Bracketology



Being this early, that bracket probably won't hold up. But if it does, hopefully we can take care of business with Iowa State, and then we get to play UConn. That would be fun.
 




Down to a #8 seed vs. #9 Auburn in Waco.

Big Ten's highest seeds are #4 Iowa & Maryland.
 


Today's Bracketology now has gophers out of the field. They are now on first four out level. Maybe WNIT is what we are looking to be in...at best.
 

Today's Bracketology now has gophers out of the field. They are now on first four out level. Maybe WNIT is what we are looking to be in...at best.

And yet he still believes in Tennessee, who have lost 3 in a row, as a #6 seed.
 



3 losses to the Georgia, Kentucky and Missouri is nothing compared to losing to Illinois at home after having a 17 point lead and ending Illinois 29 big ten game losing streak. Probably why Tennessee still in the field


And yet he still believes in Tennessee, who have lost 3 in a row, as a #6 seed.
 

Rutgers has played their way up to a #4 seed where Iowa & Maryland still remain.

Gophers next opponent, Purdue, is an 8. Staples previous destination Clemson is also an 8.

Big Ten:
#4 - Iowa, Maryland, Rutgers
#7 - Michigan State
#8 - Purdue
#10 - Indiana
Next Four Out - #72 Michigan
 

Staples previous destination Clemson is also an 8.

Oops! Who would have thought that Clemson would be in better position for the tournament than the Gophers.

I wonder if Staples will be a prime transfer candidate. She’s been given opportunity but hasn’t exactly flourished. She could conceivably take a backseat to not only Hubbard but also next year’s freshmen.
 
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Oops! Who would have thought that Clemson would be in better position for the tournament than the Gophers.

I wonder if Staples will be a prime transfer candidate. She’s been given opportunity but hasn’t exactly flourished. She could conceivably take a backseat to Hubbard but also next year’s freshmen.
Clemson recruited her as a wing/shooter.
If Gophers give her the same opportunity she will flourish.
This team is still figuring out how to pass the ball effectively.
If all freshman transferred because of playing time then no one would have a roster.
Go back and look at the ball movement when Perez and Staples are in.


Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 





I’m surprised the Bracketology topic has dropped off this far. Must have been all the losing.

In Creme’s latest projections, the Gophers aren’t even a blip in his radar.

First four out
Indiana
Utah
TCU
Kansas State

Next four out
Buffalo
Purdue
Ohio
Georgia Tech

Moving in
BYU
Maine
Miami (Ohio)
Michigan
Portland State
Tennessee
West Virginia
 

The BIG tourney brackets will change multiple times before the tourney, but I liked the scenario I saw last night on BTN for our Gophers. Possible first game matchup with Indiana and then second game matchup with Rutgers. Both those teams are beatable. If the Gophers could by chance win the BIG tourney, then we don't have to worry about them being selected for the NCAA tourney.
 

I’m surprised the Bracketology topic has dropped off this far. Must have been all the losing.

In Creme’s latest projections, the Gophers aren’t even a blip in his radar.
...

This is basically one of the points that Michael Rand makes in his STrib article on parallel thread “STrib: Tournament chances? Gophers men, women in different places than you might think”

The primary Mens bracketologist has them In (or at least on the bubble in spite of their worse record). Whereas Creme, the primary Womens bracketologist has them way outside the bubble.

Bottom line is that NET rating has treated Gopher Men quite nicely, at least at the moment. Whereas RPI rating has treated Gopher Women like they have the Plague. Which is what you expect out of RPI, since by its very nature, RPI goes into Toxic Shock whenever it sees a cupcake NC schedule like the Lady Gophers have.

I have to add, though, that I’ve just lost whatever respect I once had for Creme. For the big bucks he gets paid, he should well know that the NCAA committee is supposed to consider a bigger picture than just RPI. Yet it appears that Creme himself merely uses a spreadsheet to sort RPIs for his so-called Bracketology. Wish I could get a cush job like that, and accomplish my work in 10 minutes of Excel.
 

This is basically one of the points that Michael Rand makes in his STrib article on parallel thread “STrib: Tournament chances? Gophers men, women in different places than you might think”

The primary Mens bracketologist has them In (or at least on the bubble in spite of their worse record). Whereas Creme, the primary Womens bracketologist has them way outside the bubble.

Bottom line is that NET rating has treated Gopher Men quite nicely, at least at the moment. Whereas RPI rating has treated Gopher Women like they have the Plague. Which is what you expect out of RPI, since by its very nature, RPI goes into Toxic Shock whenever it sees a cupcake NC schedule like the Lady Gophers have.

I have to add, though, that I’ve just lost whatever respect I once had for Creme. For the big bucks he gets paid, he should well know that the NCAA committee is supposed to consider a bigger picture than just RPI. Yet it appears that Creme himself merely uses a spreadsheet to sort RPIs for his so-called Bracketology. Wish I could get a cush job like that, and accomplish my work in 10 minutes of Excel.

Have you been reading the men's board? There's some hatred of NET due to the Gopher ranking and sky is falling beliefs.
 

This is basically one of the points that Michael Rand makes in his STrib article on parallel thread “STrib: Tournament chances? Gophers men, women in different places than you might think”

The primary Mens bracketologist has them In (or at least on the bubble in spite of their worse record). Whereas Creme, the primary Womens bracketologist has them way outside the bubble.

Bottom line is that NET rating has treated Gopher Men quite nicely, at least at the moment. Whereas RPI rating has treated Gopher Women like they have the Plague. Which is what you expect out of RPI, since by its very nature, RPI goes into Toxic Shock whenever it sees a cupcake NC schedule like the Lady Gophers have.

I have to add, though, that I’ve just lost whatever respect I once had for Creme. For the big bucks he gets paid, he should well know that the NCAA committee is supposed to consider a bigger picture than just RPI. Yet it appears that Creme himself merely uses a spreadsheet to sort RPIs for his so-called Bracketology. Wish I could get a cush job like that, and accomplish my work in 10 minutes of Excel.

It wasnt just a cupcake nonconference schedule, its the 339th ranked nc schedule. Let me say that again 339th. Its not this staffs fault at all but for a big 10 school to have that schedule is honestly pathetic and we deserve to be punished for it. That sad if we can pull out a few more games we'll get a chance to get back in the tournament.
 
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Is that the dilemma of hiring a coach from a non-prominent mid-major?
 

Is that the dilemma of hiring a coach from a non-prominent mid-major?

Presumably the dilemma you refer to is related to a former Gopher coach who came from a non-prominent mid-major and who liked to play cupcake teams in order to jack up her own Win/Loss coaching record, and thus have a springier springboard from which to make the next coaching jump.

Since many of us posters saw that cupcake trend a season or three ago (those cupcakes might well have been the reason Rachel’s senior-year team had to settle for a WNIT berth), in hindsight I think we should have been screamin at the top of our lungs about this issue to the AD, at the time. Shame on us, I guess.
 

It wasnt just a cupcake nonconference schedule, its the 339th ranked nc schedule. Let me say that again 339th. Its not this staffs fault at all but for a big 10 school to have that schedule is honestly pathetic and we deserve to be punished for it. That sad if we can pull out a few more games we'll get a chance to get back in the tournament.

Ouch! I knew our NC schedule was shockingly bad. But I didn’t know that it was 338th place, 10,000 volts worth of shockingly bad.
 

Have you been reading the men's board? There's some hatred of NET due to the Gopher ranking and sky is falling beliefs.

Actually I started reading the Mens board thread on the NET subject right after I read a STrib article that quoted Pitino as griping about the NET ranking given to the Gophers at the time.

So I probably mis-stated my point. The NET ranking currently given to Gopher Mens team is probably worse than what they deserve as well, but at least apparently not so badly ranked such that (currently at least) they are counted as In the NCAA tourney, whereas the Women need to pull off a minor miracle to get to In. But the Women have the better record.

Also, that article I read quoted Pitino as saying that in some particular game he did leave his starters in to increase the margin of victory, and thus increase their NET rating.

That’s one of the issues of NET - you’re almost forced to game the rating, because you know the other teams are going to.

I read a couple of Mens NET thread posts at the time, but there were so many of them that I decided to come back later and read them all, and take notes on some things that others might know about NET that I don’t; and on other posts that may be only half right, or totally wrong. But from what I know already, it’s clear that NET has lots of issues too, and one of those issues is that the NET rating system itself is rewarding teams for scheduling cupcake teams in their NC schedule. Pretty soon, in the NCAA Mens basketball, cupcake teams will be sold at auction to the highest bidder.
 
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Actually I started reading the Mens board thread on the NET subject right after I read a STrib article that quoted Pitino as griping about the NET ranking given to the Gophers at the time.

So I probably mis-stated my point. The NET ranking currently given to Gopher Mens team is probably worse than what they deserve as well, but at least apparently not so badly ranked such that (currently at least) they are counted as In the NCAA tourney, whereas the Women need to pull off a minor miracle to get to In. But the Women have the better record.

Also, that article I read quoted Pitino as saying that in some particular game he did leave his starters in to increase the margin of victory, and thus increase their NET rating.

That’s one of the issues of NET - you’re almost forced to game the rating, because you know the other teams are going to.

I read a couple of Mens NET thread posts at the time, but there were so many of them that I decided to come back later and read them all, and take notes on some things that others might know about NET that I don’t; and on other posts that may be only half right, or totally wrong. But from what I know already, it’s clear that NET has lots of issues too, and one of those issues is that the NET rating system itself is rewarding teams for scheduling cupcake teams in their NC schedule. Pretty soon, in the NCAA Mens basketball, cupcake teams will be sold at auction to the highest bidder.

Not to beat this to death, but it is worth pointing out that, yes, "the women have a better record." But, for all intents and purposes, five or six of those wins in that better record essentially don't count because the committee sees them as one step away from playing D2 teams.
 

Not to beat this to death, but it is worth pointing out that, yes, "the women have a better record." But, for all intents and purposes, five or six of those wins in that better record essentially don't count because the committee sees them as one step away from playing D2 teams.

Yes, that’s a very good point, tjp.

Those totally cupcake games should basically not even be counted as games - neither for Wins purposes nor for Losses purposes nor for Games Played purposes.

And that’s exactly what Massey ratings does- it simply throws them out for all purposes. Or, I should say, it fractionally throws them out in proportion to their cupcake-ness. Automatically as part of the algorithm, it does the right thing, and largely crosses these cupcake games out of that part of the record that goes into computing the rating. After largely not counting the cupcakes at all, the Massey rating system then gives the Lady Gophers a rating that corresponds to a ranking of #39. This is a pretty fair ranking.

On the other hand, RPI puts those cupcake games (that we just agreed should largely not even be counted as Div I games), front and center in its evaluation. Since RPI is 75% based on needing to have a strong schedule, it crucifies any team like the Lady Gophers who commit the sin of playing too many throwaway cupcake teams. Thus an RPI ranking of #101 for a team that is more properly considered to be a #39 ranked team. Our properly deserved #39 ranking got launched into the #101 range by RPI. And improperly so, just because RPI is a piece of crap when anybody attempts to use it to evaluate basketball teams.

Now in contrast, imagine the following thought experiment. Suppose that the Lady Gophers have the same exact schedule and same exact results that they have right now. Nothing is changed except for the fact that we are going to evaluate them based on the NET system that the Men currently use.

Under that hypothetical thought-experiment scenario, the NET metric would artificially jack their natural #39 ranking all the way up to about a #25 ranking. Approximately, I’m only guessing. Because playing all those cupcake teams gave us so many wins with huge margins of victory, and that’s exactly what NET is looking for in order to give you a good rating. NET should also be ignoring those cupcake games almost as if they didn’t exist (like only Massey succeeds in doing). But instead, NET places an over-emphasis on the cupcake games - but in this case actually wanting a team to have lots of cupcake games in order to (artificially) jack it’s NET rating higher than it ought to be.

So right now the Lady Gophers are way out of playoff contention, merely because they use RPI for the Women. But if they were using NET for the women, then we’d be sitting pretty at about the #25 spot.

Both RPI and NET are crap. For opposite reasons. RPI damns you for playing lots of cupcakes. NET puts you on a pedestal for playing lots of cupcakes. When in fact, the cupcakes should just be ignored in proportion to their cupcake-ness.
 
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Will the perspective change if the Gophers win two of the last three games?
 

Will the perspective change if the Gophers win two of the last three games?

Yes, because we would have a total of 4 wins vs top 30 rpi teams
Syracuse, rutgers, and the last 2.
Plus potential to maybe get a 5th win in the B1G tourney.

Us winning out is very possible. Maryland is not a physical team. They have length, but we match up well against them for a few reasons.
1. We have better spacing and pace now.
2. They dont play great 1on1 defense.
3. They wont do well against our press, as long as we arent as aggressive and undisciplined as Rutgers.

Us winning these games would really help the conference. The teams that lost to us would stop being punished for losing to a low rpi team.
 

Yes, because we would have a total of 4 wins vs top 30 rpi teams
Syracuse, rutgers, and the last 2.
Plus potential to maybe get a 5th win in the B1G tourney.

Us winning out is very possible. Maryland is not a physical team. They have length, but we match up well against them for a few reasons.
1. We have better spacing and pace now.
2. They dont play great 1on1 defense.
3. They wont do well against our press, as long as we arent as aggressive and undisciplined as Rutgers.

Us winning these games would really help the conference. The teams that lost to us would stop being punished for losing to a low rpi team.

Correct. We can still be In with a couple more good wins. That is, if the Committee follows their own guidelines.
 

Indiana moved in as a 10 seed now after their Iowa upset. They'd have to win their last 2 games to finish .500 in conference.
 




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