You’re comparing this Miami team to an Indiana State team lead by Larry Bird?
Sir, whatever you’re drinking, please share.
5 Likes
For real, Byers is at least 2x better than Bird.
10 Likes
I’m comparing two undefeated mid-major teams and their presence/absence in the AP poll. Pay attention.
1 Like
He’s like Larry but with a better back.
If byers had 1/5th of Birds passing ability or trickeration he’d be up for player of the year in all of college basketball
A better historical example is WMU in 75/76. They stated the season 19-0. They entered the poll at 17 once the were 11-0
1 Like
That was the Dan Roundfield team right?
Dan Roundfield played for Central Michigan. This Western team was led by Jeff Tyson.
2 Likes
Oh yeah. I misread it as Central where Rounds and Majerle (earlier) both played.
Georgia lose to a bad ole Miss team at home. Surely they drop from the rankings
1 Like
Watched the wild ending of Kentucky’s one point win at LSU. Full court pass and shot from the top of the key with 1.4 seconds. Wildcats trained once by 18 points.
I don’t think anyone here will say college sports has the same landscape now as it did in the 1970s. I’m struggling to see how those are good comparisons. Does anyone have examples of more recent, high win% (not necessarily undefeated), low SoS teams and where they ended up?
Best example I can think of is Drake last year which were 30-3 and won their conference and got an 11 seed which is borderline an at large bid but assuming they lost a game in their conference tournament they probably wouldn’t have got an at large at 29-4. But even then they had wins against Miami fl, Vandy, FAU, and Kansas state so their SOS was probably better than us.
That’s probably a better one but their SoS was still 127 on Kenpom.
There really isn’t a modern analogue to what Miami can do (there’s still a lot of work to do and we very well could end up losing 3 or 4 regular season MAC games in which case its business as usual, must win in Cleveland).
First and foremost, lets just win every damn game and not worry about it.
Outside that, I’ve been saying for a few weeks that the formula seems pretty simple from here to me as far as at-large chances: if we win out and lose in Cleveland (so only 1 loss), we will get in. If we lose 2 regular season games and then lose in Cleveland (3 total losses), we will not get in. Lose one regular season game and then also lose in Cleveland, that’s where it gets really interesting and ultimately its going to really depend who those losses are to, by how much, and whether the committee feels like they need to use Miami as some sort of message on strength of schedule.
Its a tough spot because they certainly don’t want to send a message that weakening your schedule is the way in, but the power conferences have built a system where almost no mid-major can build the schedule they need for an at-large anymore even if they try to build one.
#14 UNC pick up their 3rd loss
Just to clarify, I wouldn’t dump the non-D1’s for other mid majors. I would dump them to play a neutral site event that included P4 teams. If we can’t get into one, I’d run it back with this year’s schedule again.
If we have two Q2 losses, road conference game (I guess Kent is the best chance of that?) and title game, that’s where one or more talking heads beating the drum of “their sos sucks because no one would play them” for us could really help. It’s not like we are some mid level power conference team that had the ability to schedule reasonably tough out of conference but purposely scheduled cupcakes. Unless Travis is completely full of sh!t, we didn’t have a choice. Having only Q2 losses (2 at most obviously) I think is the key, because other bubble teams are going to have Q2 losses as well and perhaps a Q3 loss if we are lucky.
In other words, they could send the message that we aren’t going punish significantly over-performing mid majors for things out of their control. One can dream at least.
We not only need to win, but also need to beat the shit out of teams like we did Tuesday to get our NET higher. At 44, we have no chance. We probably need to be top 30 (maybe 35) to really have a chance. Of course a higher NET doesn’t guarantee us anything, but it gives them one less excuse to screw us over.
Now they cross the Bay Bridge to play a solid Cal team. Not an easy road trip for teams from Tobacco Road.