Mid Majorette

O

oregonhawkeye

Well-Known Member
Not a complaint about Iowa missing the tournament. A complaint about the bias toward mediocre teams.

UMass, by virtue of going 21-11 and playing a TOTAL of two ranked teams this year gets a higher NIT bid than Iowa. None of their victories are against teams that finished in the top 25. The A10 winner, SLU, got a 4 seed in the NCAA, and VCU got a 5. So everyone is pretty clear that SLU and VCU are pretty much equal to Michigan and Wisconsin, right?

Other than beating somehow ranked VCU (one W against top 25, Memphis, don't get me started), SLU had one landmarktop 25 victory, against NEW MEXICO. Who beat freaking no one. Not ONE of their defeated opponents finished in the top 25. So give them a three seed in the NCAA. Cuz they're clearly better than Syracuse and on par with Florida. (Combined somewhere around 14 games against top 25, and really, is the SEC worse than the MWC? No. Head to head, no.)

Go Zags!! #1 Seed!! What an amazing signature win against Kansas St! Rough HOME loss against the #8 Big Ten team, but those things happen. Anyway, clearly better than Duke and Miami and Ohio State and Michigan St.

It is basketball- some of these craptastic teams are actually going to win a game. But the damned system is broken. The Butlers and Gonzagas and A10s are gaming schedules and winning bids and seeds as a result. Makes me want to puke, or even worse watch the NBA.
 
oregonhawkeye said:
Not a complaint about Iowa missing the tournament. A complaint about the bias toward mediocre teams.

UMass, by virtue of going 21-11 and playing a TOTAL of two ranked teams this year gets a higher NIT bid than Iowa. None of their victories are against teams that finished in the top 25. The A10 winner, SLU, got a 4 seed in the NCAA, and VCU got a 5. So everyone is pretty clear that SLU and VCU are pretty much equal to Michigan and Wisconsin, right?

Other than beating somehow ranked VCU (one W against top 25, Memphis, don't get me started), SLU had one landmarktop 25 victory, against NEW MEXICO. Who beat freaking no one. Not ONE of their defeated opponents finished in the top 25. So give them a three seed in the NCAA. Cuz they're clearly better than Syracuse and on par with Florida. (Combined somewhere around 14 games against top 25, and really, is the SEC worse than the MWC? No. Head to head, no.)

Go Zags!! #1 Seed!! What an amazing signature win against Kansas St! Rough HOME loss against the #8 Big Ten team, but those things happen. Anyway, clearly better than Duke and Miami and Ohio State and Michigan St.

It is basketball- some of these craptastic teams are actually going to win a game. But the damned system is broken. The Butlers and Gonzagas and A10s are gaming schedules and winning bids and seeds as a result. Makes me want to puke, or even worse watch the NBA.
Click to expand...

We were FD by the NCAA does it really matter being Fd by the nit wit.
 
Mid Majors seem to know how to schedule. Play some really tough teams on the road prior to conference play- doesn't matter if you beat them, just get that SOS up. Then play well in your crappy conference with maybe one or two top 100 teams.

Get 22 wins with a high SOS- never mind the fact that you didn't beat the teams that caused your high SOS.
 
Middle Tennessee's SOS was 135, non-conference RPI of 108, they were 1-3 vs. RPI top 100 (3 point home win vs. Ole Miss), and had 21 of 28 wins vs. RPI sub 150. That's what bites me in the ***.

To me, it's not even about Iowa not getting in. They shouldn't have, but this whole crap about "the power conferences need to schedule out of conference", when a team like Midd. Tenn. play in the 15th ranked conference, beat powerhouses out of conference like Vanderbilt and Ole Miss, played Florida and got killed, which is the only legit team they played all year.
 
The challenge some of these low mid majors have is that other teams can see that a certain team is going to be good and they will not schedule games against them. The year before MTSU won 27 games and knocked off teams like UCLA in the non conference and beat Tennessee in the NIT. No coach wants to schedule a non conference game against a good low major because a home loss counts more on the weighted win percentage (1.4 home loss) than the SOS bump. So these teams struggle to get games against the top 100.

If Iowa was 1 or 2 teams away from the NCAA tournament these arguments would matter more (I love a good debate), but Iowa was one of the last 5 teams in so that means we have to make a case against 5 teams in the tournament and the 4 teams ahead of Iowa for an at large. Some times life is not fair, it sucks but at some point we need to move on.

Bring on Indiana State!
 
At the beginning of the season, I remember reading an article in SI or ESPN Mag, where Pitt discussed they scheduled with RPI ratings in mind. They stayed away from scheduling the big boys (to avoid losses), but focused on teams that they felt would have good records in bad conferences (the Montana's, Niagara's of the world). Their logic was these teams should still be relatively easy wins, but their SOS would look good because they'd be beating teams that finish the year with 20+ wins.
 
Yes, conferences like Missouri Valley and Mountain West do this as well which is why they have a high RPI year over year. The RPI is creating a feeding frenzy on those decent low major teams that everyone feels they can beat. A team like Gardner Webb becomes a hot commodity because they will take a money game to go on the road to take a loss but at the end of the season they still end up at 20 wins.
 
The rub is they didn't want a precedence of putting in weak teams from big conferences with little credentials and reward such behavior.

SSKelly, why are you here? #3 NIT is not a bubble team. Or it's a really big bubble which doesn't make sense.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ILHawk said:
The rub is they didn't want a precedence of putting in weak teams from big conferences with little credentials and reward such behavior.

SSKelly, why are you here? #3 NIT is not a bubble team. Or it's a really big bubble which doesn't make sense.
Click to expand...

Actually CBS called Iowa a bubble team during the selection show. They showed a graphic which said 'Bubbles Burst' and a list of a bunch of teams including Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia and Iowa. Despite their NIT seed, they were most definitely a bubble team.
 
AdamHawk said:
Actually CBS called Iowa a bubble team during the selection show. They showed a graphic which said 'Bubbles Burst' and a list of a bunch of teams including Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia and Iowa. Despite their NIT seed, they were most definitely a bubble team.
Click to expand...

Never given serious consideration.
 
ILHawk said:
The rub is they didn't want a precedence of putting in weak teams from big conferences with little credentials and reward such behavior.

SSKelly, why are you here? #3 NIT is not a bubble team. Or it's a really big bubble which doesn't make sense.
Click to expand...

As posted in another thread:

ssckelley said:
I would be willing to bet double or nothing (loser is off the forum for 2 weeks) that we can poll everyone here (a poll that shows who voted for what to ensure alts are not being used) that the majority here agree with me that Iowa was a bubble team. Heck I would even let the site admin, Jon Miller, decide who is right if you are afraid of the "fanatics" on this forum.

Interested?
Click to expand...

Come on big boy, I am willing to put it all on the line, how about you? Bring it on!
 
ILHawk said:
The rub is they didn't want a precedence of putting in weak teams from big conferences with little credentials and reward such behavior.

SSKelly, why are you here? #3 NIT is not a bubble team. Or it's a really big bubble which doesn't make sense.
Click to expand...

Why are you here? Find me 10 posts out of your 1,248 that are positive towards Iowa? We get it already...
 
patmyne said:
Why are you here? Find me 10 posts out of your 1,248 that are positive towards Iowa? We get it already...
Click to expand...

Cross your fingers, we might be getting a 2 week break from this guy. Consolation prize is a 2 week break from me, which might not be bad either. ;)
 
patmyne said:
Why are you here? Find me 10 posts out of your 1,248 that are positive towards Iowa? We get it already...
Click to expand...

Quite a few actually. You must not read them all or only pay attention to certain ones. Kind of like I've never even seen you before.
 
Sad to say I think Iowa's goose was cooked weeks ago. At least we didn't know that till Saturday after the game.
Fact: a small fry bubbler will be making the tournament over a major conference bubbler every time no matter how the numbers play out. So, if you are Iowa, you need to be sure you are in prior to any bubble conversation in the future.
 
ILHawk said:
Quite a few actually. You must not read them all or only pay attention to certain ones. Kind of like I've never even seen you before.
Click to expand...

That's because my posts generally bring info or positive insight to this board. You know, all those things you tend to avoid. I also won't get involved in ******* matches so I will let you have the last word. Carry on
 
HawksMN said:
Sad to say I think Iowa's goose was cooked weeks ago. At least we didn't know that till Saturday after the game.
Fact: a small fry bubbler will be making the tournament over a major conference bubbler every time no matter how the numbers play out. So, if you are Iowa, you need to be sure you are in prior to any bubble conversation in the future.
Click to expand...

You are correct (or at least appear to be). I can understand Iowa not making it. I don't like it, but through bad luck and Iowa's inability to close a couple of games, Iowa has largely itself to blame.

However, the rationale being tossed out for Iowa not making doesn't seem to apply to other teams. Despite our bad non-con schedule and "easy" conference schedule, Iowa still had 13 games against Top 50 RPI teams (and won 4 of them). Middle Tennessee had a grand total of 1 win (out of 3 total games) against Top 50 RPI teams. St. Mary's 1 Top 50 RPI win (out of 4 total games). La Salle 2 Top 50 RPI wins (out of 6 total games). Apparently it is NOT imperative for mid-majors to play good teams in the non-con, in fact it would appear they have no incentive to do so. Just run up your win total against inferior competition (something Iowa is dinged for) and you're golden.

Again, Iowa being left out isn't the main issue (although I do care about that). Virginia and a couple other power conference teams were likely more deserving than was Iowa. But if you play in a weak conference, just win a lot of games and avoid playing teams 300+ in the RPI. Is that the best way to identify at-large teams? Apparently the committee thinks so.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Share this page

Top