I checked 4 different sites this morning that include NIT projections. In the case of all four: Santa Clara, USF and Oregon St are in presently. Of course, much will change over the next few weeks.
Omni Rankings
As of 02/01:
#5 USF @ Iowa #7 Oregon St @ Indiana #7 SCU @ Utah St.
RT Rankings
As of 02/01:
#3 SCU vs Bradley #3 Oregon St vs Dayton #5 USF @ UC Irvine
Barking Crow
As of 02/03:
#3 USF vs Stanford #7 SCU @ USC #7 Oregon St @ Boise St
I am not ruling out a 2nd place finish in conference, and 3rd is realistic IMO. The last 7 games for USF include two with the Zags, vs SMC, @ Oregon St, @ LMU. That’s a rough stretch that lies ahead for the Dons.
Yeah. USF is benefitting from the quick reaction to them having 3 losses instead of 4. There are are 3-4 very likely losses ahead of them. At the end of the season, I expect whoever takes 3rd will have a good seed in the NIT at worst.
I hate the NIT talk! We are not that far off from tourney worthy. NET at 61. Couple of disastrous Quad 3 losses and a record of 2-3 in Quad 1. If we can somehow upset Gonzaga and SMC to close out the season that should give us 4 Quad 1 wins with an 4-3 record and potentially we have to make it to at least the WCC championship and knocking off another Quad 1 win in the semifinals. I am not ready to throw in the at large towel just yet. We have a better NET than USC, UCF and Wake Forest. All bubble teams and UCF is actually last team out if you believe Lunardi. UCF is 3-6 against Quad 1 and 0-2 in Quad 2. Wake is 1-7 against Quad 1.
Might be the slimmest of chances but as Jim Carey said, so we have a chance!!!
It’s a matter of where we are. We’re going to need to beat the Zags at home or win in Moraga, plus rest of our conference games to enter the at large discussion. So, if we’re fortunate to win 6 of our last 7 with that one loss being to either GU or SMC at 21-10, we’re going to be either a 2 or 3 seed with either a sweep of the Zags or split versus both.
Is that enough or do we need one win in WCC tournament to feel pretty confident of getting a bid? IMO, 5-2 the rest of the way means having to win the conference tournament to get to the dance.
I think they need to win out to feel like the odds are 60% or better. LMU is on its way to being a Q2 loss, so the resume will look okay as long as Washington, Stanford, and NDSU all maintain. They are all close to the line, though.
With one more loss, I think it might be enough to get one win in the tournament. But that’s potentially saying the same thing either way: you need to win 2/3 against SMC/Gonzaga. You can take your loss in the conference
or in Vegas, but you need to get two wins against the best.
And hey, this is the first season I’ve ever thought that’s within the realm of possibility! But it’s a very, very tall order.
One small follow-up: I just noticed that the NET ranking list now has the WAB listed (Wins Above Bubble). That’s the metric that Torvik tracks that is now used to determine NCAA Tournament bids–basically how much better/worse have you done against your schedule than a hypothetical bubble team would have.
SCU is 87 in that ranking, the second lowest in the top-75 after Villanova. Now big wins help with WAB (see the big jump after beating Gonzaga), but it’s mostly just that losses hurt and bad losses really hurt.
USF, for their part, is 59 by that metric. Not amazing, but significantly better than SCU. That’s because USF, for their lack of good wins, simply doesn’t lose to bad or even mediocre teams (except for Wazzu, perhaps). USF could sneak into the Tournament with maybe one win over SMC and a win at Oregon State, or something like that–I don’t think that’s likely, but USF doesn’t have to win out to get the nod.
We’ve harped on SCU’s inconsistency for almost four seasons now. But it’s special this season because the what-ifs are just so acute. Per Torvik, SCU had a 90+% chance of winning in the last 90 seconds of at least three games this season: NDSU, Stanford, and USF on the Hilltop. They were that close to us not even worrying about winning out at this point.
Yeah. Honestly I don’t. See USF coming out ahead of us. We will bypass them and land 2 or 3. We are gonna dismantle St Marys on their home court and it’s gonna be epic.
That’s great insight into the WAB PattyMac as I didn’t know what this new metric was on the NET ranking page. That makes sense as seems Lunardi weighs that more heavily in bubble predictions or last 4 in or first 4 out. The WAB metric definitely hampering our resume. And really punishes Gonzaga down to 48 which is probably a more accurate reflection then their lofty 13 NET ranking.
The way that Torvik keeps track of WAB is pretty mechanical, though it fluctuates slightly. So it’s very easy to see the “what could have been” scenario.
As of this morning, SCU is at -1.9 WAB (i.e. roughly two losses more than a bubble team should have). Now the losses are worth different amounts depending on opponent quality, home/away, etc.
Right now, the NDSU loss is worth -0.8, Stanford is worth -0.8, and USF -0.4. I use those three just because SCU had a 90% chance of winning all three in the last minute or so. Flip just those three games, and SCU gets to a +.1 WAB which would be good for roughly No. 50. Not like, “SCU is a lock for the field.” But probably enough for SCU to be in many or most “Last 4 In” projections.
The Athletic/NY Times has us as a fringe team. In other words, we essentially have to win the rest of our games and hope one of our quad 3 losses improves to a quad 2.
They only did profiles on teams that should be in and teams in the mix. But judging what they said about USF confirms what most people here already know. If you combined the best of SCU & USF, you’d have the perfect at large resume.
Great way to put it, and the story of the last 3 seasons for both teams. Combine USF’s consistency with SCU’s big wins each year, and you’ve got an NCAA Tournament participant all three seasons.
More “California Dreaming” and “What if”. The NCAA tournament is not an "All Star event of conferences, but of individual teams. The reality: “We’re inconsistent, undisciplined and poorly coached”…
I’m of the school that the undisciplined and poorly coached fall into the same catergory… then again Im on the other side of the half century mark in terms of life.
Inconsistent is part of being a college age athlete… the other 2 are very easy to remedy.
Latest NET Ranking. I don’t understand. USF beat SMC, we beat an abysmal #323 Portland squad, and somehow we jumped to #54, and USF went to #64? And Oregon St is at #62?
Yeah…Although the last two opponents we beat are terrible, they have been two of our 3 most complete games even adjusting for the weakness of the opponent. It really helps to take care of business and thump bad teams. St. Mary’s has excelled at that through the years. Adjusted Offense Efficiency and Adjusted Defense Efficiency both go into NET. The exact formula is not known but it is most likely similar to the one Torvik uses. Also, we played a much tougher out of conference schedule than Oregon State and USF so on any given night they are going to be fighting gravity more than us.
He has an Adjusted O and Adjusted D column for each game.
