One more domino falling the Bronco’s favor, as the Sooners have routing Texas A&M by 20. A&M started the day at #38 in WAB, with SCU at 37.
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I was at the USF game and the place was electric. Then it wasn’t. Very demoralizing. Rambis played great.
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I was a young boy. Never heard Toso that loud, before or after that game. Those metal bench seats were LOUD!
Didn’t realize Dr. Dunk was there - that makes more sense.
He was out of Sacramento and my dad remembers (or imagines) him grabbing a quarter off the top of the backboard either at Hiram Johnson or at some later point… NBA Dunk champ. Footage of which is actually not lost to history. The Fro is better than the Dunk, but it was the first contest ever.
SJSU also produced notable (!?) Sacramento King Tariq Abdul-Wahad and much sadder Sacramento King Ricky Berry…
In Purdy’s remembrance: “It’s hard to envision what that era was like, given the low profile of Santa Clara and San Jose State basketball today.”
May that sentence become incongruent in this new era of Santa Clara hoops.
I received some good intel over a brew at the Hut today - but perhaps for post-Tournament chatter.
Go Broncos.
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Texas and Texas A&M both really felt that they didn’t need to show up for the SEC tournament
Torvik just had our tournament odds plummet to 64%. Any idea how that number is calculated? Not concerned just curious.
Where we stand (“Are we there yet?” edition):
- With the MAC now guaranteed to get a “weaker than bubble” auto-bid, the cut line for the bye is now #41 and the cutline for qualifying for the tourney is #45. Based on anecdotal evidence from a few mock brackets I’ve seen over the past couple days, there seems to 7 teams (ranked 37-43) competing for the last 5 byes: A&M, NC St, UCF, SCU, Miami-OH, Missouri, and Texas. And here’s the interesting part - All 7 of these teams are done! So there’s really nothing that can happen between now and Sunday that can improve our chances at the bye, but there are a few things that can dilute our odds.
- Note: I included Texas and Miami-OH in this group because some bracketologists have them with a bye and others don’t, while every one I’ve seen has VCU down in the “last 4 in” group.
- I think an argument could be made that St. Louis U. will get relegated to that group if they lose in their conference tourney, making it 8 teams competing for the last 5 byes, with the 3 lowest of those teams going to Dayton. If they’re gonna lose, let’s hope they embarrass themselves in their quarterfinals tomorrow like Miami-OH did.
- Oklahoma did their duty by pulling A&M down to SCU’s level. Now they need to be good boys and go home tomorrow before they too join the conversation to get a bye.
- VCU, New Mexico, SDSU, and Seton Hall are still playing but I think they are either going to be “last 4 in” or stealing an auto-bid.
- As far as bid stealing goes, the 2 big ones to watch are the Atlantic 10 and the MWC where we want SLU and Utah St to hold serve and win out. We should also root for South Florida in the American conference. An at-large bid for them (if they lose) seems like a remote possibility, but since nobody else seems to want it….
- And don’t forget about bid stealing from one of the major conferences, which does happen every few years. The good news is that all of the potential bid stealers from the ACC, Big 12, and Big 10 are already out. The SEC still has Ole Miss and Oklahoma in the quarterfinals, and the Big East has Seton Hall and Georgetown in the semifinals.
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Here are tomorrow’s games that affect SCU (Friday the 13th edition)
- 8:30 St. Louis U vs George Washington (Atlantic 10 quarterfinal) - We want SLU to win to prevent a bid from being stolen by a team ranked lower than us.
- 2 PM VCU vs Duquesne (A-10 quarterfinal) - We want VCU to lose, to help clear the runway for SLU making it a one-bid league. To clarify, we don’t actually mind if VCU gets an at-large bid below SCU. We just don’t want them to win the A-10 tournament.
- 2:30 Seton Hall vs St. John’s (Big East semis) - We don’t want Seton Hall to steal a bid.
- 4 PM Ole Miss vs Alabama (SEC quarters) - We don’t want Ole Miss to steal a bid.
- 5 PM Georgetown vs UConn (Big East semis) - We don’t want Georgetown to steal a bid.
- 6:30 Oklahoma vs Arkansas (SEC quarters) - Sooners going for their 2nd upset in a row. If they get 3 upsets in a row and then lose in the finals, they might pass up SCU in consideration for the last bye. Let’s hope Arkansas nips that in the bud.
- 6:30 Utah St vs Nevada (MWC semis) - We want Utah St to win to prevent a bid from being stolen by a team ranked lower than us. The extra spot is much more precious at this point than whatever juice Nevada might give us in our strength of schedule.
- 9 PM San Diego St vs New Mexico (MWC semis) - It doesn’t matter to us who wins, as long as they lose to Utah St in the finals.
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I think we’re all on board with the concept that we’re not getting snubbed at this point.
If you want further validation, all 116 brackets on bracketmatrix.com have us as a 10 or 11 seed (with two 9-seed prediction). 
Sunday is far more about where and when we play (including Dayton…). Thanks again @RockMcD for the rooting guides.
Go Broncos! 
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Just checked Torvik. We are at 28, with tourney odds at 95.9%, and a seed line of 10.5.
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I prefer looking at prediction markets where $ is on the line rather than relying on something like an OLS regression model. kalshi currently has us at 86% to make the field of 64 (making the First Four and winning counts as making the field, while losing in Dayton counts as missing it).
Let’s assume if we get sent to Dayton probability of winning is 50%. We can back into the implied odds of a not being last 4 in and getting a bye via:
P(Bye) + P(No bye & Win first 4)*.5 = P (Field of 64)
Where B = Bye:
0.86 = B+ (1-B)*0.5
B = 0.72
So a 72% chance at getting a 10 or one of the top two 11s. Obviously, this assumes 0% probably of none of the above outcomes (I.e, no at-large first four or not). Let’s no even go there
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Agreed it’s time for Oklahoma to bow out. Not sure how Oklahoma beats a middle of the road SEC team and that propels them past everyone else (including SCU) into a 10-seed in Torvik’s projections. His projections make the least sense especially when all Oklahoma did was beat a team one spot ahead of them.
I announced the game sir SCU radio and called every last inch of Cubby Cox demoralizing finish.
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That WAB moat between SCU and Miami-OH and the teams below is heartening. If you’re a committee member who wants to find an easy cut-line for the bye games, there’s one right there. Also, it’s probably not significant at this point, but it’s nice to have other highly rated NET teams with a Q4 loss–it makes SCU look less unique in taking a catastrophic L among good, Tournament-bound teams.
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I thought the exact same thing. The WAB canyon between #36 SCU and #37 is fairly large. Hoping that let’s our Broncos (and me) skip Dayton.
Oof.
Is my childhood recollection accurate? I’ve never heard Toso/Leavey that loud, before or since.
Though I’m sure the LUC loss doesn’t escape scrutiny somewhere across the process, I’ve been encouraged to see how frequently Q3 and Q4 results are aggregated together during resume analysis. The Broncos are 17-1 against that group.
Q1 and Q2 are also aggregated in some analysis, and we’re 8-7 there.
It’s really nice to not feel like we’re squeaking in.
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We may need all the positive metric vibes we can get because SLU is getting destroyed in the first half. As I said above, if SLU ain’t gonna win their conference tournament then the next best thing is to lose their first game in embarrassing fashion as Miami-OH did. Maybe SLU will slip behind us anyway (as long as nobody remembers the head to head result from November).
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