Lying in the weeds among the top five is not a bad place to be...I couldn't really care less whether we are ranked 1, 2 or 3 as long as we keep winning.
it's kind of head scratching how the one loss is being treated. ESPN had an article the other day about how baylor is easily the best team in the country, which given the desparity in the computer numbers, is hardly indisputable.
Duke is unfortunatly punished right now due to the weak ACC...and MSU getting their doors blown off didn't help things. A win against UL this weekend would go a long way in helping prove that we're actually as good as the computers say, and hopefully finally drive the narrative away from SFA.
In any case, there's little doubt in my mind that Duke is being judged more harshly than they ought right now...especially given we're 5-0 with 3 30+ point wins.
1200. DDMF.
Lying in the weeds among the top five is not a bad place to be...I couldn't really care less whether we are ranked 1, 2 or 3 as long as we keep winning.
You cannot find a computer that has Duke lower than #3 or maybe #4 and the vast majority have us #1. Baylor is routinely #5-#8 and you can find several computers who have them outside the top 10.
But none of this matters. Duke would be a mortal lock to be a #1 seed in our preferred region if the tournament were today. Get past Louisville this weekend and it starts to become very difficult to come up with reasonable scenarios where Duke is not a #1 seed.
-Jason "Kansas, SFA, and Ga Tech are the only games we have played where the outcome was in doubt at all with 5 minutes to go, right? I'm trying to think if there were any others" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
It's probably more just disrespect of Stephen F Austin than of Duke. I've noticed weird human rankings of us all season since the SFA loss.
Even if it continues, no big deal. All that matters is that we are likely the #1 seed in the East region if the tournament started today. Hopefully that continues to be the case.
For me, it's all about Bracket Matrix, not the AP or coaches' polls.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Clearly, Gonzaga with it's #242 strength of schedule is the superior team, especially with their impressive 5 point win over Pepperdine at home. Crushing ACC teams by 40 on the road is way out of style.
Of all time? Seriously? Remember when we lost to Michigan State by 1 in the NCAA tournament . . . literally like 8 months ago? Come on, regular season rankings mean nothing.
Last edited by kAzE; 01-13-2020 at 01:24 PM.
A number of pollsters subscribe to the theory of “if the #1 team doesn’t lose, they will not drop from #1 no matter what.” I don’t particularly agree with this, but it’s a common philosophy. However, the same pollsters have no problem dropping a team from #2 to #3 without losing, which seems inconsistent to me.
Duke, Gonzaga, and Baylor all have a case for #1. Each has one loss. We have the best computer rankings but also the worst loss. Baylor has the most Q1 wins and is #1 in the NET. Gonzaga has the weakest strength of schedule but also the “best” loss.
I’m not going to sweat it too much; by the time March gets here we will have much more data to work with and a better case for who the #1’s should be.
how is SFA a good loss? Sure they're not the 250 ranked team people thought they were, but they're still outside the top 100 teams in the country.
This was the equivalent of duke losing to a 16 seed. At home.
I'm not sure I can see I can paint that as a good loss in any stretch.
1200. DDMF.
Gonzaga and Duke each have three quadrant 1 wins. They only have one Q2 win while we have three. But their lone loss was against a good Michigan team (Q1) while ours was a Q3. I believe that if SFA is able to move up to 75 in the NET, it will become a Q2 loss. Currently they are 89.
Gonzaga’s overall SOS is weak and I do believe that we have the better resume. The pressure is on them to go undefeated in conference because if they do take a loss then it will be difficult to make up ground.
I took it as “good” in the sense of a wake-up call that got the team’s attention and resulted in more wins on the season- plus didn’t hurt conference standings or postseason chances. You can argue it might ultimately affect seeding if Duke loses a few more games, but other than the immediate embarrassment may not be very costly...
I mean sure. But they've played and coached their butts off since and have made a few adjustments. Would it have been better to lose at Mich St? Or Kansas? Georgetown? I kind of like having those wins in the bank. Not sure I'd trade a conference loss either.
Or course you're right that it's a "bad loss" by any statistical measure, but it may not mean all that much in the long run, and it has sort of helped Duke fly under the radar, inasmuch as Duke can.
I'm not sure I agree totally, as the team came out equally lackluster against an equally bad winthrop team, with the game tied 32-32 16 minutes in, and only a 4 point game with 9:30 to go, before pulling away slightly. Including the close game against GT the week earlier, many of us were very worried about the game against MSU. It's really starting at that game that we've played spectacularly.
1200. DDMF.
It doesn't really matter, but I'm going to keep pushing back against this point as long as it's being made. SFA is miles better than a 16-seed. They just are. If they make the tournament - and they are definitely favorites to win their conference tournament - they will be a 13 or 14-seed. There is virtually no scenario in which SFA qualifies for the tournament and gets a 16-seed.
Now, it doesn't mean that losing to them wasn't a "bad loss." It just helps to calibrate that SFA is a lot better than some think they are.
they lost at home last week to #292 Texas A&M Corpus Christi, and have lost by double digits to the other two potential tournament teams they've played. If they keep losing games like that, and then win their conference tournament, they could easily slip down to a 16. Gardner webb was ranked 163.
They're ranked 122 or so...lets look at the rankings of seeds from last year
13:73, 89,106,76
14:77, 96,113,124
15:161,137,126,152
13 seed seems way out of the picture. 14/15 is where they'd live today, depending on other AQ, and they could easily slip down to GW territory, given they've climbed to where they are.
Also note that the rankings given here will be artificially suppressed due to all those teams losing in the tournament. If anyone wants to download the pre-tourney data and dig it up, feel free.
In any case, it's totally plausible for SFA to slip down into the 160+ rank and end up as a 16, perhaps unlikely given what we've seen of them, but "virtually no scenario" is way too strong a statement.
And regardless if it is a 14, 15, or 16 seed, it's still a very bad loss for what we want to believe and the computers claim is the best team in the country.
1200. DDMF.
FWIW, there are at least SOME of the talking heads/analysts I've heard recently who have stated the obvious: if it weren't for the SFA blip, this whole "there's no great teams this year" storyline would be for naught and Duke would be the consensus best team in the country. That said, I don't begrudge AP voters for punishing us for that: after all, they can't ignore that the event happened. The committee won't be able to either come March. But, as many have mentioned, the various respected computer metrics do seem to be showing some separation between us and the other top teams right now. Humans can and are obviously swayed by outliers; computers, not so much.
It's also worth remembering that the randomness of the ACC regular season schedule was kind to us this year: we only play Louisville and FSU once a piece, both at home. We also only play Virginia once, but on the road. If we take care of business and claim the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tourney, I think everything else will sort itself out quite nicely.
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