Polls/Bracketology

Refuse2Lose83 · Post by **Refuse2Lose83** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 3:51 pm

DKERA wrote:
JPBoSox2 wrote: The Elon game for Duke is at a neutral site (Greensboro Coliseum, it will be closer to a home game for Duke). Duke's non-conference scheduling is brilliant. They get teams to play "neutral" games in the Meadowlands or MSG knowing full well that it will be packed with their fans.
Fair enough...didn't realize that. So they play 0 non-conference road games? None!?! That is absolutely absurd to me and I don't get how that is beneficial to your team in the long run.

Road games are a little over blown. what games do you want to win the most? Games in March against top competition on neutral sites! That is what the big schools like Duke are scheduling. They're playing tournament like games in November and December. Plus, they get plenty of tough road games when they get into conference.

Refuse2Lose83 · Post by **Refuse2Lose83** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 3:54 pm

CarriageEstates22 wrote:New bracketology from Lunardi. Has us as a 6th seed-seems about right.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

Doesn't the tournament committee try to avoid 1st round(technically 2nd round) games that are a rematch of a regular season game? If the season ended today, I think we'd be a 5 seed with our AP/Coaches ranking plus our RPI and SOS, and we wouldn't be playing FSU as we will be playing them in the regular season.

bharms08 · Post by **bharms08** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 4:54 pm

^^ they do, also if 4 A10 teams make it, they would likely split it up and put 1 in each region, instead of having both dayton and umass in the east. this early in the year, i think lunardi simply ranks each team 1-68 and places them accordingly, not taking into account who played who.

also funny how he automatically puts the current 1st place conference teams as the AQ, as Maryland is representing the ACC by virtue of their win vs BC

Chris20 · Post by **Chris20** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 5:40 pm

Updated BPI, the grandaddy of all rankings according to the Almighty Worldwide Leader, ESPN.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bpi

If last year is any indication, they push the crap out of their rankings and give it a ton of exposure. If we can stay relatively high, we'll get a lot of talk time.

uz2b-len · Post by **uz2b-len** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 7:39 pm

Just looked at the bpi link. Here's a little detail that may blow your mind. They have a statistic called VAR:

VAR: Average difference between team's game BPI and season BPI, a measure of game-by-game variation (higher represents more inconsistent).

We have the lowest VAR in the entire Div I. That is, we are the most consistent team in Div I. When did you ever hear those words applied to UMass?

Chris20 · Post by **Chris20** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 7:51 pm

Wow, that is something.

InnervisionsUMASS · Post by **InnervisionsUMASS** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 8:01 pm

ktabz16 wrote:i'm kind of hoping for buffalo.

Kind of???? I'm hoping and praying for this to happen!!!!

Refuse2Lose83 · Post by **Refuse2Lose83** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 9:22 pm

InnervisionsUMASS wrote:
ktabz16 wrote:i'm kind of hoping for buffalo.

Kind of???? I'm hoping and praying for this to happen!!!!

If we're of a good seed, wouldn't Buffalo be a real possibility. Since they've changed the way sites host teams (don't all have to be from the same bracket region) they like to keep teams as close to home as possible. I would assume the best seed from the 4 teams of that part of the bracket would dictate where the teams play. For example, (1-16, 8-9), (2-15, 7-10), (3-14, 6-11) and (4-13, 5-12) are the 4 team mini brackets. Meaning we'd have to have a top 4 seed to have a great shot at playing in Buffalo. It doesn't always work that way as I can remember higher seeds having to play in unfriendly sites.

aidanfromworcester · Post by **aidanfromworcester** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 9:49 pm

InnervisionsUMASS wrote:
ktabz16 wrote:i'm kind of hoping for buffalo.

Kind of???? I'm hoping and praying for this to happen!!!!

I'm with B-Long. Any chance to go to Buffalo is an opportunity for pure, unadulterated debauchery. God that would be sweet. If you haven't been to Buffalo, you can't even begin to imagine how awesome Buffalo will be....

Big_John_Studd · Post by **Big_John_Studd** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 9:55 pm

^
Agreed, I spent NYE in Buffalo last year. Between Chippewa St. and the casino in Niagara Falls there is plenty of fun/trouble to be had.

aidanfromworcester · Post by **aidanfromworcester** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 10:12 pm

^
I think this is the first time anyone has ever agreed with anything I said on here.

Blutrane93 · Post by **Blutrane93** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 10:14 pm

^Hahaha. Now, that's funny, Aidan.

Emilimo701 · Post by **Emilimo701** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 11:32 pm

bharms08 wrote:also funny how he automatically puts the current 1st place conference teams as the AQ, as Maryland is representing the ACC by virtue of their win vs BC

That's the reason why I dislike the pure if-season-ended-today prognostications because that defeats the whole point of prognostication. Thanks, Lunardi, for putting a underpaid and overworked (or lazy) intern in charge of your blog. If I wanted to know who is #1 in the ACC I could have just clicked on the standings link on the very same page.

What really boggles me are the bloggers who update their bracket or XYZ-predictions daily, yet still do things like that. If you're going to predict, then predict.

gmogmo · Post by **gmogmo** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 9:25 am

http://www.bracketmatrix.com/

This link has a bunch of mock brackets for your enjoyment....can see UMass averages a 5 seed at this stage of the game.

outsidethebox008 · Post by **outsidethebox008** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 9:31 am

haha... from the post above, this bracket has us as the #1 overall seed!! It also has VCU and St. Mary's as 2 seeds...

http://www.seed-madness.com/