Rankings for 2020-21

[Husky_U]

Butler, Xavier, and Creighton have been crazy consistently good. Definitely picked the right 3 to get to 10 after the split.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

Are we really doing this again? LOL

Apparently so. After 50 years of watching preseason predictions come and go, you begin to take them with a grain of salt. To wit:


MEN'S BASKETBALL TOP 144 PREVIEWS - CollegeSportsMadness.com – Summer and Autumn 2019

#5 NORTH CAROLINA MEN'S BASKETBALL 2019-2020 PREVIEW – CSM – November 1, 2019

#51 DAYTON MEN'S BASKETBALL 2019-2020 PREVIEW – CSM - September 16, 2019

NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL NET RANKINGS – NCAA.com

3. Dayton (29-2)
80. North Carolina (14-9)

CSM set the 'Bar of Preseason Expectations' pretty high for the Tar Heels fans back in November. Now they’re unhappy. It's only March...

[stever20]

Are we really doing this again? LOL

A little more on the absurdity of the yearly cognitive dissonance.

Here are Butler's Pomeroy scores for the past 5+ (generally goes up in the Tournament games, so 2020 gets an asterisk) years...

2015: 20th
2016: 30th
2017: 25th
2018: 20th
2019: 72nd
2020: 25th*

Butler is remarkably consistent from year-to-year. You can pretty much just assume every single year, that its going to be at the back half of the Top 25. Im not sure why this is so hard to figure out, its not like its that hard to look this stuff up.

Yeah, it's a far easier argument for Butler IMO.

The impact of 20 round robin will be very interesting. As far as I know- only 2 11 team/20 game conferences. MAAC and Big Sky....

MAAC- 5th place was 10-10, 6th/7th was 9-11
Big Sky- 5th/6th was 10-10, 7th was 9-11

I think the OOC games will be huge for those teams. Figure those will have 1-2 Gavitt/B12 games, 2-3 tough Exempt tournament games, and then another 1-2 tough OOC games. If you have 10 conference losses, can only afford 3 losses and have a good chance at making the tourney.

It's a shame we don't have the data from this season on teams that finish like 17-15 or 18-16. A team like a Purdue for instance. Does SOS trump things, or does record at some point knock out teams? Does the committee start taking teams like that?

[paulxu]

Only twice, in 2012 and 2013 did #50 make the tourney.

#50 though NEVER gets in the tournament.

One of these things is not like the other.

[jfan]

Change that phrasing to something even slightly more malleable, and members here wouldn't continually get pissed off at you. Capice?

billyjack--- I'm not sure he understood all the ramifications of the word "capice" !

[Hall2012]

Sounds like someone's sleeping on the Pirates...

[stever20]

Only twice, in 2012 and 2013 did #50 make the tourney.

#50 though NEVER gets in the tournament.

One of these things is not like the other.

Since the conference changes in 2014, no team greater than #47 in the seed list has made the tournament. None. So yeah, it's fairly safe now to say that #50 doesn't make the tournament.

Also, Rothstein's thing had only 1 at large from the AAC, A10, MWC, and WCC. That's not realistic at all. Normally it's at least 6-7 from those 4 conferences.

[gtmoBlue]

@JonRothstein Nice top 45 Jon. Creighton's a bit low...more like #4. Other newcomers in Josh Primo and one of the phalanx of Harvard grad transfers.
Great work.

Thought Prov and X were to low as well. However, upon a little bit of examination they both lose a lot of personnel. If Naji stays, X should be higher - mid 20's - IMO.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

Rankings for 2020-21

Jon Rothstein's Top 45:
#2 Villanova
#7 Creighton
#33 Providence
#37 Xavier
#39 UConn

https://collegehoopstoday.com/index.php ... for-20-21/

This would be pretty solid! At least 5 Tournament teams (probably 6 I'd guess- a team like the Johnnies I'd put around #50) and a 1 seed and 2 seed in the Tournament.

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Jon Rothstein 2019-20 Preseason Top 25 - Jon Rothstein – 9 months ago

FINAL 2019-20 NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL NET RANKINGS – NCAA.com – March 13, 2020

adoraz - I wouldn’t waste my time doing a line-by-line comparison of the two listings, but feel free to knock yourself out if you’re so inclined.

Also, please bear in mind that there are thousands of sports writers across the country who are still being paid to produce daily articles for their employers. With all sporting events now cancelled, you gotta wonder how long these guys will still get to draw their full salary for producing the sort of dross that clearly excited you and some other posters.

[adoraz]

Fieldhouse- individually these don't mean much, but cumulatively they're solid.

Pre-season AP Top 25:
#10 Villanova (nailed it)
#12 Seton Hall (extremely close)
#19 Xavier
---
#29 Marquette
#37 Georgetown
#40 Creighton
#46 Providence

If you look at the pre-season, there are 6 teams that'd definitely be in the NCAA Tournament (top 40), and one on the bubble (#46). In other words, exactly where we finished. Swap Georgetown for Butler and they nailed the field (with Xavier being on the bubble rather than Providence).