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  1. #1
    scottdude8's Avatar
    scottdude8 is offline Moderator, Contributor, Zoubek disciple, and resident Wolverine
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    An interesting hypothetical if you're worried about the tournament

    I put this as part of a long form piece on the front page, but I want to recapitulate it briefly here since I think it'll be salient to a lot of the conversations going on in various threads on the board.

    First, my premise: For Duke to not make the tourney this year, they'll likely need to have a worse resume than Notre Dame did last year. Notre Dame was one of the "Last 4 In" out of the ACC, and the conference was undeniably worse last year than it is this year. So, what were the key parts of Notre Dame's resume? Let's focus on three features: 11 total losses, 1 "bad" (Q3/4) loss, and 2 Q1 wins.

    Now, the first important point: It is extremely likely Duke will have at least 2 Q1 wins and less than 1 "bad" loss by the end of the season. The Xavier and Iowa neutral site wins are safely in Q1, and while the home Ohio State win looks precarious as our 3rd Q1 win, the home Miami win could easily ascend. We also will get a handful more opportunities before things end. Meanwhile, we only have 3 projected Q3/Q4 games left, two of which are at home. The other is this Saturday against Georgia Tech, so if we can make it out of Atlanta unscathed we'll likely be OK as it pertains to bad losses.

    With that in mind, I posit that for Duke's resume to be worse than Notre Dame's last year, it'll require losing at least five more regular season games, which would give us 11 regular season losses. If we go look at Torvik's projections, the likelihood of us losing all five of the games we're least likely to win is less than 5%.

    Obviously that number is a lot higher than we'd like, but it points to the fact that we've built a pretty nice buffer between us and the bubble, to the point that we'd have to be exceptionally bad/unlucky down the stretch to be really sweating come Selection Sunday. And this is arguably the most pessimistic scenario: if we were to say win one of @UVA, @UNC, @Miami, or home UNC, that'll likely be another Q1 win that'll give us even more of a buffer in case something extra weird happens.

    Now, let me be clear: I'm not saying that there's no chance we won't make the tourney. Torvik isn't omniscient... for instance, you might think we're going to lose all of our remaining road games because of our recent performances, which would change this hypothetical. What I'm trying to show is that, when you compare our resume to what the resumes of actual bubble teams actually look like, a LOT would have to go wrong for us to be in legitimate danger.

    I hope this provides some solace to the board, and for those who I've disagreed with on this topic, I hope that this hard analysis provides some concrete support to my argument. I look forward to continued debate
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  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by scottdude8 View Post
    I put this as part of a long form piece on the front page, but I want to recapitulate it briefly here since I think it'll be salient to a lot of the conversations going on in various threads on the board.

    First, my premise: For Duke to not make the tourney this year, they'll likely need to have a worse resume than Notre Dame did last year. Notre Dame was one of the "Last 4 In" out of the ACC, and the conference was undeniably worse last year than it is this year. So, what were the key parts of Notre Dame's resume? Let's focus on three features: 11 total losses, 1 "bad" (Q3/4) loss, and 2 Q1 wins.

    Now, the first important point: It is extremely likely Duke will have at least 2 Q1 wins and less than 1 "bad" loss by the end of the season. The Xavier and Iowa neutral site wins are safely in Q1, and while the home Ohio State win looks precarious as our 3rd Q1 win, the home Miami win could easily ascend. We also will get a handful more opportunities before things end. Meanwhile, we only have 3 projected Q3/Q4 games left, two of which are at home. The other is this Saturday against Georgia Tech, so if we can make it out of Atlanta unscathed we'll likely be OK as it pertains to bad losses.

    With that in mind, I posit that for Duke's resume to be worse than Notre Dame's last year, it'll require losing at least five more regular season games, which would give us 11 regular season losses. If we go look at Torvik's projections, the likelihood of us losing all five of the games we're least likely to win is less than 5%.

    Obviously that number is a lot higher than we'd like, but it points to the fact that we've built a pretty nice buffer between us and the bubble, to the point that we'd have to be exceptionally bad/unlucky down the stretch to be really sweating come Selection Sunday. And this is arguably the most pessimistic scenario: if we were to say win one of @UVA, @UNC, @Miami, or home UNC, that'll likely be another Q1 win that'll give us even more of a buffer in case something extra weird happens.

    Now, let me be clear: I'm not saying that there's no chance we won't make the tourney. Torvik isn't omniscient... for instance, you might think we're going to lose all of our remaining road games because of our recent performances, which would change this hypothetical. What I'm trying to show is that, when you compare our resume to what the resumes of actual bubble teams actually look like, a LOT would have to go wrong for us to be in legitimate danger.

    I hope this provides some solace to the board, and for those who I've disagreed with on this topic, I hope that this hard analysis provides some concrete support to my argument. I look forward to continued debate
    Awesome post, Scott. And certainly cannot disagree with the research and premise. Not sure if you saw yesterday, but I actually pulled these exact stats for all 4 Last Four In teams, as well as the First Four Out.

    My only counter-argument to this would be, are not all bubbles created differently? i.e. the bubble for 2023 may be stronger or weaker than 2022, and so on?

    There is some solace in the fact that, not only did Notre Dame get in last year with a much weaker resume (and one could argue Rutgers was even weaker than ND, outside the 7 Q1 wins), but they knocked off 6 seed Alabama and nearly knocked of 3 seed Texas Tech.

    As we know, anything can happen in the tournament, when it's ALL about matchups.

  3. #3
    scottdude8's Avatar
    scottdude8 is offline Moderator, Contributor, Zoubek disciple, and resident Wolverine
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    Quote Originally Posted by bshrader View Post
    Awesome post, Scott. And certainly cannot disagree with the research and premise. Not sure if you saw yesterday, but I actually pulled these exact stats for all 4 Last Four In teams, as well as the First Four Out.

    My only counter-argument to this would be, are not all bubbles created differently? i.e. the bubble for 2023 may be stronger or weaker than 2022, and so on?

    There is some solace in the fact that, not only did Notre Dame get in last year with a much weaker resume (and one could argue Rutgers was even weaker than ND, outside the 7 Q1 wins), but they knocked off 6 seed Alabama and nearly knocked of 3 seed Texas Tech.

    As we know, anything can happen in the tournament, when it's ALL about matchups.
    I did miss you doing that, which is a shame... good on ya!

    You'd 100% be right that all bubbles are created differently. For what it's worth, the last team in according to the consensus via BracketMatrix right now is West Virginia. It's hard to compare ourselves to them given that the NET being so in love with the Big 12 is going to skew things a lot this year... but WVU has 8 losses, is 1-4 on the road, and has 3 Q1 wins. You could argue given the Q1 similarity and similar lack of bad losses, that means we have a two game "cushion" on WVU. And they're certainly gonna lose a lot more games in the Big 12.
    Scott Rich on the front page

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    Duke Chronicle, Sports Online Editor: 2010-2012
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    If you have questions about Michigan Basketball/Football, I'm your man!

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by scottdude8 View Post
    I did miss you doing that, which is a shame... good on ya!

    You'd 100% be right that all bubbles are created differently. For what it's worth, the .last team in according to the consensus via BracketMatrix right now is West Virginia. It's hard to compare ourselves to them given that the NET being so in love with the Big 12 is going to skew things a lot this year... but WVU has 8 losses, is 1-4 on the road, and has 3 Q1 wins. You could argue given the Q1 similarity and similar lack of bad losses, that means we have a two game "cushion" on WVU. And they're certainly gonna lose a lot more games in the Big 12.
    Which is the exact reason I feel like a win on Saturday is absolutely necessary, not only for team confidence in getting a road win, but keeping that "bad loss" off the resume. Cause with GT at 180 in the NET, I don't see much chance that game becomes a Q2

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by scottdude8 View Post
    I did miss you doing that, which is a shame... good on ya!

    You'd 100% be right that all bubbles are created differently. For what it's worth, the last team in according to the consensus via BracketMatrix right now is West Virginia. It's hard to compare ourselves to them given that the NET being so in love with the Big 12 is going to skew things a lot this year... but WVU has 8 losses, is 1-4 on the road, and has 3 Q1 wins. You could argue given the Q1 similarity and similar lack of bad losses, that means we have a two game "cushion" on WVU. And they're certainly gonna lose a lot more games in the Big 12.
    With WVU's win in Lubbock last night, they have moved up to 24th in the NET rankings. Bracketmatrix hasnt been updated for today yet, but I would have to assume this would move them off the "last team in" label.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by bshrader View Post
    With WVU's win in Lubbock last night, they have moved up to 24th in the NET rankings. Bracketmatrix hasnt been updated for today yet, but I would have to assume this would move them off the "last team in" label.
    Yep, I would suspect this would help them in that regard.

    Duke also got a boost without playing, moving up from 32 to 30 (leapfrogging UNC in the process).

    We'll probably want to cheer for Miami to continue to do well (except against us of course), as they are within striking distance of making our win in Cameron a Q1 win.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    Yep, I would suspect this would help them in that regard.

    Duke also got a boost without playing, moving up from 32 to 30 (leapfrogging UNC in the process).

    We'll probably want to cheer for Miami to continue to do well (except against us of course), as they are within striking distance of making our win in Cameron a Q1 win.
    The Wake Forest game in Cameron next week is teetering near the Q2/3 line for now. It's in the Q2 territory as of today. Wake gets State in Winston this weekend, so if they can hold serve, I would suspect that game vs Wake will be a Q2 game for us.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by bshrader View Post
    The Wake Forest game in Cameron next week is teetering near the Q2/3 line for now. It's in the Q2 territory as of today. Wake gets State in Winston this weekend, so if they can hold serve, I would suspect that game vs Wake will be a Q2 game for us.
    It doesn't matter what they do against State. The Q1/Q2 will not be final until Selection Sunday, not based on the standings at the time of the game. So Wake has lots of opportunities to improve or get worse.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    It doesn't matter what they do against State. The Q1/Q2 will not be final until Selection Sunday, not based on the standings at the time of the game. So Wake has lots of opportunities to improve or get worse.
    Yea I know. Lots of time for adjustments in the NET and others sites. Just for discussion purposes.

  10. #10
    scottdude8's Avatar
    scottdude8 is offline Moderator, Contributor, Zoubek disciple, and resident Wolverine
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    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    Yep, I would suspect this would help them in that regard.

    Duke also got a boost without playing, moving up from 32 to 30 (leapfrogging UNC in the process).

    We'll probably want to cheer for Miami to continue to do well (except against us of course), as they are within striking distance of making our win in Cameron a Q1 win.
    Yup. I'll probably do an in-depth rooting interest post/article soon (I, for one, enjoy having rooting interests in random games, it makes them a bit more engaging personally). But some of the easy ones include:
    - Rooting for our non-conference wins (Xavier, Iowa, and (ugh) Ohio State). Xavier and Iowa are pretty safely Q1 wins since they were on a neutral court, but Ohio State is teetering since it was at home.
    - Miami, since they could conceivably make it into Q1 if they remain towards the top of the ACC.
    - NC State, since they could also make it into the Top 30 and give us another Q1 home opportunity.
    - Wake, since that's the loss that's most vulnerable to falling into Q2 at the moment.
    Scott Rich on the front page

    Trinity BS 2012; University of Michigan PhD 2018
    Duke Chronicle, Sports Online Editor: 2010-2012
    K-Ville Blue Tenting 2009-2012

    Unofficial Brian Zoubek Biographer
    If you have questions about Michigan Basketball/Football, I'm your man!

  11. #11
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    I'm not as worried about Duke getting into the tournament as I am about them exiting it very quickly.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Southgate0809 View Post
    I'm not as worried about Duke getting into the tournament as I am about them exiting it very quickly.
    Which is kind of why I'm not worrying about them getting into the tournament. If they deserve to get in, they almost certainly will. That's a major "if."

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Southgate0809 View Post
    I'm not as worried about Duke getting into the tournament as I am about them exiting it very quickly.
    This is a good year for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament. I'm not sure Duke has or can put the pieces together to take advantage of it.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by duke2x View Post
    This is a good year for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament. I'm not sure Duke has or can put the pieces together to take advantage of it.
    Seems like it's one of those years where there will be tons of upsets.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by duke2x View Post
    This is a good year for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament. I'm not sure Duke has or can put the pieces together to take advantage of it.
    Isn't every year a good year to be a high seed, as the higher seed you are the lower seeded your opponents are? Why is this year any different?

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by tommy View Post
    Isn't every year a good year to be a high seed, as the higher seed you are the lower seeded your opponents are? Why is this year any different?
    I need to clarify. This is a good year to be 6/7/8/9/10/11 seeds because a lot of the 1/2/3 seeds look very overrated right now. You usually have 2-3 really good teams at the top instead of 0-1.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by duke2x View Post
    I need to clarify. This is a good year to be 6/7/8/9/10/11 seeds because a lot of the 1/2/3 seeds look very overrated right now. You usually have 2-3 really good teams at the top instead of 0-1.
    haha I was going to sarcastically ask if by "high" seed you meant ranked highly (like a 1) or a high number (like a 16). I thought I was just being a jerk and that you meant a #1 seed or close to it, so I chose not to submit my post.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by scottdude8 View Post
    Thanks CDu, this is the point I was trying to make... if you agree with my premise that we won't be in danger until our resume starts to look worse than Notre Dame's last year (considering the conference is significantly better this year), then what I tried to show (with some admittedly incomplete analysis, but I wasn't writing a peer-reviewed paper, haha) is that the road to get there is pretty narrow. As an example, I outlined a particular scenario that Torvik's analysis says would be the most likely way we get to 5 losses: considering how unlikely that is, it serves just as a proof of concept. If the most straightforward path to 5 losses had a 15-20% chance in Torvik's analysis, then I think we'd be sweating a lot more.

    One of these days I'm going to put aside my neuroscience research and direct my time to putting those skills to full use on my DBR posts... if someone can figure out how I can make money from that, that is
    maybe look for some NIL ???

  19. #19
    Speaking of WVU, it's interesting that they're currently the last projected team in the field and they sit at 29th in the NET.

    They have a chance to pick up a Q1 win tonight in Lubbock.

    EDIT: Not only a Q1 opportunity, but a Q1 opportunity against a team that's 10-9 overall and 0-7 in conference.
    Last edited by bshrader; 01-25-2023 at 07:43 PM.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by bshrader View Post
    Speaking of WVU, it's interesting that they're currently the last projected team in the field and they sit at 29th in the NET.

    They have a chance to pick up a Q1 win tonight in Lubbock.

    EDIT: Not only a Q1 opportunity, but a Q1 opportunity against a team that's 10-9 overall and 0-7 in conference.
    Can somebody explain how a team (Texas Tech) with zero Q1 and Q2 wins has a NET ranking that is 77?

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