Is the opposite of the "not jinxing it" thread?
I think it's time. With Kansas losing yesterday, there are only 9 remaining undefeated teams. I've categorized them below:
Legit Title Contenders:
-Duke
-Vilanova
Really Good Teams with Some Really Good Wins:
-Miami
-FSU
-Arizona St
Good Teams that Are Untested:
-TCU
-Mississippi St
That's Your Schedule? No wonder You're Undefeated:
-Georgetown
-Valparaiso
Valparaiso is likely falling today against Purdue. TCU (Nevada) and Arizona St (Kansas) are getting tested this weekend. Miss St plays ranked Cinci on 12/12. Georgetown plays Cuse on 12/16 (good luck, Ewing). Miami will likely go undefeated until the New Year. FSU has a tough-ish against Oklahoma St and, if they survive, will face a likely undefeated Duke on 12/30. And 'Nova? They play Butler on 12/30. If they win, they'll play Xavier and a few other tough teams in the New Year.
I think 'Nova is the last undefeated team standing. Just my two cents.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
Is the opposite of the "not jinxing it" thread?
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
This is my favorite thread every year. I like rooting against undefeated teams. Everybody must lose!!! Except Duke.
please lock this thread or change the title to "SO FAR SO GOOD"
"One POSSIBLE future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.".... Kyle Reese
Saw an article the other day and didn’t want to jinx us and post it but since someone else posted the undefeated idea, we can all pile on to them, not on me. Anyway the article had statistical analysis that Duke was not favored in only three games this year, @miami, @UNC, @VTech.
Of course if you all remember your stats, the odds of a loss are much greater than the sum of these three games.
With such a young team and the propensity to fall behind early, a loss certainly feels inevitable.
So lets think about the type of team that posses the greatest risk.
* Bigs who can defend, rebound and get Carter in foul trouble. It doesn’t need to be a great offensive center, IU showed us that Carter is still learning D and an average big can score.
* Guards, especially PGs who can penetrate off the dribble. This has been a problems for years and FL sure showed how that will lead to easy buckets.
* Teams that run, especially off of TOs, our transition D is... well
* Depth, with our four big man rotation, you better have a bench who can help with fouls, because someone on the inside is going to get a bunch against Duke.
* 3 pts, hypothetical opponent needs to hit them when open because we still leave people open off of screens at the arc, especially the second man (by that I mean Duke usually shuts down the primary scorer through coaching, so it needs to be the next guy who hits the shots)
* Strong home crowd. IU showed us that Duke, even with a win is not ready to dominate a mid-level Power 5 team on the road with a great home court (I was there it was AWESOME), let alone a top flight level team (except UNC where home court doesn’t seem to impact either team).
* 3pt D, this is also a road issue. Seems like we are much better shooting the 3 at home.
The hypothetical team doesn’t need all of these but several of them will be key to causing the first loss.
And even with all of the Bagley and GA may still be too much.
I have not seen all of these teams yet so some of this will be looking at coaching styles but who has enough of these characteristics? (I don’t believe anyone will have them at Cameron).
FSU at Duke has some of these but not this year
@Miami
@Wake (down this year but could be a trap game)
@UNC
@V Tech
Long post but the schedule is really loaded for home games (hurt last year but good news this one) but Sy, LU, FSU, and UV all at home without road game. Didnt’ notice that until now. If Duke survives Coral Gables... could be interesting.
But not yet...
[redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.
I would love love love to see an analysis of why Duke will not be favored at Va Tech, the #31 team in Pomeroy's rankings. If that game was on the books in Vegas today, I guarantee you Duke would be at least a 4 or 5 point pick. One thing this does highlight is how favorable Duke's ACC schedule is this year. We get almost all the other top teams at home, not on the road. Miami is the only good team that we only play in their place.
-Jason "undefeated is a pipe dream... but Duke will be a solid (7+ points) favorite in all but maybe a couple games this season" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
You guarantee that? I highly doubt that would be the case. That would imply Duke around an 8 or 9 point favorite on a neutral court as a matchup of #5 vs #31 (KenPom).
While not utterly impossible, that's pretty far out there in the spectrum of rational lines. And I have ~1000 data points from this season to prove that.
ETA - The line on that game would be anywhere from PK to Duke -2. If they really want to push us out, they'd maybe go 2.5 or 3. 4 is too much. 5 is way too much. If they listed it, I'd take VT in a heartbeat.
- Chillin
When predicting our first loss, you have to factor in the schedule. We play FSU after a 10-day layoff and a stretch where we only play 1 other game in 21 days, spanning the exam and holiday breaks. We know the team will be rusty, and the Crazies will be on break too (to be fair, FSU will be coming off a long layoff as well, and they have to play on the road). I could totally see this as a game where we aren't hitting any shots at all from outside, and FSU has the size and athleticism inside to pack it in and hold their own on the boards. If both teams are undefeated at that point then we know our opponent will be rearing to go.
@Miami will be a Monday evening game following a Saturday in which we play Wake at home at noon. Pretty short turnaround time.
@VT will also be a Monday game following a Saturday game. Plus it will be the game that precedes the home finale against the CHeats, so potential trap game there.
Not sure what Villanova's schedule looks like but they seem like a reasonable pick to be the last unbeaten.
[QUOTE=MrPoon;1022001]Saw an article the other day and didn’t want to jinx us and post it but since someone else posted the undefeated idea, we can all pile on to them, not on me. Anyway the article had statistical analysis that Duke was not favored in only three games this year, @miami, @UNC, @VTech.
<snip much good stuff>
Just want to add that those analyses obviously use the Duke performance to date. With 4 freshmen starting there is every reason to hope that Duke improves more than other teams. It is plausible that Duke will be favored in every game this year. Less plausible is that they will be undefeated.