ACC Basketball Update (2/19)

Photo by Dennis Nett at Syracuse.com.

 

This past weekend was awfully good for the visitors…and since State was one of the road winners, I’m OK with that. But there’s a lot to cover so let’s get started.

 

RPI TREND GRAPHS

I’m staying with the expanded axis on the “IN” graph again this week to give a better view of those teams that are jumping back and forth between the two graphs.

UVa won mid-week at Miami and then had the weekend off to hold steady at the #1 ranking.

Clemson’s bad week started at FSU when they blew a huge half-time lead and ended up losing in OT. They followed that disaster up with a home loss to Duke.

Duke went 2-0 with wins against VT at home and then at Clemson on Sunday.

Since UNC’s three-game losing streak, they’ve won five in a row to move to a Top 5 ranking.

After being fairly stable for most of conference play, everyone else in the “IN” graph has started falling either towards or into the Bubble Zone.

Miami peaked after beating L’ville at home on Jan 24. Since then, they’ve not done much worth talking about other than the road win against VT.State’s loss to UM has now fallen into Q2 since the Canes have fallen out of the Top 30.

 

FSU had the big comeback win over Clemson to jump up nicely and then beat Pitt at home to fall back some.

I was a little surprised that SYR’s road win at BC more than balanced the home loss to State. As we’ll get to in a few minutes, I think that SYR’s post-season destination is still up for discussion (but I appear to be in a small minority).

L’ville peaked nearly a month ago and since then have gone 3-5, with wins coming only against the three worst teams in the conference. For this past week, they were off mid-week (after playing 4 games in 8 days) and then lost to UNC over the weekend.

VT had a down then up week with a loss in Durham and then a win in Atlanta.

State had a great week with a win at SYR and then in Winston. They’re not locked in yet, but this past week was a big step in the right direction.

Surprisingly, ND’s jump with a win at BC was as large as State got with the win at SYR. They look good on the graph, but they have a hole to dig out of with their conference record.

BC dropped out-of-sight low with their home loss to ND.

 

MISCELLANEOUS BRACKETOLOGY

Sunday’s ACC games won’t have any effect on the ACC Bubble discussion, so I’m going to get this section finished based on what’s available on Sunday.

From bracketmatrix.com, here’s what people are thinking about the ACC:

The Dance Card released their results after the mid-week games:


After the UNC loss, State was the last team in. So the road win at SYR gave State a nice boost in both the RPI and the Dance Card. The Dance Card should be updated sometime today for the weekend games, but shouldn’t have much impact on the ACC. Hopefully, they will start their daily updates soon…though twice a week is really good enough until the conference tournaments start.

I found it interesting that the bracketeers and the Dance Card picked the same nine ACC teams to make the NCAAT.

With the new quadrant system, everyone is really just guessing at how the Selection Committee will use it. If Jerry Palm (CBS Sports) is right, then we’re going to have some interesting discussions on Selection Sunday. For instance, he has Alabama on the Bubble with the following resume:

To the best of my memory, no power conference team has ever been left out of the NCAAT with a resume this good. (Note that I’m not making fun of Palm since he has State as a 10 seed.) In the quadrant layout, they’re 6-5 in Q1 (with two road wins) and 4-4 in Q2. I can understand the argument that they’re not a lock since they’re only a little over .500 in conference, but completely out?

We really need some articles from this year’s mock selection to get some more insight. Oh well, back to the ACC:

 

RPI SUMMARY TABLE:


We’ve already seen Miami’s recent slide. Here’s what they have left to try and right the ship.

Glancing at the Summary Table, Miami doesn’t have an impressive resume. It’s hard to say where they would rank if they finished at 2-2 to end up at .500 for the regular season. But it would help State if they would get their stuff together and move back into the Top 30.

SYR has essentially the same resume as Miami, but virtually no one has them in the NCAAT field. <shrugs>

If SYR goes 2-2, then their resume will be fine. But as the saying goes, that’s a mighty big IF. Teamrankings.com has them at less than 50% chance of winning any of their remaining games.

FSU looks to be in good shape with a decent RPI and 8-7 record in conference. 1-2 would probably move them to the good end of the bubble…but they would probably still be OK.

 

I gave up on VT after they lost to L’ville, Miami, and FSU at home. But they’re still hanging around. Their resume is frighteningly similar to State’s, so I’ll stick with the same prediction….they need 2-2 to finish up the regular season.

They don’t have any easy games left, but no one left is unbeatable and they do have 3 games at home. Clearly the ball is in Buzz’s hands, so we’ll see what he does with it.

State’s great performance last week put them in a really good position. I’ll let the 9-9 dead horse rest in peace this week….2-2 should get the job done. But with three home games and GT’s point guard out for the season, anything worse than 3-1 would feel disappointing. (Never thought I would say anything like that this year.)

So along with 3-1/4-0 from State, let’s lay out our wish list:

  • SYR, VT, and ND stay in the Top 75
  • Miami move back in the Top 30
  • WF stay in the Top 135
  • Penn St and UNCG move into the Top 75

That’s about as much (and more) than we could reasonably hope for.

 

ACC STANDINGS

If Bonzie is playing in the ACCT, then 2-2 might be close enough to get ND a sympathy vote. But if he’s not going to come back, then they would likely need a Thursday win in the ACCT with an 8-10 record or go 3-1 to finish at 9-9.

So ND still has a few chances left, but the NIT seems more likely right now.

Clemson’s PG missed the Duke game on Sunday due to a concussion. They looked pretty pitiful against Duke’s zone press even without Bagley. So it’s hard to say whether Clemson will be able to hold onto a two-round bye or not.

Right now, it looks like UVa is locked into a 1-seed and the Duke/UNC game would be for the uniform color in the semi’s (if they both advance). In any event, since I’ve listed the schedules for everyone from the #5-#10 seed, here are the schedules for today’s Top 4.

UVa

Duke

UNC

Clemson

 

It looks to me the top three seeds are probably set, with the minimal difference between a two and three seed not really worth discussing. Let’s see if Clemson can run an offense this week before listing the various options and which ones would be best for State.

 

UPCOMING ACC SCHEDULE

If we go to the mathematical limits of the Bubble Definintion, there are alot of games of at least a passing interest this week.

I’m going to be out of touch for the rest of today. I’ll respond to critiques and questions as soon as I can. I would appreciate it if someone would add the Dance Card info in the comments when it gets updated today.

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

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Home Forums ACC Basketball Update (2/19)

Viewing 25 posts - 1 through 25 (of 27 total)
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  • #131090
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Photo by Dennis Nett at Syracuse.com.   This past weekend was awfully good for the visitors…and since State was one of the road winners, I’m OK
    [See the full post at: ACC Basketball Update (2/19)]

    #131098
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    Taking this back to the top…

    Another great job of crunching and explaining the numbers…
    Thanks! VaWolf…

    It all comes down to who wins and who loses the next two weeks…

    While we’ll stay focused on the PACK and the ACC… it may be that the door the PACK goes thru to the Dance is opened by what some teams we don’t know do the next two weeks, not the other ACC teams…

    VaWolf… you don’t have a short (3-4) list of those teams in your pocket, do you?

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #131099
    Pack1997
    Participant

    I only know of one, Miss State losing to Vandy supposedly hurt their chances quite a bit. It would have to be the bubble teams for the SEC and Big 10 or whatever they call themselves nowadays. Supposedly Pac 12 is terrible and the only teams going are the ones that are virtual locks. Hope for the best teams and ach mid major to win their conference tourneys, so it doesn’t bump a power 5 bubble team.

    #131102
    Texpack
    Participant

    Temple had a chance to get back in the conversation yesterday and got crushed by UH. Nebraska also messed their britches against Illinois. Georgia, Baylor, and Texas all helped themselves quite a bit with their Saturday wins. getting some separation from Louisville and Syracuse is important for us imho. I know there isn’t any conference quota, but having a clear advantage over teams that have a lot of common opponents can’t hurt your chances if we get lumped in the last 10-15 teams looking for an at-large.

    #131104
    choppack1
    Participant

    Good stuff as always Vawolf. I think 3-1 can have us feeling pretty good on selection Sunday. I seem to recall you calling out Louisville a few weeks ago. Since then, aside from one decent road win they have done nothing to help their cause. It would be great if we could go 4-0 down the stretch to really allow us to enjoy the ACC tournament.

    I am worried about the BC game as a loss at home to them could really hurt our chances and I think they will be a tough match up for us.

    I have been kind of surprised by the stubborn lagging of our RPI. In addition, our resume on kenpom and sagarin could be higher. If they were, I would feel more comfortable with a combination of 2 wins in our remaining 5. However, given our lack Top 45ish ranking in any of those, I think we need to win 3 of our next 5.

    That’s not an impossible task. Since the 0-2 start, we have gone 8-4. Let’s just say 4 of those wins we’re against teams that won’t sniff the tournament….that leaves us 4-4 against some pretty good competition. We have one of those games left (@ GaTech) – but the 3 left are pretty much in the toss up category.

    #131111
    Tau837
    Participant

    realtimerpi.com predicts us to sweep the last 4:

    Current Record: 18-9 (8-6)
    Current RPI Rank: 59
    Current SOS Rank: 64

    Projected Regular Season Record: 22-9 (12-6)
    Projected Regular Season RPI Rank: 44
    Projected Regular Season SOS Rank: 65

    Also noteworthy, it predicts both UNC and Clemson to lose 2 more games, which would make State the #3 seed behind UVA and Duke entering the ACC tournament. Let’s hope their GAMER prediction system is spot on!

    #131112
    choppack1
    Participant

    Went out to bracket matrix and we are in 70 / 77 brackets. This means we are tracking better than the previous week. (Good news!)

    I looked at a couple of others that didn’t have us in and we were first four out in all of them.

    #131113
    MrPlywood
    Participant

    I would take Lunardi’s bracket right now – 11 seed against #6 Texas A&M, opposite a dropping #3 Texas Tech/ #14 Belmont matchup.

    #131114
    Tau837
    Participant

    realtimerpi.com predicts us to sweep the last 4:

    Current Record: 18-9 (8-6)
    Current RPI Rank: 59
    Current SOS Rank: 64

    Projected Regular Season Record: 22-9 (12-6)
    Projected Regular Season RPI Rank: 44
    Projected Regular Season SOS Rank: 65

    Also noteworthy, it predicts both UNC and Clemson to lose 2 more games, which would make State the #3 seed behind UVA and Duke entering the ACC tournament. Let’s hope their GAMER prediction system is spot on!

    By the way, if these predictions come true, this would be the best State MBB regular season since 1988-89 under Valvano. Really impressive in Keatts’ first season on the job.

    Archie who?

    #131115
    ryebread
    Participant

    By the way, if these predictions come true, this would be the best State MBB regular season since 1988-89 under Valvano. Really impressive in Keatts’ first season on the job.

    Archie who?

    Exactly. Of course as my grandmother used to say, “if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, every day would be a holiday.” There’s a lot of basketball left to be played.

    #131117
    GoldenChain
    Participant

    You know there is some ball to be played but I couldn’t be more pleased. We saw early flashes with Sid, and heck even with Gott on that thrilling run his 1st season but honestly this has a fundamentally different feel to me and hey, I’ve been a fan since ’73 so I’ve seen some stuff.
    Keatts is that mid-major up and comer had been hoping we could find (just like V).

    A kid was picking at me after we lost to unx the other day and I told him “we beat you in football, we split in men’s basketball, and our women swept yours, I’ll take that every year!”

    #131119
    MrPlywood
    Participant

    A kid was picking at me after we lost to unx the other day and I told him “we beat you in football, we split in men’s basketball, and our women swept yours, I’ll take that every year!”

    Don’t forget that Pack wrestling kicked the Hole’s all the way back to the hill.

    #131120
    Pack78
    Participant

    Add M&W X-country, M&W Swimming, and Gymnastics to the list…

    #131122
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    this has a fundamentally different feel

    In a word… “YES!”

    While both had no where to go but Up… Gott, his first year, had more ‘talent’ with five than Keatts has with ten….

    For the record, and hopefully the last time, Gott’s biggest ‘problems’ were across town, not in the gym, at least until they spilled over…

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #131123
    BassPacker
    Participant

    Not sure who winning or losing tonight will help us. ND win and they could move into the log jam Pack now sets in standings. And a Pack loss could even move ND past us if the committee goes with the sympathy Bonzie vote. And if Bonzie does come back, they could get hot again. A win by Canes keeps them ahead with us losing to them. A lot of games to come that will affect Pack. Just win baby, just win….

    #131124
    Texpack
    Participant

    I thought when ND made their run, they had the look of a team that could make a Cinderella run. I still think they can win the ACC Tournament if Bonzie comes back.

    I know the quadrants say pull for Miami, but I’d rather have them lose tonight.

    #131127
    john of sparta
    Participant

    “quadrants” is code for excuse/reason the NCAA does what it will do.
    the NCAA has enough analytics/numbers which will skew the possibles
    further into the probables in order to drive the TV $ ratings.
    i’m a financial guy. the LIBOR was/is fixed. the VIX was/is fixed.
    the NCAA Selection Committee acts “as if” it was fixed.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libor_scandal
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/vix-manipulation-costs-investors-billions-whistle-blower-says

    #131128
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    Two many topics talking about the same thing today…

    Moving this here…

    Listen once you get below like 100 or so in the power ranking you’re pretty much splitting hairs aren’t you?

    To expand this line of reasoning…you are splitting hairs between 5 and 10…and 20 and 35…and 40 to 60. What is the Vegas line if these teams played each other….a point?! (Many times in the contradictory direction!)

    Said another way, popular rankings (RPI, coaches, AP poll, BPI) imply a linear relationship but as Goldenchain points out, this is not reality. In some ways the quadrant system reduces this issue because it cohorts wins/losses though that argument does not hold up because there is a circular reference and therefore a non-sequitur.

    The only folks that have any business ranking teams are the Vegas odds-makers. Those quant ex-Wall Street guys that set the books are breathtakingly accurate. Hire them and call it a day…(although of course Vega loves these silly rankings which are used by dumb money bettors to inform opinions.)

    Summing up…

    1. No relationship is truly ‘linear’ in a mathematical sense…

    2. Who has the time, the data set and the mathematically ability to define the curves? Which lead s to the old saying (before computers)

    3. Figures (numbers) don’t lie and Liars don’t figure… Which is total BS in today’s world…

    4. A creative numbers guy can make the numbers say what he wants them to say… In fact, the MORE complicated something is explained, the greater the probability is that it’s hiding some sh$t (lies — i.e. cell phone bills, for one… ) … Occam would love the perversion here… Nevertheless…

    5. Given two arguments about the same topic — one with numbers and a one without numbers… most people today will choose the argument with numbers…

    Which is why the ‘Eye Test’ is required…

    There’s ‘Elegant’ Math and ‘BS’ Math…

    Unfortunately. to do the ‘Eye Test’… you have to know something about what you’re looking at…

    Same could be said about what you see on the court and what the Ranking Numbers say…
    And that’s all I need to say about that…
    except..

    Playing with numbers is a lot of fun and can, at times and within boundaries, be quite useful…
    POP!!!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #131132
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    VaWolf… you don’t have a short (3-4) list of those teams in your pocket, do you?

    Sorry but no. But if I was going to put a list together, I would start with the teams between State and the burst point on the Dance Card list.

    Then the next step would to identify the mid-majors that are currently leading those conferences that don’t have any other candidates for an at-large bid. The bubble teams don’t want an upset in these conference tournaments. (Those conferences that are only get one bid regardless don’t concern us.)

    #131133
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    realtimerpi.com predicts us to sweep the last 4:

    IIUC, this site is counting every game at greater than 50% probability of winning as a win. There are others than are both calculating a % chance of winning and then using that percentage to calculate final conference standings. Teamrankings.com is one such site.

    Right now State’s predicted record is 10.2-7.8 and 5th place…which I’m pretty sure is State’s best predicted finish so far this year.

    https://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/team/nc-state-wolfpack/projections

    What the predictive algorithms are missing is the temporary effect an injury can have on future games. Just another reason to NOT use predictive algorithms like kenpom when extending NCAAT bids.

    #131135
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Using the NCAA’s numbers Miami moved up to 31 and ND fell to 68 after last night’s game. You can expect those to fluctate as everyone else plays their mid-week game.

    I was disappointed that no posted the new Dance Card results. But then I was even more disappointed when I found that their web page hasn’t been updated for the weekend games. I wonder why.

    #131274
    freshmanin83
    Participant

    Dance card updated for games through Monday. Pack at 41. They show a drop in Rpi too figured the old way.

    #131285
    freshmanin83
    Participant

    http://www.unf.edu/~jcoleman/dance.htm

    Rank — Team – Dance Card – Chance of Bid – RPI

    41 — North Carolina St. – 4.6176 – 100.00% – 52

    #131286
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Today’s NCAA calcs has State at 55 after last nights win. That’s a new high water mark for the season, but will likely move one way or the other when everyone finishes their mid-week games.

    To beat the 9-9 horse one more time….If you look how far ND dropped with a home loss, no intelligent person would believe that State could finish the regular season with 0-3 and still be a lock for the NCAAT.

    #131288
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    VT hanging on for dear life – hosting Clemson tonight

    L’ville falls out – They’re at Duke tonight

    SYR moves ahead of State (I suspect that’s a function of the difference in RPI ranking.) – They host UNC tonight

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