Can we all stop looking into our crystal balls for 5 minutes

[TheHall]

OOC play matters in it gets you the seeds in the tournament and gets you teams in the tournament. Seeds no matter what you want to say matter a lot. There is a huge difference between a 5 seed and a 7 seed. Like now- Nova was projected as a 4 seed. If they had lost vs Kansas, they would be like a 6 seed. That matters. Right now, we'd have 2 8 and 9 seeds- and all that matters is you see the #1 seed in the 2nd game. That's not good. Play in game gets you a test 1st and then 5 and 4 seeds in the next 2 games. The tourney does matter- but OOC sets up the tourney a lot.

Tell that to our new conference mate Butler. The only reason the are a BE member is because they weren't confined to your analysis. One the macro scale those numbers are rigid, but those numbers mean very little to individual schools like Wichita St., VCU, FGCU & your Hoyas, etc.

Simply put any BE school using seeding as an excuse for not winning an NCAAT game should be embarrassed.

[stever20]

OOC play matters in it gets you the seeds in the tournament and gets you teams in the tournament. Seeds no matter what you want to say matter a lot. There is a huge difference between a 5 seed and a 7 seed. Like now- Nova was projected as a 4 seed. If they had lost vs Kansas, they would be like a 6 seed. That matters. Right now, we'd have 2 8 and 9 seeds- and all that matters is you see the #1 seed in the 2nd game. That's not good. Play in game gets you a test 1st and then 5 and 4 seeds in the next 2 games. The tourney does matter- but OOC sets up the tourney a lot.

Tell that to our new conference mate Butler. The only reason the are a BE member is because they weren't confined to your analysis. One the macro scale those numbers are rigid, but those numbers mean very little to individual schools like Wichita St., VCU, FGCU & your Hoyas, etc.

Simply put any BE school using seeding as an excuse for not winning an NCAAT game should be embarrassed.

Those are the exceptions, not the rule. You think Creighton would have liked last year to be something a bit higher? Of course they would. 8/9 seeds win like 15% of the time against #1 seeds.

Also- Butler was a 5 seed one of their 2 years. Wichita St got lucky because Gonzaga had no business being a #1 seed.

[TheHall]

Every team has the opportunity to be an exception to the rule, every year. Win and advance, any BE school using seeding as an excuse for getting bounced is just as weak as if you were saying the reason SJU lost to Wisc is because the badgers were ranked higher. No they lost because they couldn't shoot the 3 or stop the 3.

[hoyahooligan]

2 things...
I've said constantly that we needed to have a good year this year. Most C7 fans are used to being in a top 2 conference. That's the truth.

I said and continue to say that the A10 and MWC are just as much of a major conference as the SEC. The computers bare it out, especially with the A10. We are going to be in direct competition with the A10 getting teams in. That is what it is.

ALL C7 fans know that we are not in the OBE anymore too.

Steve the real question is how did we know we were in the top two conferences? No matter how much you try to spin it that question was never answered by OOC play in Nov/Dec, not for the BE not for any conference. It's hasn't been by conference play either. Conference strength has always been determined by NCAAT performance- not even bids, but performance. The BE wasn't the best conference simply because we had the best OOC record in Nov/Dec or even b/c we got 8,9, 10 bids. We were the best because our 8th place team won the NCAAT or for 5 years or so we sent different teams to the Final Four, and obviously we won it all a couple of times. So if you really are focusing on determining the top conference then you are way to early.

If the BE gets four bids this year but 2 teams make it to the Final Four (which is still a legit possibility regardless of what doom & gloom scenario you come up with) we will be considered a top 2 conference. On the other hand if we had an excellent OOC regular season record, got 6 bids, but flamed out before the elite eight we would not be considered a top 2 league.

Every game matters but the sorting of best to worst conference happens in March & April not now.

I disagree with this notion. The number of bids a conference gets and how many ranked teams they have during the year are the major determinations of how strong a conference is. Looking at just the tournament is after the fact conference strength doesn't matter after the tournament it matters leading up to the tournament.

[TheHall]

I disagree with this notion. The number of bids a conference gets and how many ranked teams they have during the year are the major determinations of how strong a conference is. Looking at just the tournament is after the fact conference strength doesn't matter after the tournament it matters leading up to the tournament.

It all matters, even OOC, but it doesn't all matter with the same significance. My point is conference pecking order is not determined until the champion is crowned and it's heavily weighted by NCAAT tourny performance. Georgetown's season last year is a good example of this. If the Hoyas had performed better in the NCAAT I doubt they would have started this season unranked and the BE would have been viewed stronger from day 1. They had a good season but the end result put a spoiler on it that has carried over to the league this season.

Consider this scenario, if the BE got 6 bids(great!) but we flamed out (not great!), next year it would take much more to claim the best conference title, this is exactly what's happening to the B1G in Football and is the only reason why OSU may not play for the title. Conference strength is dominated by post-season performance.

[stever20]

If Georgetown had done more in tourney last year- and was ranked to start this year- it would have actually been worse for us if the Hoya's had done what they've done so far.

This year so far has nothing to do with past results but the fact that we have 22 losses so far in OOC play. The fact that we're 12-17 vs top 100 teams is why this year is a disappointment. Last year we had 35 losses the entire year OOC play. With 15 teams and about 2.5 times as many games as we have so far. Last year's Georgetown flameout has nothing to do with that.

[TheHall]

If Georgetown had done more in tourney last year- and was ranked to start this year - it would have actually been worse for us if the Hoya's had done what they've done so far.

This year so far has nothing to do with past results but the fact that we have 22 losses so far in OOC play. The fact that we're 12-17 vs top 100 teams is why this year is a disappointment. Last year we had 35 losses the entire year OOC play. With 15 teams and about 2.5 times as many games as we have so far. Last year's Georgetown flameout has nothing to do with that.

Grovel along then, I won't disturb you any more. If this is what you were agreeing to Hoyahooligan, then you can have it too. I'm good.

[hoyahooligan]

Rather than start yet another thread on this subject I'll post this here. I wanted to see where the BE was at this point last year. For starters here are the BE teams ranked at this time last year:

#4 Syracuse, #5 Louisville, #11 Cinci, #15 Georgetown, #22 ND

Here are the Record, key wins, and remaining OOC games of note remaining as of 12/6/12 and then how their season ended.

Cincinnati 8-0 quality wins over Iowa St, Oregon, Alabama Still had games against Xavier and New Mexico left went 9-9 in BE and made the NCAAs

Uconn 6-2 Quality win over #14 Michigan St loses to New Mexico and #25 NC State. Still had a game against Washington went 10-8 in BE play and likely would've made the tournament if eligible

DePaul 5-3 no quality wins loses to Wichita St, Gardner Webb and W. Kentucky. Still had a game @ Arizona St that they won. They went 2-16 in BE play

Georgetown 6-1 had a win over then #11 UCLA the loss was to then #1 Indiana no OOC games of note remaining went 14-4 in BE and made NCAA tournament

Louisville 7-1 quality win over missouri, loss to duke still had Memphis and Kentucky on the schedule went 14-4 in BE and made the NCAA

Marquette 5-2 loses to Florida and Butler no quality wins but had a game against Wisconsin left OOC which they won. They went 14-4 in conference and made the NCAA tournament.

ND 7-1 loss to St. Joes quality win over then #8 Kentucky no quality games remaining OOC went 11-7 in BE and went to NCAA

Pittsburgh 8-1 lost their only quality game vs. Michigan and had no remaining quality games OOC went 12-6 in BE play and made the tournament.
Providence 7-2 loses to Penn St and Umass, no quality wins still had games against BC remaining on schedule They went 9-9 in the BE and because they had no quality OOC wins they went to the NIT

Rutgers 4-2 loses to ole miss and St. peters no quality games left went 5-13 in BE play

Seton Hall 6-2 loses to LSU and Washington no quality wins no remaining quality OOC games went 3-15 in BE play

South Florida 5-3 loses to UCF, Oklahoma St, and Western Michigan, no quality wins no quality games remaining went 3-15 in BE play

St. John's 6-3 loses to Murray St, Baylor, and San Francisco no quality wins, no remaining OOC games of note went 8-10 in BE and ended up in NIT.

Syracuse 7-0 quality win over San diego st @ Arkansas and had game vs temple still on the docket. went 11-7 in BE and made the NCAA

Villanova 3-4 loses to Alabama, Columbia, LaSalle, and Temple no wins of note as Vandy and Purdue were not tournament teams, Only OOC game left of note St. Joes.
They went 10-8 in the BE and made the NCAA tournament.

So looking at this it looks like the main difference between this year and last year in my mind is that starting point. We had 5 ranked teams to start the year. This year only 1. The results aren't markedly worse than last year, but the perception coming in was.

[hoyahooligan]

I disagree with this notion. The number of bids a conference gets and how many ranked teams they have during the year are the major determinations of how strong a conference is. Looking at just the tournament is after the fact conference strength doesn't matter after the tournament it matters leading up to the tournament.

It all matters, even OOC, but it doesn't all matter with the same significance. My point is conference pecking order is not determined until the champion is crowned and it's heavily weighted by NCAAT tourny performance. Georgetown's season last year is a good example of this. If the Hoyas had performed better in the NCAAT I doubt they would have started this season unranked and the BE would have been viewed stronger from day 1. They had a good season but the end result put a spoiler on it that has carried over to the league this season.

Consider this scenario, if the BE got 6 bids(great!) but we flamed out (not great!), next year it would take much more to claim the best conference title, this is exactly what's happening to the B1G in Football and is the only reason why OSU may not play for the title. Conference strength is dominated by post-season performance.

I think conference strength is really only a regular season thing. I think Post season is only about individual teams. I don't care about any BE teams once the post season comes around. The only reason to root for your conference mates to do well is during the season so that by beating them you get a good seed in the tournament. No point in bragging about how well your conference did in the tournament. You only brag about how your team did. Conference strength is just a means to get a high seed. That is my point.

[stever20]

You are the one who says we're not viewed stronger because of the tourney last year. That may be true 1st week, but espcially with how heavy the schedule is(with each team averaging 8 games now) early in the season- your next season performance starts mattering a lot more. I mean- look at La Salle. They had a great run last year- but I'd say the bloom is off their flower right now.