Bubble Watch 2/10/23

[stever20]

Seton Hall definitely an opening tonight for sure.

Clemson's spot has probably opened up as well. They

yeah, although UNC took it so nothing net there.

[stever20]

a lot of red on the chart this weekend.

[kayako]

Seton Hall definitely an opening tonight for sure.

Clemson's spot has probably opened up as well. They

yeah, although UNC took it so nothing net there.

Yeah, I didn't notice that you had Clemson in there earlier.

For the Big East, a Seton Hall loss today takes the air out of following the bubble. Maybe top 30 results are more worth noting with no real bubble teams.

[stever20]

I think one thing that is saving Seton Hall some at least right now is looks like the last 6 teams in the tourney right now all lost this weekend. So Seton Hall definitely lost a good opportunity. I don't think it's quite fatal yet, but the road is definitely harder for sure.

[Hall2012]

Reality is, at the end of the day fight, heart and toughness can only get you so far. It got them to pretty consistently beat the teams near their level (Siena the 1 exception)and steal a couple close ones that they had no business winning on paper, but the talent on the roster is lacking relative to the rest of this conference.

Now comes a stretch of 5 games in which they'd have no business winning 4 on paper. Maybe they can steal 1 of those 4, but getting the 3 they need seems doubtful.

[XUFan09]

Reality is, at the end of the day fight, heart and toughness can only get you so far. It got them to pretty consistently beat the teams near their level (Siena the 1 exception)and steal a couple close ones that they had no business winning on paper, but the talent on the roster is lacking relative to the rest of this conference.

Now comes a stretch of 5 games in which they'd have no business winning 4 on paper. Maybe they can steal 1 of those 4, but getting the 3 they need seems doubtful.

Nova at home is totally a winnable game for Seton Hall. Heck, they only lost to them by four on the road. It's just not going to do much for the resume if they do win. Then Xavier only beat Seton Hall by 3 when at home, so I wouldn't write that return game off immediately either. Now, UConn and Providence on the road? Eh, that's a tall task.

[stever20]

Guess Northwestern is going to the dance.

[sciencejay]

I've been wondering if a 96-team NCAA tourney is good for the Big East... i'm leaning towards support for it.

- 2 rounds get tourney down to 64 teams...
- 16 Tues games are seeds 65 vs 96.
- 16 Wed games are seeds 49 thru 80.
- 64 team tourney begins on the regular Thursday.
- Auto-bid teams get bye to Thursday games.

Just back of napkin here...

So really, non-auto teams 49 thru 64 have a Wednesday play-in game vs the 16 survivors of Tuesdays games.

- The new additional teams, seeds 65 thru 96, would need to survive 2 games in 2 days... their penalty for being seeded so high.

- the America East and WAC and SWAC winners would have the bye til Thursday.

- Big East would get 7 or 8 teams in each year.

Before dismissing this, chew on it a bit.

I may start a new thread on this.

I agree that this would help those 6/7/8 BEast teams get in each year, but I'm not sure I love the structure--do teams have to potentially play Tues/Wed to get "in" and then Thursday as part of the 64? Or am I misreading what you wrote? I like the idea of auto qualifiers getting seeded into top 32 to avoid play-in game. But aren't there 34 conferences/auto qualifiers? That may not work.

I would think that you have teams seeded 33-96 play Tuesday and Wednesday to feed into Thursday (Tuesday games) and Friday (Wednesday games) round of 64 games.

[stever20]

I've been wondering if a 96-team NCAA tourney is good for the Big East... i'm leaning towards support for it.

- 2 rounds get tourney down to 64 teams...
- 16 Tues games are seeds 65 vs 96.
- 16 Wed games are seeds 49 thru 80.
- 64 team tourney begins on the regular Thursday.
- Auto-bid teams get bye to Thursday games.

Just back of napkin here...

So really, non-auto teams 49 thru 64 have a Wednesday play-in game vs the 16 survivors of Tuesdays games.

- The new additional teams, seeds 65 thru 96, would need to survive 2 games in 2 days... their penalty for being seeded so high.

- the America East and WAC and SWAC winners would have the bye til Thursday.

- Big East would get 7 or 8 teams in each year.

Before dismissing this, chew on it a bit.

I may start a new thread on this.

I agree that this would help those 6/7/8 BEast teams get in each year, but I'm not sure I love the structure--do teams have to potentially play Tues/Wed to get "in" and then Thursday as part of the 64? Or am I misreading what you wrote? I like the idea of auto qualifiers getting seeded into top 32 to avoid play-in game. But aren't there 34 conferences/auto qualifiers? That may not work.

I would think that you have teams seeded 33-96 play Tuesday and Wednesday to feed into Thursday (Tuesday games) and Friday (Wednesday games) round of 64 games.

Right. Basically each region would have 24 seeds. Tue/Wed would be 9/24, 10/23, 11/22, 12/21, 13/20, 14/19, 15/18, and 16/17. And then go from there to normal. I don't think they reinvent the wheel to overly penalize teams 69-96. Nor do I think they give the conference champions such a pass.

[Hall2012]

I don't love the idea of expanding the tournament, but I would like a system somewhat like UEFA Champions League qualification that would award a predetermined number of bids to each conference and then let the conferences decide how to allocate them.

Let a conference ranking system through OOC play determine the number of bids each league gets and go from there.

So for example, let's say that as the 3rd ranked conference the Big East gets 6 bids. The conference can them determine that they'll award those bids to the BET champion and the top 5 regular season finishers. If the BET champion comes from the top 5, resulting in a double qualification, that extra bid would go to 6th place.

It would create an atmosphere of "bubble" teams at this point in the season knowing what they need to do rather than hoping the selection committee likes them in an apples to oranges comparison against teams from other leagues.

Seeding would still be determined by the committee and I'd even let them make at-large "wildcard" selections for the last 4 in/play-in games.