You want a "magic number" for Gophers to hear name called on Selection Sunday? Go with 22


I think some on here are a bit out of touch.

I dont think we are even close to the bubble, and add to that, it's a very weak bubble.

Our advanced metrics are pretty bad, atrocious non conference, some good wins yes, but not that holy cow win. Vandy has those with Tenn and Kentucky. Also of note, the SEC is a wagon, there are no bad losses. Vandy last 6 are 4 ranked, Arkansas then UGA. All in or bubble teams. Add in our bad losses and it's a major climb.

On the injury thing, Mitchell is a good player, he's not the guy you go ohh well he was out let's discount that. If it was DG sure.

Has this last 9 game stretch been good, absolutely! Credit to the team and coach for that. But also call a spade a spade, coach messed up with the NC schedule and we are just a meh team with some good, but more bad outcomes. We need to win out plus probably 2 in the BTT to have a shot. Now a month ago I'd have said ahh nope more likely to lose out than win out. Now I mean uphill but we've shown a little to make one think it's plausible.
I think some of us have had our interest piqued with the L.A. sweep (a place Michigan State got swept), but I don't have the impression anyone thinks the Gophers are close to the bubble. I look at it more as projecting ahead a possibility it could happen.
 

Just as a point of reference, here are "snapshot" resumes of the Gophers and Vanderbilt, a team I have squarely on the bubble. Please note this snapshot does not include all the things the committee factors in. I also use Vandy because its non-conference schedule rank makes it a good comparison to the Gophers.
Still a ton more work until they're even in the conversation, but cool that there's even a slim hope. FWIW, Vanderbilt's currently a #10 or #11 seed in brackets I've seen while casually browsing.
 

Still a ton more work until they're even in the conversation, but cool that there's even a slim hope. FWIW, Vanderbilt's currently a #10 or #11 seed in brackets I've seen while casually browsing.
Yep, for the most part projected #10 and #11 seeds are, by definition, bubble teams. Certainly all the 11's.
 

I think some on here are a bit out of touch.

I dont think we are even close to the bubble, and add to that, it's a very weak bubble.

Our advanced metrics are pretty bad, atrocious non conference, some good wins yes, but not that holy cow win. Vandy has those with Tenn and Kentucky. Also of note, the SEC is a wagon, there are no bad losses. Vandy last 6 are 4 ranked, Arkansas then UGA. All in or bubble teams. Add in our bad losses and it's a major climb.

On the injury thing, Mitchell is a good player, he's not the guy you go ohh well he was out let's discount that. If it was DG sure.

Has this last 9 game stretch been good, absolutely! Credit to the team and coach for that. But also call a spade a spade, coach messed up with the NC schedule and we are just a meh team with some good, but more bad outcomes. We need to win out plus probably 2 in the BTT to have a shot. Now a month ago I'd have said ahh nope more likely to lose out than win out. Now I mean uphill but we've shown a little to make one think it's plausible.

Need a combo of 7 wins IMO. It'll be interesting if we do close good enough down the stretch and finish 8/9 in the B1G because we won't have an extra game if we were the 10 seed.

Our paths:

Finish 5-0, win the 8/9 or 7/10 game (if we're the 7 seed) beat the 1 or 2 seed.

Finish 4-1. Likely in the 8/9 game still. Win the 8/9 game, beat the 1 seed, beat the 4/5/12/13 winner.
 



The Gophers have a chance to have an extremely intriguing resume by season's end. If Penn State can find a way to get some wins down the stretch (not against the Gophers, of course) and creep back into a top 75 NET, that will add a Q1 win back. Oregon is very close as well. Need them to finish strong so they can get into the top 30 again. Then, say they pick up at least one of the NE/WI games. That gets them to 7 Q1 wins. That would put them in fairly elite company.

Let's say they protect home court in this home stand here, upset Wisconsin and then take down Rutgers on the road. And then they drop the game to Nebraska. (in other words, the 95th percentile outcome)

That would give them this resume heading into the B10 Tourney:

18-13 (10-10)
Q1
7-9
Q2 3-3
Q3 1-2
Q4 7-0

That absolute puts them squarely on the bubble. You cannot have a letdown returning home here. PSU and NW will be fighting for their postseason lives. Show up and prove you're the better team and we'll go from there.

Penn State road win is back to a Q1... (for now)
 





The Gophers resume continues to confound.

Take a look at the NET rankings. Gophers are down at 91, surrounded by teams with zero to 2 Q1 wins. You have to scroll all the way up to 52 to Nebraska to find a team with at least 5 Q1 wins.

They must be close to breaking a record for most Q1 wins while still being outside the top 90.
 


It would be a major accomplishment (considering where we were through six BT games) to make the NIT. Really didn't think that post-season basketball in any form would still be on the table.

It could be the Fox Sports-produced postseason tournament (inaugural CBC Tourney in Vegas) the Gophers go to instead of the NIT.

The Big Ten, Big East, and Big 12 are required to send their top two non-NCAA teams to that 16-team tourney instead of the NIT. Then, there are 10 more at-large spots after that, that we are assuming come from the Big Ten, Big 12, and Big East, as well. Some rumors that the MWC (another FOX partner) could send some teams there, too.

That also takes 16 teams out of the NIT pool, which could push the Gophers up to that tourney.

Due to the formation of the CBC tourney, the NIT has said it will likely take more high majors and fewer mid- to low-major teams.

That means 48 teams will be part of a postseason tourneys featuring mostly high major teams that did not make the NCAA tourney.

So, the chance for Minnesota to make postseason basketball is pretty decent, actually.
 







THE BIG TEN GRINDER
Take Care of Barn Business (go 3-0)

These are three teams the Gophers could be battling to get a spot in the 15-team Big Ten Tournament. Can't slip up here.

Feb. 1: Washington
Feb. 22: Penn State
Feb. 25: Northwestern
Ran the table in reverse on the above category. If you had told me that would happen back in October, I would have guessed 18th place was in play, if not a certainty, and going O-Fer in the Conference was a possibility.

Winnable Roadkill (go 3-3)
These are the Gophers' most winnable true road games. If you're any good at all, you need to get half of 'em.

Jan. 10: @ Wisconsin
Jan. 13: @ Maryland
Jan. 21: @ Iowa
Feb. 4: @ Penn State
Feb. 15: @ USC
March 1: @ Nebraska

Equally stunning, after dropping the first 2 (both of those teams have been ranked), they knocked off the remaining 4 teams to go 4-2.

Befuddling results.

Back in October, if you had told me that the Gophers would get 5 Big 10 Road Ws by this point, I would have thought a 1st Round Bye would have been locked up with a solid chance at Double Bye/Top 4 slot. Go figure.
 
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Gophers wake up this morning with 7 quad 1 wins after Oregon and USC both move up in the NET. They are tied for 10th in all of the NCAA. Hilarious for a team that is close to being out of the top 100 NET. This team makes no sense.
 
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Gophers wake up this morning with 7 quad 1 wins after Oregon and USC both move up in the NET. They are tied for 5th in all of the NCAA. Hilarious for a team that is close to being out of the top 100 NET. This team makes no sense.
They are ranked 94th in NET. The closest team that has 7 wins is MSST at 34th.... The closest team with the same amount of wins or more and a better record is Oregon at 30th. We are 7-7 in Quad 1, but 1-7 in Quad 2/3. Pretty hilarious. No teams around us have even close to the Quad 1 record that we have.
 

Gophers wake up this morning with 7 quad 1 wins after Oregon and USC both move up in the NET. They are tied for 5th in all of the NCAA. Hilarious for a team that is close to being out of the top 100 NET. This team makes no sense.
They were a very bad team that improved over time and started to turn it around in mid January. The rankings take the season as a whole and way under estimate a team's improvement.
 

I said with 5 games to go we would need a combo of 7 wins. I think our only chance is winning out til the B1G Tournament final. That would put us at 21-15 (assuming we play on weakling Wednesday), with at least 10 Q1 wins, maybe more depending on how the bracket would shake out and how some of these teams are down the stretch.

The results based metrics would have to be weighed more heavily by the committee because our predictive metrics won't get nearly close enough.
 

I think I read at some point, no team with 7 Quad 1 wins has ever missed the tourney (since NET became the primary metric).

If the Gophers could get to 9 Q1s and still miss the tourney, that'd be one hell of a feat.
 

They are ranked 94th in NET. The closest team that has 7 wins is MSST at 34th.... The closest team with the same amount of wins or more and a better record is Oregon at 30th. We are 7-7 in Quad 1, but 1-7 in Quad 2/3. Pretty hilarious. No teams around us have even close to the Quad 1 record that we have.
Stat 1 is the CBJ is great crowd. The 2nd stat is the fire him crowd. Cripes just go 4-3 vs the average teams we are likely in and he keeps his job. So no I don't feel bad for wanting him fired. I'm not asking the world, win a good game or 2, handle the avg teams and don't play only sisters of the poor in the OOC. Easy
 

sign you can't have this ass of a non con schedule and you can't just completely blow it against shit teams. instead we just get to hang as the ball around the necks of others as a quad 2 loss to MI and Oregon and a quad 3 to UCLA, NE, and UCLA.
 

sign you can't have this ass of a non con schedule and you can't just completely blow it against shit teams. instead we just get to hang as the ball around the necks of others as a quad 2 loss to MI and Oregon and a quad 3 to UCLA, NE, and UCLA.
And the quad 2/ 3 losses for those trams against a team with 7 quad 1 wins. It really is amazing how both well and poorly we've managed to play this season
 

Gophers wake up this morning with 7 quad 1 wins after Oregon and USC both move up in the NET. They are tied for 10th in all of the NCAA. Hilarious for a team that is close to being out of the top 100 NET. This team makes no sense.
But this is also evidence how terrible net is

Winning at a team that is borderline not going to make the big ten tourney is a quad 1 win
 






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