A team that was ranked in the preseason top 10 and finishes unranked isn't going to have its coach get a single national COY vote, much less win.
Not saying the award should be "team that beats preseason expectations the most", but that's what it is.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Our resume is about to get a little better qualitatively. MSU (#81 in NET) is thumping Illinois, which should push them out of Q3 loss territory for us. Obviously it devalues our Illinois loss, but that one is still a Q1 loss anyway.
Not that it means much, but I would say that this team in its current state is better than a number of past Duke teams that have made the tournament. Off the top of my head:
‘96
‘07
‘16
Was tempted to say ‘12 but I still think they beat this team.
‘84 ? Nah
Yeah, I don’t see it. They are notably worse in all of the metrics (NET, RPI, KenPom), they are well under .500 in conference, their Q1 record is way worse. They have a win over us in 2020, but just the one game doesn’t make a resume. And despite having 11 Q1 games, tonight was their first win over a surefire tourney team. We have 2 of those in UVa and Clemson, and a way better record in Q1 games (2-3 vs 3-8).
We also have an easier remaining schedule, so even if it is close I think they aren’t a threat.
I know they got a nice win tonight, but Michigan State is still a team that is 3 games below .500 and in 10th place in their own conference. And we lost to them at home. That loss, which I believe (could be wrong) is a Q3 loss, is hurting our profile significantly. Unless they can string together a number of like performances to tonight's down the stretch and beat much of a difficult closing schedule, their NCAAT chances are on life support.
Is there anyone else whose eyes glaze over when hearing the details of Q-1, Q-2 wins, RPI, NET, etc.? I change the channel when Joe Lunardi appears with his latest breathless Next 4 Out which he treats as a bombshell.
Just win, baby.
Totally agree. I am by nature a quantitatively oriented person but all of this analysis is worthless to me. Control what you can control. I despise Lunardi and change the channel whenever he comes on as he adds zero value to my life. I generally find political polling to also be largely pointless but at least campaigns can theoretically use the information to determine messaging and allocate resources. Lunardi's predictions do nothing, and he is never held remotely accountable for his performance. And even if he is wrong, so what?
With all of the cancelled games and other factors, the committee is going to have a very difficult job to do this year. Since it might be close for Duke this year, we can be grateful that the Ivy League cancelled its season, as I assume that opens up one additional at large slot.