So who's in and who's out right now? Who are the sure locks?

How many teams will each conference get? It would be some bullshit if the ACC got less teams than the Big Ten this year. The Big East and ACC should both get around 8 bids I think.

2/25/2009 12:17:04 AM

all i know is arizona state's going to the final four.

2/25/2009 12:19:34 AM

ACC and Big East should get 7 or 8 bids
B10 6 or 7
B12 and SEC 5 or 6
P10 5

No way the Big Ten gets more than the ACC

CONFERENCE PRIDE

[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 12:23 AM. Reason : ]

2/25/2009 12:20:23 AM

ncsu getting #1 seed

2/25/2009 12:22:28 AM

ACC only sure locks are UNC, Duke, and Clemson.

Should be in: FSU, Wake, and BC.

Might get in: Maryland, Virginia Tech

Lots of work to do: Miami, Us

Better win the ACCT: Georgia Tech, Virginia

2/25/2009 12:42:37 AM

Conference RPI

1 Atlantic Coast 0.5981 0.5653 3 12
2 Big Ten 0.5948 0.5778 1 11
3 Big East 0.5858 0.5695 2 16
4 Big 12 0.5802 0.5529 5 12
5 Pacific-10 0.5726 0.5548 4 10
6 Southeastern 0.5571 0.5368 6 12
7 Mountain West 0.5522 0.5331 7 9
8 Missouri Valley 0.5318 0.5324 8 10
9 Atlantic 10 0.5297 0.5254 10 14
10 Conference USA 0.5273 0.5289 9 12


The SEC is garbage this year and shouldn't get anymore than 4 teams in the tourney.

Side by side comparison of the Sagarin rankings between the ACC and SEC teams top to bottom.

1 North Carolina 34 Florida
4 Duke 38 Tennessee
6 Clemson 40 LSU
12 Wake Forest 42 Kentucky
29 Miami 45 South Carolina
35 Florida State 78 Mississippi State
55 Boston College 86 Vanderbilt
57 Virginia Tech 89 Mississippi
61 Maryland 91 Auburn
76 NC State 99 Arkansas
107 Georgia Tech 121 Alabama
109 Virginia 196 Georgia

2/25/2009 1:02:06 AM

Quote :

"It would be some bullshit if the ACC got less teams than the Big Ten this year."

If you compare the BE and ACC the same way as your above post:

1 UNC 2 UConn
4 Duke 3 Pittsburgh
9 Clemson 6 Louisville
12 Wake 14 WV
31 Miami 15 Villanova
34 FSU 18 Marquette
46 BC 24 Syracuse
54 Maryland 35 Georgetown
68 NC State 38 Notre Dame
70 Virginia Tech 50 Cincinnati
93 Virginia 65 Providence
114 GT 87 Seton Hall

So if you want your top 12 seeds to be the 48 best teams, and you used Sagarin (of course, they don't), you'd have 7 from the the ACC and 9 from the Big East.

2/25/2009 8:54:46 AM

Big East should definitely get one more team than the ACC...and probably deserve 2. Big East is absolutely sick this year.

2/25/2009 9:23:16 AM

he said big ten, you guys are comparing big east, which im sure we all agree will have more than the acc

2/25/2009 9:34:04 AM

^^^ You left out a few teams:

106 St. John's
134 South Florida
163 Rutgers
187 DePaul




On years they claim to be better, Big East fans want to compare the ACC to the top 75% of the Big East to justify they are better "top to bottom". In reality, if the Big East doesn't get more teams into the NCAA than the ACC they are having a lousy year. After all, they have 33% more teams, and should get more than 33% more into the NCAA if they are truly better "top to bottom".

[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 9:37 AM. Reason : .]

2/25/2009 9:37:31 AM

Oops I thought he said Big East.

^You're right, I just left those teams out because I wasn't making a claim about which conference was "better," just which one deserved more tournament teams.

[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 9:56 AM. Reason : d]

2/25/2009 9:55:57 AM

Quote :

"On years they claim to be better, Big East fans want to compare the ACC to the top 75% of the Big East to justify they are better "top to bottom". In reality, if the Big East doesn't get more teams into the NCAA than the ACC they are having a lousy year. After all, they have 33% more teams, and should get more than 33% more into the NCAA if they are truly better "top to bottom"."

I'm sure if we were to add some teams that they would be equally as shitty as the Big East bottom feeders.

2/25/2009 10:10:22 AM

If FSU keeps it up, it looks like they will be dancing. If we're lucky, we'll go to the NIT.

2/25/2009 10:13:51 AM

^^and would thus make the top 2/3rds look that much better. you see how this works?

[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 10:14 AM. Reason : ^^]

2/25/2009 10:14:22 AM

^Not necessarily. The middle of the Big East is still much better than the middle of the ACC. (this year at least)

2/25/2009 10:22:39 AM

^^^ pretty sure state's got the NIT locked up barring an 0-5 rest of the season. 8-8 plus 2 wins in the ACCT might just get state into the NCAAT

^I dunno, if state played marquette again i'd feel pretty good about it. They just beat up on all those other big east teams and make themselves look better

[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 10:25 AM. Reason : ^]

2/25/2009 10:23:40 AM

I'll preface this by saying that I think the Big East is head and shoulders the best conference in the country this year and I think that is nearly unanimously agreed upon by most experts. The ACC is very good and the clear #2 though.

Quote :

"and would thus make the top 2/3rds look that much better. you see how this works?"

If there was a balanced schedule I would very much agree with you, however neither conference has one. For instance lets take a look at the Top 3 teams of the Big East -- UConn, Pitt and Louisville and the Top 3 teams of the ACC -- UNC, Duke and Clemson -- and the numbers of games they play against current Top 10, Top 25 and below 75 in conference opponents -- I'll use Pomeroy because it's a lot easier to see who has played who when (and it is more favorably slanted towards the ACC).

* I'm using below 75 because once you get below there you are talking about the lower echelon BCS/Power 6 conference teams who have little to no shot at making the NCAAT.

Top 10:
UConn - 4 games
Pittsburgh - 5
Louisville - 4
UNC - 2
Duke - 2
Clemson - 2

Top 25
UConn - 8
Pittsburgh - 9
Louisville - 8
UNC - 4
Duke - 5
Clemson - 3

Below 75
UConn - 5
Pittsburgh - 6
Louisville - 6
UNC - 4
Duke - 4
Clemson - 6

A few caveats:

- The bottom 2/3 of both will have more game against Top 25 teams obviously because they aren't one of them...
- It's faulty logic to conclude that just because the bottom 25% of the Big East is worse than the bottom 25% of the ACC that the top half of the conference has it "easier" than the ACC because of the unbalanced schedule. In the Big East over HALF of any given teams conference schedule is invariably against Top 25 teams. You just can't say that about the ACC.

2/25/2009 11:14:38 AM

ACC is better

2/25/2009 11:22:16 AM

now let's add another arbitrary category:

below 100:
Duke - 1
Clemson - 2
UNC - 0

UConn - 4
Pitt - 5
Louisville - 5

2/25/2009 11:24:15 AM

Quote :

" HEADS AND SHOULDERS "

[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 11:31 AM. Reason : .]

2/25/2009 11:31:15 AM

Quote :

"COLLEGE BASKETBALL THESIS"

2/25/2009 11:48:58 AM

acc has 4 guaranteed in right now. with wake unc duke and clemson
Big East has UCONN, Pitt, louisville, marquette and nova that will all be in the tournament
acc has bc and fsu that should get in and maryland that MIGHT get in
big east has wvu and providence who should get in and then syracuse georgetown and notre dame that MIGHT get in.

2/25/2009 12:01:09 PM

^dont forget about NCSU winning the ACCT and getting in

2/25/2009 12:02:34 PM

yeah,







ok

2/25/2009 12:23:07 PM

big east also has 16 teams. your point?

the point some have been trying to make is that having such a large conference can artificially make middling teams look better because they can beat on the atrocious teams like depaul, rutgers and usf

2/25/2009 12:42:34 PM

But the point is that it's not really accurate to say that.

I don't know what I would call a "middling" team in the Big East this year. I guess Notre Dame, Georgetown, Syracuse and Providence?

Of those teams, only PC can I agree that their in conference record is inflated because their double games came against weaker competition than the Top 10 teams in the conference by and large.

To this point ND has only played THREE games against Sub-75 teams (all were Sub-100) and an absurd 8 against Top 25 with 2 more to go. This makes them look artifiically BAD in my opinion. How many teams in America play TEN games against Top 25 teams this year in their conference alone? I would wager NOT A ONE. Overall, ND will have played 13 games against Top 25 teams. THIRTEEN! That's almost half a schedule. Compare that to a "middling" ACC team like Boston College, who will have played 5 at the end of the year. You tell me which teams record is artificially inflated...


[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 1:01 PM. Reason : x]

2/25/2009 1:00:30 PM

Georgetown is not getting into the tournament (barring a miracle run in the BE tournament). That ship sailed a long time ago and any hope of making it back on left when Louisville smacked them around on Monday.

[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 1:04 PM. Reason : ]

2/25/2009 1:04:01 PM

Agreed.

But to someone who said Syracuse is a bubble team. I'm going to call you crazy.

They are 20-8 with wins over three Top 10 Pomeroy teams, including the #1 in a true road game.

2/25/2009 1:06:30 PM

Syracuse has been overrated all year

Big East has been overrated all year

ACC wins.. and almost every statistical measure confirms this

though Pitt is my pick to win it all

2/25/2009 1:27:26 PM

So here's how the ACC will play out:

Top 5 Teams for sure in:
UNC
Clemson
Duke
FSU
Wake

So figure we get 2 more seeds just b/c were the ACC
Next 4 Teams:
BC
Maryland
VT
NCSU

BC has 2 games left, Us and GT. We need to beat them, but theyll beat GT, to go to 9-7 and get in.
That leaves 1 Spot btw Maryland, VT, an Us

Maryand plays Us, Duke, UVA, and Wake. If we beat them, theyll probably loose to Duke and Wake, and beat UVa. That puts them at 7-9 and out.
VT has Clemson, Duke, UNC, and FSU. All in the top 5, so if they loose at least 3/4 they're out.
We have Wake, Maryland, BC, and Miami. If we win 3/4, it puts us at 8-8, and 7th in the conference. Our overall will be 18-11 and with a decent showing in the ACC tourney we can get to 20-11 and I think that'll get us in.

2/25/2009 1:29:43 PM

Miami has a better RPI and Sagarin rating than any of those 4 teams you listed that could get two bids.

They are closer than we are to being in.

2/25/2009 1:42:50 PM

Quote :

"If we win 3/4, it puts us at 8-8, and 7th in the conference. Our overall will be 18-11 and with a decent showing in the ACC tourney we can get to 20-11 and I think that'll get us in."

we'd be 20-12 in that scenario....but I agree with the premise, 20 wins and we have a pretty good shot at the dance.

2/25/2009 1:43:13 PM

Quote :

"though Pitt is my pick to win it all"

even after what happened last night?

2/25/2009 1:49:52 PM

I still think 20-12 with 8-8 doesn't give us a "good shot." It might give us an outside shot with needing a lot of other teams to fuck up for us to get in.

Reason being...we haven't been in the tourney talk for the WHOLE YEAR. It is really hard for you to go from not even being talked about tourney team to a bubble team. It would be better if we had started off the year strong and completely shit the bed and ended up 20-12 and 8-8, because at least we would be on the mind of the committee.

Only way to fight that is to get to the ACC championship game. If not...I don't think 8-8 gets us in....if not, then we need 9-7.

2/25/2009 2:06:13 PM

we win the acc tourney, we are in... case closed

there is no other option

2/25/2009 2:32:48 PM

Quote :

"Only way to fight that is to get to the ACC championship game. If not...I don't think 8-8 gets us in....if not, then we need 9-7"

going 3-1 to finish out the reg season and winning 2 in the tourney would put us in the champ game (assuming we don't play in the first day, which we likely wouldn't if we finished 8-8) and put us at 20 wins....which gives us a good shot with an overall record of 20-12 .

If we finish 4-0 and win only our first game in the tourney that puts us at 20-11, which still gives us a good shot imo

if we finish 2-2 (to likely put us in the play in round) and win 3 games in the tourney (loss in the champ game) to finish at 20-13....this would be the worst 20 win scenario imo, but it fits your criteria of getting to the champ game.

[Edited on February 25, 2009 at 3:06 PM. Reason : still think 20 gives us a good shot in most cases.]

2/25/2009 2:54:49 PM

Quote :

"(assuming we don't play in the first day, which we likely wouldn't if we finished 8-8"

ummm. don't the bottom 8 play on the first day? 8-8 doesn't get us into the top 4.

2/25/2009 3:00:02 PM

^shit...you're right...I was thinking bottom 4.

2/25/2009 3:03:25 PM

We should probably wait until we actually WIN 3/4 of our remaining games before we start talking about going to the tourny

2/25/2009 3:57:02 PM

We are likely looking at the 8-9 game at Noon on Thursday, March 12.

2/25/2009 4:06:58 PM

^and then #1 if we win that...we really need to make a push for #7. other wise, it might even be better to wind up at #10

We're at #8 now, with VT and Maryland ahead of us @ 6-6....VT has a hell of a stretch coming up and we play Maryland head to head so there is a real chance to do it if we play well.

2/25/2009 4:51:14 PM

Needs be not in 8/9 game cause thens we play unc and in second round and all dreams of ncaa over

2/25/2009 5:00:58 PM

def need to stay out of unc's side

we match up much better with duke or wake

2/25/2009 5:03:34 PM

20 wins should get state in to the dance

2/25/2009 5:28:33 PM

^win out + 1 ACC tourney win

OR lose 1 + 2 ACC tourney wins

OR lose 2 + 3 ACC tourney wins

OR lose x + ACC tourney championship


CHANCES OF ANY OF THESE HAPPENING: <5%

2/25/2009 6:38:58 PM

acc 6-7
big east 6-7
b10 5-6
b12 5
sec 4
p10 4

2/25/2009 7:03:26 PM

Quote :

"win out + 1 ACC tourney win OR lose 1 + 2 ACC tourney wins OR lose 2 + 3 ACC tourney wins OR lose x + ACC tourney championship"

2/25/2009 7:13:14 PM

20-12 (8-8) or better has gotten every ACC team into the dance for the past 5 years at least. We hit that and either we are dancing or all conspiracy theories have been proven correct.

2/25/2009 9:03:24 PM

8-8 would mean winning 3 of our last 4, probably losing to wake and winning the rest...i still think we need an acc tourney win if we do that, and that 7-9 is more realistic, but worst case i see us in the NIT winning a few games

2/25/2009 9:06:52 PM

^ Yeah I agree with you. 7-9 also puts us in the dreaded 8/9 game.

2/25/2009 9:12:12 PM