UM Hoops and Quadrant wins
I was curious how many other teams have 5 Q1 wins and found UM is one of 14 teams to reach that height. All 8 of Michigan's first 8 losses were to current Q1 teams while the home lose to Ohio State will depend on how the hot Buckeyes finish the year (they are currently RPI 38) and must finish in the Top 30 of RPI to count as a Q1 home loss for Michigan.
February 9th, 2020 at 8:35 AM ^
I enjoy it when we beat the Quadrants. Especially when we stifle their point guard.
February 9th, 2020 at 8:38 AM ^
Blech quadrants are stupid, I know ncaa committee uses them but why not quintiles are sextants? Well the whole concept is stupid, why group all wins into 4 categories at all? Is a home win against rank #31 really completely different than a road win against #29? Why does a home win against #20 fall into the same quadrants as road win against #5?
It's just a terrible and arbitrary way of evaluating teams.
February 9th, 2020 at 11:22 AM ^
so what your idea on a proper system to evaluate teams?
February 9th, 2020 at 11:40 AM ^
On a continuous scale? You can calculate a strength of record without “dumbing down” the types of game outcomes into four quadrants.
February 9th, 2020 at 3:49 PM ^
Yes a home win against #31 is drastically different than a road win against #29
February 10th, 2020 at 10:10 AM ^
more different than a road win against a top 5 and home win against #25 (both quadrant 1)?
February 9th, 2020 at 8:38 AM ^
Would we really be an 11 seed with that many quality wins? I saw that projected yesterday.
February 9th, 2020 at 8:48 AM ^
Depending upon how we finish, and based upon the last 45 days, we may not make the tournament at all. I’m of the opinion that we still have a boatload of work to do to get in. I know there’s a lot of talk about 12 B1G teams getting in, but I’ll believe that they let multiple B1G teams in with a losing conference record when I see it. Yesterday’s win, and Livers’ return are a nice start though.
February 9th, 2020 at 9:13 AM ^
We probably only need to finish 18-13 to get in. Wins over Northwestern on the road and Indiana, Wisconsin, and Nebraska at home would do the trick.
February 9th, 2020 at 9:32 AM ^
Even at 18-13 it’s still not safe. I’d say win a game or two in the BTT and, at an 18-13 regular season record, that gets Michigan over the hump.
Assuming they get in, I just hope they avoid the 8 or 9 seed.
February 9th, 2020 at 11:25 AM ^
Really? I think this is the year you want to be an 8-9
You're really scared of SDSU, Kansas, and Baylor? Hell, we've already blown out Gonzaga on a neutral floor
February 9th, 2020 at 3:58 PM ^
I'm not sure you want to be a 8-9, per se. But this is definitely a year you don't mind being on that line. It doesn't come with the disadvantage that it usually does compared to the 7-10 line since the top teams are not nearly as far onto the tail of the distribution as they usually are (i.e. it's just a big jumble of pretty good teas at the top without a few elite teams like there often is).
February 9th, 2020 at 5:10 PM ^
There were five teams in 2018 that got at-large bids with sub-500 conference records. With a historically strong B1G, this year, I think 9-11, one BTT win, and a 19-14 post BTT overall record would be fairly safe. (In that scenario, our first BTT game would be against a lower B1G seed.),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/02/16/this-ncaa-tournament-getting-with-losing-conference-record-isnt-such-stretch/
In 1998, FSU got selected as an at-large with a 6-10 ACC record and 17-13 overall, but a Michigan 8-12 regular season and a 18-15 overall would be pushing historical limits. I think KenPom rankings would almost surely have us as one of the top 36 at-large teams, but the face value of such a mediocre season very well could get us left out. I don't know.
Let's hope with Livers back, we can make a run an finish well above the bubble cut line.
February 9th, 2020 at 9:14 AM ^
Multiple sub-.500 B1G teams got in last season. Minnesota (10 seed) was 9-11; Ohio State (11) was 8-12.
February 9th, 2020 at 1:12 PM ^
With the elimination of true round robin conference schedules due to expansion, finishing below .500 in conference is not as big a deal if your conference is highly ranked, like ours is. As long as we beat the teams we're supposed to be, I don't see how we miss the tournament.
February 9th, 2020 at 3:09 PM ^
UM being 9 in espn and cbs bracketologies would mean that they don't have a boatload of work to do to stay in the tournament. the teams on the bubble need to do the boatload, Fla, Memphis, et al, and Purdue, IU, Minn in conference. they can't cruise of course being a 9.
February 9th, 2020 at 8:55 AM ^
I’d much rather be an 11-seed than be in the 7-10 range.
February 9th, 2020 at 9:04 AM ^
Not sure I agree Appleton. 11 likely means a play-in.
February 9th, 2020 at 9:11 AM ^
February 9th, 2020 at 9:59 AM ^
I mean if we have 18 wins and a losing conference record probably
February 9th, 2020 at 9:09 AM ^
You’re looking at the wrong rating metric. The committee doesn’t sort teams into quadrants based on their RPI, they use the NET rankings.
February 9th, 2020 at 9:15 AM ^
The committee uses NET instead of RPI now. Michigan is currently 6-8 in Q1 games per torvik:
February 9th, 2020 at 3:41 PM ^
Yep, the six Q1 wins are:
Gonzaga (N - #2 NET)
MSU (H - #13 NET)
Creighton (H - #22 NET)
Purdue (H - #26 NET)
Iowa (H - #28 NET)
Rutgers (N - #29 NET)
The Purdue and Iowa wins are very close to not being Q1 if those teams drop out of the top 30. Creighton could plausibly drop out of the top 30 although that'll likely hold up. The other three are locks to remain Q1.
OP is living in 2017. C'mon man!
February 9th, 2020 at 9:46 AM ^
Michigan just needs to play well down the stretch. It’s a tough schedule, but a team that’s ~.500 vs Q1 should project to a top 20-30 team. Unsurprisingly, M is 22 right now on Kenpom. They’re in if they play well the last month of the season, no questions.
The goal should be a 6 seed. That’s A realistic line to achieve that they could make a second weekend run on. Would require winning some games that they’re not favored in down the stretch. With Livers, maybe they can do it.
February 9th, 2020 at 10:07 AM ^
Finish .500+ in the conference and win a game in the BTT and we are in although we will have a very tough draw with poor seeding.
February 9th, 2020 at 2:16 PM ^
.500 in conference will not be required, if they get there it’s a tournament lock.
and will any path be that tough of a draw ? What team seems unbeatable to you ? And the odds of winning the national title are an extreme long shot anyway, I’m not even worried about the path tbh. Just get in for the momentum of the program and see what happens.
February 9th, 2020 at 3:45 PM ^
.500 in the conference gets Michigan to a likely 5 or 6 seed. That would mean a 5-3 finish against a very tough schedule which would get M up near the top 20 in NET.
It would also mean that Michigan with Livers will have been one of the top 10-15 teams in the country so the committee would have clear data with which to discount the games he missed.
February 9th, 2020 at 10:07 AM ^
With Livers 10-4 beating Gonzaga and MSU ... high seed team
Without Livers 4-5 ... barely an NIT team
If Livers can stay healthy, the team can get on a roll and make some noise in the B1G / NCAA tournaments.
February 9th, 2020 at 11:02 AM ^
One of the losses with Livers was the home Illinois game when he reinjured himself. Likewise he didn't finish the Presbyterian win (not that it mattered in that one).
So we're 9-3 when he's healthy for a full game and 5-6 when he isn't.
February 9th, 2020 at 12:46 PM ^
"Well, actshually..."
February 9th, 2020 at 10:17 AM ^
When you look at the teams that have six or more, no team is lower than a 5 seed according to Palm. So, I feel like we're on the right side of the bubble, if we're even on it at all.
February 9th, 2020 at 10:44 AM ^
Assuming 1-2 in the last three games of the season (losses at osu and md and win home neb)...the next 5 games are important to get a decent seed. Go 4-1 against at NU, home IU, at RU, at Purdue, home Wis...would put us at 19-12, 10-10 in conference with probably 7 quad 1 wins. That would probably be a 6-9 seed. Lose 1 more and probably still fine... lose 2 more than above it’s probably big ten tourney resume- squarely on bubble.
February 9th, 2020 at 1:19 PM ^
I wonder what it would take for MSU to be on the bubble. They're not good on the road and look at how backloaded their schedule is: @Ill, MD, @Neb, Iowa, @MD, @PSU, OSU. They could drop all of those games except @Nebraska and no one would be surprised.
February 9th, 2020 at 3:50 PM ^
They would need to lose all six of those games to get on the bubble. They're sitting at #13 in NET so they have a long way to go to fall to the bubble. Plus, they'd still end up 9-11 in the conference which is likely good enough in this Big Ten.
February 10th, 2020 at 8:37 AM ^
If the committee still looks at your last 10 games, they might need to do better than that. If they go 2-5 down the stretch, that's 18-13 and 2-8 in their last 10 games. I think they'd have to win a BTT game to be safely in the field and avoid the play-in game.
February 9th, 2020 at 11:36 AM ^
Here’s a link to the NCAA’s actual archive: https://extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/SitePages/Home.aspx
Michigan is current #31 in NET, with a 6-8 Q1 record and a 2-1 Q2 record (the home loss to Illinois is a Q2 right now; the loss to OSU is a Q1).
This is reasonable at-large territory, but it’d sure be nice if they went on a nice little winning streak now that Livers is back.
February 9th, 2020 at 12:15 PM ^
We're #22 in Kenpom. I know that's not the tool the committee allegedly uses, but it would be a massive outlier for a Top25 Kenpom team to not make the tournament. As long as we don't string together a losing streak we should be fine. The seeding will be the interesting part -- and how they factor the Livers injury. I don't think a #1 seed is getting a fair deal if they (potentially) have to see the #22 Kenpom team in the round of 32. Likewise with the #2 seed and the 7v10. I could see us being placed as high as 6. Especially with the handful of quality wins, and zero bad losses -- assuming they consider the injury to Livers. Also, I believe they do put some weight into those early season tournaments.
February 9th, 2020 at 4:15 PM ^
The committee is provided with kenpom on the team sheets they are given with along with several other ratings. And I think they can use whatever metrics they want on an individual basis aside from the NCAA given team sheets.
They use NET to group the Quadrant wins but they're given a list of "resume" based metrics and "quality" based metrics.
See here for more details: http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/mens-basketball-selections-101-selections
And here are the actual team sheet they're provided with: https://extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/Stats%20Library/NET%20Team%20Sheets%20-%20Feb%208,%202020.pdf
It's a huge improvement over the old RPI and the arbitrary use of top 50, top 100 and top 200 wins without regard to where the games were played.
The one thing it appears is still in the stone ages is the use of a SOS that is likely still based on straight opponent records and opponents opponents records without any regard to how difficult any of those games actually were.
One systems that are based on how difficult games were, i.e. how likely would an average team be to have your record against your schedule, Michigan has a top 3 SoS (3rd toughest per kenpom, 3rd per BPI, 3rd per Sagarin). Per the commitee's team sheets? 34th.
Let's compare to Marquette's schedule. Marquette supposedly has the 18th toughest schedule via the team sheets.
Q1 games played: Michigan 14, Marquette 10.
Q2 games played: Michigan 3, Marquette 5
Q3 games played: Michigan 1, Marquette, 2
Q4 games played: Michigan 5, Marquette 5.
Uhhh, so Michigan has played 40% more Q1 games and no more Q4 games which basically means the only difference is four games that Michigan had that were Q1 difficulty that Marquette had that were Q2 and Q3 and yet M has played an easier schedule? Riiiggght.
LSU somehow as the #11 SoS despite playing only 7 Q1 games! WTF is even going on. Only 2 Q1A games compared to M's 7 Q1A games.
C'mon guys. Fix your SoS metric.
February 9th, 2020 at 7:50 PM ^
Elon, Houston Baptist and the other teams in Q4 totally throw off UM's SOS, there's really no need to schedule teams like that, because you get wins from q3 teams just as easily. Anyway Marquette beat Butler today, so they'll be moving up.
February 9th, 2020 at 2:40 PM ^
With Livers we have a chance to finish really strongly. I’m thinking 6-2 finish or better. There are some tough road games ahead but Michigan has proven resilient even without Livers. This victory this weekend could be a huge springboard.
February 9th, 2020 at 3:43 PM ^
Train quads you ninnys.