Currently 45 teams for 36 at-larges

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SelectionSunday

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Win or lose tonight, the Gophers remain on this list. The goal now has been raised from a Wednesday BTT bye to protecting their home court the rest of the way, and stealing 1 more on the road (why not IU?). Teams are listed in RPI order, and obviously a lot of these are virtual locks.

Generally speaking, 5 RPI top-50 wins on Selection Sunday (if you end up on the bubble) is a really good thing to have in your hip pocket. What I'm trying to show is the Gophers aren't that far off if they can add a couple more RPI top-50 wins (they currently have 3).

45 for 36 At-Larges
5. Duke
9. Utah
10. North Carolina
11. Maryland
12. VCU
13. Iowa State
14. Louisville
16. Baylor
17. Northern Iowa
18. Oklahoma
19. Arkansas
21. Georgetown
22. Providence
24. Butler
25. Oklahoma State
26. Colorado State
27. Notre Dame
28. West Virginia
29. Temple
30. Dayton
31. Texas
32. Indiana
33. Georgia
34. Ohio State
35. Cincinnati
36. UCLA
37. Michigan State
38. Ole Miss
39. Stanford
40. Xavier
42. Saint John's
43. Boise State
45. Texas A&M
46. Iowa
48. Illinois
50. NC State
53. LSU
54. Pitt
55. Old Dominion
58. BYU
59. Oregon
64. Miami
70. Purdue
72. GOPHERS
78. Wyoming
 

All of this from you, SS, is what makes this time of the year so much fun and exciting. Thanks for all you do on this.

Sincerely,

Dr.Don
 

I know I keep referencing the other teams, but this season had a lot of reason to be optimistic for the Wild and both Gopher hoops and hockey. Then, all three teams put together embarrassing slides crushing my winter sports spirits. Now they all seem poised (or at least have the opportunity) to turn things around all of a sudden (Gopher basketball probably the longest shot from where they sit). Tonight's game is huge, all of a sudden we would be one weak home opponent away from back at .500. Unfortunately I am going to miss tonight's game because I am taking Mrs. BMG out for a belated Valentine's Day/anniversary dinner at some place that sells $85 dollar plates of scented lobster. Hope they have a bar with a TV so I can make a few bathroom breaks to swing by and catch the score.
 

Thanks Doc. The next 4 weeks you can count on things like this being realistic snapshots, not blind Gopher homerism. Still much work to be done, but they have a shot. There weren't that many people who thought that possible after the 0-5 start, yours truly included.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
Unfortunately I am going to miss tonight's game because I am taking Mrs. BMG out for a belated Valentine's Day/anniversary dinner at some place that sells $85 dollar plates of scented lobster. Hope they have a bar with a TV so I can make a few bathroom breaks to swing by and catch the score.
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Just drink a lot of fluids, time it so the seal gets broken right about game time, then you have a legit excuse for "several" trips to the men's room!
 


SelectionSunday said:
Just drink a lot of fluids, time it so the seal gets broken right about game time, then you have a legit excuse for "several" trips to the men's room!
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Thanks for the tip SS. That's why I come to this board, to learn some veteran moves from the seasoned vets.
 

Bleedsmaroonandgold...I ain't hard to excuse yourself and check out the game, several times.

Just tell everyone you have to check your Depends!!!
 

You could also try, honey (lady BMG), I love it when you wear the rose colored lipstick;would you mind putting that on, inducing her to make an extended trip to Lady's room and you can get decent stretch of live action.
 

BOUNDOUTPASSDUNK said:
You could also try, honey (lady BMG), I love it when you wear the rose colored lipstick;would you mind putting that on, inducing her to make an extended trip to Lady's room and you can get decent stretch of live action.
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And then when she returns, give her a kiss, and tell her it doesn't taste right. She will spend an extended period of time in the ladies room, trying to get the blend of which you approve. Kiss, repeat, kiss, repeat. Got it?
 



SS can you answer a question for me. I was looking back at 2012-2013 when we went to the tourney and beat UCLA, I noticed we went 8-10 in the BIG 10 and lost our last 3 games including the first round of the BTT. Whats so different about this year if we go 8-10 than 2012-13 where we went 8-10? Is it really a weaker bubble this year?
 

dannygopher9100 said:
SS can you answer a question for me. I was looking back at 2012-2013 when we went to the tourney and beat UCLA, I noticed we went 8-10 in the BIG 10 and lost our last 3 games including the first round of the BTT. Whats so different about this year if we go 8-10 than 2012-13 where we went 8-10? Is it really a weaker bubble this year?
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danny, for a young 'en, that is a great question to ask our Tourney expert. Great job.
 

dannygopher9100 said:
SS can you answer a question for me. I was looking back at 2012-2013 when we went to the tourney and beat UCLA, I noticed we went 8-10 in the BIG 10 and lost our last 3 games including the first round of the BTT. Whats so different about this year if we go 8-10 than 2012-13 where we went 8-10? Is it really a weaker bubble this year?
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Off top of my head simplest answer is Gophers played a tougher schedule in 2012-13 (#5 overall) and had 2 solid neutral-court wins out of conference (Memphis, Stanford), the win over #1 Indiana was gigantic, and I'm pretty sure they had 6 RPI top-50 wins. Also, simply playing Duke was huge for SOS reasons. That's why it hurt to not play Gonzaga this year. Would have made significant difference to play Zags instead of Georgia.

Final RPI around 30 didn't hurt, either.
 

Gophs need to repair that RPI by winning tonight then winning out at home, knocking off the presumptive B1G champ WI in the process.

Quite a bit riding on tonite's game.
 



Huge game tonight. Need it.

SelectionSunday said:
Off top of my head simplest answer is Gophers played a tougher schedule in 2012-13 (#5 overall) and had 2 solid neutral-court wins out of conference (Memphis, Stanford), the win over #1 Indiana was gigantic, and I'm pretty sure they had 6 RPI top-50 wins. Also, simply playing Duke was huge for SOS reasons. That's why it hurt to not play Gonzaga this year. Would have made significant difference to play Zags instead of Georgia.

Final RPI around 30 didn't hurt, either.
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Yeah.. a couple of other things:

- The Big Ten was far better (win-loss, SOS) in 2012-13 than it is this year. That helped Minnesota's overall SOS and therefore RPI.
- Worse nonconference record this year. 10-2 (Franklin Pierce doesn't count) vs 12-1. (AWP impact not as significant)
- *** HUGE *** and something talked about when the season began: Weaker nonconference schedule. Without getting into the precise impact (really should look at Win-Loss of opponents, not their RPI, but due to time constraints...) the 2012-13 team had 2 201+ RPI opponents (229 and 277)... this year, there were 2 301+ (315 & 339) and another 4 200+ (214, 255, 271, 288). The program put itself in a difficult position before the season even began.
- vs. RPI 1-50 in 2012-13 they were 5-8... and 6-1 vs. 51-100.
- vs. RPI 1-50 this year they are 3-4 with potentially* 4 more plus BTT to play... HUGE game tonight.... and only 2-4 vs. 51-100 w/perhaps none left on he schedule.. although both I4 & Iowa may jump back & forth b/w 1-50 and 51-100.

So, yeah. Assume the same Big Ten record, but then you get to...............Opponents: Worse nonconference, worse conference; record: worse nonconference.

8-10 +2 BTT wins? Possible, but tough.
9-9 + 2BTT, things get interesting..
10-8 + 1 BTT.. OK!

PS - just by winning tonight, the adjustment to the AWP alone (25% of RPI) would be .0071, enough currently to push Minnesota up 10 spots in the RPI.
 


"45 for 36 At-Larges"

The least likely from your list in my view, barring winning the conference tournament are:

40. Xavier (10 losses and a fairly tough schedule remaining)
50. NC State (11 losses already)
55. Old Dominion (the committee has not been generous to Conference USA in the past)
72. GOPHERS (for reasons we all know)

Miami has a significant chance to boost their record with 4 games against Boston College and Virginia Tech left and a home game against Fla St. They also have a chance of an RPI booster before their conference tournament if they can beat one of UNC, Louisville (road), or Pitt (road).

Boise St. really isn't that good but they might take 3 teams from the Mountain West and they are in a decent position to finish high in that conference. Wyoming also could finish with a very good record in that conference and very good overall record. One of these teams has a fairly decent chance of being selected.
 

Breaking it down further (27 for 18)

When I add up the virtual/near locks that gets us to 50 bids. That means 27 others battling for the remaining 18 bids. In RPI order, those teams are:

27 for 18
26. Colorado State
29. Temple
30. Dayton
31. Texas
33. Georgia
34. Ohio State
35. Cincinnati
36. UCLA
37. Michigan State
38. Ole Miss
39. Stanford
40. Xavier
42. Saint John's
43. Boise State
45. Texas A&M
46. Iowa
48. Illinois
50. NC State
53. LSU
54. Pitt
55. Old Dominion
58. BYU
59. Oregon
64. Miami
70. Purdue
72. GOPHERS
78. Wyoming

#40 Xavier (@ Cincinnati, Butler) and #31 Texas (@ Oklahoma, Iowa State) can help themselves the most this coming week.
 

In my opinion, 6 more wins puts us squarely on the bubble and sweating it out on Sunday. 7 gets us comfortably in and 5 leaves us out.

This is assuming that we go 9-9 in regular season play, which is the realistic ceiling in my opinion.
 

mnsportsgeek said:
In my opinion, 6 more wins puts us squarely on the bubble and sweating it out on Sunday. 7 gets us comfortably in and 5 leaves us out.

This is assuming that we go 9-9 in regular season play, which is the realistic ceiling in my opinion.
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I don't see how with us getting 4 more wins in the regular season we'd be left out with adding 1 win in the BTT. 4 more wins means a win @IU and @MSU or beating wisconsin at least once. That'd give us a 22-11 record with wins over vs. Ill, @Iowa, @IU @MSU neutral vs. Georgia heading into the selection Sunday. That'd be a lot of wins vs. bubble or better teams.
 

mnsportsgeek said:
In my opinion, 6 more wins puts us squarely on the bubble and sweating it out on Sunday. 7 gets us comfortably in and 5 leaves us out.

This is assuming that we go 9-9 in regular season play, which is the realistic ceiling in my opinion.
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If we finish 9-9 (4 more regular season wins), that means we would win at least two of the Michigan State, Indiana, or Wisconsin games with three of those games being on the road. That would be a significant rating booster right there. Then, we would likely be the 7th or 8th seed in the Big Ten tournament. A 5th win over the 9th or 10th seeded team in the tournament wouldn't be a great win but it would be a fair one. Then, the loss to the first or second seeded team wouldn't be a bad loss. At 21-12 with wins over Georgia, Iowa, Purdue, Illinois, and two of the above, I think we should still be a solid bubble team.

2 wins in the Big Ten tournament (6 more wins assuming a 9-9 conference regular season record) would likely mean beating Wisconsin or whatever team is the eventual second seed. I think that would take us off the bubble and put us squarely in the tournament.

Having said that, I still think that a 9-9 regular season conference record may be "a bridge too far."
 

SS, heard some years about how a team was trending making a difference. Does the fact that we seem to have turned it around give us any more of a chance if it comes down to the very edge of the bubble against some team with a similar record? We still have to win games but is playing like crap early in the season better than playing like crap late in the season?
 

Mulligan said:
SS, heard some years about how a team was trending making a difference. Does the fact that we seem to have turned it around give us any more of a chance if it comes down to the very edge of the bubble against some team with a similar record? We still have to win games but is playing like crap early in the season better than playing like crap late in the season?
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I don't think the Selection Committee puts much stock in that. I offer the Gophers (2013) and Iowa (2014) as evidence. Both were playing like crap at the end of the season, but because of their overall resumes they still got bids.
 

Last year at this time Iowa was a "lock".
 




That would be incorrect because they weren't a lock.
 


You don't understand because you don't seem to know what lock means. You can't be this dumb so you must be trolling me.
 

Face The Facts said:
You don't understand because you don't seem to know what lock means. You can't be this dumb so you must be trolling me.
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Did you miss your afternoon nap? You seem a little fussy. If a lock means your tournament ticket is punched, then their ticket was punched in mid February. What did they do between mid-February and mid-march that earned them their tournament bid?
 

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