Duke-Villanova, the (not so) secret scrimmage Post Game Thread

[sagegrouse]

plausible to win every game and not go undefeated?

Plausible to be highly favored in every game and not go undefeated.

[CDu]

we're currently 27-4 vs individual game results. This doesn't include whatever in-season tournament we're playing in, which I assume we will end up favored in one game, and maybe a toss up in whatever the final is (I haven't looked at that to see who's playing).

The 4 losses are
gonzaga
@osu
@fsu
@ND

with the latter 2 effectively a toss up.

Yes, it depends on preseason metric. Torvik has us as expected to lose @UNC and @Louisville as well, which is what I was going off of. But the Louisville, UNC, and Notre Dame games are basically thought of as toss-ups at this point, as is the Kentucky game (just a toss-up in our favor).

I don't think we are playing in any real tournaments this year. We are technically hosting a "tournament", but that is just two regularly scheduled games against Army and Campbell.

To your first point, duke was one of the unluckiest teams in the country (347th out of 257). And that's even with the blowout vs UNC to end the season. The record was a combination of not being that good of a team, and losing more close games than we won. If that luck were flipped, there's a chance we are able to sneak into the tournament...or at least not be as far off the bubble as we ended up. For better or worse, actually winning games is a tournament criteria, as I think it should be. Sometimes it means a better team might get snubbed, but if you don't value actually winning games at some point, then IMO, what's the point? Such is the way of sports. Sometimes the better team isn't the one who advances.

Yes, if we had gone 4-4 in those close games instead of 2-6 in games decided by 5 or less (or OT), I think we're safely in the field (we would ultimately have likely bowed out due to COVID of course) last year. At 15-9, with solid but not great advanced metrics, I think we're in the field. We had better metrics than Syracuse and Clemson (both of whom we beat), who got in largely because they were 18-9 and 16-8 while we were 13-11. If we had instead been a bit lucky in those close games (say, 5-3)? We are 16-8 and probably a 6 or 7 seed (Clemson was a 7 seed at 16-8 with a worse KenPom rating).

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with the committee's decision to emphasize win/loss in their selections last year. But because they emphasized win/loss, our bad luck in close games (and bad luck in losing out on 3 free pre-conference wins) almost certainly cost us a bid.

[camion]

plausible to win every game and not go undefeated?

It is plausible to expect (be favored) to win each game during the season before you play it, but still not be likely to win all of them.

That's sadistics.