Pop..

[Doreknox]

Stack blamed it on the margin of the loss to Alabama in an interview with ESPN. Said it’s hard to get a bid with a loss of that degree.

That and assing around for your first 22 games will get you no invitation to the dance.

[docdore]

catch-22....

[bernstml19]

The whole philosophy of the NET is grotesque. Say my kid starts school and has a C average in 1st through 5th grade (easy work). Then matures and begins to understand how to study and perform in the classroom. In 6th through 12th, he averages a 3.85 / 4 in a very tough private school. Using the NET approach, the kid doesn't deserve to be admitted to the VUs, Dukes or Stanfords of the world because his early learning phase was rocky. Conversely, if he is A+ year 1 through 5, but a C student 6 through 12, he should be Ivy league material ? This is a degree of stupid hard to comprehend.

Jason, I really enjoy your posts and read them carefully, learning a lot. In this conversation, I think the disagreement is that you are explaining (and it seems very well) the NET system. However, the majority of us seem of the opinion that the system seems to have been designed by that low achieving 5th grader.

Isn’t that kind of how it works though? Tracking for me started in Grade 7. Encouragement from your teachers and special privileges start basically in 3rd grade.

[Jason94]

In previous years this is a NCAA team hands down regardless those early season losses. My point is if they are going to put so much on early season now then where is the incentive to schedule anyone decent at all?

I get your point, but it is a poor one, as we lost to two bad teams, in Southern Miss and Grambling state, and if you play bad teams you need to go undefeated.

Well, addendum. If you play teams that everyone thinks are bad you need to go undefeated. UK's Q4 loss at home to South Carolina didn't seem to hurt them ... but then, S. Carolina isn't a "bad" team, they're a "bad SEC team", so that's OK. Even though it is really debatable whether a bad S. Carolina team is actually better than a 1st place in their conference bad Grambling team.

I'm still bitter.

I'm sorry, but the logic does not compute for me. We were punished because on January 1st the committee already "knew" we were not a tournament team. Where as Arkansas/Auburn/Miss St were teams the committee already "knew" we tournament teams (or at least tournament contenders).

There is nothing that has been said to convince me that the "body of work" of Miss St is better than ours.

All I got is that the committee chose to punish bad losses more than reward good wins (which sorta explains Kansas at #3 overall). But that's just stupid.

For years it's been who did you play. Who did you beat.

And now it's no who did you beat, but who did you not lose to.

Stupid.

I don't know that we were punished so much as what we had done up until that point in no way was reflective of a team anywhere near a tournament team.

And I guess I don't understand how it was determined that we were so superior to MSU. We beat them head to head, but it was a home game and we should have beat them head to head. If we had lost to them head to head would they have been a better team? Otherwise, our best win was UT at home, a 4 seed. Theirs was probably Marquette at a neutral site, a 2 seed. Their other good wins were Arkansas, who we both beat but ours was at home and theirs was on the road. Then it was Texas A&M at home while we beat UK on the road. Then it is their win against TCU vs. our win against Auburn both at home. We have another win against UK and they have a win against Mizzou. If you squint I think you can see us being better based on those wins but that would ignore that they had one bad loss (UGA on the road) compared to our three bad losses.

And this is with MSU as a borderline team. It isn't like they had zero good wins. And it isn't like we beat them on the road or even at a neutral venue.

Or Arkansas - They have a neutral court win against SDSU, home wins against Missouri and aTm, a road win against UK and a Neutral court win against Auburn. I don't see how that pales in comparison to our wins, ignoring that their only bad loss is the same as one of our bad losses, at LSU. And they got an 8 seed, probably because they played a good portion of the season without a player who is now back.

Auburn also has wins against NW (neutral), UT, Ark, Mizzou and MSU at home. A bit more home loaded than us but overall quality is very similar. Again, only 1 bad loss against UGA on the road. They are a 9 seed.

So all three teams you mentioned have similar wins to their credit, no as many blemishes, and lost to us at Memorial. I assume you are placing a large amount of weight on the game played at memorial to establish our superiority over them, but I don't believe it necessarily does.

As for UK, I agree that they are overseeded. But OTOH, they also beat UT twice, and also had wins against Arkansas, Auburn, aTm, and MSU. They did have 11 losses including a bad loss at home to USC. But their losses were also to the likes of Bama, Kansas, Gonzaga, UCLA, and Michigan St.

The committee has been saying for years that it looks at the entire body of work. And we stumbled badly in the first two months of the season. And at our best we were playing like a 7 or 8 seed. And it wasn't just 1 bad loss that did us in - it was that we ended up with 3 bad losses. The two teams that had more bad losses on the bubble were Rutgers and Clemson, both out of the tournament. Rutgers ended up with a NET of 40. It is difficult to make a case for us getting in without Rutgers also being included. Similarly for Clemson, which finished 14-6 in the ACC and had three wins against NCSU, one against Duke, at Pitt and Penn State and had a NET of 60. It is likely that they were kept out because they had bad losses to Loyola Chicago, BC, USC and Louisville. Three of the four of those losses were worse than our worst loss, and three of the four were major conference teams. It is difficult to see that we were singled out, or that we were obviously better than overall that the teams that made it in as an at-large. We did beat a number of them, but that is true of a lot of other teams that also didn't make it, and will be true regardless of how you slice things. Or perhaps we think that Southern Miss was also screwed out of a bid since we were screwed and they beat us at Memorial by 12?

[geeznotagain]

So, I'm wondering what minimum change in our results would have gotten us in the NCAA. If we had simply beaten Grambling and lost to Alabama by just 10, would we have been in?

I also wonder how Liam's injury may have entered into the decision. (At the same time, I'm amazed at how the loss of Liam did not impact the team more. How did we adjust to losing him at Kentucky on-the-fly? Then we bounced back immediately to beat Mississippi State, LSU, and Kentucky without him. Pretty amazing, to me.)

My guess to the question in paragraph 1 is yes.

[commadore]

I get your point, but it is a poor one, as we lost to two bad teams, in Southern Miss and Grambling state, and if you play bad teams you need to go undefeated.

Well, addendum. If you play teams that everyone thinks are bad you need to go undefeated. UK's Q4 loss at home to South Carolina didn't seem to hurt them ... but then, S. Carolina isn't a "bad" team, they're a "bad SEC team", so that's OK. Even though it is really debatable whether a bad S. Carolina team is actually better than a 1st place in their conference bad Grambling team.

I'm still bitter.

I'm sorry, but the logic does not compute for me. We were punished because on January 1st the committee already "knew" we were not a tournament team. Where as Arkansas/Auburn/Miss St were teams the committee already "knew" we tournament teams (or at least tournament contenders).

There is nothing that has been said to convince me that the "body of work" of Miss St is better than ours.

All I got is that the committee chose to punish bad losses more than reward good wins (which sorta explains Kansas at #3 overall). But that's just stupid.

For years it's been who did you play. Who did you beat.

And now it's no who did you beat, but who did you not lose to.

Stupid.

I don't know that we were punished so much as what we had done up until that point in no way was reflective of a team anywhere near a tournament team.

And I guess I don't understand how it was determined that we were so superior to MSU. We beat them head to head, but it was a home game and we should have beat them head to head. If we had lost to them head to head would they have been a better team? Otherwise, our best win was UT at home, a 4 seed. Theirs was probably Marquette at a neutral site, a 2 seed. Their other good wins were Arkansas, who we both beat but ours was at home and theirs was on the road. Then it was Texas A&M at home while we beat UK on the road. Then it is their win against TCU vs. our win against Auburn both at home. We have another win against UK and they have a win against Mizzou. If you squint I think you can see us being better based on those wins but that would ignore that they had one bad loss (UGA on the road) compared to our three bad losses.

And this is with MSU as a borderline team. It isn't like they had zero good wins. And it isn't like we beat them on the road or even at a neutral venue.

Or Arkansas - They have a neutral court win against SDSU, home wins against Missouri and aTm, a road win against UK and a Neutral court win against Auburn. I don't see how that pales in comparison to our wins, ignoring that their only bad loss is the same as one of our bad losses, at LSU. And they got an 8 seed, probably because they played a good portion of the season without a player who is now back.

Auburn also has wins against NW (neutral), UT, Ark, Mizzou and MSU at home. A bit more home loaded than us but overall quality is very similar. Again, only 1 bad loss against UGA on the road. They are a 9 seed.

So all three teams you mentioned have similar wins to their credit, no as many blemishes, and lost to us at Memorial. I assume you are placing a large amount of weight on the game played at memorial to establish our superiority over them, but I don't believe it necessarily does.

As for UK, I agree that they are overseeded. But OTOH, they also beat UT twice, and also had wins against Arkansas, Auburn, aTm, and MSU. They did have 11 losses including a bad loss at home to USC. But their losses were also to the likes of Bama, Kansas, Gonzaga, UCLA, and Michigan St.

The committee has been saying for years that it looks at the entire body of work. And we stumbled badly in the first two months of the season. And at our best we were playing like a 7 or 8 seed. And it wasn't just 1 bad loss that did us in - it was that we ended up with 3 bad losses. The two teams that had more bad losses on the bubble were Rutgers and Clemson, both out of the tournament. Rutgers ended up with a NET of 40. It is difficult to make a case for us getting in without Rutgers also being included. Similarly for Clemson, which finished 14-6 in the ACC and had three wins against NCSU, one against Duke, at Pitt and Penn State and had a NET of 60. It is likely that they were kept out because they had bad losses to Loyola Chicago, BC, USC and Louisville. Three of the four of those losses were worse than our worst loss, and three of the four were major conference teams. It is difficult to see that we were singled out, or that we were obviously better than overall that the teams that made it in as an at-large. We did beat a number of them, but that is true of a lot of other teams that also didn't make it, and will be true regardless of how you slice things. Or perhaps we think that Southern Miss was also screwed out of a bid since we were screwed and they beat us at Memorial by 12?

I'll tell you how we were superior. First we were 11-7 in the conference and they were 8-10. We finished in a tie for 4th, they finished 9th. 6 of their 8 wins came from Mississippi (twice), South Carolina (twice) and LSU, the 12th, 13th, and 14th teams in the conference. Of our 11 wins, they came from Arkansas, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Auburn, and Tennessee. Then we beat Kentucky in the tournament WITHOUT our best player. Oh, and we beat Pitt who also is in the tourney. And of those "bad" losses, Grambling State is IN the tournament and Southern Mississippi won the regular season Sun Belt, but lost in their tournament. So HELL YES, we were superior to MSU and I personally hope Pitt beats the bovine feces out of them.

[VU1970]

Isn’t that kind of how it works though? Tracking for me started in Grade 7. Encouragement from your teachers and special privileges start basically in 3rd grade.

I had a prof in college who could remember the name of everyone he'd ever given an "A" to, and he was well past retirement age.

[Obvious]

Isn’t that kind of how it works though? Tracking for me started in Grade 7. Encouragement from your teachers and special privileges start basically in 3rd grade.

I had a prof in college who could remember the name of everyone he'd ever given an "A" to, and he was well past retirement age.

What was the class?

[3rdFloorDyer]

Maybe only gave out two A’s

[commadore]

Isn’t that kind of how it works though? Tracking for me started in Grade 7. Encouragement from your teachers and special privileges start basically in 3rd grade.

I had a prof in college who could remember the name of everyone he'd ever given an "A" to, and he was well past retirement age.

Must have been Rommel in organic chemistry.

[VU1970]

Isn’t that kind of how it works though? Tracking for me started in Grade 7. Encouragement from your teachers and special privileges start basically in 3rd grade.

I had a prof in college who could remember the name of everyone he'd ever given an "A" to, and he was well past retirement age.

What was the class?

Various English classes. It was at Birmingham-Southern, before I got up to Vanderbilt.

[OldDude]

Isn’t that kind of how it works though? Tracking for me started in Grade 7. Encouragement from your teachers and special privileges start basically in 3rd grade.

I had a prof in college who could remember the name of everyone he'd ever given an "A" to, and he was well past retirement age.

Must have been Rommel in organic chemistry.

[mathguy]

I don't know that we were punished so much as what we had done up until that point in no way was reflective of a team anywhere near a tournament team.

And I guess I don't understand how it was determined that we were so superior to MSU. We beat them head to head, but it was a home game and we should have beat them head to head. If we had lost to them head to head would they have been a better team? Otherwise, our best win was UT at home, a 4 seed. Theirs was probably Marquette at a neutral site, a 2 seed. Their other good wins were Arkansas, who we both beat but ours was at home and theirs was on the road. Then it was Texas A&M at home while we beat UK on the road. Then it is their win against TCU vs. our win against Auburn both at home. We have another win against UK and they have a win against Mizzou. If you squint I think you can see us being better based on those wins but that would ignore that they had one bad loss (UGA on the road) compared to our three bad losses.

And this is with MSU as a borderline team. It isn't like they had zero good wins. And it isn't like we beat them on the road or even at a neutral venue.

Or Arkansas - They have a neutral court win against SDSU, home wins against Missouri and aTm, a road win against UK and a Neutral court win against Auburn. I don't see how that pales in comparison to our wins, ignoring that their only bad loss is the same as one of our bad losses, at LSU. And they got an 8 seed, probably because they played a good portion of the season without a player who is now back.

Auburn also has wins against NW (neutral), UT, Ark, Mizzou and MSU at home. A bit more home loaded than us but overall quality is very similar. Again, only 1 bad loss against UGA on the road. They are a 9 seed.

The committee has been saying for years that it looks at the entire body of work. And we stumbled badly in the first two months of the season. And at our best we were playing like a 7 or 8 seed. And it wasn't just 1 bad loss that did us in - it was that we ended up with 3 bad losses.

Let's try it this way.

VU vs Miss St. vs Auburn vs Arkansas

Quad 1 wins: 5 vs. 4 vs. 3 (!!) vs.4
Quad 1&2 wins: 10 vs 8 vs 9 vs 8
Quad 1&2 Winning Pct: .476 vs. .421 vs. .450 vs. .400
Road/Neutral Winning Pct.: .471 vs. .529 vs. .375 vs. .375
Best WIn (by NET): UT(#4) vs. Marquette (#12) vs. UT(#4) vs. SDSU(#14)
2nd Best Win (by NET): Arkansas (#21) vs.A&M (#19) vs. Arkansas(#21) vs.A&M(#19)
3rd Best Win (by NET): UK (#26) vs Arkansas(#21) vs Northwestern(#41) vs UK(#26)
SEC Record: 11-7 vs 8-10 vs 10-8 vs 8-10

So out of that pod of 4 teams ...

We had the most Quad 1 wins. We had the best winning percentage against good teams. We had the 2nd best winning percentage away from home (and the difference between us and MSU was 1 game: 8-9 vs. 9-8).

Lining up best wins, our win over UT is as good as any win from that set of 4, and overall those sets of top 3 wins for each team looks very very comparable by NET.

And of course, the trump card ... a superior conference record (and we had to double up against all three of Bama, UT, and UK, the three SEC teams deemed best in conference by the selection committee ... and then we face UK a 3rd time in the SECT!).

So looking at the entire body of work, out of these 4 teams, we were the best team in conference play, had the most success against other good teams, had (tied for) the best win of any team of the teams, fared better than most away from home, and have very very comparable good wins, while playing a very comparable schedule strength.

Each of the other 3 teams had 1 Q3 loss and 0 Q4 losses, whereas we has 2 Q3 losses and 1 Q4 loss (the same number of Q3/Q4 losses as Kentucky I might add).

So ... yeah ... looking at the overall set of stats ... the only place I see Vandy lagging behind these other three teams is our bad losses ... which I feel should carry less weight compared to more Q1 & Q2 wins. We have 2 extra bad losses? Well, we make up for them with 2 extra good wins, right?

So ... not sure what I'm missing here other than ... like I said, the committee cared more about our "bad losses" (which came to two teams that finished 1st in their conference) ... than our good wins. We played better and won more against better teams than those three - that used to be the criteria.

Said it before and I'll say it again - if you give us wins in the So Miss/Grambling games, but flip our UK & Auburn wins to losses the result is a resume that ... looks a lot more like the resumes of the 3 teams I'm comparing us to here. So ... which would you rather have in the tourney? A team that can beat UK and Auburn? Or a team that can't ... but can beat So Miss and Grambling?

We were hosed. Objectively, factually, data based ... we were hosed.