Latest bubble from Lunardi.
- Thread starter DesotoCountyDawg
- Start date
Yep, I think the good news is when you look at his Last 4 In teams, their resumes are very comparable to ours right now. The bad news is that there are probably 25-30 teams if not more with comparable resumes, so it’d be great to do something during the next few weeks to really set ourselves apart. For now, just keep winning and I like our chances
Looking at the 8 games remaining on our regular season schedule, I think we have 5 "must win" games and then we probably need 2 out of the other 3 or 1 out of 3 plus an SEC Tourney game win. That would put us at 22-9 (plus whatever gravy happens in the SECT) or 22-10 overall with a 10-8 or 9-9 regular season conference record.
I considered LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Vandy as Must Wins due to them being potentially bad losses. I went ahead and classified Texas A&M as a Must Win since it's a bubble team at home and wouldn't get the same deference as a home loss to Kentucky.
Then I think we need 2 from Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri or 1 and a Tourney game win.
| Team | Location | Record | Need |
| LSU | Home | 12-11 | Must Win |
| Arkansas | Away | 16-7 | 2 of 3 |
| Kentucky | Home | 16-7 | 2 of 3 |
| Ole Miss | Away | 9-14 | Must Win |
| Mizzou | Away | 17-6 | 2 of 3 |
| TAMU | Home | 16-7 | Must Win |
| USCe | Home | 8-15 | Must Win |
| Vandy | Home | 11-12 | Must Win |
I considered LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Vandy as Must Wins due to them being potentially bad losses. I went ahead and classified Texas A&M as a Must Win since it's a bubble team at home and wouldn't get the same deference as a home loss to Kentucky.
Then I think we need 2 from Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri or 1 and a Tourney game win.
I agree. however, it would depend on who that 1 tourney game is. if we're playing usc, vandy, uga, or om then we will need to beat one of the top 4 seeds too.
In other words, our chances are slim and none ? And Slim just saddled his horse
I don’t get that either. State is two places higher in the Net than Mizzou. They do have a better conference record so I guess that counts for something
We have the opportunity to damage the resumes of Kentucky, Arkansas, & Texas A & M on this list while improving our's.
At this point there’s little room for error and they probably need to win a couple in the SEC Tournament.
I think we can be in the discussion going 5-3 and be in at 6-2. 7-1 is no questions asked.
That's going to be a very tall order. I think 5-3 is a lot more likely than anything better, and 4-4 may be more likely than 5-3.
The question is whether we can continue the FG & FT% we started @ Bamer. We've been doing just that ever since and if we continue, I see 7-1 and an invite and we still have the SEC tourney if we stumble somewhere along the way.
We cam just take the rest of the regular season off.
Only need to win the sec tourney and we will get to the dance.
Only need to win the sec tourney and we will get to the dance.
8 does seem pretty high. Compared to us they are 17-6 to our 15-8, and the two game difference is made up of SEC games (5-5 vs 3-7).
Their results based metrics are better, but our predictives are better. Non-conference for them is 190, us 220. Not drastically better but some. They are 7-6 in quads 1-2. We are 5-8. Win two of three from Florida, UGA and Drake and we would be right there with them.
I know it’s not the only metric, but if you go by straight NET rankings* this is the bubble as of today:
Last 4 byes:
Last 4 byes:
- Texas A&M
- NC State
- Ohio State
- Florida
- North Carolina
- Michigan State
- Mississippi State
- Memphis
- Missouri
- Virginia Tech
- Southern California
- Northwestern
- Seton Hall
- Oregon
- Pittsburgh
- Utah
Lunardi does his bracket as a snapshot of the current state of things, not a projection. Currently we are four games under .500 in conference play, so I get why he has us out and not particularly close to in. It would be like if we finished with a 7-11 SEC record.
Keep winning and it will take care of itself, though. I think 10 league wins including the SECT gets us in (9-9 + 1 in Nashville or 8-10 + 2 in Nashville).
Keep winning and it will take care of itself, though. I think 10 league wins including the SECT gets us in (9-9 + 1 in Nashville or 8-10 + 2 in Nashville).
He just released a more detailed breakdown on Twitter. He has us as the 10th team out currently, so roughly an NIT 3 seed.
If we go 3-1 over the next 4, this will all look a lot better. We’ll have 18 wins and be 6-8 in the SEC. LSU and OM are obviously must-wins, then its a matter of splitting the other two against UK and Arkansas. Do that, and we’ll likely be on that last 4 in / first 4 out cut line, with the ability to control our destiny over the final 5-6 games.
You're probably right, but at 5-3 I think we're going to need some tourney wins.
Wonder how many NIT tickets we'll get in Hattiesburg?
If this happens, you are getting banned. I promise.
So…same song, different year.
Slightly kidding, this has been the best basketball season in a while, but this yearly (selective memory) bubble watch sucks. Hoping Jans has us discussing whether we’ll be a 4-5 seed this time next year.
Slightly kidding, this has been the best basketball season in a while, but this yearly (selective memory) bubble watch sucks. Hoping Jans has us discussing whether we’ll be a 4-5 seed this time next year.
These last three games were must wins just to keep us in the conversation. The next five games are the ones that can get us in the tournament. At Ark, host UK, at OM, at Mizzou, host A&M. Win four of those five, and we are in very good shape.
Brian Bennett of The Athletic weighs in…
The nitty gritty…
Now where's that Major League .jpeg I used a few days ago...
The nitty gritty…
Now where's that Major League .jpeg I used a few days ago...
Lunardi has Southern Miss in right now as the Sun Belt automatic qualifier.
A win tomorrow would be a game changer for our chances, but a loss doesn’t kill us. We do need to beat Kentucky and Ole Miss next week, though.
I wonder what the yearly average for "stolen bids" is coming out of conference tourney week. A couple conferences turning from one-bid conferences to two-bid could make the difference.
I appreciate that we did not really drop from last year given that e have a new coach and all. I am encouraged by the effort Jans is getting out of this squad and I'm cautiously optimistic about his trajectory.
Georgia didn't do anybody any favors by beating Kentucky today. Kentucky will steal somebody's spot out of the big dance unless they unravel entirely. They are not that good this year, but just good enough to screw someone's year up at the end.
Actually helped us because we don't need Georgia slipping to a quad 3 or 4 loss.
What’s the synopsis of the blind resume challenge for the ones who don’t subscribe to The Athletic?
It didn’t tell us nothing most of us didn’t know already.
Round 1: Triangle of sadness
| TEAM A | TEAM B | TEAM C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NET | 40 | 45 | 46 |
| Q1 | 1-7 | 1-8 | 2-9 |
| Q2 | 6-0 | 5-1 | 1-2 |
| Q3 | 3-0 | 3-0 | 6-0 |
| Q4 | 6-1 | 6-0 | 4-0 |
| KenPom | 40 | 37 | 44 |
| Sagarin | 35 | 34 | 43 |
| KPI | 42 | 46 | 56 |
| SOR | 44 | 25 | 66 |
| SOS | 38 | 25 | 11 |
| Road | 3-3 | 2-6 | 3-5 |
You might have guessed by now that Team A is Kentucky, and Team B is North Carolina. Team C is Florida, which is 13-11 overall and nobody’s idea of a tournament team right now. Kentucky has the best win of the bunch, by far, having beaten Tennessee on the road, but also the worst loss (home to South Carolina). Meanwhile, North Carolina’s lone Quad 1 victory to date is on a neutral floor against a fading Ohio State squad.
Edited to bold the following…
Neither UK nor UNC is in that much better shape than Florida, however, which is why we currently have both bluebloods matching up in what would undoubtedly be the most-viewed First Four game ever.
Edited to bold the following…
Neither UK nor UNC is in that much better shape than Florida, however, which is why we currently have both bluebloods matching up in what would undoubtedly be the most-viewed First Four game ever.
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