Three Wins from a ticket to the dance

[beast of the east]

Finally! Four games, 3-1 or better, and we are dancing. There are no more mountains to climb, just some foothills. Take care of business at home, and win one away game. It's time to get very excited without any restraint. I totally respect and admire how these kids and the coaching staff have fought back improved, and come together as a team over the past 10 games. Saturday, they can put a giant exclamation point on this streak and solidify their position. It's finally a game that will dictate their season. Win this one and the path is immeasurably easier. Lose and be completely out of lives.

More of our fans are travelling for an away game than I can remember in several years. Lets be loud, and for once take over a visiting arena even outnumbered.

Go Redmen.

 

[Eddyman11]

Finally! Four games, 3-1 or better, and we are dancing. There are no more mountains to climb, just some foothills. Take care of business at home, and win one away game. It's time to get very excited without any restraint. I totally respect and admire how these kids and the coaching staff have fought back improved, and come together as a team over the past 10 games. Saturday, they can put a giant exclamation point on this streak and solidify their position. It's finally a game that will dictate their season. Win this one and the path is immeasurably easier. Lose and be completely out of lives.

More of our fans are travelling for an away game than I can remember in several years. Lets be loud, and for once take over a visiting arena even outnumbered.

Go Redmen.

Well said. With all the Story lines, The up and downs of the season, The dominant B-Ball as of late and the character of the players on the team... This team is shaping up to be one of My Favorite since I started following the program ( late 90's). Lets keep the streak going into the Tourney!

 

[postell25]

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If we lose to Nova and beat Xavier, DePaul and Marquette we're still only looking at one top 50 RPI win on the year and those three wins wouldn't do a whole lot in pushing our RPI down. Beating Nova this weekend is pivotal if we want to breathe easy on Selection Sunday. It's a soft bubble this year and there are a lot of teams with similar resumes. What hurts us is that the committee says they no longer takes how you finished the season in to account. It's your whole body of work.

Lose to Nova and I still think we need two wins in the Big East tournament to be safe.

 

[Moose]

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If we lose to Nova and beat Xavier, DePaul and Marquette we're still only looking at one top 50 RPI win on the year and those three wins wouldn't do a whole lot in pushing our RPI down. Beating Nova this weekend is pivotal if we want to breathe easy on Selection Sunday. It's a soft bubble this year and there are a lot of teams with similar resumes. What hurts us is that the committee says they no longer takes how you finished the season in to account. It's your whole body of work.

Lose to Nova and I still think we need two wins in the Big East tournament to be safe.

21 wins and 11-7 in a Top 4-5 conference will do it. We would have a good road/neutral court record and I don't buy that playing hot down the stretch is no longer considered. They can say all they want but they will pick the red hot team over a stumbler all day.

 

[weathermannyc]

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If we lose to Nova and beat Xavier, DePaul and Marquette we're still only looking at one top 50 RPI win on the year and those three wins wouldn't do a whole lot in pushing our RPI down. Beating Nova this weekend is pivotal if we want to breathe easy on Selection Sunday. It's a soft bubble this year and there are a lot of teams with similar resumes. What hurts us is that the committee says they no longer takes how you finished the season in to account. It's your whole body of work.

Lose to Nova and I still think we need two wins in the Big East tournament to be safe.

21 wins and 11-7 in a Top 4-5 conference will do it. We would have a good road/neutral court record and I don't buy that playing hot down the stretch is no longer considered. They can say all they want but they will pick the red hot team over a stumbler all day.

I think a high ceiling also matters. It's human nature. The last couple of teams in the bracket (and the first couple out) are highly scrutinized. It's natural for a committee member to want that last couple of teams in to win a game or two to "validate" the selection. A team that is playing well gives them a better chance of that then a team that is stumbling into the tournament.

 

[postell25]

21 Wins and 11-7 in conference are as arbitrary as looking at the AP Rankings to determine tournament seedings. There is a lot more that goes in to it than that. Their best non-conference win was against San Francisco at home. After that it's Georgia Tech on a neutral court and they are just about to fall outside the Top 150 RPI. We were lousy in non-conference and dug ourselves a huge hole in our first five Big East games.

If they're putting us against teams like West Virginia, Tennessee and BYU, the conference isn't going to come in to it. It all comes down to who you have beaten and as of now we only have one feather in our cap.

 

[Sleek718]

like does a juror really ignore something said in court because the judge tells them to?

 

[redmanwest]

It is really hard to believe that just a few weeks ago this team seemed dead and buried. Myself and most others thought so. It is also uncanny how Lavin's prediction of a February run has come true. These guys were less than the sum of their parts at the beginning for a variety of reasons, but now look like a TEAM with multiple parts and playmakers who can carry it. That's the kind of thing you need to make a run.

I think they get to the Tourney. I don't know exactly how, but I feel it is unlikely that they fall apart now.

The CO injury is a little fly in the ointment, especially against Villanova's frontcourt, but a win in that game would be icing on the cake, not an essential win. It would be a big exclamation point though. Feels good to have hope at this juncture.

 

[postell25]

like does a juror really ignore something said in court because the judge tells them to?

I actually tend to agree that they do look at how a team finishes but I was just stating what their criteria is. That's all I can go by.

 

[Moose]

21 Wins and 11-7 in conference are as arbitrary as looking at the AP Rankings to determine tournament seedings. There is a lot more that goes in to it than that. Their best non-conference win was against San Francisco at home. After that it's Georgia Tech on a neutral court and they are just about to fall outside the Top 150 RPI. We were lousy in non-conference and dug ourselves a huge hole in our first five Big East games.

If they're putting us against teams like West Virginia, Tennessee and BYU, the conference isn't going to come in to it. It all comes down to who you have beaten and as of now we only have one feather in our cap.

SOS was not lousy though. Losing to Cuse and Wisconsin is nothing to sneeze at. That factors into the equation.

People should really pay attention to Lunardi. He has a ridiculous success rate when it comes to picking teams in the dance.

 

[postell25]

21 Wins and 11-7 in conference are as arbitrary as looking at the AP Rankings to determine tournament seedings. There is a lot more that goes in to it than that. Their best non-conference win was against San Francisco at home. After that it's Georgia Tech on a neutral court and they are just about to fall outside the Top 150 RPI. We were lousy in non-conference and dug ourselves a huge hole in our first five Big East games.

If they're putting us against teams like West Virginia, Tennessee and BYU, the conference isn't going to come in to it. It all comes down to who you have beaten and as of now we only have one feather in our cap.

SOS was not lousy though. Losing to Cuse and Wisconsin is nothing to sneeze at. That factors into the equation.

People should really pay attention to Lunardi. He has a ridiculous success rate when it comes to picking teams in the dance.

I read Lunardi religiously and I'm not denying that St. John's isn't right there but I think we're all sweating on Selection Sunday without that one more signature win.

SOS really only works against you. It proves that you didn't challenge yourself enough. Just because you have a good SOS doesn't mean they won't look to see who you've beaten on it.

 

[Eddyman11]

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If we lose to Nova and beat Xavier, DePaul and Marquette we're still only looking at one top 50 RPI win on the year and those three wins wouldn't do a whole lot in pushing our RPI down. Beating Nova this weekend is pivotal if we want to breathe easy on Selection Sunday. It's a soft bubble this year and there are a lot of teams with similar resumes. What hurts us is that the committee says they no longer takes how you finished the season in to account. It's your whole body of work.

Lose to Nova and I still think we need two wins in the Big East tournament to be safe.

21 wins and 11-7 in a Top 4-5 conference will do it. We would have a good road/neutral court record and I don't buy that playing hot down the stretch is no longer considered. They can say all they want but they will pick the red hot team over a stumbler all day.

Exactly! Gary Williams made the same point yesterday. They can claim they are looking at the body of work but human nature is always "What have you done for me lately".

Perfect example would be a team like us versus a team like OSU Cowboys a few games ago. They were trending down with a decent resume and we were trending up with a decent resume. I think we would have the edge in the eyes of the Selection Committee

 

[beast of the east]

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If we lose to Nova and beat Xavier, DePaul and Marquette we're still only looking at one top 50 RPI win on the year and those three wins wouldn't do a whole lot in pushing our RPI down. Beating Nova this weekend is pivotal if we want to breathe easy on Selection Sunday. It's a soft bubble this year and there are a lot of teams with similar resumes. What hurts us is that the committee says they no longer takes how you finished the season in to account. It's your whole body of work.

Lose to Nova and I still think we need two wins in the Big East tournament to be safe.

21 wins and 11-7 in a Top 4-5 conference will do it. We would have a good road/neutral court record and I don't buy that playing hot down the stretch is no longer considered. They can say all they want but they will pick the red hot team over a stumbler all day.

Exactly! Gary Williams made the same point yesterday. They can claim they are looking at the body of work but human nature is always "What have you done for me lately".

Perfect example would be a team like us versus a team like OSU Cowboys a few games ago. They were trending down with a decent resume and we were trending up with a decent resume. I think we would have the edge in the eyes of the Selection Committee

I am pretty certain the selection committee, no matter what they say, would rather have a team that has ripped off 9 or 10 wins or whatever than a team that stumbles towards the finish losing 9 of 10. I'm comfortable at 11-7 n conference. 10-8 would be very shaky.

 

[postell25]

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If we lose to Nova and beat Xavier, DePaul and Marquette we're still only looking at one top 50 RPI win on the year and those three wins wouldn't do a whole lot in pushing our RPI down. Beating Nova this weekend is pivotal if we want to breathe easy on Selection Sunday. It's a soft bubble this year and there are a lot of teams with similar resumes. What hurts us is that the committee says they no longer takes how you finished the season in to account. It's your whole body of work.

Lose to Nova and I still think we need two wins in the Big East tournament to be safe.

21 wins and 11-7 in a Top 4-5 conference will do it. We would have a good road/neutral court record and I don't buy that playing hot down the stretch is no longer considered. They can say all they want but they will pick the red hot team over a stumbler all day.

Exactly! Gary Williams made the same point yesterday. They can claim they are looking at the body of work but human nature is always "What have you done for me lately".

Perfect example would be a team like us versus a team like OSU Cowboys a few games ago. They were trending down with a decent resume and we were trending up with a decent resume. I think we would have the edge in the eyes of the Selection Committee

I think it depends on how the team looks when Marcus Smart comes back. If they play well then the last three losses won't even count. It's like Colorado and Spencer Dinwiddie. They are going to the tournament based on their body of work but they'll probably drop at least 2 or 3 seed lines since they won't have (arguably) their best player.

 

[Moose]

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If we lose to Nova and beat Xavier, DePaul and Marquette we're still only looking at one top 50 RPI win on the year and those three wins wouldn't do a whole lot in pushing our RPI down. Beating Nova this weekend is pivotal if we want to breathe easy on Selection Sunday. It's a soft bubble this year and there are a lot of teams with similar resumes. What hurts us is that the committee says they no longer takes how you finished the season in to account. It's your whole body of work.

Lose to Nova and I still think we need two wins in the Big East tournament to be safe.

21 wins and 11-7 in a Top 4-5 conference will do it. We would have a good road/neutral court record and I don't buy that playing hot down the stretch is no longer considered. They can say all they want but they will pick the red hot team over a stumbler all day.

Exactly! Gary Williams made the same point yesterday. They can claim they are looking at the body of work but human nature is always "What have you done for me lately".

Perfect example would be a team like us versus a team like OSU Cowboys a few games ago. They were trending down with a decent resume and we were trending up with a decent resume. I think we would have the edge in the eyes of the Selection Committee

I think it depends on how the team looks when Marcus Smart comes back. If they play well then the last three losses won't even count. It's like Colorado and Spencer Dinwiddie. They are going to the tournament based on their body of work but they'll probably drop at least 2 or 3 seed lines since they won't have (arguably) their best player.

Aka what happened to us and DJ. Unwritten rule but its something they do behind those closed doors.

 

[beast of the east]

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If we lose to Nova and beat Xavier, DePaul and Marquette we're still only looking at one top 50 RPI win on the year and those three wins wouldn't do a whole lot in pushing our RPI down. Beating Nova this weekend is pivotal if we want to breathe easy on Selection Sunday. It's a soft bubble this year and there are a lot of teams with similar resumes. What hurts us is that the committee says they no longer takes how you finished the season in to account. It's your whole body of work.

Lose to Nova and I still think we need two wins in the Big East tournament to be safe.

21 wins and 11-7 in a Top 4-5 conference will do it. We would have a good road/neutral court record and I don't buy that playing hot down the stretch is no longer considered. They can say all they want but they will pick the red hot team over a stumbler all day.

Exactly! Gary Williams made the same point yesterday. They can claim they are looking at the body of work but human nature is always "What have you done for me lately".

Perfect example would be a team like us versus a team like OSU Cowboys a few games ago. They were trending down with a decent resume and we were trending up with a decent resume. I think we would have the edge in the eyes of the Selection Committee

I think it depends on how the team looks when Marcus Smart comes back. If they play well then the last three losses won't even count. It's like Colorado and Spencer Dinwiddie. They are going to the tournament based on their body of work but they'll probably drop at least 2 or 3 seed lines since they won't have (arguably) their best player.

Aka what happened to us and DJ. Unwritten rule but its something they do behind those closed doors.

I was thinking the same thing. The selection committee explained that we got a lower seed than we earned because we weren't as good a team without DJ. That logic to me was astonishing. So if we got an automatic bid and our top 3 players contracts pneumonia or Epstein bar that they would drop us altogether?

 

[austour]

The obvious example of this was when Cincinnati was the #1 team in the last poll but Kenyon Martin broke his leg in their last game and even though they were #1 they were made a 2 seed.

 

[postell25]

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If we lose to Nova and beat Xavier, DePaul and Marquette we're still only looking at one top 50 RPI win on the year and those three wins wouldn't do a whole lot in pushing our RPI down. Beating Nova this weekend is pivotal if we want to breathe easy on Selection Sunday. It's a soft bubble this year and there are a lot of teams with similar resumes. What hurts us is that the committee says they no longer takes how you finished the season in to account. It's your whole body of work.

Lose to Nova and I still think we need two wins in the Big East tournament to be safe.

21 wins and 11-7 in a Top 4-5 conference will do it. We would have a good road/neutral court record and I don't buy that playing hot down the stretch is no longer considered. They can say all they want but they will pick the red hot team over a stumbler all day.

Exactly! Gary Williams made the same point yesterday. They can claim they are looking at the body of work but human nature is always "What have you done for me lately".

Perfect example would be a team like us versus a team like OSU Cowboys a few games ago. They were trending down with a decent resume and we were trending up with a decent resume. I think we would have the edge in the eyes of the Selection Committee

I think it depends on how the team looks when Marcus Smart comes back. If they play well then the last three losses won't even count. It's like Colorado and Spencer Dinwiddie. They are going to the tournament based on their body of work but they'll probably drop at least 2 or 3 seed lines since they won't have (arguably) their best player.

Aka what happened to us and DJ. Unwritten rule but its something they do behind those closed doors.

I was thinking the same thing. The selection committee explained that we got a lower seed than we earned because we weren't as good a team without DJ. That logic to me was astonishing. So if we got an automatic bid and our top 3 players contracts pneumonia or Epstein bar that they would drop us altogether?

I think they really started weighing it with Kenyon Martin in the 1999-2000 season. They go 16-0 in Conference USA and are like 25-2 and on the way to a 1 seed. He gets hurt early in the first round CUSA tourney game and they lose to St. Louis. Which even with a healthy Kenyon Martin would have probably dropped them to a 2 seed but they got a 2 any way. I remember at the time there was talk that they should have been dropped to a 6 or 7 seed without him. And of course they blow out a 15 seed then lose to Tulsa in the second round.

The committee's job it to make the best tournament possible. They don't owe any team anything. DJ was a huge player for us and our leading rebounder. The seed bump was justified.

 

[Moose]

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If we lose to Nova and beat Xavier, DePaul and Marquette we're still only looking at one top 50 RPI win on the year and those three wins wouldn't do a whole lot in pushing our RPI down. Beating Nova this weekend is pivotal if we want to breathe easy on Selection Sunday. It's a soft bubble this year and there are a lot of teams with similar resumes. What hurts us is that the committee says they no longer takes how you finished the season in to account. It's your whole body of work.

Lose to Nova and I still think we need two wins in the Big East tournament to be safe.

21 wins and 11-7 in a Top 4-5 conference will do it. We would have a good road/neutral court record and I don't buy that playing hot down the stretch is no longer considered. They can say all they want but they will pick the red hot team over a stumbler all day.

Exactly! Gary Williams made the same point yesterday. They can claim they are looking at the body of work but human nature is always "What have you done for me lately".

Perfect example would be a team like us versus a team like OSU Cowboys a few games ago. They were trending down with a decent resume and we were trending up with a decent resume. I think we would have the edge in the eyes of the Selection Committee

I think it depends on how the team looks when Marcus Smart comes back. If they play well then the last three losses won't even count. It's like Colorado and Spencer Dinwiddie. They are going to the tournament based on their body of work but they'll probably drop at least 2 or 3 seed lines since they won't have (arguably) their best player.

Aka what happened to us and DJ. Unwritten rule but its something they do behind those closed doors.

I was thinking the same thing. The selection committee explained that we got a lower seed than we earned because we weren't as good a team without DJ. That logic to me was astonishing. So if we got an automatic bid and our top 3 players contracts pneumonia or Epstein bar that they would drop us altogether?

I think they really started weighing it with Kenyon Martin in the 1999-2000 season. They go 16-0 in Conference USA and are like 25-2 and on the way to a 1 seed. He gets hurt early in the first round CUSA tourney game and they lose to St. Louis. Which even with a healthy Kenyon Martin would have probably dropped them to a 2 seed but they got a 2 any way. I remember at the time there was talk that they should have been dropped to a 6 or 7 seed without him. And of course they blow out a 15 seed then lose to Tulsa in the second round.

The committee's job it to make the best tournament possible. They don't owe any team anything. DJ was a huge player for us and our leading rebounder. The seed bump was justified.

They are there to make the best tournament possible? I don't know if I agree but for argument sake lets say I do. Then you take the hot team over the stumbling one. You take the major team over the mid major. Lots of variables then.

 

[Eddyman11]

I see the logic behind dropping a team that has lost its best player but I dont agree with it. You earned your place and deserve to keep it. Imagine if the same applied to D-1 Football?

Excuse my ignorance, but who makes up the Selection Committee? is it Media and former coaches?