Gonzaga vs Other Bubble Teams

[ZagMania]

Sure, our RPI is horrible for an at-large bid, but I've been looking at the resumes of other bubble teams and I don't see how they deserve a bid over us. So I'm gonna post the lacking resumes of other bubble teams and compare them to ours.

First here is a brief overview of our key wins/losses since we are all familiar with our schedule. * denotes neutral site, RPI is in parenthesis and is from Kenpom.
Key Wins: *UNC (3), *Texas (37), @Stanford (42), Washington (95), Santa Clara (99)
Losses: *Duke (8), Memphis (9), Nevada (12), @Wash. State (27), *Butler (35), @Virginia (38), @Georgia (53), @Santa Clara (99), St. Mary's (144), @LMU (170)

Almost all but three of our losses are ranked in the top 50, most of them at the road, and two of our home losses were at the Arena

In my first post I'll compare us to Illinois, whom Lunardi has in as of now
Key Home Wins: Michigan State (20), Indiana (24), Michigan (54), Iowa (80)
Key Road Wins: *Bradley (48), @Missouri (77)

Key Home Losses: Ohio State (2), Wisconsin (5), Maryland (15)
Key Road Losses: *Arizona (16), @Michigan St. (20), @Indiana (24), @Xavier (33), @Purdue (40), @Michigan (54)

I like our resume better. The one thing they have on us is they have avoided bad losses and done well at home. There best wins have all come at home, but they haven't beaten any top tier teams although they got two shots with Wisconsin and Ohio State. I like are chances in the Kennel against all the teams they have beaten.

But what has Illinois done on the road this season? There best true road win was at Missouri, and they have had ample chances and just have not gotten it done. If you were on the committee would you rather give a bid to a team that has tested itself on the road all across the country against top tier competition and won some of them, or give it to a team that got the games it should have at home, and fell flat whenever it stepped outside of its own gym?

With all that said, lets win the WCC tournament.

[TM27]

Nobody is rooting more, for GU to win the WCC tournament, than the selection committee. If GU loses, the committee will not include GU and as a result risks sending the message, to every team, everywhere, that there is no reason to schedule a tough OOC. GU will not be rewarded and will most definitely be penalized for their schedule. Had GU scheduled cupcakes in between some of those tough games they are looking at possibly 24 or 25 wins and inclusion in the field.

Not sure if I am delusional but I refuse to believe that some of those teams that are 'IN' on lunardi's bracket are better than this zag team (without Josh).

It will be very interesting.

[GonzagasaurusFlex]

Great reasearch ZagMania....a thread worthy of your monikor.
One big glitch in your reasoning though: we do not have a single "key win" w/out JH in the lineup, and the committee will definitely be deciding our fate based on the team as it stands now...w/out JH....the same team that suffered three of our worst losses (in terms of opponent's RPI) of the year.

[Nevtelen]

And I think that's the kicker. With JH, we'd still have a shot at an at-large. W/o him... not so much. Let's hope we never have to find out.

[former1dog]

May seem odd to some, but I'm actually enjoying the idea of the "no whine" season. There is a clear goal. Win the conference tourney and continue the season in the Big Dance. Don't win and we honestly don't have a strong leg to stand on, at least IMO.... Thus, no whining. The results on the floor will be the ones that count. I like the justice in that.

[LongIslandZagFan]

@Santa Clara (99), St. Mary's (144), @LMU (170)

These are the killers. Especially the last two. Not a knock on the Gaels. But we have two losses to teams with RPIs in the 100s and SCU is borderline 100s. Illinois has zero. Take away the loss to LMU and we might be forgiven for SMC by the committee, but the two coupled together are death blows.

[Doktorkev]

[QUOTE=TM27;9189]Nobody is rooting more, for GU to win the WCC tournament, than the selection committee. If GU loses, the committee will not include GU and as a result risks sending the message, to every team, everywhere, that there is no reason to schedule a tough OOC.

I could not agree more

[UberZagFan]

One big glitch in your reasoning though: we do not have a single "key win" w/out JH in the lineup, and the committee will definitely be deciding our fate based on the team as it stands now...w/out JH....the same team that suffered three of our worst losses (in terms of opponent's RPI) of the year.

This is actually an interesting question. Will the committee evaluate GU based upon not have JH? As it currently stands, JH's suspension is indefinite. Technically, Few could reinstate him at any time. The PR on the move would not be that difficult: Few announces JH's suspension has been lifter after the WCC tourney indicating that "what were you doing in Cheney at midnight" is only worth 8 games. Then he states that the team will evaluate the need for any punishment with respect to the possession after the criminal action is complete. What if this is done Monday after selection? Should the committee be evaluating a team based upon a player's suspension when that suspension could end at any time?

These are the killers. Especially the last two. Not a knock on the Gaels. But we have two losses to teams with RPIs in the 100s and SCU is borderline 100s. Illinois has zero. Take away the loss to LMU and we might be forgiven for SMC by the committee, but the two coupled together are death blows.

Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. But add in 3-6 vs. top 50 is not good enough to outweigh the three bad losses. To the committee, the 3 top 50 wins are cancelled by the 3 bad losses and you are looking at an 0-6 record on balance.

[youreachiteach]

The committee has to recognize the tough OCC schedule.

UNC, Duke, Texas, Virginia,Memphis, Georgia, Butler, Stanford, WAsh St. GU did not shy away from teams. The problem is the WCC is so so bad, and we lost to teams in the WCC. Plus losing to Memphis who is top 10, but who has 0 wins vs the top 50 RPI.

Gonzaga has a chance because of its name, but teams like Illinois, Kentucky, Syracuse, will get in before GU.

Win the WCC and dance.

[NVzag]

Plus losing to Memphis who is top 10, but who has 0 wins vs the top 50 RPI.

9 Memphis CUSA 25-3 .6380 .5484 70 1-2

Had kenpom open while reading this thread; I see Memphis has one top 50 RPI win; altho I don't know who it is.

http://kenpom.com/rpi.php

[bulldogshawn]

9 Memphis CUSA 25-3 .6380 .5484 70 1-2

Had kenpom open while reading this thread; I see Memphis has one top 50 RPI win; altho I don't know who it is.

http://kenpom.com/rpi.php

They stomped #10(rpi) Kentucky 80-63 on nov. 22nd

[youreachiteach]

Them someone tell Seth Davis he is wrong, I heard him say it Sunday afternoon.

[sanfranzagsguy20]

it's sad that some of these teams can get in with one win over a top 10 or top 20 team and a .500 record in conference over GU...not BCS level flawed...but the ncaa tournament selection process isnt full-proof....i cant help but get that feeling that we will have to keep talking about this after next monday..anyone else feel that way? i consider myself an optimist but this just feels like a topic that this team will have to deal with based on the way the year has gone...can you imagine having to wait it out for a week? i dont want to

[CDC84]

From Decourcy's inside dish. If you thought Josh and Theo were bad, how about this:

If the authorities' account of Illinois SG Jamar Smith's actions after his car accident is accurate, his was the worst misbehavior on a college team since the whole Baylor disaster in 2003. The Champaign County state's attorney says Smith departed the scene of his accident, left injured C Brian Carlwell unconscious in the car, which was parked in an apartment parking lot, and failed to call 911 to summon aid. Smith also was charged with DUI. Under these circumstances, removing Smith from the team for the remainder of the season was not sufficient. He should have been dismissed from the program and certainly not allowed to sit on the team's bench during its victory over Michigan. . . .

Smith isn't as important as Josh is to GU, but he is mighty important......

[GonzagasaurusFlex]

This is actually an interesting question. Will the committee evaluate GU based upon not have JH? As it currently stands, JH's suspension is indefinite. Technically, Few could reinstate him at any time. The PR on the move would not be that difficult: Few announces JH's suspension has been lifter after the WCC tourney indicating that "what were you doing in Cheney at midnight" is only worth 8 games. Then he states that the team will evaluate the need for any punishment with respect to the possession after the criminal action is complete. What if this is done Monday after selection? Should the committee be evaluating a team based upon a player's suspension when that suspension could end at any time?
.

Good point re: technically Coach Few could reinstate JH before the NCAA's thus raising the question as to which team (w or w/out JH) the committee ought to evaluate re: at large bids and/or seeding. Personally, I hope we get in via the automatic bid route and the TEAM is further rewarded by Coach Few and staff not reinstating JH. I disagree with your conclusion " the PR on the move would not be that difficult." The amount of media attention, drama and negative publicity (not to mention opposing fans' treatment of JH should he return) that would be generated by JH returning for the NCAA's would not, imo, be worth it. Furthermore, DRav, Sean and the team (not to mention the coaching staff and the entire university) deserve the season to finish off with the focus on the team and their performance on the court rather than JH and his choices off the court.

[ZagMania]

Regarding the loss of JH and the effect on the Zags come selection sunday.. they only really had one game where the team could prove that they could be competitive against top level competition, and that was clearly the Memphis loss. If there was ever a time a loss could be viewed in a good light, I think this is it. While they still have to evaluate us as losing that game, I think it at least helps answer the question and tells the selection committee that this is still a strong team without JH.

Yes, the two losses to LMU and SMC were killers, but I don't see how they can justiy putting lllinois ahead of us, who has done nothing on the road. Even the Missouri win wasn't at the Tigers home gym, but somewhere else in St. Louis. They only have two actual road wins all year at the real home gyms of their opponents (Northwestern [162] and Penn St [198]).

[GDaleZag]

I think Illinois definitely deserves to be in over us. With 6 wins against top-80 RPI teams compared to our 3. Their only home losses being to 3 top-15 RPI teams. Their only losses, in general, came to top-54 RPI teams. What might kill us are our numbers (RPI,SOS), even though Illinois has a lot of losses, they are not considered bad losses. Needless to say, we would kill em in a game!

[tobizag]

since we are being evaluated based on what we've done since JH's suspension, then we have to honestly say that we've done nothing impressive (aside from losing in OT to a great team, which the committee doesn't find impressive). an at large selection is probably entirely out of the question.

[drnoe]

I believe that Few and the team know that they are facing the dark side of the bubble. They've got a job to do...win their next 2 games and they are in. Everything else is purely speculation.

[ZagMania]

Next Bubble Team: West Virginia

Best Home Wins: UCLA (1), Villanova (21), DePaul (60), UConn (100)
Home Losses: Pittsburgh (4)

Best Road Win: @Seton Hall (138)
Road Losses: @Pittsburgh (4), @Georgetown (17), @Marquette (28), @Notre Dame (32), *Arkansas (63), @Providence (71), @Cincinnati (170)

An interesting case for sure, and eerily similar to ours. They have one big win at home versus UCLA, who was without Darren Collison for the game. There other top wins were also at home against Villanova, DePaul, and UConn. However, the latter two are likely not tournament teams leaving them only two wins against tournament teams.

On the road they have been horrible. They have just two road wins, Seton Hall and Rutgers, and have a really bad loss similar to ours versus LMU against Cincinnati. Currently Lunardi has them in as a 12 seed.

Comparing us to them, the UNC and UCLA wins are at least a wash since they played at home without one of UCLA's best players. There Villanova win at home can be compared to our neutral site win against Texas. There next best win, home versus DePaul, is nowhere close to our win at Stanford. Plus, we have faced more top 50 and top 100 teams. We still have our two bad losses to SMC and @LMU, but they have one as well and I think the other parts of our resume make up for it.

[ZagMania]

since we are being evaluated based on what we've done since JH's suspension, then we have to honestly say that we've done nothing impressive (aside from losing in OT to a great team, which the committee doesn't find impressive). an at large selection is probably entirely out of the question.

So we had realistically just one chance to prove we were a great team since JH suspension. While it was a loss and will be evaluated as such by the RPI, don't forget that its just one part of their criteria and there is actually people in there that will be evaluating how this team has played since the losing JH, I don't think they will think that us taking Memphis into OT will mean that this team can't do anything without Heytvelt.

[jaszag]

I'm tracking with you ZagMania, but the tipping point toward West Virginia in its comparison with the Zags would be their UCLA win versus our loss against Memphis. West Virginia got it done (notwithstanding the fact the Bruins were without Collison) whereas Gonzaga missed it by one point in overtime. A quality win in the last few weeks of the season will likely tip the scales in a one-on-one bubble comparison like this. Our home loss to SCU doesn't help here either.

Fun to speculate with these things... but I agree with Digger et. al. ... get it done at Chiles.

[tobizag]

what us losing to Memphis means is that we lost to Memphis. It's not a bad loss considering their RPI, but its a loss. That wouldn't be so bad, except that in the post-Josh era we have no big wins, and one bad loss. I don't think that anyone on the committee is trying to decipher whether we are a good team without Josh. They have all the data to prove that one way or the other by looking at what we've ACTUALLY done without him. And what we've actually done is pretty good, but not as good as what other bubble teams have been able to do throughout the entire year. It sucks, but unfortunately we are judged based on roughly ten games, while everyone else gets evaluated on 30 or so. If we would have had 30 games without Josh and with all the pieces we have now, yes, we could get an at large. But that simply isn't the case. We must win our conference tournament.

[ZagtheDog]

No one has brought up what waiting for the selection commitee really means...that we have another bad loss on the books

Lets just hope the Zags win the WCC tourney, if not, prepare yourself for an NIT bid.

[ZagMania]

No one has brought up what waiting for the selection commitee really means...that we have another bad loss on the books

Lets just hope the Zags win the WCC tourney, if not, prepare yourself for an NIT bid.

Yeah.. the loss would probably have to come in the tournament final and would have to be to Santa Clara.