Pre-ACCT Bubble Watch

ACC College Basketball23

As time begins to run out on bubble teams, let’s see who can coast into the NCAAT and who still has some work to do in the ACCT to avoid the two tournaments for losers. If you have missed our past discussions on exactly what it takes to clear the bubble and land into the NCAAT. then here is the comprehensive review that we looked at last year:

Bubble Review from 2009

At the bottom of the 2009 entry, there are links to earlier Bubble entries which provide even more historical documentation on the NCAAT Selection Process. If you’re new here, then I recommend you look these earlier entries over. Just remember that most of the Talking Heads enjoy the sound of their own voice, even when they don’t know what they are talking about.


NEW FOR THIS YEAR

There are always arguments over the bubble, but this year there are two things that may play havoc with the historical examples we have used over the last several years here:

1) Performance Down the Stretch

I have read several articles (and comments here at SFN) that point out that the Selection Committee will no longer pay special attention to how a team finishes the season. Exactly how this affects the selection process is not clear, especially since it’s not exactly clear how it was used in the past.

The one thing that appears beyond dispute is that big wins in the ACCT have played a huge role in the past for moving bubble teams into the NCAAT. (The best examples of this that I can think of are several of Herb’s State teams.) For now, I am going to assume that an upset will pay the same dividends as the past…especially given my second point.

2) Weak Field

Several commentators have noted that the field is extremely weak this year. Thus the “standards” for making the field are not going to be as high as the recent past. Thus I feel safe making the assumption that any “ACC resume” that was good enough in the past, will be more than good enough this year.

NCAAT BOUND

The following ACC teams are clearly headed to the NCAAT regardless of what happens in the ACCT:

Pre_ACCT_Bubble

For the most part, there are no truly embarrassing nuggets hidden in any of these team’s results. The closest thing to embarrassing is FSU’s OOC SOS rank of 221. The bottom-three are staring at 7-10 seeds, but at least they can’t screw up badly enough to fall out.


BUBBLE LAND

VT and GT have both blown chances at having a NCAAT bid wrapped up by this point, but they both have conspired to give us the opportunity for some interesting conjecture.

Virginia Tech

Two years ago VT earned a first-round ACCT bye, won on Friday, and still ended up in the NIT. They stand a good chance of repeating that feat this year…but the path this year is slightly different from 2008.

VT is squarely on the bubble because of a ridiculously easy OOC schedule, currently ranked #340. If you doubt the impact that a weak OOC schedule can play, scroll down and review Penn State’s resume from last year (6 Top 50 wins including 2 Top 25 wins) for just one example of how the Selection Committee has punished poor scheduling decisions in the past.

At the very least, VT needs to beat WF on Friday to feel good about receiving an NCAAT bid. I guess that the NCAAT Selection Committee could still be vindictive enough to still leave them out, but it just doesn’t seem likely with the overall weakness of the field this year. (Of course, I could be vindictive enough to pull for WF just for the chance to thumb my nose at people who have claimed that 20 wins means something.)

Note that a UM upset of WF would mean that VT would need to win on Friday and Saturday to really feel comfortable about an at-large bid.

VT Season Summarized at CBS Sports

Georgia Tech

Along with miserable OOC schedules, the Selection Committee really, really hates teams with losing conference records. The FSU resume from 2007 (scroll down for key stats) easily beats this year’s GT team and FSU ended up in the NIT. As we have seen in the recent past, a win on Friday should be more than enough to propel the 7-9 Jackets into the NCAAT.

GT Season Summarized at CBS Sports

CONCLUSION

The Dance Card has VT just barely in and GT about 10 spots below the bursting bubble. The Dance Card will update their standings daily throughout the ACCT if anyone wants to keep a close watch as the various conference tournaments are played this coming weekend.

I deleted several sarcastic paragraphs because I don’t want to put up an entry only to sidetrack it at the end. Please endeavor to follow my lead and keep comments on topic.

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

ACC College Basketball

23 Responses to Pre-ACCT Bubble Watch

  1. Daily Update 03/09/2010 at 1:44 PM #

    How about breaking down Herb Sendek and ASU’s situation?

  2. VaWolf82 03/09/2010 at 1:54 PM #

    The Dance Card has ASU about 10 spots above the bubble. Not the worst situation, but easily within their error band for predictions.

    Good
    Finished 2nd in PAC-10
    OOC SOS – 64 (not great, but definitely better than we’ve seen in the past from Herb)

    So-So
    RPI – 53
    Overall SOS Rank – 71

    Bad
    0-5 vs Top 25
    Only 2 top 50 wins (including one against #49 UW)
    Best Win – #36 San Diego St
    Best Road Win – #87 Arizona
    Pac-10 7th Ranked Conference (behind A-10)

    Luckily for Herb, the pickings for the last 5 teams or so is really bad. I could easily see ASU getting in and VT staying home, even though VT has more Top 50 wins.

  3. RickJ 03/09/2010 at 2:44 PM #

    “VT is squarely on the bubble because of a ridiculously easy OOC schedule, currently ranked #340.”

    VT also played an almost impossibly easy ACC schedule by playing Duke, Maryland, FSU & Clemson one time each. This is not their fault but it puts their 10 – 6 ACC record in a lot different light. Their overall strength of schedule is 130.

  4. VaWolf82 03/09/2010 at 2:49 PM #

    I’ll cover ACC SOS later this month…but VT’s schedule hit a first. They had the absolutely easiest possible schedule. They played BC, UVA, UM, NCSU, and UNC twice…the five bottom teams in the conference.

    It might be worth mentioning that WF’s schedule wasn’t much tougher. WF played GT, UVa, UM, UNC, and NCSU twice….hitting four of the bottom five teams in the ACC.

  5. choppack1 03/09/2010 at 3:07 PM #

    Wow – that’s interesting stuff w/ the VaTech and Wake schedules.

    Of course, you can’t play the one of the 3 worst teams in the ACC if you are one of them year after year….out of the 10 possible games we could have had against the bottom half of the ACC we played 7…Out of the 12 possible games we could have played vs. the top half we played 9. (Of course, when you are swept by 9th and 10th place teams, you can’t really argue – “we had a terrible schedule”.)

    Interested to see how VaTech plays out. You’ve got to figure they get in almost because leaving them out could make the committee look bad. Agree that GaTech has to win at least 2 – as they’ve had a nice collapse towards the end of the season to suddenly be in jeopardy of losing the at-large bid.

    VaTech – I saw that Dance Card had ASU in too – I’d love to see them lose the first round and be left out – and allow us to play them in the NIT. Of course, his teams tend to beat other mediocre teams fairly consistently if means a tournament bid. (If it can make the bid academic like it could the other night vs. UCLA, well, that’s another story…)

  6. StateFans 03/09/2010 at 3:18 PM #

    You have to remember that this year’s field is particularly weak. And, the ACC did relatively well outside of the conference.

    I still think that VPI is sitting inside with some room to spare. A loss in the ACCT may change that, but hust one win for them in the ACCT would make it even more solid.

    I also think one win for GT in the ACCT probably puts them in (unless there is a huge run of upsets in conference tourneys). Two wins would definitely do it for them.

  7. phunisher 03/09/2010 at 3:57 PM #

    Many basketball pundits are looking at the potential Pac-10 match up between ASU and Washington in the ?Semis? as the winner goes to the tournament and loser to the NIT. This is a Joe Lunardi insight as he sees ASU in right now and Washington out. Should be a nice match up to watch.

  8. choppack1 03/09/2010 at 4:22 PM #

    dance card has them @ 44%. I was shocked to see it. Aren’t they like 97% accurate.

    I feel like Frank Drebin in Naked Gun. “They say your husband has a 50/50 chance to make it, but there’s only a 10 % chance of that.”

  9. 61Packer 03/09/2010 at 7:33 PM #

    If VPI was good enough to finish third at 10-6 in a league that already has 5 other teams in (per the media), then Tech should be in as well. I believe Wake needs one win, maybe two, before they’re in, and GT needs at least two wins if not three to go.

    Arizona State, as bad as the Herb haters dislike ’em, should be in already. The only way I see the Sun Devils in the NIT would be a bad loss to Stanford and neither Cal nor USC making the Pac 10 finals.

    NIT bids to the ACC will surely go to UNC and probably Georgia Tech. Miami, UVA and BC won’t go anywhere unless they win the ACCT, and the Wolfpack needs at least 2 quality ACCT wins, maybe 3 wins, to merit an NIT invite.

  10. VaWolf82 03/09/2010 at 8:47 PM #

    The data is spotty, but I find it impossible to believe that a first-round ACCT win over one of the bottom four teams in the ACC followed by a loss means anything at all to the Selection Committee.

  11. LRM 03/09/2010 at 8:58 PM #

    As far as I can tell, the Selection Committee has always treated tournament wins as “extra” conference wins, so it’d be tough to leave out an 11-win VPI.

    That said, has a 10-win ACC team ever been left out of the NCAAT (since the field expanded)? I know the rare 9-7 team gets left out (UVa 2000, I believe) but 10 wins always seems automatic, especially when it’s one of the top teams in the conference.

  12. VaWolf82 03/09/2010 at 9:09 PM #

    In 2008, an 8-win UM team lost to a 9-win VT team on Friday in the ACCT. Guess which one went to the NCAAT and which went to the NIT.

  13. wufpup76 03/09/2010 at 10:01 PM #

    “That said, has a 10-win ACC team ever been left out of the NCAAT (since the field expanded)?”

    ^Not in the ACC. I believe the ACC may be the only power conference to never have a team denied with 10 conference wins during the regular season – but I’m not certain of this. If ever there were a chance, it would be VT now. (But I think the GT road win gets them in given the incredibly soft bubble).

    The Big East is especially susceptible to this now that they have 84,000 teams. 🙂

  14. LRM 03/10/2010 at 7:30 AM #

    The Big East Tourny is so whacky the bottom eight teams have to play two games just to get to the quarterfinals against the top four bye teams.

    Which I guess is preferrable to the previous way of not even giving the bottom four teams the opportunity to play their way into the NCAAT.

  15. Wolfy__79 03/10/2010 at 9:03 AM #

    i see what i call favors going to ACC schools like unc-ch, duke, md… and sometimes NCSU when we’re on the bubble. vt isn’t one of them and gets the bubble bust more often than not.

    ^the big east is a joke for how many teams they have in the conference. i’m hoping that will change if notre dame will be forced to join a conference (hopefully the big10). i think some of the big east teams would be better served to join a conference usa. i like the big east, they are certainly very good this year. but aside from this year, i don’t ever really give them credit for being the toughest conference from top to bottom.

    i feel pretty good on our chances thursday and friday.. and i’m actually kinda excited about the game tommorrow night. good stuff awaits….

  16. Wulfpack 03/10/2010 at 9:22 AM #

    The Big East has been the best conference for a couple of years, and this year is no different. Syracuse, Nova, Pitt, G’town, WVU, L’ville and Marquette could all find their way to the Sweet 16 and even beyond.

    The bottom of the Big East, however, is trash.

  17. Wolfy__79 03/10/2010 at 9:37 AM #

    ^^toughest meaning best not physical play. i think they take that prize year in/out..

  18. bradleyb123 03/10/2010 at 10:54 AM #

    I think the reason VT is not getting as much credit is because they played each of the BOTTOM five ACC teams twice, while playing each of the TOP seven ACC teams (excluding themselves, obviously!) just once.

    It was a perfect storm of weak conference scheduling for VT this year. So their 10-6 conference record probably has a big, fat, red asterisk beside it.

  19. MP 03/10/2010 at 1:14 PM #

    “Vindictive” ha! Sometimes I can’t help but be vindictive this time of year. Maybe it’s 20 years of accumulated bitterness.

    With that said, I’m definitely rooting for VT to lose on Friday due to my distaste for weak scheduling. Even if they were to make the NCAAT anyway after a Friday loss, it would serve them right to sweat out the weekend.

    I wouldn’t mind seeing ASU sneak in. Let’s see Herb show his stuff.

  20. choppack1 03/10/2010 at 4:23 PM #

    “The data is spotty, but I find it impossible to believe that a first-round ACCT win over one of the bottom four teams in the ACC followed by a loss means anything at all to the Selection Committee.”

    This is true, but the RPI increase factor of beating a Top 75 team on a nuetral court could make the RPI more respectable. In addition, they would play another team w/ a solid RPI in their next game.

    One thing is certain – the last week of the season is huge for bubble teams. Still, you have to wonder what VaTech has done to piss some people off.

  21. VaWolf82 03/10/2010 at 5:54 PM #

    I doubt that a first round win and a second round loss would have a huge impact on a team’s RPI ranking. I looked up two examples from the recent past and a first round win improves a bubble team’s ranking about 3 spots.

    I still contend that bubble teams need victories over highly ranked teams more than they need slight improvements in RPI.

  22. bradleyb123 03/10/2010 at 6:30 PM #

    One thing is certain – the last week of the season is huge for bubble teams. Still, you have to wonder what VaTech has done to piss some people off.

    I think it’s because they earned a 10-6 conference record by playing the BOTTOM FIVE teams twice apiece, and the TOP SEVEN only once apiece. It was a perfect storm of weak scheduling.

  23. wufpup76 03/11/2010 at 3:37 AM #

    ^It was the perfect storm of having a weak conf. schedule AND an atrocious OOC schedule.

    HWSNBN drools over the schedule that Greenburg had this season.

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