BullyPulpit

5 minutes ago, Gatorbull325 said:

But are we a long shot to win the tourney?

No, especially if we get a top 4 seed. I would say we are in the 5-10% range at this point. If we can show that we are capable of beating FAU I think that number jumps to 15% to 20%. 

Looking at the regular season conference champ odds, we opened at +4000 and that is now down to +550. I'm just glad this team has given us all something to enjoy. We are used to getting ready for Spring practice for football at this point. 

1 hour ago, belgianbull said:

 

I think if we beat FAU, we will make a dramatic jump up in the NET rankings.

 

 

We will see. Clemson beat #9 UNC on the road and went from 37 to 31. Obviously, it is harder to climb the close you get to the top, but I could see USF going from #105 to around 95 or so. 

2 minutes ago, USFBulls12 said:

Luck = better team is a misnomer. Luck is luck. It's who has the ball last at the end of a 100% even matched game. Luck is whether the last FT goes in after shooting 0-25 in the game but making the one shot that wins the game with no time on the clock. Minus any instance of "luck", evenly ranked teams will be nearly equal in a series of matchups against similarly ranked teams and there will not be much imbalance and games are more likely to end up very very close. If we played a legit #50 team this week instead of a paper tiger like Memphis, I'm not so sure if we win or not. If we win, we'd have our ranking recalculated to reflect that, but we haven't had that opportunity because of our schedule. So because of that, we are ranked appropriately with the teams we've just barely beaten, perhaps by luck, perhaps because we are 5-10 spots better. But we don't automatically become worthy of a 1-50 spot because we are consistently beating #80+ by a small margin after being down most of the game. It shows we have tenacity, but tenacity isn't worth a higher ranking unless that tenacity results in beating better ranked teams.

I am not suggesting that this team deserves to be ranked in the top 50. The ELO Chess rating for the team is #63. I think that is appropriate based upon the eye test. Overall, I think we are somewhere in with the Bradley and Drakes of the world more than we are the UNTs, but that is more my opinion than any real metric. 

19 minutes ago, USFBulls12 said:

I would agree with you if we have played and beaten or lost by less than 5 to at least one team in the Top 50. We aren’t beating objectively good teams. We are beating teams that we are allowing to go ahead of us by 15-20 points and then coming back to beat them by a few points in a dramatic fashion. We are beating them, yes, but they’re not objectively good (Top 50) teams. They appear to be pretty even to us in how we are barely beating them after losing sometimes 90% of the game to them. That tells me we should be ranked near them, which is close to 80+ for just about all of them. 

Memphis is the exception thus far. Beating them on the road under adverse circumstances is exceptional. We have another shot against FAU. What I would say runs counter to your point is that if we were in the 80 to 100 range with the rest of them we would be losing some of these games. We haven't. There could be an element of luck involved but, at some point, it is because we are a better team. 

USF should begin touting the ELO Chess ranking. We are #63 in that system and, looking at it, it seems more indicative of the actual quality of the teams. After the last two months, I am convinced that USF is a top-50 team in the nation. BTW, Warren Nolan is a great resource for looking at the rankings and comparing teams. 

It's all pretty moot at this point. Clearly, the NET weighs SOS more heavily than other ranking metrics and is not a great measure of the overall quality of a team. We just don't/won't have the NET profile to be considered for an at-large. Charlotte is ranked appropriately, IMO, based upon their body of work. USF should be ranked higher than we are. I wouldn't mind having our RPI rating currently sitting at #78 to be a metric that the committee looked at. One anomaly that makes no sense to me is UNT at #86. They played fewer Q4 games than us, but they are 10-9. They are actually ahead of Syracuse in the NET (13-8) who boasts a much better profile. This is why the selection committee ultimately exists. They are able to step in and look at the teams and their actual results to complete the field. It isn't all based upon NET. NET is just a metric that they use. They usually do a pretty good job averaging only about one questionable addition/exclusion each year.

 

Thank you @jjlovecub for the awesome seat. 

So proud of this team. Talk about heart. Down in the second half to Rice by 12, Temple by 9, Memphis by 20, and Charlotte by 15....all wins. This is a special, special team. I hope they win the conference tournament and get a chance to make some March noise! 

I'm going to be tired tomorrow, but I'm so glad I went to the game. 

11 hours ago, BULLSHTR said:

How do we explain UNT being ahead of us? What about teams like "St. Bonaventure"? Bradley? Drake? Those last two haven't even played any top 25 teams..

Look at their SOS compared to ours. Going on the road matters in the NET rankings. So does playing better teams. None of the teams you referenced have the profile of an at-large NCAA team, but it's clear why the NET formula has them ranked ahead of us. 

I hope that VPMK and CAAR are working the phones hard to try and get some good non-conference road games for next season. Have to play at least 4 decent OOC teams in order to inflate the NET ranking moving forward. 

35 minutes ago, olafberserker said:

What's the problem?

How is it popularity bias?  

Because guaranteeing a home game/top seed without some criteria beyond "you are a member of a better conference" is the definition of conference bias. 

21 hours ago, olafberserker said:

Virginia Tech who is 5-6 in the ACC beat Vermont by more than 20

The issue is not that those teams are being considered, it is that they are guaranteed to have a spot irrespective of their overall body of work. That guarantee potentially comes at the expense of a deserving non-power school. Also, they are guaranteed to host a game (assuming no scheduling issues) by way of the fact that they are a "power conference team". That is the problem. 

31 minutes ago, flsportsfan83 said:

Have not seen a line yet my guess is 1.5 or less either way. I'll prob skip this one unless we are a 4 pt dog or worse.

Best bet is to wait and see if USF starts out slow and goes down by 5 or 6 points early and then jump on the +150+ money line. 

30 minutes ago, flsportsfan83 said:

Have not seen a line yet my guess is 1.5 or less either way. I'll prob skip this one unless we are a 4 pt dog or worse.

We will 100% be favored against Charlotte. ESPN's BPI has us with a 58.8% chance of winning. Given what I have been seeing with those number, I expect USF to be a 2.5 point favorite. 

We moved up to #105 from 106. Interestingly, we are the highest ranked team that currently has ZERO games against a Quad 1 team. If we don't get an at-large (which is highly likely at this point) this will be the biggest factor. Even a win over FAU will likely move them out of the top 30 of the NET rankings and would be a Quad 2 win for the time being because its a home game. SMU is #48 and will likely be a Quad 2 win as well. Charlotte, as good as they have been in AAC play, ends up being a Quad 3 win as well. Beating them on the road would represent another Quad 2 win. 

Let's assume that USF wins out in the regular season. This is roughly what their NCAA Tournament resume would look like through the regular season:

24-5  Q1: 0-0, Q2: 6-2, Q3: 8-1, Q4: 10-2, NET: ??? RPI: Between 60 and 70, SOS: 164

We could use FAU finishing in the top 30, but that would just give us 1 Q1 win and make us 5-2 in Q2. 

Take a look at the the average profile of one of the last 4 at-large teams the past 2 seasons:

22-11 Q1: 5-7, Q2: 4-3, Q3: 6-1, Q4: 7-0, NET: 55, RPI: 58, SOS: 69

Looking at the outliers, the worst NET was 80, the  worst RPI was 102, and the worst SOS was 90. There has not been an at-large bubble team that played fewer than 7 Quad 1 games and fewer than 16 combined Q1 and Q2 games. The SOS number is unheard of for an at-large team. 

I just don't see USF being able to put together the resume required to earn an at-large spot. Great deference is given to middling P5 teams over have-nots. I suppose there is a scenario where there are few upsets in the conference tournaments and thus not as many bid-stealers and things could get interesting for the Bulls case at that point. I hate to rain on the parade but USF has to win the conference tournament to get into the tournament. They likely can afford 2 to 3 more losses and still make the NIT, although I would feel much better with only 2 more losses than with 3. 

21 minutes ago, flsportsfan83 said:

does Point margin get taken into account?

NET takes into account more factors than RPI, scoring margin was an original component, but apparently is no longer. 

"With the changes announced in May 2020, the NET will no longer use winning percentage, adjusted winning percentage and scoring margin. The change was made after the committee consulted with Google Cloud Professional Services, which worked with the NCAA to develop the original NET."

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2022-12-05/college-basketballs-net-rankings-explained

20 hours ago, Triple B said:

Totally missed that ... I think ... hopefully, I didn't respond back then. It could affect us positively if we can get to a decent NET ranking and some of the lower one bid conferences don't have their reg season champs upset in their tourney.

Not sure if you went on to comment, but twas I that brought it up. 

8 minutes ago, flsportsfan83 said:

Im still debating going. Will not be bringing my wife or 3 year old. Really hate that it is at 9pm tip.

I'm in the same boat. Debating it. The team deserves the support but my clients deserve good work product on Wednesday. 

Anyone looking to sell their tickets for the Charlotte game? Not 100% on going given the time but wanted to see if there were any options here before buying elsewhere. 

17 minutes ago, Triple B said:

Opinion polls don't really matter at this point.The NET rankings is where we need to keep moving up ....

We moved up seven spots from 113 to 106. Our schedule just doesn't allow for significant upward movement at this point. The only remaining games that could move the needle slightly are FAU (#25)  and SMU (#46). 

More importantly, we really helped our chances to get a top 4 seed and earn the double bye in the AAC tourney. We now hold the tie breaker over Memphis and UNT. Beating SMU would give us a 2 game lead over those teams even if we lose to Charlotte and FAU. 

10 hours ago, CousinRicky said:

Looks like CJF threatened her with death by firing squad if she attempted a shot outside of 3 feet.  And he got on her a lot today. But she did make a big contribution. 

Perfect from the field and limited her turnovers. A very efficient performance. 

4 minutes ago, Dave_Glaser said:

We’re back in the mix! Trust in Jose . . . 

Whatever was wrong with Brito seems to have sorted itself out. She is one of the integral parts of this teams success. 

I got them +225 and my wife wisely waited until they were down 2-0 and got them +250. 

I hope that Vegas and the metrics never catch up to this team. Making so much money betting on the Bulls!!!!