The top seeds keep falling

[MrMemorial]

MAC top seed Toledo just punched their ticket to the NIT by losing to Akron. At least they scored more than 36 points like (cough-cough, #1 seed) North Texas did in their tournament loss to LaTech by shooting 24% from the field and 16% from three. How bad were North Texas and LaTech? They combined for 27 turnovers to 8 assists.

It's time for the NIT to make some teams play those "play-in" type games in some generic midwestern city.

[UltimateVUFan]

This is actually a bad thing for VU, right?

[MrMemorial]

This is actually a bad thing for VU, right?

When you look at the current projected #6 seeds for the NIT, they have strength of schedules of #45, #66, #69, and #218. That represents Vandy, Washington State, Virginia, and (LOL!!) "Grand Canyon." If GCU loses to New Mexico Tech in their league tournament tonight, they are probably out. As long as Vandy is not on the wrong end of an epic meltdown, they should still be in as their strength of schedule will get even better by playing a mega-power tonight.

[Versus75]

When you look at the current projected #6 seeds for the NIT, they have strength of schedules of #45, #66, #69, and #218. That represents Vandy, Washington State, Virginia, and (LOL!!) "Grand Canyon."

It’s funny how folks discount the RPI, which weighed Strength of Schedule heavily, then talk about S-O-S as though it’s more important than W-L.

(I don’t know if GCU’s non-D1 opponents are calculated into S-O-S, but let’s look at the other three.)

Virginia 19-13 (12-8 ACC, 6th place)
Wash. St. 19-14 (11-9 PAC-12, tie for 5th)
Vanderbilt 17-16 (7-11 SEC, 11th place)

I hope you’re right and the ‘Dores get into the NIT, but I would think the selectors would take those two ahead of us.

Even South Carolina (18-13, tie for 5th, 2-0 versus VU) should get the nod over Vanderbilt.

[commadore]

https://www.dratings.com/predictor/bracketology/

They have us as a 4 seed now.

[UltimateVUFan]

When you look at the current projected #6 seeds for the NIT, they have strength of schedules of #45, #66, #69, and #218. That represents Vandy, Washington State, Virginia, and (LOL!!) "Grand Canyon."

It’s funny how folks discount the RPI, which weighed Strength of Schedule heavily, then talk about S-O-S as though it’s more important than W-L.

(I don’t know if GCU’s non-D1 opponents are calculated into S-O-S, but let’s look at the other three.)

Virginia 19-13 (12-8 ACC, 6th place)
Wash. St. 19-14 (11-9 PAC-12, tie for 5th)
Vanderbilt 17-16 (7-11 SEC, 11th place)

I hope you’re right and the ‘Dores get into the NIT, but I would think the selectors would take those two ahead of us.

Even South Carolina (18-13, tie for 5th, 2-0 versus VU) should get the nod over Vanderbilt.

Fair points re: UVA and WSU relative to VU.
Though, the SEC is the #2 ranked conference in RPI.
PAC-12 and ACC are 6 and 7 respectively.

[Jason94]

When you look at the current projected #6 seeds for the NIT, they have strength of schedules of #45, #66, #69, and #218. That represents Vandy, Washington State, Virginia, and (LOL!!) "Grand Canyon."

It’s funny how folks discount the RPI, which weighed Strength of Schedule heavily, then talk about S-O-S as though it’s more important than W-L.

(I don’t know if GCU’s non-D1 opponents are calculated into S-O-S, but let’s look at the other three.)

Virginia 19-13 (12-8 ACC, 6th place)
Wash. St. 19-14 (11-9 PAC-12, tie for 5th)
Vanderbilt 17-16 (7-11 SEC, 11th place)

I hope you’re right and the ‘Dores get into the NIT, but I would think the selectors would take those two ahead of us.

Even South Carolina (18-13, tie for 5th, 2-0 versus VU) should get the nod over Vanderbilt.

If you look at WSU, who have they beaten? As far as I can tell, the best team they've beaten all season is Colorado, who is ranked lower than we are. They do not have a single tier 1 victory, while we have 3 or 4 depending upon where BYU ends up. Virigina did beat Duke, Va Tech and Providence, but also have losses to NCSU, Navy at home, JMU, and FSU. Navy and JMU are bad teams, as in Georgia or Pittsburg bad, and all four are as bad as any team we've lost to all season, and we have just one of those losses.

Their records are superficially better than ours, which is the same thing as looking at the SOS IMO. The NET and Kenpom rankings show we are well ahead of Virginia and just a bit behind WSU, mainly because WSU took care of business against a plethora of mediocre teams. Kenpom has them ranked a bit higher than the NET rankings because they have some blowout wins against teams ranked in the 100-150 range.

I'm confident that healthy we are a superior team to either of those programs at the moment.

[charlestonalum]

When is the announcement Sunday about NIT and if we make it will we be at home. A 4 seed should be home I would think.

[AuricGoldfinger]

When is the announcement Sunday about NIT and if we make it will we be at home. A 4 seed should be home I would think.

It will be later Sunday night after the NCAA bids are announced. A 4 seed should get you a home game, but I will say that NIT seeding tends to be one of the great mysteries of our time.

[All n 4 Vandy]

Unlike the NCAA, the NIT determines home sites solely on projected attendance.

[MrMemorial]

Unlike the NCAA, the NIT determines home sites solely on projected attendance.

I think Iona at Vandy would be a decent draw since Pitino is a known commodity here.

Belmont already played Iona so that might be out. South Carolina at Belmont might be interesting.

It would be good to avoid Toledo. They have a couple of guys who can rain 3-pointers and in a good shooting gym like Memorial, you know they would. They already shoot 3's better than anybody in the SEC by a couple of percent. Toledo @ Belmont? Might be fun.

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VM bracket challenge is pinned up top

Don't procrastinate. It's free. Join soon or get left out!!

And don't forget to pick a tie-breaker

[AuricGoldfinger]

Unlike the NCAA, the NIT determines home sites solely on projected attendance.

Theoretically, ticket sales are no longer a factor ever since the NCAA purchased the NIT years ago.

The 2019 NIT bracket provides some evidence of that. One of the #1 seeds that year was UNC Greensboro, which hosted Campbell in a first-round game. The game was played at the Greensboro Coliseum rather than their on-campus gym, but ticket sales were still only 4,400. Furman hosted Wichita State in front of 2,000 fans. Davidson hosted Lipscomb in front of 1,600 people that year.

[MrMemorial]

Unlike the NCAA, the NIT determines home sites solely on projected attendance.

Theoretically, ticket sales are no longer a factor ever since the NCAA purchased the NIT years ago.

The 2019 NIT bracket provides some evidence of that. One of the #1 seeds that year was UNC Greensboro, which hosted Campbell in a first-round game. The game was played at the Greensboro Coliseum rather than their on-campus gym, but ticket sales were still only 4,400. Furman hosted Wichita State in front of 2,000 fans. Davidson hosted Lipscomb in front of 1,600 people that year.

It's more of a made-for-TV event now and has been for a while. It wasn't back when Bird and Magic were NBA stars but that was then and this is now.