Latest Field of 68 Projection includes Gophers, Rutgers

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SelectionSunday

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We have 20 new teams in the Field of 68 since our last projection on Dec. 13, and that includes none other than the Minnesota Golden Gophers (7-5, 1-1 Big Ten). Who woulda' thunk that after the pasting the Iowa Hawkeyes delivered to the Gophers on Dec. 9 in Iowa City?

Obviously still a long ways to go, but heading into the meat of the Big Ten schedule the Gophers have positioned themselves in a decent spot because of their court-storming win over previously unbeaten Ohio State and a non-conference schedule that at this point has 4 opponents (Butler, Utah, DePaul, Oklahoma State) projected into the field and a 5th (Oklahoma) among the "first 8 out".

A couple surprises in our latest projection? Virginia is nowhere to be seen (not even among the "first 8 out", though I suspect that will change), and Rutgers, yes Rutgers, is among our "last 4 in".

A reminder, this projection assumes no future results. It includes game results through Dec. 29. Fire away!!!!!

FIELD OF 68 (12/30/19) -- * denotes conference leader/best NET ranking in multiple-bid conference (previous projection Dec. 13)

America East (1): Vermont (88)

American (3): *Wichita State (10), Memphis (13), Houston (40)

ACC (4): Duke (8), *Louisville (14), Florida State (27), NC State (32)

ASUN (1): Liberty (48)

Atlantic 10 (1): Dayton (12)

Big East (8): *Butler (4), Villanova (20), Creighton (25), Georgetown (30), Seton Hall (33), Marquette (35), DePaul (39), Saint John’s (49)

Big Sky (1): Eastern Washington (92)

Big South (1): Radford (134)

Big Ten (10): Ohio State (3), Penn State (15), Maryland (16), Michigan (17), *Michigan State (19), Iowa (24), Minnesota (28), Wisconsin (34), Rutgers (37), Illinois (47)

Big XII (5): *Kansas (2), Baylor (7), West Virginia (9), Oklahoma State (29), Texas Tech (38)

Big West (1): UC-Irvine (124)

Colonial (1): College of Charleston (118)

Conference USA (1): Louisiana Tech (82)

Horizon (1): Northern Kentucky (115)

Ivy (1): Yale (55)

MAAC (1): Rider (120)

MAC (1): Akron (78)

MEAC (1): Morgan State (239)

Missouri Valley (1): Northern Iowa (22)

Mountain West (2): *San Diego State (1), Utah State (45)

NEC (1): Saint Francis-Pa. (135)

OVC (1): Belmont (85)

Pac 12 (6): *Oregon (11), Arizona (18), Stanford (21), Colorado (23), Washington (43), Utah (62)

Patriot (1): Colgate (147)

SEC (4): *Auburn (5), Arkansas (26), LSU (41), Kentucky (44)

SoCon (1): UNC-Greensboro (61)

Southland (1): Stephen F. Austin (59)

SWAC (1): Texas Southern (218)

Summit (1): North Dakota State (154)

Sun Belt (1): Appalachian State (106)

WCC (3): *Gonzaga (6), Saint Mary’s (31), BYU (36)

WAC (1): New Mexico State (108)
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Last 4 In: Rutgers (37), LSU (41), Illinois (47), Utah (62)

First 8 Out: Virginia Tech (46), Purdue (50), Oklahoma (51), VCU (52), Ole Miss (54), Indiana (56), Iowa State (64), Missouri (68)

Non-Power 7 At-Larges (3): Saint Mary’s (31), BYU (36), Utah State (45)

Movin’ On In (20): Akron, Appalachian State, Colgate, College of Charleston, Colorado, Creighton, Eastern Washington, Houston, Marquette, Minnesota, Morgan State, NC State, North Dakota State, Rutgers, Saint John’s, Saint Mary’s, Texas Southern, UC-Irvine, Utah, Wisconsin

Movin’ On Out (20): Coppin State, Delaware, Duquesne, Hawaii, Indiana, Kent State, Navy, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oral Roberts, Prairie View A&M, Purdue, Sacramento State, Tennessee, Texas, UT-Arlington, Virginia, VCU, Virginia Tech, Xavier

NEXT FIELD OF 68 PROJECTION: Monday, January 20
 
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Good stuff. I still don't expect this team to be a tournament team, but this is turning into a much more fun year than I had anticipated. We have young guys showing promise, and a team that's very easy to cheer for.
 

As expected as of a month ago, defending national champs are out and Gophers are in!! Wait!What?!

Love it, let's keep it going Gophers. Would love to see only 4 ACC teams get in.

Go Gophers!!
 

Interesting debate between MN and UVa.

UVa is top 30 in both Kenpom and RPI.
They have won three games away from home. (One true road game at Syracuse and a good neutral site win again Arizona State).

Obviously, the Gophs have the highest quality win (played at home).

Probably would favor the Hoos on overall body of work (similar to the two other big ranking systems). But it is close.
 

Really surprised to see Virginia out. Yes, the NET rankings are low, but looking at the resume I have a really hard time leaving out a 10-2 Virginia team with their only losses at Purdue and vs South Carolina. Comparing resumes with teams like Seton Hall, Illinois, Rutgers, Utah State, Georgetown, who you all have listed in, I would probably take Virginia over any of them. Especially comparing Virginia to Ole Miss or Mizzou, in your first 8 out, not sure how they're not even close to the bracket.
 


By the way- I see that Michigan is losing Livers indefinitely to a groin injury. We play them on the 12th. I guess no one knows what indefinite means...by definition.
 

Making the NCAA tourney would be a huge accomplishment for this group and would set the stage for what could be a truly special season next year if the roster of underclassmen returns intact.
 

the B1G having another "down year" with only 10 teams in the tourney...lol
 

Bruno22 said:
Interesting debate between MN and UVa.

UVa is top 30 in both Kenpom and RPI.
They have won three games away from home. (One true road game at Syracuse and a good neutral site win again Arizona State).

Obviously, the Gophs have the highest quality win (played at home).

Probably would favor the Hoos on overall body of work (similar to the two other big ranking systems). But it is close.
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Huge UVA fan but i predicted that they would not make the tourney this year. Losing Hunter,Guy, Jerome and Salt who himself had a 100 starts left a huge hole. Those first 3 were 2 out as juniors, one out as a soph. as a high end lottery. Beat em now as they are redshirting the best freshman (Shedrick) Moresell and Mckoy will be special plus they add Hauser, McCorkle, Beekman and Rahim in the best class he ever had. Gophers are far better than UVA and good enough to win the conference. Said 13-7 before the year and if i could change it i would go 15-5.
 



builtbadgers said:
Huge UVA fan but i predicted that they would not make the tourney this year. Losing Hunter,Guy, Jerome and Salt who himself had a 100 starts left a huge hole. Those first 3 were 2 out as juniors, one out as a soph. as a high end lottery. Beat em now as they are redshirting the best freshman (Shedrick) Moresell and Mckoy will be special plus they add Hauser, McCorkle, Beekman and Rahim in the best class he ever had. Gophers are far better than UVA and good enough to win the conference. Said 13-7 before the year and if i could change it i would go 15-5.
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Yes, I was fortunate enough to attend every home UVa game, aside from the Duke game, last year. Big fan as well. I hope Bennett continues to get his young group to grow as the season progresses. No one disputes the talent they have signed! It will be excited to start seeing them at JPJ.

Gophers have a few more weapons offensively than UVa (bc let's face it, the Hoos really do not have anyone). MN has recently shown they have shown we have 3 versatile scores, but no objective data that points to consistency with this. I would bet that Bennett would suffocate the Gopher offense if they were to play head to head. The MN gaurds would look as bad at Kihei does at times. But just my opinion.

We will see how the next couple weeks go for both squads. I will stay optimistic for the folks down in Cville.
 

skyman31 said:
Really surprised to see Virginia out. Yes, the NET rankings are low, but looking at the resume I have a really hard time leaving out a 10-2 Virginia team with their only losses at Purdue and vs South Carolina. Comparing resumes with teams like Seton Hall, Illinois, Rutgers, Utah State, Georgetown, who you all have listed in, I would probably take Virginia over any of them. Especially comparing Virginia to Ole Miss or Mizzou, in your first 8 out, not sure how they're not even close to the bracket.
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I am sure they will end up getting in but right now their resume is pretty darn poor and that South Carolina loss was a bad loss. I don't think having them out at this point is too crazy.
 

Completely agree that South Carolina is a bad loss. There are also not too many teams do not have a 'bad loss' (nor are there many by season's end every year).

'Pretty darn poor' is all relative. No one is arguing they are a top 4 seed in any region right now.

I am not sure where you are getting 'pretty darn poor' based on the data listed w their away from home performance (not too many teams can claim 3 wins, 2 of which are quality despite Cuse being semi disappointing thus, away from home) and performance of their opponents to date.
 

MUgopher32 said:
I am sure they will end up getting in but right now their resume is pretty darn poor and that South Carolina loss was a bad loss. I don't think having them out at this point is too crazy.
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Yeah South Carolina is a bad loss, but lots of teams have bad losses. Not that I think Virginia has a particularly great resume right now, but I still think it is better than a lot of the teams that are listed as in. For example, look at LSU's resume: 8-4 with their best wins being a neutral site win over Rhode Island and a win over Liberty at home (which, to be fair, are both better wins than they look based off of name recognition) , and also includes a loss to Eastern Tennessee State. I'd take Virginia's wins at Syracuse, neutral versus Arizona State, and home versus UNC over LSU's wins and I don't think that the loss to South Carolina is that much worse, if any, than to Eastern Tennessee State.

(And yes, I do know how pointless it is to argue bracket projections in December, was more just curious to hear SS thoughts on why he left them out.)
 



I appreciate all the comments. Field of 68/bracket banter is always welcome!

Regarding my thoughts on Virginia. ... The reason I don’t have UVa in the field is twofold:

1. The Hoos are in the 60s in the two rankings I value when poring over my at-larges (NET and Haslametrics.com).

2. As the season wears on I emphasize more & more"Wins vs. the Field" in combination with "Wins vs. Teams I’m Legitimately Considering for the Field". Right now UVa has only one of those, and it came vs. an automatic qualifier (Vermont). At this point I’m not legitimately considering Arizona State for the field. Obviously, that could change.

The point about LSU is valid. I’m not particularly impressed with Tigers’ resume at this point, but at this stage of the season to keep things simple for me, any non-auto qualifier that is roughly in the top 47/48 of both the NET & Haslametrics I lock into the field as an at-large. For this particular projection, that left me with 63 of the 68 spots filled, meaning I had to fill in the last 5 at-large bids.

If you're curious, those last 5 teams I put into the field (only one of which I placed among my "last 4 in") were Creighton, DePaul, Kentucky, Saint John's, and Utah.

I hope that makes sense.
 
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skyman31 said:
Yeah South Carolina is a bad loss, but lots of teams have bad losses. Not that I think Virginia has a particularly great resume right now, but I still think it is better than a lot of the teams that are listed as in. For example, look at LSU's resume: 8-4 with their best wins being a neutral site win over Rhode Island and a win over Liberty at home (which, to be fair, are both better wins than they look based off of name recognition) , and also includes a loss to Eastern Tennessee State. I'd take Virginia's wins at Syracuse, neutral versus Arizona State, and home versus UNC over LSU's wins and I don't think that the loss to South Carolina is that much worse, if any, than to Eastern Tennessee State.

(And yes, I do know how pointless it is to argue bracket projections in December, was more just curious to hear SS thoughts on why he left them out.)
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This
 

After Monday results Gophers drop 5 spots to to #33 in NET rankings and 1 spot to #17 in Haslametrics.com rankings. Undoubtedly the DePaul home loss to Seton Hall was the main culprit.

Gophers need Blue Demons, Sooners, Bulldogs, Utes, and Cowboys to continue having strong (remain in at-large contention) seasons.
 

SelectionSunday said:
After Monday results Gophers drop 5 spots to to #33 in NET rankings and 1 spot to #17 in Haslametrics.com rankings. Undoubtedly the DePaul home loss to Seton Hall was the main culprit.

Gophers need Blue Demons, Sooners, Bulldogs, Utes, and Cowboys to continue having strong (remain in at-large contention) seasons.
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Any realistic hope of Clemson getting into the Top 100?
 

Ope3 said:
Any realistic hope of Clemson getting into the Top 100?
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Clemson #117 now. Even though the ACC is down, would think if they have a decent season (8-9 ACC wins?) they'd probably be around 100.
 

alchemy2u said:
the B1G having another "down year" with only 10 teams in the tourney...lol
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Yeah the conference really turned it around after the terrible start. Gave away a couple yesterday though.
 

Ope3 said:
Any realistic hope of Clemson getting into the Top 100?
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Probably not. They are bad. 6-6 now. Woud have to go close to .500 in ACC play. That's unlikely.

They are not going to go down as any sort of quality win.

Focus should be more on Ok state now that their guy is back winning a lot.
 

Ope3 said:
Any realistic hope of Clemson getting into the Top 100?
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If I remember right they should start getting their studs back. So they should get better than when we played em.
 

MUgopher32 said:
Probably not. They are bad. 6-6 now. Woud have to go close to .500 in ACC play. That's unlikely.

They are not going to go down as any sort of quality win.

Focus should be more on Ok state now that their guy is back winning a lot.
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You're forgetting that Clemson had quite a few injuries in the non-conference. If they can get healthy, it's absolutely not out of the question for them to win some games in a down ACC.
 

Gophers 5th in efficiency last month:

 

Always reveals whether your really good or not. You simply do not win games if your not efficient. This staff stressed it more this season than any before it.
 



SelectionSunday said:
We have 20 new teams in the Field of 68 since our last projection on Dec. 13, and that includes none other than the Minnesota Golden Gophers (7-5, 1-1 Big Ten). Who woulda' thunk that after the pasting the Iowa Hawkeyes delivered to the Gophers on Dec. 9 in Iowa City?

Obviously still a long ways to go, but heading into the meat of the Big Ten schedule the Gophers have positioned themselves in a decent spot because of their court-storming win over previously unbeaten Ohio State and a non-conference schedule that at this point has 4 opponents (Butler, Utah, DePaul, Oklahoma State) projected into the field and a 5th (Oklahoma) among the "first 8 out".

A couple surprises in our latest projection? Virginia is nowhere to be seen (not even among the "first 8 out", though I suspect that will change), and Rutgers, yes Rutgers, is among our "last 4 in".

A reminder, this projection assumes no future results. It includes game results through Dec. 29. Fire away!!!!!

FIELD OF 68 (12/30/19) -- * denotes conference leader/best NET ranking in multiple-bid conference (previous projection Dec. 13)

America East (1): Vermont (88)

American (3): *Wichita State (10), Memphis (13), Houston (40)

ACC (4): Duke (8), *Louisville (14), Florida State (27), NC State (32)

ASUN (1): Liberty (48)

Atlantic 10 (1): Dayton (12)

Big East (8): *Butler (4), Villanova (20), Creighton (25), Georgetown (30), Seton Hall (33), Marquette (35), DePaul (39), Saint John’s (49)

Big Sky (1): Eastern Washington (92)

Big South (1): Radford (134)

Big Ten (10): Ohio State (3), Penn State (15), Maryland (16), Michigan (17), *Michigan State (19), Iowa (24), Minnesota (28), Wisconsin (34), Rutgers (37), Illinois (47)

Big XII (5): *Kansas (2), Baylor (7), West Virginia (9), Oklahoma State (29), Texas Tech (38)

Big West (1): UC-Irvine (124)

Colonial (1): College of Charleston (118)

Conference USA (1): Louisiana Tech (82)

Horizon (1): Northern Kentucky (115)

Ivy (1): Yale (55)

MAAC (1): Rider (120)

MAC (1): Akron (78)

MEAC (1): Morgan State (239)

Missouri Valley (1): Northern Iowa (22)

Mountain West (2): *San Diego State (1), Utah State (45)

NEC (1): Saint Francis-Pa. (135)

OVC (1): Belmont (85)

Pac 12 (6): *Oregon (11), Arizona (18), Stanford (21), Colorado (23), Washington (43), Utah (62)

Patriot (1): Colgate (147)

SEC (4): *Auburn (5), Arkansas (26), LSU (41), Kentucky (44)

SoCon (1): UNC-Greensboro (61)

Southland (1): Stephen F. Austin (59)

SWAC (1): Texas Southern (218)

Summit (1): North Dakota State (154)

Sun Belt (1): Appalachian State (106)

WCC (3): *Gonzaga (6), Saint Mary’s (31), BYU (36)

WAC (1): New Mexico State (108)
_______________________________________

Last 4 In: Rutgers (37), LSU (41), Illinois (47), Utah (62)

First 8 Out: Virginia Tech (46), Purdue (50), Oklahoma (51), VCU (52), Ole Miss (54), Indiana (56), Iowa State (64), Missouri (68)

Non-Power 7 At-Larges (3): Saint Mary’s (31), BYU (36), Utah State (45)

Movin’ On In (20): Akron, Appalachian State, Colgate, College of Charleston, Colorado, Creighton, Eastern Washington, Houston, Marquette, Minnesota, Morgan State, NC State, North Dakota State, Rutgers, Saint John’s, Saint Mary’s, Texas Southern, UC-Irvine, Utah, Wisconsin

Movin’ On Out (20): Coppin State, Delaware, Duquesne, Hawaii, Indiana, Kent State, Navy, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oral Roberts, Prairie View A&M, Purdue, Sacramento State, Tennessee, Texas, UT-Arlington, Virginia, VCU, Virginia Tech, Xavier

NEXT FIELD OF 68 PROJECTION: Monday, January 20
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We differ on quite a few.

I have Utah St, Utah, Washington, Texas Tech, Oklahoma St, DePaul, and St. John’s out.

I have Indiana, USC, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Richmond, Florida, and Purdue in. (Not that I actually think 12 B1G teams will make it when the time comes.)

The St, John’s and Okla St ones surprised me a bit. I have them about 15-20 spots out. But hey, it’s January, so who knows how it will all sort out.
 

bizzle22 said:
We differ on quite a few.

I have Utah St, Utah, Washington, Texas Tech, Oklahoma St, DePaul, and St. John’s out.

I have Indiana, USC, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Richmond, Florida, and Purdue in. (Not that I actually think 12 B1G teams will make it when the time comes.)

The St, John’s and Okla St ones surprised me a bit. I have them about 15-20 spots out. But hey, it’s January, so who knows how it will all sort out.
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I also didn’t even notice that yours is from2 weeks ago. Haha. So just disregard everything I said!
 

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