You are right! I had penciled in last night as a for sure loss -- its just so hard to win on the road period, Wade still getting his legs back, Ole Miss being actually really good with good metrics and a good defense ... it didn't bode well for us.

But I was wrong! I still think 6-3 would be really good, but if we win this weekend, I'll start getting on the "7-2 or 8-1 is possible" train. 6-3 got a lot more doable with that win last night.

To get to 8-1 have to win a game or two in that stretch on the road against a good team
Nice win Ags

Wake Forest's crappy SOS keeping them a quad 3,
Only losses are quad 2 Xavier and quad 1 to UF, Clemson and us.

fatdad84ag said:

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Wake Forest's crappy SOS keeping them a quad 3,
Only losses are quad 2 Xavier and quad 1 to UF, Clemson and us.

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Wake is starting to feel like one of those teams that gets a bid even with a low net. There's always a few every year in the 60 and 70 range that the committee just believes are better teams than the NET suggests.

That said they could jump a bunch this weekend.

Who are the championship contenders according to KenPom on 1/24?

Going back to 2002, the last 23 National Champions had the following rankings:

• Top 25 in adj. efficiency margin (AKA KenPom ranking)
• Top 57 in adj. offensive efficiency (21 if you remove 2014 Uconn)
• Top 44 in adj. defensive efficiency
• Top 54 in Strength of Schedule Adj. Efficiency Margin

They are as follows:
Duke (1, 4, 2, 34)
Auburn (2, 1, 21, 2)
Houston (3, 13, 1, 49)
Iowa State (4, 10, 6, 37)
Florida (5, 5, 15, 52)
Tennessee (6, 22, 3, 51)
Kansas (7, 34, 4, 7)
Purdue (9, 11, 26, 3)
Illinois (11, 28, 11, 14)
Michigan (12, 14, 25, 26)
Marquette (13, 23, 13, 17)
Michigan State (14, 18, 20, 41)
Texas A&M (15, 44, 7, 5)
Arizona (17, 16, 27, 16)
Mississippi (18, 42, 10, 39)
Louisville (24, 20, 44, 9)

Before last year's tournament, there were 8 teams that fit these requirements. So I expect a few to drop off this list.

So basically any game our offense heats up - we will win, and every other game we will still be in. Love it.

More correlations than requirements, but yeah!

BadMoonRisin said:

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Complete Idiot said:

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Further proof we have awful basketball "fans"

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I mean you aren't wrong, but its OK for people to be upset about blowing a 22 pt lead against an arch rival in one of the worst choke jobs in school history.

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It's easier to accept that collapse (you don't have a choice, really) knowing we "stole" one on the road from a much more highly ranked opponent - sort of balancing things out (in fact, from a NET perspective, if you had to pick only one road game to win then the Ole Miss win was the better of the two possibilities).

Of course, would've been even better to win both.

Bottom line with regard to the NET: the Purdue, Creighton, Texas Tech, Ohio State and even Wake Forest wins in nonconference paying dividends. And our nonconference losses to UCF on the road and Oregon on a neutral court will continue to be "good losses".

We just need to hold serve at home (including hosting elite competition at the tail end of conference play) and we will end up with a top 3 seeding in the NCAAT.

It was a massive choke job, but simply due to number of games (and therefore season impact), it's always going to trail numerous football games where the loss impacted the season much more.

A MLB team could blow a 15 run lead and it would be a massive chokejob. But in one game out of 162, it doesn't *really* matter.

Yesterday obviously a bit more significant as it may have cost us a seedline, but in the grand scheme of things it's not all that important.

I had sips at my house watching the game. Makes it worse, I suppose

Auburn is 11-1 in quad 1 games. Next most wins is 6 (us, among others). I think they basically have almost the same record as last year at this point but last year they didnt have any quad 1 wins.

t - cam said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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It was a massive choke job, but simply due to number of games (and therefore season impact), it's always going to trail numerous football games where the loss impacted the season much more.

A MLB team could blow a 15 run lead and it would be a massive chokejob. But in one game out of 162, it doesn't *really* matter.

Yesterday obviously a bit more significant as it may have cost us a seedline, but in the grand scheme of things it's not all that important.

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Exactly, this is what we need our fans to understand. While games like yesterday do suck, it's not nearly the catastrophic event the BAS Aggies want it to be.

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It's what can make this board frustrating ant times and part of why I quit premium all together. Losing the way we did yesterday really sucked, but once it's over and you've had your 15 minutes to be annoyed about it, it doesn't change anything about this team or what they can accomplish.
We have so many fans that just generally misunderstand that even the very best teams in college basketball in most years are going to lose ~5-7 games. The football mentality of every game being life or death doesn't apply and even that isn't really true in football anymore.

It is a good reminder though that with Texas back on the schedule, a lot more people will be paying attention twice a year than ever did over the last 12 years prior to March.

Proposition Joe said:

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It was a massive choke job, but simply due to number of games (and therefore season impact), it's always going to trail numerous football games where the loss impacted the season much more.

A MLB team could blow a 15 run lead and it would be a massive chokejob. But in one game out of 162, it doesn't *really* matter.

Yesterday obviously a bit more significant as it may have cost us a seedline, but in the grand scheme of things it's not all that important.

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I doubt yesterday cost us a seedline with that win against Ole Miss, but it does make the @USCe game a LOT more important.

I was thinking all along if we could get to 6-3 headed into the bye, with more home games than away games on the back half of the season, we'd be primed to grab the last 3 seed. That loss against sip erased any leeway we might have, but win our next 2 and I think it's balanced out.

Absolutely was a massive choke job though, no doubt about that.

Ag's "choked", plus some calls went my the wrong way (I'm not a conspiracy person it just happens in many games, one team gets a few more that go their way), AND Texas hit shots and stepped up. It all came together to lose by just 1 on the road, vs a rival, and that team is pretty good. Personally, I'm still angry about the game a day later and that is very, very rare when it comes to basketball for me.

But that one game, out of the 18 total conference games (not 8 as in football), became a referendum on Buzz, various players, the program, our stepchild status, on and on. Vast quantities of people suddenly have a basketball opinion. Way, way , WAY blown out of proportion. But, I get the anger and I guess that comes out in many ways.

But most of our fans don't understand what a road loss in an SEC basketball game really means given our Quad 1/2 record to date, our ranking, our post season position, etc.

I think if we won yesterday we'd be right around a 7 or 8 in NET. We'd be undefeated Quad-2/3/4 and sporting a 7-5 QUAD 1 record which is equal to or better than all but 3 teams.

I think we'd probably be in Kansas' spot at NET 8.

Maybe if we had maintained our lead. Winning by one and losing by one are virtually identical for NET as its primarily an efficiency metric.

Outside of BCG, this is the best we are gonna get.

JJxvi said:

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Maybe if we had maintained our lead. Winning by one and losing by one are virtually identical for NET as its primarily an efficiency metric.

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"The NET algorithm is composed of two parts: team value index (TVI) and an adjusted net efficiency rating. TVI is a result-based feature that rewards teams who beat quality opponents, especially on the road. Meanwhile, adjusted net efficiency accounts for strength of opponent, as well as game location (home, away, neutral)."

Results are a considerable portion of NET, so a win would definitely have been much more helpful, especially a road win. But a road loss (especially against a good team) isn't very penal.

And, to your point, when that road loss is by 1 point to a high NET team, it's almost negligible.

But we got a large bump from beating Ole Miss on the road, so results definitely matter.

Rec said:

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Complete Idiot said:

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Further proof we have awful basketball "fans"

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It is truly remarkable how many people come to post after any loss as opposed to an amazing win like Wednesday.

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Preach.