Bracketology

Will Nebrasketball Make the NCAA Tournament?

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SMU lost to Tulsa tonight without Shake Milton. The Mustangs are really going to be sweating come Selection Sunday. They have some great wins (Arizona neutral, @ Wichita State, Boise, USC) but some horrendous losses (@ Tulsa, @ UConn, @ Tulane). 

Temple won tonight at home against Wichita State. They're a team to keep an eye out for. They're one of those teams the metrics love despite their record. RPI 46 and SOS 3. They have 3 very very winnable games next up on their schedule (@ Tulane, ECU, @USF). They win those 3 and they're sitting at 15-10 (7-6) with probably a top 40 RPI and a top 5 SOS with wins over Wichita State, Auburn, Clemson, South Carolina, and SMU. They'll definitely be in the conversation for a bid. I'd expect them to lose @ Wichita State but if they go 6-2 the rest of the way they're probably in line for a bid at 18-12. 

Will be interesting to see how the rest of this stuff plays out. 

 
Atbone95 said:
But we would not have beat Cincy... and a loss would look really bad right now... 
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That's not the point if we schedule a home game against any quality team it helps our cause and we play well at home. On the road or neutral and maybe not. Anyway, a quality team but not a Kansas level team would have helped.

Mavric said:
So stacking our schedule with cupcakes to help the win total out may backfire....
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Surprisingly yes, this is no Doc Sadler pad the wins schedule but it was relatively easy from a Tim Miles team. He is usually really good at getting good teams on the schedule. Eastern Illinois was a terrible home opener, it should have been a better quality opponent than them. Now instead of being in, we are hoping to get in, unless we win the conference tourney.

 
I do agree with @HuskermanMike

regarding future scheduling, teams I’d like to see games with in that middle tier:

Temple

Houston

SMU

Cincinnati

St Mary’s 

Boise State

Wichita State

Rhode Island

Quality buy games:

New Mexico St

Western Kentucky 

Middle Tennessee St

FGCU

Wofford

Old Dominion 

South Dakota

South Dakota State

Davidson

You can project who will be good year in/year out. One of the biggest advantages of being able to schedule so close to the season in basketball (and unlike in football where the schedules are made years in advance) is that you tend to know who will be good and who won’t. Nebraska really needs to trim the fat on the schedule next year and bring in some quality opponents (majority top 150) in then non-conference. It will make a world of difference come Selection Sunday. 

 
For RPI calcs, you want to avoid playing 300+ ranked teams.  Stetson (#319), Marist (#323), and Delaware St (#351 out of 351, so DFL!) are really weighting down our SOS.  Replace them with teams in the mid 200s and we would move up some spots.

But I'm assuming it is really hard to tell how these cupcakes will rank when scheduling.  You don't know if a Marist will be #320 or #220 when you schedule them.

 
Mavric said:
So stacking our schedule with cupcakes to help the win total out may backfire....
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Part of the problem has been injuries to some of the "better" teams they played.  St John's & UCF were good teams until injuries killed their seasons.  They were both losses, but wouldn't looked so ugly.  Minnesota would have been a good win if they hadn't had injuries and suspensions - we did play them when they were at full strength and hopefully the committee will factor that in to their decision.  Had they won the UCF game, they wouldn't have played two patsies.  The down side to those 8 team holiday tournaments is that if you lose the first game, the other two games usually hurt your SOS.  Yes, they played a lot of crappy teams, but so does everyone else in the power conferences.  The problem is that they didn't win any of their early season games against good teams.

 
http://www.espn.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/120827/weekend-lookahead-tough-stretch-will-reveal-if-vols-are-for-real

ESPN bracket guru Joe Lunardi currently projects four Big Ten teams to make the NCAA tournament field: Purdue, Michigan State, Ohio State and Michigan. Barring a late collapse by the Wolverines, each of those teams seems pretty safe.

At least half of the Big Ten's 14 teams were included in every NCAA tournament since 2011, but the league isn't going to get anywhere close to that this season. An even bigger surprise: Nebraska might have the best chance at being the fifth Big Ten team to make it, barring a big upset at the league tourney at Madison Square Garden.

The Cornhuskers (17-8, 8-4 Big Ten) have won five of their past six games to climb into fourth place (a half-game ahead of Michigan) in the Big Ten standings. They're getting a week off before playing at Minnesota on Tuesday night. Nebraska has one victory over an RPI top-50 opponent -- 72-52 over Michigan on Jan. 18 -- and it doesn't play another top-50 foe the rest of the way. There's no margin for error.
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Obviously I'd rather see nebraska make the tournament, but playing in the NIT could be fun too, since we'd probably be a reasonably high seed and play at least a couple games at home, which would give us a good chance to at least make it to the quarter finals.

 
Red Five said:
For RPI calcs, you want to avoid playing 300+ ranked teams.  Stetson (#319), Marist (#323), and Delaware St (#351 out of 351, so DFL!) are really weighting down our SOS.  Replace them with teams in the mid 200s and we would move up some spots.

But I'm assuming it is really hard to tell how these cupcakes will rank when scheduling.  You don't know if a Marist will be #320 or #220 when you schedule them.
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Marist was in the holiday tournament.  Had they beaten UCF, they would have played West Virginia instead.

 
Since when does 8-4 in the BIG not make the tournament as a 5 seed?

Whatever happened to “.500 makes the tournament”?

 
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