Missed Opportunity

Instead of moving up with a road win, State dropped down four with the loss. This was State’s first loss of the year to an RPI-100+ team. You can try to polish that up if you like…but I think you will end up just making a mess. This game illustrates why the RPI and other formulas give more credit to playing teams ranked 150 over teams ranked 250…the odds of losing are increased dramatically.

My last entry was so long, that I left out a graph that illustrates that State needs to win about four games out of five just to maintain their current position in the various rankings. This was the loss…now we need four wins.

SCHEDULE REVIEW

Games Against RPI Top-100
	WINS		LOSSES
Top-25			1	Duke
			9	Iowa
			23	North Carolina
26-50	29	Boston College	33	Seton Hall
	37	George Washington
	41	Maryland
	42	Alabama
51-100	56	Virginia
	73	Clemson
	82	Miami (twice)
	96	Notre Dame
BAD LOSSES
100+			136	Georgia Tech

State is still 4-4 against the RPI Top-50. With BC moving down and UNC moving up, State’s record against the Top-25 stands at 0-3. (That can’t help when it comes time to actually determine NCAAT seeds.) State has FSU @ home and VT on the road this week. (UVa discussed below.)

Seton Hall got hammered by 42 pts at home Saturday by UConn….Ouch! That loss dropped them back, but they are still comfortably in the Top-50.

GW won their last game of note before the A-10 tournament by beating St Joe’s on the road. GW’s weak schedule seems to be getting a lot of air time…It would be interesting to see how far they would drop in the voting polls should they stumble against one of the remaining RPI-100+ teams left to play.

Alabama plays SC on the road Tuesday. It would be nice if they could build a little cushion before they play Tenn at home on Saturday.

CONFERENCE UPDATE

HISTORICAL
BUBBLE TRENDS

		ACC	NCAAT
RPI	TEAM	Record	Seed
1	Duke	11-0
21	NC State	8-3	IN
23	North Carolina	6-4
29	Boston College	7-4
41	Maryland	5-5
56	Virginia	6-5	Bubble
67	Florida State	5-5
73	Clemson	3-8
82	Miami	6-5
109	Wake Forest	1-9	OUT
114	Virginia Tech	3-8
136	Georgia Tech	3-8

Team names link to results and future schedule at kenpom.com.
“ACC� links to standings/ranks for all ACC teams.

A FEW THOUGHTS

UVa moved up nicely with a home win against VT…but they still have a way to go to clear the bubble. I don’t think that their next game against Longwood (#315) at home will be enough to move them into the Top-50. They have a big game against FSU on the road next Saturday.

The loss to Duke didn’t hurt MD badly. A win in Little John on Wednesday has to be considered nearly critical for the Terps’ chances at a NCAAT bid.

BC actually slipped a bit with a home win over Clemson.

UNC stopped their mini-slide caused by a home win against Clemson and the loss to Duke.

Miami will probably bury their NCAAT chances in the hole they started digging this past week. Coming up this week – at BC and at Duke.

FSU actually moved onto the outer, outer edges of the bubble this week. But with the overall strength of the ACC down, they have alot of ground to make up. Bottom line…FSU has more on their mind than just playing spoiler when they come to Raleigh this week.