2022-23 NET/Bracketology Discussion

[Bluedog]

Charleston is an interesting case. The AP voters sure like them a lot more than the predictive metrics. The CAA hasn't gotten an at-large bid since 2011, and I agree it will be tough if they don't win the AQ. It also shows you how hard it is for smaller conference teams to get a shot. KenPom projects them to go 28-3... that's really hard to do! Per the resume metrics, they are 30th in Strength of Record and 32nd in Wins Above Bubble, which would be at-large territory. But the Committee's reliance on the quadrant system makes it much easier to get in if you're a middling power conference team than if you are in a league like the CAA. Charleston only got one chance at a Q1 win, but a ton of chances to take a damaging loss.

Yeah, these cases show the weakness in the quadrant system and why "raw" NET rank should be relied upon more heavily IMHO for teams that don't have a large sample size of quality opponents. But I expect they will NOT get the benefit of the doubt.

[bshrader]

That win over Ohio State might be dropping from the Q1 ranks for the time being, as OSU is down 6 to Wisky with under 3 to go in Columbus.

[bshrader]

BTW, these uniforms for Wisky look like they left them under the trucks that lay the salt brine for inclement weather.

[dlmzzz]

Sigh. So, out of 20 conference games this year, We have 7 Quad 1 games and 6 Quad 2 games (0-4 and 2-0 so far). But none of the teams are good enough so they would qualify to be a Quad 1 win at Cameron. We only play Virginia away.

It feels kinda like:

• Make the NCAAs = Don't lose at Notre Dame and Louisville
• Move up in our seeding = Notch some wins on the road among Miami, UVA, and UNC
• Get a top seed = Go 8-1 in the regular season and have a solid showing in the ACC tournament

Does that look optimistic, pessimistic, or about right?

[House P]

Sigh. So, out of 20 conference games this year, We have 7 Quad 1 games and 6 Quad 2 games (0-4 and 2-0 so far). But none of the teams are good enough so they would qualify to be a Quad 1 win at Cameron. We only play Virginia away.

It feels kinda like:

• Make the NCAAs = Don't lose at Notre Dame and Louisville
• Move up in our seeding = Notch some wins on the road among Miami, UVA, and UNC
• Get a top seed = Go 8-1 in the regular season and have a solid showing in the ACC tournament

Does that look optimistic, pessimistic, or about right?

At the risk of stating the obvious, the bolded point certainly depends on what Duke does in its other 7 games. If Duke goes 6-3 the rest of the way, but somehow loses to ND and Louisville they will almost certainly still make the tourney. Similarly, if Duke goes 3-6 but beats ND and Louisville, they will still be in trouble.

Torvik's Teamcast feature is hardly definitive, but here is what it says about Duke's tourney prospects based on various ways the final nine regular season games could play out.

Remain W	Remain L	Overall W	Overall L	Seed	Chance of occurring
9	0	25	6	2	0.8%
8	1	24	7	3	6.3%
7	2	23	8	3-4	18.7%
6	3	22	9	5-7	29.2%
5	4	21	10	7-10	26.5%
4	5	20	11	10-Out	13.9%
3	6	19	12	Out	4.3%
2	7	18	13	Out	0.7%

Torvik's approach says that Duke should be safely in the tourney if they can manage five wins. Four wins probably puts the team on the bubble and three or fewer wins probably has them on the outside looking in. The good news is that Torvik thinks it is pretty unlikely that Duke will end the season with 3 or fewer wins.

I prefer to look at the top of the chart. Torvik thinks Duke has a 7% chance of finishing the season 9-0 or 8-1 and ending up with a top 3 seed!

Of course, all of this is before the ACC tournament.

[AGDukesky]

^Those Torvik numbers jive with what I was guessing - four more losses get Duke in for sure but any more make it very precarious. Good stuff!

[CDu]

I agree with those saying Torvik's breakdown makes sense. Obviously there is some margin for error on all of this, but essentially going 5-4 almost certainly gets us in, going 4-5 would make things VERY iffy, and going 3-6 or worse would be backbreaking.

It will be challenging to get to the upper-end seed line for sure, but not impossible. It would likely require Lively to continue his recent run of high quality play and cutting down on the fouls, Filipowski cutting back on the turnovers while continuing his rebounding and more recently efficient scoring (Wake game notwithstanding), and Proctor maintaining his recent run of excellent play. It's doable, but would be really threading the needle.

If we can take 2 of the next 3, our chances of getting a protected NCAA seed go way up. If we don't take 2 of our next 3, we're likely not getting a protected seed. If we lose all 3, we aren't getting a protected seed and will need to take care of business in our expected wins the rest of the way to stay clear of the bubble. So, as expected, this 3-game stretch will be pretty crucial to our seeding.

[gumbomoop]

It feels kinda like:

• Make the NCAAs = Don't lose at Notre Dame and Louisville
• Move up in our seeding = Notch some wins on the road among Miami, UVA, and UNC
• Get a top seed = Go 8-1 in the regular season and have a solid showing in the ACC tournament

Just to make sure we’re prognosticating on the same page, a friendly but important amendment: the games v. ND and UL are home games.

[scottdude8]

It's worth remembering when we consider all these scenarios that these events are not independent. If we happen to lose at home to ND or Louisville, unless it's just a complete outlier stinker of a game, it's probably a symptom of something that has gone horribly wrong and portends other losses. If we can, say, beat UVa or Miami on the road, unless we just happened to shoot the lights out it's probably indicative of the team finally coming together as we all have hoped, and likely portends a better than expected finish.

Regardless, we're going to learn a lot about it's team, and in turn have a much clearer picture of it's ceiling/floor, over the next 8 days.

[scottdude8]

Don't look now, but we're slowly but surely climbing back up the NET rankings. After the victory over UNC and the other weekend action, we're now up to No. 25 in the NET rankings.

Unfortunately, our Q1 record has taken a hit with Ohio State's fall. We now are 2-6 in Q1, with those two wins against Xavier and Iowa on neutral sites fairly safe as Q1 victories. Ohio State is now No. 41, so they could get back into the Top 30 if they turn their season around. Our victory at home over Miami could also become Q1 if Miami finishes strong, as they're current No. 39, and our upcoming home game against NC State is also a potential Q1 game (they're at #42). UNC is #44 in the NET, and Va Tech #50, so both those home contests are unlikely to make it to Q1, but it isn't outside the realm of possibility.

Meanwhile, two of our last three sure-fire Q1 games are this week: at #39 Miami and at #15 Virginia. Outside the obvious need to win one (or both) of these to retain an outside shot of claiming an ACC regular season title, getting that third Q1 win would be a huge boost for our pursuit of a "protected" (i.e., Top 4) NCAAT seed.

[CDu]

Don't look now, but we're slowly but surely climbing back up the NET rankings. After the victory over UNC and the other weekend action, we're now up to No. 25 in the NET rankings.

Unfortunately, our Q1 record has taken a hit with Ohio State's fall. We now are 2-6 in Q1, with those two wins against Xavier and Iowa on neutral sites fairly safe as Q1 victories. Ohio State is now No. 41, so they could get back into the Top 30 if they turn their season around. Our victory at home over Miami could also become Q1 if Miami finishes strong, as they're current No. 39, and our upcoming home game against NC State is also a potential Q1 game (they're at #42). UNC is #44 in the NET, and Va Tech #50, so both those home contests are unlikely to make it to Q1, but it isn't outside the realm of possibility.

Meanwhile, two of our last three sure-fire Q1 games are this week: at #39 Miami and at #15 Virginia. Outside the obvious need to win one (or both) of these to retain an outside shot of claiming an ACC regular season title, getting that third Q1 win would be a huge boost for our pursuit of a "protected" (i.e., Top 4) NCAAT seed.

That #25 rating is actually a bit of a step back. We were at #23 before the UNC game.

And I would say that if we win both games this week, we become the favorites to win at least a share of the ACC regular season title. But winning just one would make it quite a reach, especially if the loss is to UVa.

I would say though that winning just one of these two will make getting a protected seed very unlikely..

[azzefkram]

That #25 rating is actually a bit of a step back. We were at #23 before the UNC game.

And I would say that if we win both games this week, we become the favorites to win at least a share of the ACC regular season title. But winning just one would make it quite a reach, especially if the loss is to UVa.

I would say though that winning just one of these two will make getting a protected seed very unlikely..

Yeah, UVA has a ludicrously easy closing schedule. Louisville 2x, BC, and ND are Charmin soft. NCSU, Duke, and Clemson are home. UNC away will be a challenge.

[CDu]

Yeah, UVA has a ludicrously easy closing schedule. Louisville 2x, BC, and ND are Charmin soft. NCSU, Duke, and Clemson are home. UNC away will be a challenge.

After this week, our schedule gets almost as easy as UVa's. The only difference is we play at home vs VT whereas UVa gets a road game against Louisville. And of course this week is much tougher for us as our games are on the road.

But if we lose to UVa this week, we fall effectively 2-4 games behind them in the standings (depending on their result tomorrow and our result tonight). It is VERY unlikely we make that difference up with the ease of UVa's schedule. Not to mention we'd also be effectively 2-4 games behind Clemson in the standings, and their schedule after this week is comparable to ours plus one of the "losable" games for both UVa and Clemson is a head-to-head between them, ensuring that one of them will gain a win on us.

But if we win both games, the story flips. Then we'd be at least tied for 3rd with the possibility of being tied for 1st. And in that circumstance, I'd give us pretty good odds of being the ACC regular season champ given the remaining schedules that Clemson and Pitt have and our game in hand against UVa and Pitt.

[scottdude8]

While we're all rightly more concerned with our team's performance last night and less with the silliness of the NET and how it affects things come Selection Sunday, it's worth noting that the loss dropped us to NET #29... but brought Miami up to #30, making our home victory against them a Q1 win.

[JasonEvans]

While we're all rightly more concerned with our team's performance last night and less with the silliness of the NET and how it affects things come Selection Sunday, it's worth noting that the loss dropped us to NET #29... but brought Miami up to #30, making our home victory against them a Q1 win.

[CDu]

While we're all rightly more concerned with our team's performance last night and less with the silliness of the NET and how it affects things come Selection Sunday, it's worth noting that the loss dropped us to NET #29... but brought Miami up to #30, making our home victory against them a Q1 win.

Yeah, that feels a pretty hollow bonus for us. The loss makes for a daunting challenge the rest of the way to getting a protected seed. Not impossible, but feeling more and more unlikely. We're probably sitting on the 7 line right now (or the fringe of the 6/7 line), with a bad Q1 resume and relatively few opportunities left for improving that story.

The one thing that it does do is make it less likely we miss the tournament, but that was already a pretty unlikely event.

[kshepinthehouse]

Yeah, that feels a pretty hollow bonus for us. The loss makes for a daunting challenge the rest of the way to getting a protected seed. Not impossible, but feeling more and more unlikely. We're probably sitting on the 7 line right now (or the fringe of the 6/7 line), with a bad Q1 resume and relatively few opportunities left for improving that story.

The one thing that it does do is make it less likely we miss the tournament, but that was already a pretty unlikely event.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a protected seed?

[CDu]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a protected seed?

The 1-4 seeds in each region are "protected", in that they get preferential location for the opening weekend of the tournament.

[scottdude8]

Yeah, that feels a pretty hollow bonus for us. The loss makes for a daunting challenge the rest of the way to getting a protected seed. Not impossible, but feeling more and more unlikely. We're probably sitting on the 7 line right now (or the fringe of the 6/7 line), with a bad Q1 resume and relatively few opportunities left for improving that story.

The one thing that it does do is make it less likely we miss the tournament, but that was already a pretty unlikely event.

To be clear, I 100% agree with both of you... I by no means feel that this should be any consolation after last night's putrid performance. But, it is a thing that happened that is relevant to this thread, as silly as that is.

[tommy]

So St Mary’s, #6 in the NET, lost tonight to #100 LMU on the road. It’s the Gaels’ second quad 2 loss to go along with two Quad 3 losses (nobody else in the top 26 has more than one) against just a 2-1 record in Quad 1 games. I root for all the small schools like them, but at some point, with this resume, they have to drop don’t they? Let’s see how much.