Lunardi Update (3/13 1030 ET)
TOP SEEDS
East: Ohio State
Southwest: Kansas
Southeast: Notre Dame
West: Pittsburgh
*Next In Line: Duke
(Note: Lunardi has also swapped San Diego State and BYU. After thrashing the Cougars in the MWC final, SDSU moves up to a 2-seed while BYU drops to a 3.)
CONFERENCE BREAKDOWN
Big East (11)
Big Ten (7)
Big 12 (6)
ACC (5)
SEC (4)
Pac-10 (4)
Atlantic 10 (3)
Mountain West (3)
Colonial (2)
West Coast (2)
LAST BYES (avoid First Four games in Dayton)
Michigan
Michigan State
Colorado
Penn State
LAST FOUR IN
Saint Mary's
Clemson
Virginia Tech
USC
FIRST FOUR OUT
Alabama
Georgia
Boston College
UAB
NEXT OUT
Harvard
Missouri State
VCU
March 12th, 2011 at 10:37 PM ^
Michigan falls to a last BYE while Illinois is nowhere to be found.
Not sure what changed from a few hours ago but here it is.
March 12th, 2011 at 10:39 PM ^
that makes no sense at all...think he's wrong about our standing actually...think were a bit higher up than that...RPI improved, SOS probably improved...no logic in that...maybe just got sick of M fans emailing him haha
March 12th, 2011 at 11:01 PM ^
with an 11 seed.
March 12th, 2011 at 10:42 PM ^
So, by losing to the #1 team in the country, the team we BEAT to get there jumped us?
EECS 376 makes more sense than that crap.
March 12th, 2011 at 11:02 PM ^
Lunardi has been calling Saint Joes' games as a radio announcer. I'm sure that he's finally reevaluating things now that they're done.
March 12th, 2011 at 10:52 PM ^
If we're insisting on posting every single Lunardi update, can we at least stop unnecessarily panicking about every single thing?
We're solidly in the field, it's incredibly unlikely we have to play in Dayton, and Lunardi's seedings need to be taken with a grain of salt (if someone could post that link which shows how bad he actually is at it that would be great).
So he dropped us to the Last Four Byes. Big f'n deal.
Even for argument's sake if he's right, and assuming Richmond loses but stays seeded above us, AND Penn State wins AND Utah State loses but gets a higher seeded at-large, we would still not be in Dayton.
And those are literally the only games remaining which could directly affect our seed (Assuming Lunardi's right, which is a question mark).
March 12th, 2011 at 10:51 PM ^
we have now played the number one team in the nation 4 times this year I believe...that is very impressive...anybody know if there is some kind of record for that?
March 12th, 2011 at 11:42 PM ^
March 12th, 2011 at 11:44 PM ^
thank you, I was a little hazy and couldn't quite remember if they were or not...
March 12th, 2011 at 11:45 PM ^
it be 5 then? Did Syracuse ever hit #1?
March 12th, 2011 at 11:48 PM ^
No, Pitt's been the highest ranked BE team all year.
March 12th, 2011 at 11:57 PM ^
thanks
March 12th, 2011 at 11:06 PM ^
Lunardi always changes his brackets at the last minute and acts like he's accurate. How do we lose to the #1 team and fall behind the team we just beat who lost to a team we already beat as well (MSU/PSU).
Sick of his garbage and ready for tomorrow at 6pm so we can really see where we stand.
March 13th, 2011 at 11:22 AM ^
Lunardi had to be dragged kicking and screaming to include MIchigan in his brackets, but he will use it as a measure of how acurate he is.
March 12th, 2011 at 11:11 PM ^
i appreciate the updates. but other than avoiding the new format 4 teams/Dayton/play-in game, I am not all that worried. mostly because we have played (asgopackgo said) number 1 4 times, not to mention 'cuse and others, and playe them close. And yeah, while seeding and inclusion is not fair, it as at least somewhat democratic. Lost in this post is the fact that we should real proud of what this team has accomplished.
March 12th, 2011 at 11:13 PM ^
Only problem is that the guy running the tournament committee is a total slimebag, and judging by his press conference comments in the last few days might be more clueless than Lunardi.
(Not actually worried about not getting in.)
March 12th, 2011 at 11:19 PM ^
Pretty sure he has to leave the room whenever a Big Ten team is in question (same for every other team).
March 12th, 2011 at 11:23 PM ^
I always figured they had something like that in place. I'd be interested in seeing all of the rules to ensure the bracket is as unbiased as possible. Google time!
March 13th, 2011 at 12:19 AM ^
I'm guessing your avatar has a lot of trouble with its lymphatic system, because that's some nasty edema it's suffering from. Either that or it just drank several gallons of water and its kidneys are not doing a thing about it.
March 13th, 2011 at 12:38 AM ^
He's not suffering from edema, and he's not fat. He's just big-exoskeletoned.
March 13th, 2011 at 12:43 AM ^
So if we take edema off the table, my other guess would be that he's suffocating in some way, judging by his look of discomfort. If he's big-exoskeletoned, that supports this theory, because insects can only get so big before they lose their ability to get fresh air all the way inside their bodies.
The limitations of spiracles can be quite unfortunate.
+1 for bringing the world on entomology to a sports board.
March 13th, 2011 at 11:28 AM ^
we should run tests for auto-immune.
March 13th, 2011 at 11:36 AM ^
IT'S NOT LUPUS!
March 12th, 2011 at 11:31 PM ^
I wish college hockey did that the year when the Wisconsin was the head of the selection committee and he let in his sub 0.500 Wisconsin team. They had to put in a rule banning sub 0.500 teams from the playoffs after those shenanigans.
So they don't really need to exile anyone for discussions because it's all objective and they don't need much discussion. (Whether it's the right objective method is another matter entirely.)
March 12th, 2011 at 11:33 PM ^
our resume is better than people think it is. We now have 6 top 50 rpis win with Oakland and Clemson extremely close. 6 road wins/neutral wins, and of course the great finish to the season. I could be wrong, but I'm gonna say we get a 10 seed. As long as we aren't playing in dayton I'm happy.
March 12th, 2011 at 11:41 PM ^
20-13, 50 RPI, 19 SOS, 1 >RPI Top 100 loss, 7 Top 50 wins, 10 Top 100 wins, 6-8 away from home, 4th in the #2 RPI conference, etc.
We're a tournament team. Plain and simple. I see people on other forums saying we should be out and whatever. They can say what they want, the numbers don't lie.
March 12th, 2011 at 11:44 PM ^
about the bubble right now. They have 10 teams listed, including PSU & Illinois (and UGA, Alabama, VTech, Colorado, USC, BC, StMarys, Harvard)
<br>These guys don't even have us on the bubble. And yes, they said explicitly said M is in
March 13th, 2011 at 12:13 AM ^
As long as we're in the field, and not playing in Dayton, I'm pretty much fine with whatever we get.
In other bracketology news, I can't believe Reese's is picking raisins to beat mint in its bracketology. Almond over cookie seems like a stretch as well.
March 13th, 2011 at 12:21 AM ^
Mint is only good in an ice cream system when it can work with chocolate chips. Raisins are far more versatile. Almond over cookie, though, I'm scratching my head on that one too.
March 13th, 2011 at 12:43 AM ^
I don't know. I'll grant that mint's a bit inconsistent, but under the right conditions it can carry the load. Raisins can contribute, but their ceiling is limited. I don't think they're your go-to item.
Cookie is just plain getting disrespected. I think it's earned one of the top seeds. Almond is fortunate to be in the field.
March 13th, 2011 at 12:46 AM ^
What really baffled me was seeing coconut vs. chocolate in the final four. That's got to be a fluke of seeding, because almond could beat coconut with its hand tied behind its back. Chocolate would beat coconut by 20 with its third-stringers.
Coconut don't lie.
March 13th, 2011 at 12:44 PM ^
Coconut would eat chocolate for breakfast and shit ovaltine.
Why don't they call it Roundtine? The coconut is round...
Yeah, and the peanut butter vs. water matchup was just shameful.
March 13th, 2011 at 12:51 AM ^
So Lunardi just said that Harvard beat us???
First of all I am happy we are a no doubt team for the tourney and will love to see the young guys gain a ton of experience from being able to play in the Big Dance.
That being said, Joe Lunardi has us as 10 seed, this is not where my problem is, it is rather that he has Michigan State as a 9 seed. I don't know how you go from being a bubble team, in the play in game to being a 9 seed. Last time I checked MSU got blown out by Penn State, and a win of Purdue isn't worth jumping 3 seeds IMO.
Edit: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology
ESPN hasn't updated his bracket yet. That one is through Friday's games.
I didn't realize this, my bad. I had the bracketology bookmarked when we were on the bubble and didn't notice that it wasn't updated yet.
Lunardi really isn't that good at this, for a guy whose only job is to make the bracket. Of those the Bracket Project tracks, he's 23rd out of 32 "regulars" (last year and two of the four previous), and just slightly below average even if you count the one-year guys who give it a shot and then find out they really suck. He also seems to very strongly overreact to whatever the last thing that happened was (jumping us from last-in to a 9 on beating Purdue, for instance).
His educated guess probably isn't much better than anyone who's put more than an hour into it. I've been doing a series of bubble posts over at The Only Colors, and for what it's worth I have Michigan and Michigan State both in the 10-11 range (two of the three immediately above "last four byes" along with Marquette).
I agree that the entire body of work should count, but I also think you can't look retroactively at a win. The win has to be based on how good the opponent was at the time you played them. Look at Illinois. They have ONE quality victory, against North Carolina, but that was before Kendall Marshall was inserted as a permanent starter playing significant minutes. North Carolina was 4-3 after the Illinois game and had already lost to Minnesota and Vanderbilt. They went on to lose to Texas and Georgia Tech, with only a close win against Kentucky as a good win in between, before making a run where they've won 14 of 15. Illinois has not won 2 straight since Dec. 29 - Jan. 6. They're 6-10 since then. They have no other significant non-conference victories. Their victory against fringe tourney team Gonzaga was more than offset by a loss to Illinois-Chicago.
When placing the NC win in context, this is an incredibly bare resume.
March 13th, 2011 at 10:07 AM ^
goes from a 9 seed to a last bye? Sorry, I am really not following him now. I am going with Bracketology 101 from now on. I think Lunardi is getting a little confused.
March 13th, 2011 at 12:23 PM ^
Has us as the last 10, with the ones updated today ranging from 9 to 11 seed.
March 13th, 2011 at 12:29 PM ^
That's about right on target. B101 said we'll be either or a 10 or 11 in their bracket today, Lunardi has us as an 11, CBS has us at a 9 (but he's an idiot...)...
No problem with either a 10 or 11 seed. There's a lot of beatable teams in the 6/7 range.
in the tourney we can't beat. There are also not many we can't lose to.
Hmmm.....I wonder if there's a way we can swing a first round matchup with UNC Asheville...