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Sunday was the second day of six consecutive days with at least one ACC basketball game being played. So the RPI rankings discussed below were valid thru Saturday’s games.
[See the full post at: ACC Roundup]Our games against the canes, domers and the cuse are huge.in addition, we can switch spots with louisville. It would be pretty cool to see this team finish in top 25 of RPI.. Giving us shot at a top 6 seed and avoiding the play-in fatigue in the tournament.
We’re a third of the way through the acc season and are a solid 4-2. We got to this point by beating a then top-5 RPI team, losing to one on the road, beating 2 doormats (1 on the road one at home) beating a bubble team and losing to a top 15 RPI team @ home.75% winning percentage at home and 50% on the road (both of which are impossible with an 18 game schedule) will have us between 10-8 and 12-6. The difference between those 2 records is sleeping soundly on the eve of selection Sunday and worrying about the bubble. Keep in mind, just to reach that 10-8 mark we’ll have to go 6-6 the last 2/3 of the season.
Translation: without a nice winning streak and dominance over those not in the hunt, we’ll be fighting tooth and nail for that real estate.
The ACC schedule this year just seems relentless to me. You would have to say that if we make it into the Big Dance this year, our team will be plenty battle hardened.
Avoiding the terrible loss is the most important thing for the Pack. If we continue to stay in games late against the good teams, we should be able to steal another one or two of those. 6-6 over the balance of the schedule isn’t an outrageous thought. Cuse and ND at home are big. Lots of games left with realistic spreads of no more than 3 points. Buy stock in Tums.
I believe!!! WE can win 6 more games and given the grit in this team, and any improvement in the defense, we can finish in the top 6 in the conference, while this may seem like a bubble, I Believe!!!
When does this weeks top 25 rankings come out? I mean we pounded Duke, lost by 1 to the Holes and handled a road win at FSU. I know the top 25 is a curse for us but it’s still something we should want to be on. Yes, we have plenty of weak spots/issues but if you look at where we are right now we should be at 25 IMHO.
I’m not sure how much “top 25 voting” plays into the final selections, I assume the data-driven rankings mean more to those on the Committee. (One would hope.) But this is all very premature ; )
Miami will be hungry and ready. Feed the bigs (jump shots don’t challenge the defense) and keep up the intensity on both sides of the ball, and we’ll do alright.
I agree the top 25 thing probably isn’t a huge deal to the being picked/seeding. I’m just saying in general for the here and now picture I’m surprised we aren’t ranked.
I set the goal for this team as getting a 6 seed in the dance. It’s a challenging, even difficult goal, but one that we can can plausibly achieve. I look forward to watching us give it our best shot.
I set the goal for this team as getting a 6 seed in the dance. It’s a challenging, even difficult goal, but one that we can can plausibly achieve.
We need to discuss the meaning of “plausible”. I don’t see this team getting a Top 25 RPI ranking which is about what you would need. In any event, it should be an interesting season to watch unfold.
When does this weeks top 25 rankings come out?
Haven’t quite yet … if I’m around later I’ll link it (or I’m sure someone will) 🙂
I think it’s unlikely State would be in either poll this week. Beat Miami AND Notre Dame and there’s good chance State would be “in” either/both polls. Here is CBS’ rankings: meh
It can’t be understated how big holding on for Saturday’s win was. At Miami will be a very tough game, but hopefully the guys will be loose and ready. Getting another road win – especially a quality road win – would be huge.
If anyone is interested in such things, here are a couple of this week’s bracketology brackets:
Lunardi’s Espn bracket | Palm’s CBS bracketLunardi has State solidly in on the 10 line (a seeding I agree with at this point in the season), Palm has us on the 11 line – but not as one of the ‘last four in’ … I could see this seeding as well.
To VaWolf’s point about conference strength of schedule – Syracuse is 4-1 in ACC play but ‘out’ in Palm’s bracket and ‘last four in’ on Lunardi’s. All five of the Orange’s ACC games to this point have been against the bottom third of the ACC: VaTech, GaTech, FSU, Wake, and Clemson. Their next game is BC, and they don’t play a team from the top third of the conference until 1/26 @ Cheats. That is what I call a fortuitous start to your league schedule. Their conference schedule is definitely backloaded.
Also for comparison, Miami is on the 10-line on Palm’s bracket, and ‘last four in’ on Lunardi’s. Stealing a win on Thursday in Coral Gables would be absolutely ginormous.
Interesting article here from Espn: Backcourts to trust
From the article:
“Jim Boeheim. Roy Williams. Larry Brown. What do they all have in common? Yep, they’re all Hall of Fame coaches. Larry Brown is just one Hall of Fame coach with controversy surrounding him. But they’re also all currently under NCAA investigation … ”Also:
“Not to be picky, but there is a difference between deepest and best. The Big 12 arguably is the deepest conference in the country, with eight of its 10 teams likely to get an NCAA bid. But best? It is not the best. Of those eight teams, how many look like Sweet 16-at-best teams versus Final Four contenders? Maybe two — Kansas and Iowa State. Meantime, the ACC has two teams that will be legit Final Four picks (Duke and Virginia), one pretty good long shot (North Carolina) and one team that on a good shooting day has a chance (Louisville). Then add in Notre Dame, capable of a two-weekend run, and NC State, another tough out, and the ACC is the best league in the nation.“Plausible. State could slug their way to 12-6, or 11-7 with a nice ACCT run. That would do it. Not easy, not LIKELY. But likely and plausible be not synonyms.
Can we go 6-6 the rest of the way?
Seems like we should be able to beat Clemson(H), Clemson, GT, WF, Va Tech(H) and BC. But 4 are road games and you know us on the road. Just doing that would put us at 19 wins going into the ACCT.
That leaves Miami, ND(H), UVA(H), Louisville, UNC and Syr(H).
My bet is we lose 2 from Group A (teams we should beat) and win two from Group B and still need a couple in the ACCT to feel comfy, because we are the Pack and never do things easy.
However, I’d vote along with the poster that suggested we just win the rest.
I like the graphs and pretty much agree with drawing the RPI line in the sand at 40. For the most part, you should safely be in but I’m sure there are examples of top 40 teams being left out. With that said, an RPI of 35 or better has to be a guaranteed selection.
You can flip between AP, Coaches, and RPI.
State got votes in last week’s AP poll, but none this week after a home loss to the Cheats. Tennessee got two AP votes lolllll.
or the most part, you should safely be in but I’m sure there are examples of top 40 teams being left out.
There have been several high majors left out in the 35-40 range, but not very many over the years that I’ve been looking at. Both were right around .500 in conference play and accomplished nothing remarkable in their conference tourney.
It seems like a team in the MVC got left out at #26 with four other MVC teams getting into the tourney that same year. BTW, the four MVC teams that got into the tourney made the semi-finals of the MVC tourney, while #26 didn’t make the semi’s or the NCAAT.
There are only 3 games left on State’s schedule that would be upsets for State to win: UVA, @Louisville, and @UNC.
But we played UVA within 10 points on the road and UNC within 2 points at home, and it feels like our team is still getting better. They will be favored, but it wouldn’t be a Duke-caliber upset if we beat either of them.
I certainly don’t expect State to win all of the other 9 games. But we could also win 1 of the 3 underdog games. Altogether, I am expecting 7-8 more wins in the regular season as long as the players in the rotation stay healthy/available.
I see 6-6 as a floor. Anything less than that would be a disappointment for sure.
Yeah, at this point, 10-8 is the floor at would be solid bubble and a likely (but not certain) invite. I am greedy, and want 12-6. The only win that would truly surprise me is at the Holes. Louisville certainly didn’t react well to Duke going up there and taking it to them physically, we can do much the same.
In the re-match with UVA, assign Twin B to chase that Anderson prick wherever he goes. PROBLEM SOLVED.
I was pleased with Saturday’s win over FSU, but I didn’t see anything that shows me that we’re making significant strides.
My predictions from here on out are:
@Miami–L
Notre Dame–L
Clemson–W
@GT–L
@WF–L
UVA–W
@Louisville–L
VT–W
@UNC–L
@BC–W
@Clemson–L
Syracuse–LWe’ll be back to the ACCT on Thursday, and we might get a win here, and maybe 2, but that’s probably it. Then it’ll be NIT time.
Maybe we’ll get lucky then and be given a home game or two.
The one thing that could make me change my predictions would be a Wolfpack team that on February 24, for once, didn’t play scared in Chapel Hill.
So. I am looking through kenpom’s #s. This – so far – is gott’s 2nd best team defensively.
And its pretty obvious that the only thing that keeps this program from being elite under Gottfried is defense. The last 3 years we have typically been one of the worst defensively of those receiving at large bids.
I think it was our own VaWolf who several years ago pointed out a team’s seeding is usually within +/- 1 spot of their RPI, ex: NCSU RPI = 35. Divide by 4 and you have 8.75 so you’d expect a team like NCSU to be projected between 8-10 seed at this moment. I’m going off of memory that this is fact based off of others work that I can’t even begin to find at this moment. Granted you have to get the at-large first and the higher your RPI the more variance you’ll have since they don’t take the top 68 RPI teams but the rule is that’s usually what you’ll end up with. As such I put no stock in Palm who puts teams like Notre Dame at a 3 seed when they have an RPI of 38. When you pull up his bracketology he has State as an 11, down 2 seeds in relation to our RPI, and ODU at a 6 which is +2 to their RPI. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt of going +/- 2 seeds but to think ODU is a 6 with an RPI of 31 and NCSU is an 11 with an RPI of 35 and the teams they’ve both played and beaten it’s clear he’s either trolling (which is likely) or he’s a moron for the subject he’s supposed to be an “expert”. It’s clear he’s not predicting where they’ll finish because he moves them up and down each week due to results. I’ll give ND credit for one thing, they may not have played anyone in the non-con schedule and they constantly play catch up in games (which will start to bite them against better competition) but they have to believe they’ll be able to come back on you no matter how much they are down and that makes them a dangerous team.
All in all it’s nice to talk about State and seeding rather then speculating at what work they need to do to make it on the right side of the bubble even in mid-January, even if State is closer to the bubble then any of us would like.
^Agree re: Notre Dame.
They’ve passed the ‘eye test’ to some extent, but the current data does not suggest 3-line at all.
I haven’t studied seeding alot, but during the Herb years I looked at about six years worth of data and showed a linear correlation between RPI ranking and seeding. I intended to update and refine the correlation, but I read on Palm’s old site that about 75% of the teams are seeded within one spot of RPI/4 (rounded up). That observation was good enough for me.
One thing that I have noticed is that a high finish in the regular season conference standings will produce a nice bump in seeding. During the time frame that I examined, a Pac10 team finished second and got a huge jump in seeding. One of Dave Leito’s UVA teams tied for first place in the regular season and got a nice bump. Herb’s best NC State team finished at #17, but got a 3 seed….presumably because of finishing second in the ACC regular season.
Doing “well” in the conference tournament doesn’t seem to garner much of a seeding bump. I specifically remember a BC team that made it to the finals, but was seeded more or less in line with their RPI. I’ve never looked at a correlation between conference champs, their RPI, and seeding…and don’t expect that I will while I’m still working for a living.
I would guess that people are seeding ND high because of their rankings in the polls and overall school popularity. But if you look at Louisville last year, there was much media whining about their seed…but their seed fell in line with their resume. I expect that in the end, ND’s seed will match their resume.
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