Conference of the Americas......one-bid

[GumbyDamnit!]

we can't say that it's a 2 bid league max because we don't know about the conference tourney. UConn and Cincy are both positioned pretty well. If the final standings are something like 1 Cincy 2 UConn 3 Temple 4 Tulsa and Cincy/Temple meet in the final- and Temple wins- 3 bids becomes not just very possible, but likely. They don't look at things and say, this conference only deserves 2 teams. They just don't.

Similarly it's possible the Big East only winds up with 4 teams. In fact, would say probably likely only winds up with 4. Marquette, Creighton, and Georgetown did themselves in OOC play, and Seton Hall is being well Seton Hall. But, I'd take what this year will be over the 1st 2 years any day of the week. This year with 4 would be much better than last year with 6. Why? Because this year the seeds of the 4 would give them a chance to do some serious damage in the tourney.

Stever, really? So you make the case that the AAC could get a surprise conf tourney winner to get to 3, but seemed convinced that the BE is stuck on 4 and one of those 4 will naturally win the BET. Stever: "There you go, 3 for the AAC and 4 for the BE. They are basically even!"

What is just as likely as your path to 3 AAC bids on the BE side is a team like Creighton, Marq, Gtown or SHU going on a run and finishing with 11 conf wins and becoming the 5th at large team. At the same time one of the others wins the BET. While this is happening in the AAC neither Cincy, nor UCONN beat SMU, they both take a couple bad losses and finish grouped up in one mediocre mess with Memphis, Houston, Tulsa and Temple. UCONN beats 15 win Temple team in the finals and the AAC becomes a 1 bid conference. So a 6 bid conference on one side and a 1 bid conference on the other. Like Stever said: practically equal.

Both scenarios are as likely as the other at this point regardless of what predictive crap you want to peddle.

[stever20]

we can't say that it's a 2 bid league max because we don't know about the conference tourney. UConn and Cincy are both positioned pretty well. If the final standings are something like 1 Cincy 2 UConn 3 Temple 4 Tulsa and Cincy/Temple meet in the final- and Temple wins- 3 bids becomes not just very possible, but likely. They don't look at things and say, this conference only deserves 2 teams. They just don't.

Similarly it's possible the Big East only winds up with 4 teams. In fact, would say probably likely only winds up with 4. Marquette, Creighton, and Georgetown did themselves in OOC play, and Seton Hall is being well Seton Hall. But, I'd take what this year will be over the 1st 2 years any day of the week. This year with 4 would be much better than last year with 6. Why? Because this year the seeds of the 4 would give them a chance to do some serious damage in the tourney.

Stever, really? So you make the case that the AAC could get a surprise conf tourney winner to get to 3, but seemed convinced that the BE is stuck on 4 and one of those 4 will naturally win the BET. Stever: "There you go, 3 for the AAC and 4 for the BE. They are basically even!"

What is just as likely as your path to 3 AAC bids on the BE side is a team like Creighton, Marq, Gtown or SHU going on a run and finishing with 11 conf wins and becoming the 5th at large team. At the same time one of the others wins the BET. While this is happening in the AAC neither Cincy, nor UCONN beat SMU, they both take a couple bad losses and finish grouped up in one mediocre mess with Memphis, Houston, Tulsa and Temple. UCONN beats 15 win Temple team in the finals and the AAC becomes a 1 bid conference. So a 6 bid conference on one side and a 1 bid conference on the other. Like Stever said: practically equal.

Both scenarios are as likely as the other at this point regardless of what predictive crap you want to peddle.

The thing is, you can't say that the AAC is a 2 bid league MAX. Because it's very possible that they could get 3.

And with the 4 from the Big East, it would take some upsets to get the 5th team in. And Butler would need to not be victim of too many of those upsets.

Conferences don't get teams in. teams get teams in.

And just stop with saying that Cincy and UConn must beat SMU to get in. Because that's not the case. ESPECIALLY with UConn.

[adoraz]

Looking at RPI forecast the UC schools will need to get roughly 10-12 wins and only 3-5 losses rest of the way to finish top 50. Doable? Of course. Most likely scenario? I wouldn't bet on it.

[stever20]

Cincy is favored in 12/14 games using Sagarin predictor. in 10/14 games using Ken Pom's projections... Either one gets them in at 22-9 or better which is a top 50 RPI.
UConn is favored in 13/16 games using Sagarin predictor. In 11/16 games using Ken Pom. Either one gets them in at 22-9 or better which is a top 50 RPI.

(and for UConn- 2 of their 5 projected losses would be this week in Ken Pom- so they could get ahead of that even more this week...

So yeah, I think I probably would call that a most likely scenario.

[HoosierPal]

Congrats to the AAC for having two members finish in the Top 20 AP Final Football poll. That equals the Pac 12's duo. Job well done.

[adoraz]

Stever, just because you're favored in however many games doesn't means you're expected to win all of them. For example, a really good team may be favored in every game for the year. However, each game they may have an average odds of winning at 93%. That means they're unlikely to actually win all the games, just that they're favored in each individual game.

So you need to look more in depth at the numbers. Much more than that, though, is whether you think the UC schools are capable of winning that many games. Based on how they played I wouldn't be surprised either way. I personally wouldn't bet on both making it. For one of them to make it I'd think there'd be decent odds.

What were these teams projected back in October? I'd think a lot higher than 90 by mid January. The games need to be played and they have little room for error.

[stever20]

Stever, just because you're favored in however many games doesn't means you're expected to win all of them. For example, a really good team may be favored in every game for the year. However, each game they may have an average odds of winning at 93%. That means they're unlikely to actually win all the games, just that they're favored in each individual game.

So you need to look more in depth at the numbers. Much more than that, though, is whether you think the UC schools are capable of winning that many games. Based on how they played I wouldn't be surprised either way. I personally wouldn't bet on both making it. For one of them to make it I'd think there'd be decent odds.

What were these teams projected back in October? I'd think a lot higher than 90 by mid January. The games need to be played and they have little room for error.

RPI's can be a little funky even now. You keep on bringing that they're 90. If they win this week, they will not be 90, period end of story. UConn jumped 20 spots beating MEMPHIS at HOME! They now play #64 Tulsa on the road. A win there, and they are going to jump up big time. Oh and UConn is 80 right now.

The thing is also look at UConn. They have 2 games they're predicted to lose this week- 1 has a 46% chance to Tulsa, and 1 has a 45% chance to Houston. Odds are pretty darn good that they're going to win 1 of those 2 games. Cincy has 3 games left projected to lose in the 45-47% chance. Odds are pretty good that they'll get at least 1 win out of those 3, if not go 2-1. So it goes both ways. (oh and UConn has a 3rd game with 44% chance to Memphis). So they may lose a game they're projected to win. But they may just the same win a game they're projected to lose.

[marquette]

Cincinnati is the type of team that gets within a couple of points of beating SMU, then barely scrapes by against 3-14 USF in their next game. Not a recipe for an NCAA bid if the team hasn't performed OOC, and UC did not. Even the GW win is starting to lose a lot of luster after losses to DePaul and SLU.

[adoraz]

Stever, just because you're favored in however many games doesn't means you're expected to win all of them. For example, a really good team may be favored in every game for the year. However, each game they may have an average odds of winning at 93%. That means they're unlikely to actually win all the games, just that they're favored in each individual game.

So you need to look more in depth at the numbers. Much more than that, though, is whether you think the UC schools are capable of winning that many games. Based on how they played I wouldn't be surprised either way. I personally wouldn't bet on both making it. For one of them to make it I'd think there'd be decent odds.

What were these teams projected back in October? I'd think a lot higher than 90 by mid January. The games need to be played and they have little room for error.

RPI's can be a little funky even now. You keep on bringing that they're 90. If they win this week, they will not be 90, period end of story. UConn jumped 20 spots beating MEMPHIS at HOME! They now play #64 Tulsa on the road. A win there, and they are going to jump up big time. Oh and UConn is 80 right now.

The thing is also look at UConn. They have 2 games they're predicted to lose this week- 1 has a 46% chance to Tulsa, and 1 has a 45% chance to Houston. Odds are pretty darn good that they're going to win 1 of those 2 games. Cincy has 3 games left projected to lose in the 45-47% chance. Odds are pretty good that they'll get at least 1 win out of those 3, if not go 2-1. So it goes both ways. (oh and UConn has a 3rd game with 44% chance to Memphis). So they may lose a game they're projected to win. But they may just the same win a game they're projected to lose.

Mid January, 90 RPI.

[stever20]

lets talk after this week. Because the RPI's WILL NOT be 90 and the thing is, you know it.

I know you want the AAC to only have 1 bid, but the reality is that's not all too realistic. And you say what if Cincy and UConn lose? Well, Tulsa would move up from 64 and Houston would move up considerably. Also, UConn would not drop much at all whatsoever- and Cincy wouldn't drop much either.

If you want to see what a 1 bid conference go look at the MWC. They have 1 team in the top 100 RPI and no one in the top 78 in Ken Pom. That's a 1 bid conference pretty much guaranteed. The AAC isn't remotely close to that at all whatsoever.