ESPN Bubble Watch

[valpocleveland]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bubblewatch

On the bubble of the bubble:

"(For the record, we're also keeping an eye on Valparaiso, as well as a few other long-shot mid-majors that might sneak onto the page at some point in the coming weeks. Keep the faith.)"

[a3uge]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bubblewatch

On the bubble of the bubble:

"(For the record, we're also keeping an eye on Valparaiso, as well as a few other long-shot mid-majors that might sneak onto the page at some point in the coming weeks. Keep the faith.)"

Utter garbage. Oregon State, Wisconsin, and Gonzaga are on there, but Valpo isn't. This guy is a moron.

[justducky]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bubblewatch

On the bubble of the bubble:

"(For the record, we're also keeping an eye on Valparaiso, as well as a few other long-shot mid-majors that might sneak onto the page at some point in the coming weeks. Keep the faith.)"

Utter garbage. Oregon State, Wisconsin, and Gonzaga are on there, but Valpo isn't. This guy is a moron.

Certifiably!

[agibson]

On the bubble of the bubble:

"(For the record, we're also keeping an eye on Valparaiso, as well as a few other long-shot mid-majors that might sneak onto the page at some point in the coming weeks. Keep the faith.)"

I'll confess I was looking forward to Bubblewatch's debut.

Nice for Valpo to get mentions here and there.  As a quality team Oregon was willing to schedule (with Baylor).  Also "If it weren't for Valparaiso, Florida would be the best defensive team absolutely no one talked about."

Oregon State's barely included, "After two road losses at Arizona and Arizona State last weekend, the Beavers are best described as a long shot. At least for now.".  But, of course, they have the opportunity for quality wins that we don't.

I'm a bit sore to see Monmouth listed while we're not, but they do have some high quality wins.  I'm not shocked.

It'd be more fun to be included, for sure.  And, we'll see what happens (as with the national rankings) if we keep logging wins while other teams add some losses.

[valpotx]

We would kill Monmouth...

[bbtds]

We would kill Monmouth...

Although the Valpo bench is going to have to help Nick Davidson match Monmouth's sideline celebrations. It's a very tough assignment. 

[SanityLost17]

Here is what sucks.  Our non-con SOS is 45 and our non-con rpi is 16.   Since that time we have gone 9-1 and our SOS has dropped to 151 and our RPI has dropped to 35.  We picked a bad year to be really good. The HL is killing us.  With the exception of the WSU game, we have destroyed the league by an average of 20+ points.  I would much rather have been winning these games by 4-7 points and playing against teams that are 50-80 places better in the RPI.

Oh well...  But yes, it is ridiculous that we were not mentioned.  Georgetown and IPFW have very similar RPI's, but we beat IPFW, not Georgetown.  So once again, it doesn't matter what the RPI is, Georgetown is a big win and IPFW is not.  So, Monmouth scheduled tough and we did not.  Even though that is not exactly true.  Oh, and who cares that lots of teams upset Georgetown this year.  haha 

Rant over.     

[agibson]

Our non-con SOS is 45 and our non-con rpi is 16.   Since that time we have gone 9-1 and our SOS has dropped to 151 and our RPI has dropped to 35.  We picked a bad year to be really good. The HL is killing us.  With the exception of the WSU game, we have destroyed the league by an average of 20+ points.  I would much rather have been winning these games by 4-7 points and playing against teams that are 50-80 places better in the RPI.

Yeah, it's not great. But, our end-of-season RPI can still look pretty good.

The forecast (RPI Forecast) ending the regular season is 29 if we don't lose another (36%), 37 if we lose one more (37%), 46 if we lose two (18%).  Playing two 100-200 RPI teams on a neutral court may not hurt our RPI.  Better if they'd count as away games, of course!  Oakland's forecast at 120, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Wright State are forecast in the 150-180 range, Detroit 225.

I'd feel OK about an RPI of better than 30 come bracketing time.  Not too much below our computer numbers from more advanced metrics, probably (KenPom 20-25, or Sagarin's already in our RPI range, 36-39, not that this is a good thing).

I worry more about the quality of competition. Is our offense getting pushed the way it will in the NCAA tournament?  Are we improving like we need to be if we want a good chance of going on a run?  Is our defense really getting tested in appropriate ways?

You'd sure consider trading up, and playing in the B10, or some such, this year. Not that anyone's going to make the offer.

[justducky]

#16 Utah and #22 Colorado will make the Oregon swing this week to play the #3 Ducks and the #63 Beavers. Oregon St needs a couple wins just to move back into the bubble competition and a sweep by Oregon could strengthen their position even more.

[SanityLost17]

Friday fun fact.  Elon, with a record of 12-10, would be the second best RPI team in the HL, by about 10 places.  Things are not looking good if we can't win the conference tourney, because we are going to lose at least 1 more regular season game. 

[vu72]

#16 Utah and #22 Colorado will make the Oregon swing this week to play the #3 Ducks and the #63 Beavers. Oregon St needs a couple wins just to move back into the bubble competition and a sweep by Oregon could strengthen their position even more.

Well, they are off to a pretty solid start with Oregon beating Colorado by 20 and Oregon State beating Utah by 2!

[historyman]

#16 Utah and #22 Colorado will make the Oregon swing this week to play the #3 Ducks and the #63 Beavers. Oregon St needs a couple wins just to move back into the bubble competition and a sweep by Oregon could strengthen their position even more.

Well, they are off to a pretty solid start with Oregon beating Colorado by 20 and Oregon State beating Utah by 2!

I saw the replay of the finish of Oregon St/Utah. What was that guy thinking trying to block a half court shot? I guess you just chalk it up to Ute-full enthusiasm. 

[agibson]

I don't know about a block, but I'd maybe not have minded a body on Benzinger, or a hand in the face, on that 3/4 court shot at the buzzer...

[justducky]

With the Oregon St win over Colorado they have leapt back to RPI 42 while we dropped 15 on the day to #47. I wonder what the next bracket matrix will show?

If we won out the regular season what are our remaining at-large hopes? It is difficult to follow all the moving parts but I know we would still be high in the conversation or better. Thoughts?

[bbtds]

With the Oregon St win over Colorado they have leapt back to RPI 42 while we dropped 15 on the day to #47. I wonder what the next bracket matrix will show?

If we won out the regular season what are our remaining at-large hopes? It is difficult to follow all the moving parts but I know we would still be high in the conversation or better. Thoughts?

Seems much like the stock market. It's all on paper (or a computer screen) and changes a lot before settling down to the final price (position).

[justducky]

With the Oregon St win over Colorado they have leapt back to RPI 42 while we dropped 15 on the day to #47. I wonder what the next bracket matrix will show?

If we won out the regular season what are our remaining at-large hopes? It is difficult to follow all the moving parts but I know we would still be high in the conversation or better. Thoughts?

Seems much like the stock market. It's all on paper (or a computer screen) and changes a lot before settling down to the final price (position).

Your response is a classic non-answer, answer. I didn't know your background was political.    Who else would like to dodge the question?

[HailVU2014]

Well, Well... What an interesting week for the non-locks in NCAA Basketball. So much parody in college basketball this season, it is ridiculous. Here are some of the notable results for the top 25 and receiving vote teams that scramble the big picture going into the second week of February:

Teams that lost a game:
#8/#8 Texas A&M- Lost at Vandy and at Home to South Carolina
#11/#11 Providence- Lost at DePaul and at Home to Villanova
#12/-- SMU- Lost at Houston (USF road game on Sunday) (Also not post-season eligible but in AP Poll...)
#13/#14 Iowa State- Lost at Home to West Virginia and barely get by Ok St on the road
#15/#13 Baylor- Lost at Home against Texas and at West Virginia
#18/#16 Purdue- Lost at Maryland
#19/#18 Louisville- Didn't lose a game, but lost their post-season, so I guess that counts? They beat UNC and BC.
#20/#19 Kentucky- Lost at Tennessee, but crushed Florida at home
#21/#22 Wichita State- Beat SIU at home, but dropped the road game at Illinois State
#22/#21 Indiana- Crushed Michigan on the road, and then falls to Penn State in State College?
#25/#23 South Carolina- Double-Digit Loss at Georgia, and then beats Texas A&M in College Station
RV/#25 St. Mary's- Double-digit loss at BYU and a road win at San Diego
RV/RV Utah- Road loss to Oregon State (Still play at Oregon on Sunday)
RV/RV VCU- Wins at LaSalle and loses at home to rising George Washington
RV/RV Notre Dame- Road loss at Miami, but rebound with a close home win over UNC
RV/RV Michigan- Blowout homes losses to Indiana and Michigan State
RV/RV Pittsburgh- Home loss to Virginia
RV/RV Florida- Limps by Arkansas at home and gets blown out at Kentucky
RV/RV St. Joseph's- Loses at home to St. Bonaventure by 10 and then hammers Fordham on the road
--/RV Clemson- Wins at Wake, and loses at Virginia Tech
--/RV Washington- Beat Arizona State at home in OT, but lost to Arizona at home
UCLA- Lost at USC
Colorado- Road losses to Oregon and Oregon State
Vanderbilt- Beats Texas A&M at home and goes on to lose at Mississippi
Cincinnati- Home win over USF and a close road loss to Memphis

Bubble Worthy Teams that Won Out this week (through late Saturday):
#17/#15 Miami (FL)- Beat Notre Dame at home (Still to play at GT on Sunday)
#23/#20 Arizona- Swept the Washington schools on the road
#24/#24 Dayton- Crushed lowly George Mason in the DC Suburbs
RV/RV USC- Home win over UCLA
RV/RV Valpo- Took care of business against UIC in Chicago
RV/RV Duke- Wins at GT and home over NC State
RV/RV Texas- Wins at Baylor and home over in-state rival Texas Tech
RV/-- San Diego State- Home wins over Colorado State and New Mexico (OT)
--/RV Gonzaga- Big win at LMU and survived at Pepperdine
--/RV Monmouth- Defeated Siena on the road and Fairfield at home
--/RV Butler- Home win over Georgetown and a road win over St. John's
--/RV California- Home win over Stanford
--/RV Seton Hall- Beat Marquette and Georgetown at home
Wisconsin- Beat Ohio State at home
LSU- Wins at Auburn and at home against Miss St; Now 1st Place SEC
Georgia- Beat South Carolina and Auburn at home
Florida State- Home win over NC State and a road win over Wake Forest
Syracuse- Home win over Virginia Tech
George Washington- A home win over Davidson and a road win over VCU
St. Bonaventure- Beat St. Joseph's on the road (Home game vs. SLU on Sunday)
Connecticut- Crushes Memphis on the road by 20 (Home game vs. ECU on Sunday)
Little Rock- Stifles Troy and South Alabama at home with their defense

Seeing how many "bubble teams" lost over the past couple days and with other middle of the pack power conference teams just holding serve over conference cellar dwellers, it is very difficult to see why we are not on the Bubble Watch. I know that we have a declining SOS and we lack a "sexy" win over a perennial NCAA tourney name like Monmouth does. But we have a top 50 RPI and non-conference SOS and a 20-4 record. Oregon State is now a Top 50 RPI win and none of our losses are "landmines" per se. The life of a true mid-major is hard. Little room for error and no appreciation when you could have $$$ schools like Syracuse, Wisconsin, and Butler in the tourney instead of the trendy NCAA upset-worthy Valpo...

Another food for thought is how this past week will impact the AP/Coaches/Mid-Major Polls... Valpo faithful voters in Seth Davis and Graham Couch will likely continue their support, but will Valpo get any additional love? Wichita State lost to ISU tonight, which has the same flavor as Valpo losing to Wright State a couple weeks ago (First place loses to Mid-100 RPI 2nd place team). But I'm sure that name recognition and the foresight to see ISU as the MVC team to beat Wichita the last two times will keep them much more afloat... *sigh*

I say, let's focus on NKU and then get some revenge on WSU at home this week and only revisit this March 9th, if needed.

[valpolaw]

Friday fun fact.  Elon, with a record of 12-10, would be the second best RPI team in the HL, by about 10 places. 

Thats pretty weak. The horizon has got to do better. I watched Elon in person a few weeks back and wasn't impressed.

[a3uge]

Friday fun fact.  Elon, with a record of 12-10, would be the second best RPI team in the HL, by about 10 places. 

Thats pretty weak. The horizon has got to do better. I watched Elon in person a few weeks back and wasn't impressed.

They had a great OOC schedule (FOR THEM). 7-4 record, 85 RPI. They had road losses in buy-games to Michigan, Syracuse, and Duke... But played 200+ RPI teams in 6 of those games, winning ALL of them. They lost to 121 at home and beat 139 on the road. And they still had a 149 OOC SOS, despite getting their payday from the big schools.

The Colonial actually have SIX teams that have projected top 100 OOC RPIs! 8 of their 10 teams started conference play with winning records. They are currently 9th in RPI.

William & Mary has an RPI of 30, but have THREE conference losses, a loss to HOWARD, and 0 top 100 RPI wins OOC... But since the rest of their conference 1) scheduled well, and 2) beat the bad teams, their conference losses are top 100 RPI losses, instead of losses to teams struggling to stay above .500. Is William & Mary better than Valpo? Hell no, and the selection committee should see right through it... But last year the committee elevated Buffalo when they had no decent wins, but scheduled well. I think Valpo is in a much better place with a top 50 RPI road win, but we could be in much, much better shape if the conference pulled its weight. Our OOC RPI is 13! If the Horizon League wasn't ass this year, we should be top 25 even with a couple losses.

And again, there's only been 1 team to miss the tournament with a top 30 RPI (Missouri State), and that was before the bubble expanded to 2 more teams. Combine that with UConn and Louisville that are ineligible, it should be a no brainer that a top 25 RPI team make the field.

[Vale O. Paradise]

Here's a graph of people googling "valpo" or "valparaiso university" over time. Notice the big spikes every March: https://goo.gl/SnLZFw

Check out these page view statistics from Valpo's Wikipedia page: https://goo.gl/bFxbmM
They exploded on Jan 25, a Monday, the day polls come out. Presumably, the two are related. This year, people are taking notice well before March. Let's hope Valpo can capitalize on this increased (and free) national attention.

Speaking of which, if you haven't  yet, give Valpo a good rating on Google: https://goo.gl/yhYqGo
It might seem frivolous, but for many people, a quick google of "valpo" after seeing that name on a bracket will be their first encounter with the school. It would be great if the first thing they saw was a good rating with a solid number of reviewers. Early impressions matter!

[a3uge]

Here's a graph of people googling "valpo" or "valparaiso university" over time. Notice the big spikes every March: https://goo.gl/SnLZFw

Check out these page view statistics from Valpo's Wikipedia page: https://goo.gl/bFxbmM
They exploded on Jan 25, a Monday, the day polls come out. Presumably, the two are related. This year, people are taking notice well before March. Let's hope Valpo can capitalize on this increased (and free) national attention.

Speaking of which, if you haven't  yet, give Valpo a good rating on Google: https://goo.gl/yhYqGo
It might seem frivolous, but for many people, a quick google of "valpo" after seeing that name on a bracket will be their first encounter with the school. It would be great if the first thing they saw was a good rating with a solid number of reviewers. Early impressions matter!

Man, we really need to join the Missouri Valley - Drake and Bradley get thousands more searches than Valpo!

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=valpo%2C%20Drake%2C%20Bradley&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B7

[bbtds]

With the Oregon St win over Colorado they have leapt back to RPI 42 while we dropped 15 on the day to #47. I wonder what the next bracket matrix will show?

If we won out the regular season what are our remaining at-large hopes? It is difficult to follow all the moving parts but I know we would still be high in the conversation or better. Thoughts?

Seems much like the stock market. It's all on paper (or a computer screen) and changes a lot before settling down to the final price (position).

Your response is a classic non-answer, answer. I didn't know your background was political.    Who else would like to dodge the question?

Exactly. Much like a parent giving the child the sex talk.

[vusupporter]

Here's a graph of people googling "valpo" or "valparaiso university" over time. Notice the big spikes every March: https://goo.gl/SnLZFw

Check out these page view statistics from Valpo's Wikipedia page: https://goo.gl/bFxbmM
They exploded on Jan 25, a Monday, the day polls come out. Presumably, the two are related. This year, people are taking notice well before March. Let's hope Valpo can capitalize on this increased (and free) national attention.

Speaking of which, if you haven't  yet, give Valpo a good rating on Google: https://goo.gl/yhYqGo
It might seem frivolous, but for many people, a quick google of "valpo" after seeing that name on a bracket will be their first encounter with the school. It would be great if the first thing they saw was a good rating with a solid number of reviewers. Early impressions matter!

Man, we really need to join the Missouri Valley - Drake and Bradley get thousands more searches than Valpo!

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=valpo%2C%20Drake%2C%20Bradley&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B7

Hate the Drake!

[agibson]

Check out these page view statistics from Valpo's Wikipedia page: https://goo.gl/bFxbmM
They exploded on Jan 25, a Monday, the day polls come out. Presumably, the two are related.

Except the spike is Friday January 15, right?

[wh]

With the Oregon St win over Colorado they have leapt back to RPI 42 while we dropped 15 on the day to #47. I wonder what the next bracket matrix will show?

If we won out the regular season what are our remaining at-large hopes? It is difficult to follow all the moving parts but I know we would still be high in the conversation or better. Thoughts?

I can relate to your frustration trying to understand how our projected RPI after the UIC win suddenly became several places lower than before the win. As you noted on 1 of your posts somewhere, it makes no sense. Thankfully, heres a rack-up that does make sense. Note that if we win our last 7 games our expected RPI is 28.1, which is better than where we were before the UIC game.

Final Record/Expected RPI/Probability
25-4   28.1   35.30%
24-5   36.9   41.68%
23-6   48.1   18.49%
22-7   59.7   4.15%
21-8   72.0   0.35%
20-9   85.5   0.02%

As to your question regarding our at-large chances, my guess is if we lose in the semi-finals we won't make it, but if we lose the championship game we might. That is assuming we win our remaining regular season games and whoever beats us in the championship game is not some surprise upset winner with a bad RPI and record. I hope this adds a little clarity.

http://www.rpiforecast.com/teams/Valparaiso.html