Will UK Make the Tournament?

[Joneslab]

Another thing that's wild about the NET that's hard to get your mind wrapped around: say we play a team that's a Quad 1 win. We beat them and theoretically get that Quad 1 win. But by dint of our beating them they drop out of Quad 1 territory and the win is suddenly not Quad 1 because they lost to us.

That's why I assumed wins were fixed. Simply because that whole thing doesn't make any sense. It's a system that punishes teams at times for winning games.

The committee if they wanted to remove human subjectivity should've probably gone with an array of metrics or something. The quad system is super weird. I've never paid attention to it much before given where Kentucky stood the last few years.

[justafan]

Well the NET is an unknown-to-us ranking. There could be lots of goofiness in it. Your point it correct - teams on the edges of quad categories will cause weird movements.

UT could lose, causing UKs NET to drop, again, and then Alabama loses the Q1 win (as does Missouri, etc).

So I present my opinion on the NET/Quad system. The AP/Coaches polls have a bias - Duke losing to UNC or vice versa, never seemed to affect their rankings, and in a year when they are highly ranked they never drop after losses. Teams in the BugTen this year are floating in the 25-35 rankings range and lose to one another and struggle to advance because they’re winning/losing to unranked opponents.

Enter “quad wins” and the NET. The Big12 is deemed the ‘greatest conference ever’ based on there NET and Quad 1 wins. Excluding Kansas who has 4 Q1 wins from non-conference opponents, the rest are Big12 opponents. It becomes a perpetual Q1 fest - well Kansas lost at home to Iowa St? but ‘that just indicates how great the conference is’. You have announcers/ESPN talking that 9 out of 10 Big12 teams will make the tournament. What? Currently, 2 of those teams are 5-10 in conference! ‘But it just shows the strength of the conference!!’ Or it’s an indicator of a conference that has a metric (NET) that has skewed everyone’s view.

Texas: 1 OOC Q1 win
Baylor: 3 OOC Q1 wins
K-state: 1 OOC Q1 win
Iowa St: 1 OOC Q1 win
TCU: 1 OOC Q1 win
ok St: 0 OOC Q1 wins
TTU: 0 OOC Q1 wins
oklahoma: 1 OOC Q1 win
WVU: 1 OOC Q1 win

So that’s my opinion on the skewed NET/Quad system this year. I didn’t pay attention too much before, but I held this opinion on the AP/Coaches polls before/currently.

[Joneslab]

I thought they might adopt KenPom or something like that before they unveiled the NET.

Re: the Big 12, I'm not sure what to think about that conference. It seems like every season you get "This conference is one of the best in history!," and then they'll have like one team in the Elite Eight. On the flipside you often get the experts ripping on a conference only to see it put four teams in the Elite Eight or something.

I'm not sold on the SEC this year. Seems like a lot of middling teams. I like Alabama a lot but with the Miller stuff you never know. Texas A&M plays that bruising style you sometimes see flourishing in March. Basically football on the basketball court.

[justafan]

Oh I’m definitely not saying the SEC is better. I’m just presenting a different narrative to “OMG look at all the Big12 Q1 wins!!!”

in fact, let’s look at the SEC and OOC Q1 wins:

alabama: 3
ut: 3
auburn: 1
uk: 0
florida: 0
aTm: 0
Arkansas: 1
miss st: 2
ole miss: 1

so Big12: 13, SEC: 11

removing top 2 from each: sec has 5 OOC Q1 wins and Big12 has 6.

So, narratives and stats can all be viewed with whatever bias someone wants.

I would predict 2 of the big12 teams make it out of the first weekend. I think the same for sec and big10.

[Joneslab]

Going back to the thing about teams retroactively sliding in and out of Quad 1, Kyle Tucker points out that Michigan--who it feels like we played in medieval times--might be a Quad 1 win soon. They beat Rutgers last night at Rutgers and made a big jump in the NET.

College basketball is cray this year.

[DA#23]

^ Therein lies frustration for many a fan. If we had a "good Kentucky team" we'd be pimp slapping most of these opponents. I'm not saying undefeated but realistically in the running for a 2 seed at least, and also working on the most wins stat / problem.

[Joneslab]

^ Therein lies frustration for many a fan. If we had a "good Kentucky team" we'd be pimp slapping most of these opponents. I'm not saying undefeated but realistically in the running for a 2 seed at least, and also working on the most wins stat / problem.

The better UK teams Cal has had would have 2 or 3 losses against this schedule probably.

UCLA and Alabama are really the only two that strike fear in a person.

[DA#23]

^ I think so, the schedule in hindsight wasn't as bad as I initially thought. We had a ton of big names this year.

[justafan]

UK’s NET moved up 1 to 28. Since no SEC teams played, I’d guess it was the Michigan jump.

[Joneslab]

UK’s NET moved up 1 to 28. Since no SEC teams played, I’d guess it was the Michigan jump.

Noticed this. Also Auburn is just out of the top 30 so won't be Quad 1, but it's still a solid enough win to give us another modest jump.

That Arkansas game to end the season is the one that could really push us up a couple of seed lines if we could get it.

[Joneslab]

Kentucky with a major jump in the NET this morning, all the way up to 20th.

Lunardi had them as an 8 seed after yesterday's game. But I think 20th in the NET probably puts them higher than that.

[Joneslab]

Oh, and that Michigan game I mentioned is today.

[KCKUKFan]

Kentucky with a major jump in the NET this morning, all the way up to 20th.

Lunardi had them as an 8 seed after yesterday's game. But I think 20th in the NET probably puts them higher than that.

20th in the NET puts them in a conversation for a 5 seed.

[Joneslab]

Kansas is a total lock to be a 1 seed. They have 15 Quad 1 wins, most ever by far.

Alabama is probably close to a lock at this point for the second 1, Houston will get the third.

Then it gets a little dicey. Purdue is struggling a little so I'm not sure about them. UCLA will probably get it if they win the Pac-12. UCONN is also a possibility.

And neither here nor there, but I wouldn't want any part of UCONN in the tournament. Too big. Oscar would be fouled out in the first half.

[justford]

^^^^^ So it is a possibility that 3 of our losses were from # 1 seeds. The UK team that beat Auburn would have been a more competitive game against those three.