tolbob

KD must have really wanted this win. Played 6 guys for over 25 minutes, with none of the next 4 playing more than 6 minutes. I remember past years when we went 9 or 10 deep, everyone playing at least 10 minutes. I hope depth is there when the tournament comes (the winner has to play 3 games in a few days).

Update: the last 5 games Kwan was 10 for 39 from the 3 line, just over 25%. In the two losses, he was 2 for 17, which shows that his shooting is key (the outlier is 0 for 5 against Ball State). You could tell that the missed shots against KSU were getting to him when he barely hit the rim on his only foul shot (he is a very good free throw shooter and that's the first time this year I saw his confidence decline). He did follow with his only three of the game which seemed to get him going. KD let him take the last shot against KSU to build his confidence going into the tournament (KD also said he left Big Dog in the lineup at the end of the Toledo game to get him used to shooting foul shots under pressure in the tournament, even though he missed the front end of three 1 and 1's). The good news is that Kwan's defense and rebounding remain at a high level. I believe his shooting will get back to the way it was the first half of the season. KD will have faith in him and he will be red hot by the end of the regular season.

I am not sure it is ever happened, but winning out and winning the Mac tournament with a 28-4 record might do it unless the committee goes by the pomeroy rating.

Your are right! I just thought the path would be somewhat easier being seeded 8th rather than 14th in the NCAA tournament.

Yep, that will strengthen our lock on NUMBER ONE in Luck!

Thanks for the explanation. That makes as much sense understanding this as anything. The luck rating reminds me of how "lucky" Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson were because every time they pitched the other team had a bad day at the plate. Pure luck.

Pomeroy ranking dropped to 100 today, but we're still number one in LUCK. I'm trying to make sense of this. Sam Houston State is number 2 in luck. Pomeroy ranking 207. Record 14-8, with only 2 of 14 wins by 5 or less. Hard to figure why they are number 2.

KenPom has UNC Wilmington at 56 while the Zips are 99. Need to keep wining.

Zips fell to 99 on KenPom today, but still hang on to the Number One ranking in LUCK. Good comments above. Maybe winning a close game is a luck factor, but going 9-12 against the spread does not appear to be unusual. Neither does having one-third of your wins ( 7 of 21) by 5 points or less. Still a mystery to me. Hate to make a big deal about this, but KenPom may influence those who do the tournament seedlings.

CBS and Realtime have Zips RPI at 36. KenPom has Zips at 97. I know RPI as been criticized, but that much disparity is hard to comprehend. KenPom has Zips ranked NUMBER ONE in "Luck." Maybe that explains the low rating. I am not member of KemPom so I do not understand how luck is calculated. Can anyone explain this? One could argue that an opponent's shooting percentage is lower than their average and that is just being lucky to play them on an off night, but doesn't the defense have something to do with that? Maybe the opponent's free throw shooting percentage is considered pure luck. The opponent's three point shooting may also be play into this because most three point shots are wide open. Help me understand this!

Sometimes a loss can get a team on track.

Seems like a lot of shots were taken from 5 feet behind the arc. I hate that, even when they go in.

Buffalo played one of their best games tonight, but their athleticism really exposed the defense. We can't stop drives to the hoop.

I'm ready to eat my words after Kwan made 3 or 4 from about 25 feet tonight!

Not good news for the Zips. Article says Saragin and Pomeroy are being consulted. Zips rpi on cbs, realtime, etc.is around 40 while rpi on Saragin and kenpom is around 80. If input from Saragin and kenpom are gong to be used in the future, Zips rpi will probably be lower than current metrics used.

I totally agree he is having an MVP season, improvement in all aspects of his game. HIs 3-point shooting is great, very high percentage of makes, but (hate to nitpick) I don't like the shots he takes from 5 feet beyond the 3-point line. He missed two of these last night and seems to do this often. His 3 point shooting percentage would be even better if he stops the shots from 25 feet.

Miami shot 7/16 pointers (44%). What happened to the number 1 3PT defense? Opponents have learned how to limit Akron's 3 point shots. Bad news. 3 losses in last 4 games.

Our seed would be lower. Our RPI would have been higher with a win at Kent (it certainly would not have ben lower).

NIU shot 39% 3-pointers. Where was the 3 point defense? Actually, teams will have good shooting nights against us every now and then. What hurt more was losing the rebounding (41-34) and turnover battles (13-7). You can look at so many lost opportunities in a 1 point loss, and the last few minutes of the game always stand out. Big Dog's foul shooting was great (8-10) before the last miss on the front of 1 and 1. They seem to be pulling the on the floor announcers from the student communications departments to give them experience. Awful !!

With an RPI in the 20's, we'd definitely be IN. The question in your scenario would be....how much would a loss in the MAC tourney drop that number? This is the Catch22. A loss in the tourney drops us out of any top 20 chance.

Reggie, Jake, Antonio, Noah combined for 4 of 22 threes. Great time for Josh to go wild.

Ball State shot 48% 3-pointers (higher than their MAC leading season average of 40%).

The vast majority of 3 point shots are wide open or they would not be taken. The defense generally can affect only the number of 3 point shots taken, and hope for misses on the open shots.

What happened to the Zips no. 1 3 point defense? EM shot over 50%