Get a Tiger pelt. But for both insurance and pride, I want a Gael helm on the wall as well.
There are at least two other SCU fans on my plane. I’m thinking we will have a respectable presence in the desert. Go Broncos!
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Patty, have a great time and bring us home THREE wins!
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We moved up two spots in the WAB from yesterday and now sit at 41. St. Louis dropped to 40 with their blowout loss yesterday. Teams below us at the moment.
42…..VCU (nice win over George Mason)
43…..NC State (lost 6 of their last 7)
44….Texas (fell at home to Oklahoma)
45….Auburn (Suffered 15th loss to Bama)
46….Va Tech (Lost at Virginia)
47…..Indiana (Lost at Ohio St)
48….SMU…….(Blown out at FSU)
49….Stanford (Good win at NC State)
There is a negative WAB figure that starts with team 50…..Cal Bears.
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“Broncos can ascend to last four byes with a win. They slide behind SMU with a loss and will be forced to fidget all week.”
While I personally will be fidgeting all week regardless, a win would really be tremendous today.
Last 4 byes in Bauertology today. I’ve seen SCU as high as a 9 seed. The weakness of the bubble is really helping the Broncos, but win tonight to remove any doubt.
And SCU is tied now with our old friends at SLU in the official WAB at 1.55. The drop-off from 40 to 45 is fairly precipitous, giving a tiny cushion. But with the quality of competition the high major bubble teams will get, a squad like VA Tech can blow through that cushion with just an upset or two.
A win against SMC should move SCU from #40 into the high 30s where the safety zone lies. Do it, Broncos!
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Too many power conference teams behind us to feel safe, IMO.
The good luck should regress to the mean eventually - there will be bid thieves, there will be a power conference team who goes on a ‘run’ of beating two other mediocre teams that sneaks in. We did get very close to an ideal set of results on Friday/Sat.
Perhaps because of that, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how we’ve done during this period of mostly being inactive. VCU passed us up with a second Quad 1 win, fair enough.
We’ve reached a point where we can’t really commit another resume sin, barring an egregious loss. But one more win and I will sleep easy.
Patty - good Bronco crowd around yesterday?
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Lunardi’s assessment of SCU is lower than Bauertology. Maybe, that’s a good sign as Lunardi’s accuracy ranks outside the top 100 over the last 5 years if I recall correctly. I don’t recall where Bauertology ranks, but I do believe it’s been more accurate than ESPN.
CBS Sports has SCU as an 11 seed but with a bye:
I think the concern, though, is that the Power conferences will play their tourneys this weekend, with likely high quality games that could significantly disrupt the bubble.
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If you put your tinfoil hat on, there is a little belief out there that Lunardi pumps out brackets to drive eyeballs within the ESPN universe, which is/feels heavily pro SEC/Power Conference.
His job is to be directionally correct, and speak well in the little feature spots before and during ESPN telecasts. Lots of these other prognosticators have no portion of their skill set being ‘good talking head’… they’re just stat guys with a website.
Counterpoint would be that ESPN does televise/cover the WCC, especially GU and SMC, pretty frequently. Perhaps not so much on a go-forward basis.
Most bracketologists try to predict what the committee will do, looking at the metrics as they stand. Others have a little more “here’s what I would do” to them, and others are little more predictive as to what (they think) will happen.
I do worry the NCAA tournament is trending more toward the Lunardi view of the world - i.e., mediocre power conference teams get in, Mid-Majors get screwed.
But I’ve got no data there.
As to CBS, yesterday we were a 10 Seed playing ‘Nova, today back to an 11 with a bye. Hard to say why. Matt Norlander has also been more tepid on SCU (though he said he affirmatively likes SCU the program, just not this resume).
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Bringing some good vibes, here are links to summaries of SCU squads that went deep into the NCAA playoffs:
As a Vegas first-timer (the town, the tournament, all of it except the airport), I was impressed by the number of SCU folks who are here. But the Orleans is a big arena. So if there’s 400 or so Santa Clara fans here (and that feels like an impressive number of fans to haul to a different state), that’s only like 7% of the arena capacity and all spread out. If we are stuck at the Orleans, then it feels like ditching the ladder bracket will be extra important so that schools can realistically send buses of students or something to fill seats, which isn’t possible for a 5- or 6-day tournament.
The Spokane South dynamic is real. Yesterday there were at least as many Zag fans watching for fun as combined fans of all the other teams. And it was pretty interesting how many seem to be married couples in their 60s, presumably, just using this as an excuse for a LV vacation out of Spokane.
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I’ve been 4-5 times. It’s ALL the demographic you just described. Big vacation out of Spokane and honestly it’s pretty affordable given the time of the week!
This is my 5th year here. The Bronco contingent is the largest I’ve seen. Yes, we are much smaller than the Zag invasion, but it’s nice to see a lot of new Bronco faces in attendance.
The crowd dynamics will be vastly different in the upcoming years. Much will depend on the venue the conference settles on. I was pleased to see a good number of Seattle fans, but that’s not near enough to offset the huge reduction in the number of Zag fans.
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It really feels like we need to win tonight. A loss puts us 1-4 against the Top 2 WCC teams and 1-6 in Quad 1. That and a low to mid 40 NET screams a power 5 and other bid stealers can pounce. There’s just so much juice left for power 5 teams to stack some wins in their conference tourney and the mid Major Broncos get shut out. It’s hard to have 3 teams from the WCC in regardless. We need to play tonight like our season depends on it.
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Easy with the needs and have to’s, fellas!
Dualthreat don’t be a Dick Davey Downer . The “Power 5 pouncing” narrative ignores the math we’ve already put in the bank.
Yes, 1-6 in Q1 isn’t ideal, but our #38 WAB is better than Texas (#41), UCLA (#44), and Indiana (#48). The committee doesn’t just “delete” 25 wins and Top-40 analytics because a P5 team wins two games in their tournament. Those teams are fighting just to get to where we already are.
A loss tonight doesn’t kick us out; it just means we might have to play a Tuesday game in Dayton. We should absolutely play like our season depends on it, but the “mid-major lockout” fear doesn’t align with the fact that the WCC is a Top-6 conference this year.
These guys will be ready to play and have some fun. Take a breath—the math is on our side.
Go broncos.
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how do you know it’ll be Tuesday and not Wednesday?
GoBroncos- Your logic is sound….the problem is that logic doesn’t necessarily rule. All the metrics and factors the selection committee uses are just guidelines. There’s nothing to say they have to pick the teams with the best WAB or whatever. All they need is one excuse (ie- 1-6 vs. Q1) to justify slotting someone else (ie- Indiana) ahead of or instead of us.
If we lose tonight, I put our odds of an at-large at slightly over 50/50…in which case I’ll be an uneasy wreck leading up to Selection Sunday.
Adding another predictive measure…..Torvik has been very high on the Broncos all season, his algorithm obviously likes the style of play and strengths of the Broncos. We’re currently ranked 28th on Torvik (SMC is 23rd) and despite those high rankings his Tourneycast has us at just under 48% probability of getting an at-large, plus a 17% of an auto-bid.
I think our chances of missing Dayton now are very good. But, I think we are still rooting for the conf favorites to win.
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Up to 38 NET this morning.
Up to 40 WAB, though basically a three-way tie with Missouri and SLU at 1.55.
Gaels drop from 20 to 22 NET.
EDIT: WAB at 36 WAB. Thanks @Dualthreat for catching that. Too early in the morning to notice the date/time stamp was still yesterday.