Thursday, March 10, 2005
Chances tonight
Okay, so what chance to we have tonight. UConn is better than us at every position and is playing their best basketball of the year. And we played yesterday. They also beat us easily twice. I'm saying we have a 5-10% chance of winning because they probably will not be playing with much of a sense of urgency and could be a little rusty b/c they've had the last week off. That said if we win we very well could sneak into the tourney. There were a number of recent developments that could help us. First, everyone has been calculating the RPI wrong. We're in the mid-60s, NOT the mid-90s. Second, Notre Dame's loss really hurt them. I think they are cooked. Third, a lot of bubble teams have lost recently. Although I realize this is primarily an academic discussion, if we win tonight, and West Virginia loses, there is no way their they or ND gets in over us (all three of our RPIs and SOS are comprable). Would the committee only take 5 teams from the Big East?
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4 comments:
I would agree that our chances tonight our minimal given past encounters with UConn and recent play. However, a win tonight would be hard to overlook in the selection process. Even if WV beats BC, I think a victory over UConn is worth more.
While all rationale thoughts in my mind speak to a UConn victory, stranger things have been known to happen in March than for GU to win.
Mike, what makes you think that everyone is calculating our RPI incorrectly? What do you base that assertion on?
Ken Pomeroy posted on his blog that based on conversations with NCAA officials he has determined that everyone was calculating the new RPI wrongly. It is kind of complicated but basically no one knew for sure how the changes were going to work -- that is why every site has a different RPI calculated. Anyway, Ken claims that everyone got it wrong and in fact his recalculations make a lot of sense. For instance, the Pac-10, which had the 2nd highest conference RPI all year in spite of being incredibly weak, actually has the 4th highest. And teams like St. Mary's are no longer in the top 20 etc. Here is the link:
http://kenpom.typepad.com/
Actually, if you click on the "team sheet" example shown to Sports Illustrated by the NCAA you can read Illinois' resume. It includes a win against us -- who, as of the date of the sheet -- had an RPI of 71, not 95. The actual article is very helpful in explaining the selection process. It shows why West Viriginia winning today really helps us b/c it gives us another win against an RPI top 50 team.
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