[Cracked Sidewalks] Cracketology: Quick Hits

[brewcity77]

A crazy bubble night led to a number of late night changes and early morning updates. As a result, we just have a few quick nuggets on the 1-seed chase, the Big East bid prospects, and last night's bubble chaos, along with a new S-Curve and bracket.

Cracketology: Quick Hits

[GoldenEagles03]

A crazy bubble night led to a number of late night changes and early morning updates. As a result, we just have a few quick nuggets on the 1-seed chase, the Big East bid prospects, and last night's bubble chaos, along with a new S-Curve and bracket.

Cracketology: Quick Hits

"Villanova and Xavier were also considered, but don't have enough heft at the top end to offset their atrocious resume averages."

Xavier absolutely has to have Saturday's win. Gotta play more desperate than them as Shaka likes to say...even though they are the more desperate team.

[Its DJOver]

You'd know better than me Brew, but is the bubble really that soft that Gtown is even near it? An NET in the upper 60's, zero Q1 wins, and their 2 Q2 wins have very little chance of moving up to Q1 (CU would have to jump 20+ spots), not to mention the truly awful non-con SOS. I know Nova has more bad losses, but does 15 spots in the NET and an actual Q1 win make the difference between one additional Q3 loss and one additional Q2 loss?  Neither really look at-large worthy to me, but it seems like Nova should be closer.

[Uncle Rico]

You'd know better than me Brew, but is the bubble really that soft that Gtown is even near it? An NET in the upper 60's, zero Q1 wins, and their 2 Q2 wins have very little chance of moving up to Q1 (CU would have to jump 20+ spots), not to mention the truly awful non-con SOS. I know Nova has more bad losses, but does 15 spots in the NET and an actual Q1 win make the difference between one additional Q3 loss and one additional Q2 loss?  Neither really look at-large worthy to me, but it seems like Nova should be closer.

The bubble is always soft

[Its DJOver]

The bubble is always soft

The bubble is always soft, but is it that soft?

68 team tournament, and it seems like you can usually count on everything 12 and below to be auto-bids from 1 bid leagues.  That leaves 46 spots. 

Just taking a quick look, Gtown is one of two teams in his "first 8 out" without a Q1 win, the other is SMU who has an NET in the 40's.  The only two other teams with an NET above 60 on his bubble each have at least 1 Q1 win (Wash St has 2, I4 only has 1 but has no losses outside Q1).

[brewcity77]

You'd know better than me Brew, but is the bubble really that soft that Gtown is even near it? An NET in the upper 60's, zero Q1 wins, and their 2 Q2 wins have very little chance of moving up to Q1 (CU would have to jump 20+ spots), not to mention the truly awful non-con SOS. I know Nova has more bad losses, but does 15 spots in the NET and an actual Q1 win make the difference between one additional Q3 loss and one additional Q2 loss?  Neither really look at-large worthy to me, but it seems like Nova should be closer.

This time of year the bubble tends to look weak. Last night I had around 20 teams I was looking at for those last spots, and this morning the last two teams in (New Mexico & Arizona State) were teams that lost and I didn't want to put in, but the alternatives were even worse.

Georgetown being where they are speaks less to their quality and more to their lack of fatal flaws. Nothing great, but all okay enough to squint and consider them. The teams behind them have a similar lack of win quality, even worse resume metrics, and worse losses. They do have a lot of work to do, though, and blowing three straight opportunities against Marquette, UConn, and St John's may ultimately be their undoing.

[Its DJOver]

This time of year the bubble tends to look weak. Last night I had around 20 teams I was looking at for those last spots, and this morning the last two teams in (New Mexico & Arizona State) were teams that lost and I didn't want to put in, but the alternatives were even worse.

Georgetown being where they are speaks less to their quality and more to their lack of fatal flaws. Nothing great, but all okay enough to squint and consider them. The teams behind them have a similar lack of win quality, even worse resume metrics, and worse losses. They do have a lot of work to do, though, and blowing three straight opportunities against Marquette, UConn, and St John's may ultimately be their undoing.

Fair, thanks for the response, agree that everyone has an incomplete body of work rn which can muddy things up.  Just trying to gauge things better, what do you see from Gtown that you don't see from someone like LSU (Literally just picked the team next to them in NET)? Neither have a Q1 win, LSU has twice as many Q2 wins, no Q3 loss, and the same number of Q4 games. Is it just too much SEC and they're unlikely to eclipse 16 wins, or is there something else that I'm missing?

[brewcity77]

They're similar, I'll admit looking at LSU projected to lose all but one remaining game on kenpom factors in. I do think the SEC squeezes teams at the bottom out.