What’s as important as the wins themselves at this point are the losses already accumulated. Obvious, I know, but here’s what I really mean: The quad system is only relevant after the final game. It’s all tentative until then, so some lucky breaks in the numbers might yet help SCU.
One of the Q3 losses is likely to flip to Q2. That’s Stanford, especially after they upset UNC on Saturday in Chapel Hill. Stanford is just barely outside the top-75. Need them to pick up another decent ACC win to flip inside the top-75. Then that’s one Q3 loss eliminated.
But then you still have to convert one of the others to Q2. Maybe LMU does it now that they can play some of the lesser WCC squads. They have to jump 20 spots, though. That’s easier in the mid-100s, but the NET is getting sticky at this point in the season. NDSU has almost no chance of getting to top-75. They’ve done SCU a massive favor by being as high as they are so as not to be a catastrophic Q4 loss.
Washington is inside the top-100, which means Q2, but they could spiral at any moment.
Oh and Wazzu is now Q3 at home. So they cannot lose the next game. Even the theoretical chances evaporate then.
All of which is to say, each loss is like doubling down on the roulette wheel. Every time you lose, you stake yet another all-in bet on red or black. Sure, you could get five straight. But we are dealing with theoretical possibilities now. I think @getnashty joked a few weeks ago that we were at that point of the season where we bargain over the possibility of 11-game winning streaks.
I was actually a little optimistic up until the LMU loss. I saw the Stanford loss flipping to Q2, leaving SCU with only one bad resume loss. But then the stinker at LMU meant one more double-down at roulette, and the odds once again look much too remote to focus on.
Go 3-0 over the next set (while rooting hard for the Cardinal and LMU Lions), and maybe there’s some reevaluation. But you want your resume to be in your control as much as possible, and that’s just not at all what SCU has created for itself this season.
