guess if they were 23-1 and won at Kansas maybe they'd crack the bubble.

 
 

Was watching that game, I know their Net isn't great, but unlike North Carolina, Indiana, Oklahoma etc, they're not getting a ton of Quad 1 games and they've held their own, swept UCLA, beat USC. 

the losses are 84-81 to #2 Arizona, #6 Baylor 78-70 and blown out by Houston #4, neutral court and neutral court loss to St Mary's.  they also got blown out by BYU, the WCC had a huge OOC this year

 

Free Quebec wrote:

Bad result tonight for the A10 with Oregon picking up a 3rd Q1 win by knocking off UCLA at home. 

You just know the national media types will vault them ahead of Davidson, Dayton, Bona, and VCU - even though Oregon’s net rating would be only 5th highest in the A10 (well, it might go up a bit after this win).




Oregon’s resume now:
3-4 Q1
4-3 Q2
3-3 Q3
7-0 Q4

Here is one solution. We should be discussing win %. Seems somehow number of wins is what matters so 2-10 and 2-2 are equal

50% and 20% tells a better story

The best solution is to ban teams with losing conference record - maybe even teams that are .500 in conference.

Wouldn’t solve every problem, but it would help a little, in the same way that College Football teams need 6 wins to be bowl eligible.

Last edited by Free Quebec (2/25/2022 3:38 pm)