Utter disrespect!
- Thread starter RhabdoWildcat
- Start date
Yeah but neither should Indiana
That’s more debatable, Indiana is very good. It’s telling that the committee obviously doesn’t view a close loss on the road to Northwestern to be something to cause concern about for a top team. In other words, NU is correctly viewed as legit, but not elite.
What about a close lose at home and on the road to NU? As well as having a worse record?
Should NU be ranked below Michigan? We lost to them twice…
Michigan is 14-11 - nu has a better record than Indiana
Watching B12 hoops the last couple of months and some (but less) of the other conferences makes me think that the B10 probably deserves 2-3 teams in the top 25. No more than that.
NU should probably be in that 20-40 range of thereabouts. I think that's about where we are right now.
NU should probably be in that 20-40 range of thereabouts. I think that's about where we are right now.
Dumb take. Our record and head-to-head vs Indiana speaks for itself. We beat #1 Purdue. 'nuff said.
Indiana has a stronger OOC schedule, but they lost to Arizona and Kansas, while beating UNC and Xavier. NU lost to Auburn and Pittsburgh, and beat Liberty and.....DePaul. NU has one fewer conference losses than Indiana.
We should be happy two B1G teams are in the top 16 and we are 3-0 against them. Bodes well for how the committee will view the Cats’ body of work.
Not any dumber than some transitive idea that a team that lost to another team is always worse. Sometimes lesser teams upset better teams. This... isn't a new concept in sports.
I get your point. It’s valid. But, head to head record should count for something too.
The point you're missing is that this isn't some transitive argument. NU has a better record than Indiana, both in conference and overall, and have beaten them twice. That's why they play the games. It's not some theoretical scenario. This isn't a new concept.
Cats are 4-0 against other top 25 Kenpom teams( Illinois, Indiana twice and Purdue) so how in the world 🌎 are we ranked 46th in same poll?
It's called strength of schedule. It's a half game difference in overall record and Indiana played Xavier, Kansas, and Arizona in the non-con. NU's weak non-con is the thing holding back it's NET rating. Pittsburgh boat-raced NU, has a better record, and is a #9 seed while NU is a #6 because of their weaker overall schedule. I don't see anyone complaining about that.
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Semantics.
We beat IU straight up H/A.
We have the better record on top of that... you shouldn't be ranked higher.
The issue is not so much that IN is ranked that high but that NU is ranked in the 40s. With a string of losses, IN still gets to the dance. But we are in the 40s so how far could we fall with a losing streak? Doesn't take that much to push us down to the 50s or even 60s. That would potentially knock us out regardless of the body of work we have put together. The issue is that even with all we have done, they have ranked us as if we were a 6 or 7 win team in conference rather than a 10-5 team
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This.
Ranking are stupid. NU was ranked 13th in the B1G in preseason polls. What they do on the court in the next 2 weeks is all that matters.
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One thing that I haven’t seen talked about much on here that the committee uses is SOR (strength of record), which only looks at how you’ve performed against your schedule without predicting your future likelihood to maintain that performance.
In SOR, we’re 21st in the country, which is a big part of why we’re on the 5 line in some projections. Indiana’s SOR is … 20th.
Where we lag a little is in predictive metrics, which is ultimately what KenPom is. His system is as much about forecasting future results as anything else, which is why Vegas references it for setting lines. We’re down in 46th there while Indiana is still … 20th.
Of course this stuff isn’t everything but it’s designed to help evaluate nuanced situations like this where we’ve beaten Indiana twice but also lost to a fringe bubble team (Michigan) twice and got boat raced by both a projected 9 seed (Pitt) and weirdly bad OSU at home.
So you could argue IU probably deserves to be a 5 rather than a 4, but it’s also hard to argue elevating us above them in seeding. I’d say we probably deserve a 6 right now but obviously could keep moving up.
Are you that good or did you just read today's Bracketology on ESPN? You nailed exactly how they have it. 👏
Who you play matters. It sort of contributes to that whole record thing.
Unless you're going to argue that there's no way in hell we should be ranked ahead of Pittsburgh, this seems like an oddly weird hill to stand on. The committee has made it clear the "entire body of work" is what matters, NOT any single H2H matchup.
Who you beat/lose to matters more. If IU had split the series I'd have no problem with them being ranked higher.
The new rankings aren't out yet. If NU wins today I would put money on them being ranked higher than IU
Thanks for making my point for me. Who you beat/lose to does matter. While NU beat awful Georgetown and DePaul, Indiana lost to Top 10 Kansas and Arizona. They play NU's schedule and they likely have a better record.
They have most of the same good wins as NU (Purdue, MSU, Ohio State, Illinois, and Wisconsin) plus Rutgers, Michigan, and Xavier. The two wins over Indiana are more important if evaluating just the two teams, but they are by a total of three points. Michigan has beaten NU twice (and the games ultimately weren't particularly close), but I don't think anybody believes they should be ranked ahead of NU.
The committee is tasked with evaluating every team and their entire body of work. I suspect NU's weak non-con gave a still-gelling team much-needed confidence and that may ultimately have led to its B1G success, but the team didn't distinguish itself with its non-con play.
Again you can play semantics all you want.
We beat you twice.. by how much is irrelevant.
We have a better record.
If the ranking system was worth a damn we should be higher.
I do not feel like I should have to explain to a bunch of sports fans how occasionally better teams lose games to worse teams.
Dumb take. NU has proven it is a better team than IU. Twice. Those are not fluke wins.
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