Potential NCAA Seeding

[a3uge]

Interesting to see how some of us return faster than others from the sky is falling mentality following the Wright State loss.

I am not one of those. The team I watched last night did not look like a team that is going to win out. Defense led as usual, holding any opponent to 43 points is down right impressive. Unfortunately the offense especially in the first half was awful. Continue to play like that and they will lose a game or two more.

I still think they will be a top 2 seed in the tournament and win the horizon tournament but I am watching the rpi less than I did before.

Winning 86-63 would have put you more at ease?

If we continue to hold teams to 17 points in a half, our offense can be as awful as it wants. I guess winning with defense isn't all that sexy to some people, but I'm surprised that after 2 years of having a top 10 defense nationally, there's still doubts about winning games in that manner.

[justducky]

Interesting to see how some of us return faster than others from the sky is falling mentality following the Wright State loss.

Well having our last at large hopes dashed does have a few positives. Bryce could now focus on peaking individual and team play on a much different schedule. Experimentation and bench development could be expanded. What are the risks vs rewards on attempting to return EVN to previous levels of effectiveness? I have serious doubts about the wisdom of conservatively finishing out the stretch run with few or no significant changes. A static position is seldom good when your confidence has been shaken.

I already know the numbers about the declining success rates seed by lower seed but we now have a team whose biggest worry is catching fire at the proper moment. If Bryce feels that some additional risks might only drop us an additional seed then I would say go for it. I am not suggesting that we deliberately adopt a sandbag approach but this is still a team that can play with anybody in the tournament.

[valpocleveland]

Interesting to see how some of us return faster than others from the sky is falling mentality following the Wright State loss.

I am not one of those. The team I watched last night did not look like a team that is going to win out. Defense led as usual, holding any opponent to 43 points is down right impressive. Unfortunately the offense especially in the first half was awful. Continue to play like that and they will lose a game or two more.

I still think they will be a top 2 seed in the tournament and win the horizon tournament but I am watching the rpi less than I did before.

Winning 86-63 would have put you more at ease?

If we continue to hold teams to 17 points in a half, our offense can be as awful as it wants. I guess winning with defense isn't all that sexy to some people, but I'm surprised that after 2 years of having a top 10 defense nationally, there's still doubts about winning games in that manner.

Scoring more points would have put me more at ease. Cleveland St has one of the worse offenses in D1, 337 out of 351 according to KenPom. They were not going to score many points, although holding them under 20 in a half was impressive.

[a3uge]

Interesting to see how some of us return faster than others from the sky is falling mentality following the Wright State loss.

I am not one of those. The team I watched last night did not look like a team that is going to win out. Defense led as usual, holding any opponent to 43 points is down right impressive. Unfortunately the offense especially in the first half was awful. Continue to play like that and they will lose a game or two more.

I still think they will be a top 2 seed in the tournament and win the horizon tournament but I am watching the rpi less than I did before.

Winning 86-63 would have put you more at ease?

If we continue to hold teams to 17 points in a half, our offense can be as awful as it wants. I guess winning with defense isn't all that sexy to some people, but I'm surprised that after 2 years of having a top 10 defense nationally, there's still doubts about winning games in that manner.

Scoring more points would have put me more at ease. Cleveland St has one of the worse offenses in D1, 337 out of 351 according to KenPom. They were not going to score many points, although holding them under 20 in a half was impressive.

But we hold EVERY team under their defensive average. We've held teams at least 10 pts under their average in 2/3rds of our conference games. We've held teams 15 pts under their average 6 times - insane! The only conference game we didn't hold under their average was the first Wright State game. We literally have the best defense in all of D1 basketball, so I don't really get the sudden panic that the offense won't be able to score enough points down the stretch this season.

[HailVU2014]

Interesting to see how some of us return faster than others from the sky is falling mentality following the Wright State loss.

I am not one of those. The team I watched last night did not look like a team that is going to win out. Defense led as usual, holding any opponent to 43 points is down right impressive. Unfortunately the offense especially in the first half was awful. Continue to play like that and they will lose a game or two more.

I still think they will be a top 2 seed in the tournament and win the horizon tournament but I am watching the rpi less than I did before.

Winning 86-63 would have put you more at ease?

If we continue to hold teams to 17 points in a half, our offense can be as awful as it wants. I guess winning with defense isn't all that sexy to some people, but I'm surprised that after 2 years of having a top 10 defense nationally, there's still doubts about winning games in that manner.

Scoring more points would have put me more at ease. Cleveland St has one of the worse offenses in D1, 337 out of 351 according to KenPom. They were not going to score many points, although holding them under 20 in a half was impressive.

ValpoCleveland, I share some of the same sentiments about wanting to score more points. After the lackluster 59 points at home against Wright State, I think many of us wanted to just run Cleveland State out of the Q, instead of the more defensive battle that happened last night. I remember before Bryce unloaded the bench I said to my brother that I would love to at least see 70 points after not getting to 30 in the first half. After the game, I was happy with the win, but not hitting 70 left me concerned about the upcoming "run and gun" games ahead against the Michigan Schools.

But...after thinking on it a bit, we did take our starters out with 5-6 minutes left in the game and if they were out for all 40, we would have scored more. Period. Another thing that relieves me a bit is that Wright State and Cleveland State are statistically the #2 and #3 defenses in the Horizon League behind Valpo, of course. And Oakland and Detroit are #8 and #9 in defense respectively. Not shockingly, our offense does score less against good defenses and more against bad ones. (A know, quite the revelation! Haha.) But against #2 Wright State we have an average of 60.5 points per game (lowest) and against #10 YSU we have an average of 96.5 points per game (highest). And continuing on this linear trend, we scored 84 and 92, which are some of the highest point performances in conference. I think those first 10-12 minutes of the second half showed more of what will happen against Oakland than anything we saw on Tuesday.

A final point to reiterate is that our defense looked sharp and outstanding per usual. We actually did better last night defensively than when CSU was at the ARC in late January, holding CSU to only 43 compared to 52. And CSU's scoring droughts were just nasty. I do think that if the starters and routine bench played the full 40, CSU would not have hit 40, which I think would have been a record low. (It was tweeted somewhere...)

[HailVU2014]

Over night we went from a legitimate 7-10 seed (best in Valpo history, by far) to a possible 14.

Those are maybe exaggerations on both the high and the low sides.

But as for RPI 69 and a 14 seed, we only stay in that scenario if we lose another two or three games.  RPI 69 isn't indicative of our season so far - we're just coming out of the worst RPI stretch of the season: nine games in a row mostly against the RPI 200-300+ set, with losses to the only team in that stretch with an RPI better than 200.

Unless we really do collapse, our RPI is going up from here - and it probably would have bottomed out here even if we swept Wright State.

Our computer numbers (at least from KenPom) dipped after each Wright State loss, but have rebounded nicely - #26 overall, #1 defense.

I agree with this. In my mind, if we win the Horizon League Regular Season Title, get a #1 or 2 Seed and win it all in Detroit, we will not be a #14 seed. Yes, the RPI of 69 is only good for the 2nd #14 seed, but our tournament resume is much better than that RPI states. No 200+ RPI losses, three top 100 RPI wins, one of the best defenses in the country, 10-3 in the non-conf with a non-conf SOS of 55, and we had a close loss in the tournament last year. Several of the teams above us on the list don't have the same stats as us and have worse losses. If we make the NCAAs this year, this team is going to finish no worse than last year, which was an RPI of 56 and a 13 seed.

[agibson]

Maybe I'll change my tune after looking at head-to-head comparisons. But, if we win out (by no means a given), I'll be mightily disappointed if we don't get at least a 12.

[chef]

If Valpo wins out, there's no way they'll be less than a 12 seed. The RPI will be going up with wins the rest of the way. All 6 remaining games will be against teams that are at or above .500

[ValpoHoops]

Moved up three places this week, passing the three that are now immediately behind us.

Just keep winning...

[oklahomamick]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/14820599/the-floor-which-teams-give-conference-best-shot-final-four

Five non-Power 5 schools with the best odds to make a Final Four run

Valparaiso: Without Dillon Brooks' 26-point effort, Oregon would have lost to Valpo in late November. Oregon State, a bubble team, lost to Valpo two days later. Bryce Drew's team has proven it can handle opponents from the big leagues on the road. Alec Peters (16.5 PPG, 8.1 RPG), a 6-foot-9 forward, is a terrible matchup for most squads. He's the anchor of a team that is No. 1 in raw defensive efficiency (.87 PPP allowed this season). This team is dangerous.

[VULB#62]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2016/02/22/ncaa-tournament-bubble-college-basketball-mid-major-cinderella-monmouth-chattanooga-valparaiso/80701366/

USToday chimes in.  Valpo first mentioned.

[78crusader]

Not to beat a dead horse here, but we are also ranked number one in the College Insider mid-major poll.   There are 30 mid major coaches who vote in this poll; we received 25 first-place votes.

I think we are still alive for an at large.

Paul

[oklahomamick]

Could the nation's best mid-major team really miss the NCAA tourney?

http://www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/story/ncaa-tournament-valparaiso-bryce-drew-mid-major-selection-sunday-022216

[ValpoHoops]

I think we are still alive for an at large.

Right now, sure. But the only way we need an at-large is with another loss. To a team not in the RPI top 100. It's not likely...even with the soft bubble.

[VULB#62]

Could the nation's best mid-major team really miss the NCAA tourney?

http://www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/story/ncaa-tournament-valparaiso-bryce-drew-mid-major-selection-sunday-022216

Great read.

[NativeCheesehead]

Really good article. Another point not as explicitly spelled out is the fact that even if we win the conference tourney, our seeding will be heavily hurt by the lower half of the league, regardless of how bad we beat them.

[a3uge]

Really good article. Another point not as explicitly spelled out is the fact that even if we win the conference tourney, our seeding will be heavily hurt by the lower half of the league, regardless of how bad we beat them.

This would be key in most years, but the field is really wide open. Heck, even Villanova at the #1 overall might be more beatable than some of the projected 6 seeds.

[FWalum]

Really good article. Another point not as explicitly spelled out is the fact that even if we win the conference tourney, our seeding will be heavily hurt by the lower half of the league, regardless of how bad we beat them.

Not sure if this is what you were really talking about, but the HL Tournament should not really hurt our NCAAT seeding unless the 7-10 HLT seeds make it through to our first game which is the semi-final game after the double-bye.  That first game should be against a team with a RPI between 165 and 146.

[talksalot]

Venues hosting the 2015 NIT ...

32 teams, 4-groups seeded 1-8

1 - Old Dominion - 9,100
3 - Murray State - 8,600
2 - Tulsa  8,355
4 - St Marys 3,500
3 - Louisiana Tech - 8,000
1 - Richmond 7,201
3 - Rhode Island - 7,657 (not at Dunkin Donuts Center)
1 - Colorado State - 8,745

along with:
The Palestra
Pitt Arena
College Station, Tx
Storrs, Ct
Champaign, ILL
Miami, FL
Normal, ILL
Stanford
Nashville (Vandy)
Fort Collins (Colorado State)

[oklahomamick]

If we win the tourney, what are the chances of a HL team getting the NIT invite?

[Kyle321n]

Not particularly great. Last season the lowest RPI team getting an at large NIT bid was Vanderbilt at 104, most of the NIT at large bids are under 85. I could see Oakland getting a CBI bid and a couple HL teams (Wright St, Milwaukee, Green Bay) getting CIT bids.

[vu72]

If we win the tourney, what are the chances of a HL team getting the NIT invite?

I would think a team from the Horizon would need at least 20 wins.  Oakland, should they make it to the title game, would have 22.  Wright State could have 21 and I think Milwaukee and Green Bay could have 20 or maybe 21 as they would be playing two extra games in the tourney.  I'm thinking only Oakland, but anyone with 20 wins will certainly get invited to play in one of the other minor tourneys.

[HC]

Oakland has got a lot of pub this year and have one of the most exciting players and intriguing coaches. They might get a bid just for those reasons.

[a3uge]

If we win the tourney, what are the chances of a HL team getting the NIT invite?

Really depends on how everyone else does. Last year there were 12 automatic bids in the NIT - 12 teams that won the regular season (or tied to win) that lost in their conference tournament. This created a shortage of bids to the NIT.

With that being said, bracketmatrix runs an NIT Bracketology (because of course they do) and they don't even have Oakland in as a considered team: http://bracketmatrix.com/nit.

You lose at home to teams like NKU and YSU, you probably aren't getting an NIT bid. 1-5 against the top 100 rpi isn't going to look good either.

[chef]

In the old days Oakland would have an NIT shot because Felder is a name, but not anymore. Now the NIT is chosen just like the NCAA Tounament - you have automatic qualifiers and then the most worthy. Oakland does not fit either category.