USF_Bullsharks

The good news is we only struck out once looking in the 9th with runners on base. The other time we did it was without any runners on base. CBM's last season. Should we start a head coach watch thread? Bet there are some great up and comers ala CAG/CAAR on the diamond. Preferably ties to Florida for recruiting.

Going to be a tough weekend. UNC-G has impressive wins over #1 Wake (4-3) and #13 NCSt (18-3).

We were all so far off on FT% lol

I think we'd be firmly in the bubble for consideration, but definitely not a lock.

Michigan can suck farts.

Huge start. We look **** impressive with the tempo, defense, and rebounding. Helps that the shots are going down, but the tempo has been a killer to ECU. Let's keep it going.

In one game I think I spent close to $60 on beer alone. Plus $70 for two tickets. I'd say that's an aggressively conservative figure.

1) Bulls 2) 17 3) Miguel - 21 4) Pryor - 10 5) 76.19%

Bar Harbor and oysters.

Hard to believe 2PAC and Memphis for ACC bids, same with UConn, but you never know. I think everything between now and the end of the FSU saga (plus 2024 and 2025 conference distributions - whichever comes later) will be all speculation unless one of the actual sources (McTurd/Dodd/etc.) announces something. Think we can all focus on the new CFP, USF athletics, and conference athletics for the next 2 years or so. Twitter conference superfans are largely grasping at straws at the moment until FSUvsACC is decided.

Brutch has been quiet at the plate, he's due to break out. Granted, he leads the entire country in walks so he hasn't had the most opportunity. It should even out soon and he'll be hitting bombs.

Anddddd he's broken. IR for extended time. Whatever he did to his hand/wrist is not good.

I'm not so sure they will. Most of expansion has been viewed through the B1G's strategy - large markets, high quality and large fanbase universities who will organically draw a large TV audience (more eyeballs = more ad revenue = larger TV contracts, remember the B1G is not "P2" for winning championships in the last 20 years). The SEC strategy is more of a rivalry-heavy, regional approach to promote more butts-in-seats, highly competitive and personal competition (SEC's slogan is "It just means more" for a reason). OkSt is, undoubtedly, a rival for Oklahoma. Texas is their largest rival, absolutely, and the largest rivalry west of the Mississippi unquestionably, but OkSt still promotes a regional rival, with a large donor base, who can be competitive across the board in many sports year in and year out (including baseball, which the SEC also dominates). Would not surprise me if the SEC eventually invited OkSt and Kansas (Mizzou's largest rival, historically) to solidify their western presense, while expanding into NC and possibly Virginia as well. Long-term, if the SEC goes to 24, that will mean 8 new schools. When you think about where the SEC values their expansion, it's "like" institutions culturally and athletically, with a heavy regard for regional rivalry. If they added 8 schools, my guess is they will be the following - FSU/Clemson/UNC/Duke/OkSt/Kansas/VaTech/Miami. This doesn't mean the next round of expansion, this doesn't mean within 10 years, but long-term, I think these schools will gravitate towards each other. Same with us and c, I think we end up back in the same conference eventually.

Win a Q1 game in the tournament, lose a close one in the finals to a Q1 team. Plus, all conference leaders win their tournaments, so the AQ is an expected AQ and the conference leader does not get put into at large discussion.

...then Louisville and Pitt would be giving up nearly $100MM in exit fees owed to them, plus paying $200MM+ in exit fees to go to a conference... to make the same amount of money. It doesn't make sense. At all. And it never will unless somehow, someway, the ACC is completely dissolved and there are no penalties to any school for breaking their contracts. Let's say FSU settles with ACC for $200MM (exit fee at $130MM + 2 years @ $35MM/yr GOR media fees), and this precedent is established for all schools who decide to break the GOR and leave the ACC. "More than 4", let's say it's 6. That's $1.2B in fees if you think 6 teams can and will be willing to pay $200MM in exit fees. Now, 6 teams leaving would mean that buyout is split between either 9 or 12 members, depending on timing. That's $133MM per school at 9 school split, and $100MM per school at 12 school split.

That is a really cool chart. Additionally, if we want to compare ourselves to Rutgers, our NET is already higher than where they were when they were selected. Of course, they had a B1G benefit of the doubt...

The problem with "more difficult" is that you cannot control where they are going to finish in the NET, no matter how difficult the matchup. What we can control is lowering the threshold of the NET by playing more neutral and away games, especially early in the season.

Yes - definitely the OOC schedule, but also work with the league office to game NET by doing home/homes with all of the top teams. I'm not familiar with who schedules the games, only assumed it was the AD. I think an early season tournament would be really cool, especially if it's easy to travel to and might contain Q1-Q2 games.

Agreed. I had Iowa St. to the B1G as a shoe-in, and was surprised it wasn't mentioned more. Then they lost their AAU status and the rest is history. I think they fit in well with the B12. I do think the next round of realignment will benefit Kansas, to either P2 (think SEC is more likely). Especially if they're competitive in football this year. I also think the ACC are going to make a pass at TCU, Utah, and ASU before the next B12 contract in 2030. Things are settled now until FSU drama ends, which could be 2024 or could be 2027, and then I think we'll see a couple more moves between 2028-2030 when things essentially settle down for the long haul. Pending an FSU move (which I think ACC will think long and hard about USF), I think we are either B12 or ACC at the latest come 2028. (1% shot at B1G if SEC takes FSU)

Looking at the NET there are a couple of things we have control over when it comes to boosting/padding our overall NET rankings year in and year out. Yes, the most important thing is to win all of your games. Those two Q4 losses are really hurting us, but guess what? FAU also has 2 Q4 losses and they're ranked 33rd. Play more Q1 games? We have no control over how other teams are going to perform when it comes to their own rankings - looking at you SMU and FAU. Memphis has barely snuck back into the top 75 rankings, so they are now a Q1 win again. But, we DO have control over the quadrant system handicap - by lowering the threshold for what qualifies for each quadrant - playing away/neutral site games. This got me thinking, so I went back and looked at true mid-majors who are highly ranked to see how their home/away/neutral splits were and found the following: #17 Gonzaga - 14 home games, 5 neutral site #18 St. Mary's - 17 home, 4 neutral #19 SDSU - 12 home, 3 neutral #20 Dayton - 14 home, 4 neutral #33 FAU - 13 home, 7 neutral #73 USF - 17 home, 1 neutral Mid-majors who are highly ranked ARE being boosted by how many Q1/Q2 games they are playing - and it could be a direct factor of playing more away/neutral games than we did this year. Surprised nobody has mentioned this before, but because the NET rankings reward so heavily to "what games have you played", not necessarily "what games have you won", should USF be actively trying to schedule more away and neutral site games? In football, you want as many home games as possible. In basketball, the "ranking" system doesn't reward home game success because the tiers of Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4 are skewed so heavily in favor of neutral and road games to boost standings. Unless the entire conference is highly ranked in the NET (B12), as a team who needs to earn their national coverage, I think USF should drop 4-5 home games and play more neutral/road games both in and out of conference (and of course, request home/homes with all highly-ranked conference opponents, not playing at SMU and FAU this season really hurts our potential NET, even if we lost those two games). Now, the conference tournament is a neutral site, so if we beat FAU/SMU - they will count as Q1 wins next weekend. But home games against lower ranked OOC schools should essentially all but be terminated if the NET continues to exist, which sucks for us as fans. IMO, we should trade any OOC home games early in the season for a neutral site tournament invitational or a road trip. What do you all think? Below are the "splits" for Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4 - Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75 Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135 Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240 Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353 Charlotte at home, Q3 win. Charlotte away, Q2 win. FAU/SMU at home, Q2 wins. FAU/SMU away, both be Q1 games (FAU Q1 at neutral) as long as they stayed in the top 50 (neutral) and top 75 (road). It's obviously a flawed system, but since it is defined and objective, VPoAMK should be doing his best to give our guys their best shot at making the tourney every season, and unfortunately that may mean sacrificing home games for us fans.

Imagine thinking Kansas State is a more valuable property than Kansas. EDIT: Nobody is moving out of the SEC.

USF, Utah, WSU, OSU would be cool additions to the ACC. Imagine Oregon State baseball coming here for a 3 game set. Bring Kansas as well.

Not entirely - the teams we beat in-conference also all slid in the NET rankings. If Memphis, FAU, UNT, and Charlotte (away) were all Q1 wins, we'd have a much better resume. OOC is needed when in-conference stinks.

We also want all currently projected conference winners to win their conference tournaments. If a 1-seed in XYZ conference loses to an 8 seed, the 8 seed gets the AQ and the 1 seed (more than likely) has a higher NET than us and would take an at-large spot from us. Cheer for all of those conference leaders this next week and a half. (Eastern Kentucky's NET is thankfully >200, so that one isn't an issue)

Traffic for sporting events is not something we've had to deal with consistently. The school will adjust with new parking flows and/or infrastructure. That said, any time you have an event with thousands of people, there will never be a perfect answer. Waiting in line to park for USF basketball is the happiest I've ever waiting in a parking line in a long time (granted, you're early enough you aren't going to miss much).