(1) THURSDAY, 12/29/16 - BU @ SJU

[DudeAnon]

Our league-wide strategy should be to have all OUR teams in a competitive position to draw as much eyeballs, media, recruits, money into the league. The bids will come no matter what happens when you have #1 RPI

Except that with a 10 team round robin league, getting a 6th team in is absolutely no lock at all whatsoever. If Marquette or Providence finish 6th at 9-9(or worse)- they probably aren't making the tournament. Their OOC just wasn't good enough to make it.

You just can't say Big East is #1 league, they get 6 bids. Teams earn bids, conferences don't.

Gotta look at the big picture. Which is better:

A. St. John's, in the biggest media market and closest proximity to the Tournament every year, gets some big upsets during Big East. Rejuvenates the fan base, such as last night during the sellout crowd, and sets the scene for a monster year next year. Mullin's job is secure. Downside is Big East **MAY** get 5 bids instead of 6, or 6 bids instead of 7. May lower a team's seeding during the Big Dance.
B. St. John's goes 1-17 again in Big East play. Mullin's job is in question. Recruiting falls off the map. Some key players leave. No hope for next year. Team once again heading for a rebuild in the coming years.

Did you see what happened just a couple weeks ago before the Syracuse game? NY Post headline on the PSU game was "Chris Mullin doubts arise as St. John’s hits new rock bottom". Sima also transferred around that time, and there was talk of transfer for other major pieces. St. John's is absolutely not in a position to start from scratch again. A lot of Big East teams are currently playing as well as they possibly could (Nova, Creighton, Butler, Xavier). Three big time teams that need to wake up are Marquette (starting to), St. John's and DePaul. Those 3 teams have a high ceiling and aren't anywhere close to it.

Again gotta look at the big picture. The Big East isn't aiming for the bottom to remain mediocre.

Nailed it. Big East is interesting in that most schools are located in a pretty large city. So really, the larger the city the more important it is for that team to do well.

Populations:
1. NYC - 8.5 million
2. CHI - 2.7 million
3. PHI - 1.5 million
4. IND - 800k
5. MIL - 700k
6. DC - 650k
7. OMAHA - 450k
8. CIN - 300k
Small: Providence, Seton Hall

[stever20]

Gotta look at the big picture. Which is better:

A. St. John's, in the biggest media market and closest proximity to the Tournament every year, gets some big upsets during Big East. Rejuvenates the fan base, such as last night during the sellout crowd, and sets the scene for a monster year next year. Mullin's job is secure. Downside is Big East **MAY** get 5 bids instead of 6, or 6 bids instead of 7. May lower a team's seeding during the Big Dance.
B. St. John's goes 1-17 again in Big East play. Mullin's job is in question. Recruiting falls off the map. Some key players leave. No hope for next year. Team once again heading for a rebuild in the coming years.

Did you see what happened just a couple weeks ago before the Syracuse game? NY Post headline on the PSU game was "Chris Mullin doubts arise as St. John’s hits new rock bottom". Sima also transferred around that time, and there was talk of transfer for other major pieces. St. John's is absolutely not in a position to start from scratch again. A lot of Big East teams are currently playing as well as they possibly could (Nova, Creighton, Butler, Xavier). Three big time teams that need to wake up are Marquette (starting to), St. John's and DePaul. Those 3 teams have a high ceiling and aren't anywhere close to it.

Again gotta look at the big picture. The Big East isn't aiming for the bottom to remain mediocre.

I have no problem with that. The problem I have with folks blindly saying that just because the Big East is the #1 RPI conference(may or may not wind up like that)- they're going to be guaranteed x bids. That's just not the case at all. It totally depends on what the final standings are and just who is on that 9 win problematic line. It's that simple.

[Hall2012]

Gotta look at the big picture. Which is better:

A. St. John's, in the biggest media market and closest proximity to the Tournament every year, gets some big upsets during Big East. Rejuvenates the fan base, such as last night during the sellout crowd, and sets the scene for a monster year next year. Mullin's job is secure. Downside is Big East **MAY** get 5 bids instead of 6, or 6 bids instead of 7. May lower a team's seeding during the Big Dance.
B. St. John's goes 1-17 again in Big East play. Mullin's job is in question. Recruiting falls off the map. Some key players leave. No hope for next year. Team once again heading for a rebuild in the coming years.

Did you see what happened just a couple weeks ago before the Syracuse game? NY Post headline on the PSU game was "Chris Mullin doubts arise as St. John’s hits new rock bottom". Sima also transferred around that time, and there was talk of transfer for other major pieces. St. John's is absolutely not in a position to start from scratch again. A lot of Big East teams are currently playing as well as they possibly could (Nova, Creighton, Butler, Xavier). Three big time teams that need to wake up are Marquette (starting to), St. John's and DePaul. Those 3 teams have a high ceiling and aren't anywhere close to it.

Again gotta look at the big picture. The Big East isn't aiming for the bottom to remain mediocre.

I have no problem with that. The problem I have with folks blindly saying that just because the Big East is the #1 RPI conference(may or may not wind up like that)- they're going to be guaranteed x bids. That's just not the case at all. It totally depends on what the final standings are and just who is on that 9 win problematic line. It's that simple.

I agree the conference RPI doesn't determine the amount of bids the league will get, but it does determine the maximum amount of bids the league is capable of getting. If we were ranked 4th in league RPI like last year, there wouldn't even be a conversation about getting 6 teams in, which currently doesn't seem like a particularly unlikely number.

[Burrito]

Butler's plane back to Indiana had some issues.

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/butler-te ... 49575.html

[XUFan09]

I think you're getting caught up too much in numbers. The beauty of college basketball over the pros is that these teams are evolving and developing all season long. Treating SJU just as a bad loss for a tourney bound Butler team assumes that both are locked in to a certain already established order of things here in December. I prefer to keep an open mind that it's poaainke for a team like St John's to come together and accelerate its pace of development over the next 2.5 months. Other teams - maybe Butler - may be passed by such a team(s) and fall behind in the standings. Just my preference in watching the season unfold. One game into the conference season is just too early. But that's just me.

I remember when St John's broke out with a series of upsets in January several years ago. The best college coaches are always working on continuous improvement, looking to get their team to be plaging its best ball in March. That's what the college game is all about for me.[/quote]



I'm only getting caught up in the numbers as much as the numbers influence tournament selection and seeding. I've said that I could reasonably see them getting as many as 7 conference wins, so clearly my own judgment isn't tied to what their projected RPI says of them. You seem to think I don't expect much of SJU simply because I've explained that numerically they don't look good, never mind what I've said to the contrary.

St. John's is very likely going to be a sub-100 team per RPI (and not even borderline). That's a fact and it's because RPI isn't nearly as dynamic as Kenpom, Sagarin, etc. Now, a loss to a team outside the RPI top 100 is the definition of a bad loss. Therefore, the loss to SJU is likely to be a bad loss for Butler. It's that simple, regardless of whether it's fair. Though individual members of the Committee who cover the Big East might be able to give better context to the numbers, the first look for Butler is still two losses to sub-100 teams. By first look, I'm referring to the profile sheet of every potential tournament team that the Committee members get, which are primarily based on the RPI. This isn't the end of the world, but it makes things tougher for Butler.

If it was up to me, Kenpom and other advanced metrics would be used to judge the quality of opponents, because they better reflect the ebbs and flows of a season to which you refer (and are better metrics in general for the difficulty of an opponent, anyway). In that case, SJU would probably not be a bad loss unless they tank from this point on. Unfortunately, the RPI is the foundational criteria for the Selection Committee, and by mid-season, it's not that flexible to allow for a team noticeably improving like SJU might be in the process of doing.

Now, if you REALLY think there is even a moderate probability that SJU will win 10+ conference games, considering the other teams in the league, then we are operating on different premises. "It could happen" does not automatically translate to it being remotely likely.

[stever20]

I agree the conference RPI doesn't determine the amount of bids the league will get, but it does determine the maximum amount of bids the league is capable of getting. If we were ranked 4th in league RPI like last year, there wouldn't even be a conversation about getting 6 teams in, which currently doesn't seem like a particularly unlikely number.

I don't know about that. I mean last year for instance if Creighton had beaten Providence and then Butler in the BET(and may not even have needed that), they would have gotten in, and Providence would have still gotten in. So could have easily gotten 6 in last year as 4th best conference.

Getting 6 teams in is always going to be a dicey proposition. That team is almost always going to have 9 conference losses. Right now, there's likely 4 teams that if they finish 6th at 9-9 will really struggle to make the tourney- DePaul, St John's, Marquette, and Providence. Georgetown has to beat UConn(which shouldn't be a problem) to probably be able to make it at 9-9. It's the individual teams that matter at the end of the day, not the conference.

[fun]

Butler Saint John's recap: http://www.bigeastboards.com/

[Savannah Jay]

Gotta look at the big picture. Which is better:

A. St. John's, in the biggest media market and closest proximity to the Tournament every year, gets some big upsets during Big East. Rejuvenates the fan base, such as last night during the sellout crowd, and sets the scene for a monster year next year. Mullin's job is secure. Downside is Big East **MAY** get 5 bids instead of 6, or 6 bids instead of 7. May lower a team's seeding during the Big Dance.
B. St. John's goes 1-17 again in Big East play. Mullin's job is in question. Recruiting falls off the map. Some key players leave. No hope for next year. Team once again heading for a rebuild in the coming years.

Did you see what happened just a couple weeks ago before the Syracuse game? NY Post headline on the PSU game was "Chris Mullin doubts arise as St. John’s hits new rock bottom". Sima also transferred around that time, and there was talk of transfer for other major pieces. St. John's is absolutely not in a position to start from scratch again. A lot of Big East teams are currently playing as well as they possibly could (Nova, Creighton, Butler, Xavier). Three big time teams that need to wake up are Marquette (starting to), St. John's and DePaul. Those 3 teams have a high ceiling and aren't anywhere close to it.

Again gotta look at the big picture. The Big East isn't aiming for the bottom to remain mediocre.

I have no problem with that. The problem I have with folks blindly saying that just because the Big East is the #1 RPI conference(may or may not wind up like that)- they're going to be guaranteed x bids. That's just not the case at all. It totally depends on what the final standings are and just who is on that 9 win problematic line. It's that simple.

I agree the conference RPI doesn't determine the amount of bids the league will get, but it does determine the maximum amount of bids the league is capable of getting. If we were ranked 4th in league RPI like last year, there wouldn't even be a conversation about getting 6 teams in, which currently doesn't seem like a particularly unlikely number.

To augment, the #6 team in the conference has a better chance of getting in if it's the #1 ranked conference vs. than the 6th place team in the #4 ranked conference. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it can be a subjective factor in a team's favor if the selection committee is looking for something to pick one school over another.

[Hall2012]

[quote="stever20I have no problem with that. The problem I have with folks blindly saying that just because the Big East is the #1 RPI conference(may or may not wind up like that)- they're going to be guaranteed x bids. That's just not the case at all. It totally depends on what the final standings are and just who is on that 9 win problematic line. It's that simple.

I agree the conference RPI doesn't determine the amount of bids the league will get, but it does determine the maximum amount of bids the league is capable of getting. If we were ranked 4th in league RPI like last year, there wouldn't even be a conversation about getting 6 teams in, which currently doesn't seem like a particularly unlikely number.

To augment, the #6 team in the conference has a better chance of getting in if it's the #1 ranked conference vs. than the 6th place team in the #4 ranked conference. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it can be a subjective factor in a team's favor if the selection committee is looking for something to pick one school over another.[/quote]

Perhaps, but I'm just going on the fact that 9 out of 10 times, the 6th place team in the #1 conference will have an overall better resume than the 6th place team in the #4 conference. The team in the top ranked conference is likely going to have better RPI and SOS numbers based on their challenging conference schedule. It also increases their likelihood of having impressive wins and decreases the likelihood of having bad losses. More top 50 teams in the conference = more top 50 wins to go around for everyone's resume, especially in our double round robin format.

Now is it possible that a team in the #4 RPI conference kills it in OOC and then flops to the bottom half of their conference could still make the dance? Sure, I won't rule it out completely. But I'd like the odds better in the #1 conference.

[adoraz]

Keep in mind for SJU- the team is the fourth least experienced team in the country and under performed OOC. Most of their losses were very close. Their Kenpom is #96 and their RPI should head in that direction.

SJU was a brutal loss last year because they finished 1-17 in Big East play but I see them finishing with an RPI around 100 this year.