The blind bubble

[ZachTheZip]

I saw this on ESPN and like the idea of removing "name" biases from schools.

Here are 12 "bubble" schools:

TEAM RPI SOS OOC R/N 50 100

A 17 60 38 9-7 3-2 9-4

B 45 8 52 7-7 1-10 5-12

C 49 87 111 7-5 0-5 5-7

D 21 5 26 5-9 3-5 8-9

E 33 2 11 5-8 5-6 9-10

F 67 251 231 14-6 1-2 4-3

G 50 19 91 4-9 3-9 4-10

H 47 104 63 12-5 3-6 5-6

I 44 29 58 5-10 1-9 6-9

J 54 51 57 6-8 2-6 6-10

K 55 22 17 7-5 1-8 5-9

L 75 40 169 3-10 4-7 7-9

And here is Akron's resume:

Z 62 98 40 8-8 0-3 3-9

We're just a notch below where the bubble teams sit. Strength of Schedule is perfectly fine, but we didn't do a good enough job of beating the top teams we played. Losing close games like CSU, VCU, and ORU really hurt us.

[Dr Z]

Bubble Shmubble!

Win two games in row on a neutral court against Mac teams.

One of those teams, more than likely, will be a team you beat twice already.

It's all set up...take it, no excuses!

[skip-zip]

Zach's numbers should tell us all that we were moving in the right direction this year.

We need to continue to push ahead aggresively at this point, instead of retreating. If not, we'll continue to play the #2 and #3 seeds each year, with little chance of advancing. Or worse yet, a hot team will knock us out of the tourney completely (OU 2010).

At-Large Consideration = You are getting more attention nationally = higher seed = better chance of advancing.

THAT IS WHY you should play the regular season as if you are playing for an at-large bid.

Retreat back to a mentality that the conference tournament is all that matters, and we'll continue to get awarded with a bottom seed well into the future.

[Captain Kangaroo]

I agree. This year's schedule gave us a chance at an at-large bid, and kept us in the national at-large discussion into late-February.

Next season we should have CSU, Marshall, Creighton and Oral Roberts at home. Maybe ORU in 2013-14, but we'll see.

Regardless, the neutral court games in Puerto Rico, plus the high-mid-majors @ home, give us a great shot at breaking through the glass ceiling next year.

But we still have 5 or 6 games left in 2011-12 before we need to contemplate the distant future.

[Dr Z]

Retreat back to a mentality that the conference tournament is all that matters, and we'll continue to get awarded with a bottom seed well into the future.

Agreed, but the time to think about an at large bid was in the regular season...which is over.

KD blew his chances against VCU, CSU & ORU. If we don't beat two mac teams this weekend, the Zips don't deserve an at large bid.

I'll shift my thinking about an at large next year, schedule permitting. If we happen to choke this weekend, I'm still interested in the NIT.

Maybe for the first time ever. Just because I think we will be a better team next season than we are this year, and be playing ia a tournament where we won't be double digit underdogs will do the young kids some good.

[zippyfan34]

Next season we should have CSU, Marshall, Creighton and Oral Roberts at home. Maybe ORU in 2013-14, but we'll see.

Not to get ahead of ourselves to next year but I will be interested to see who KD has guard McDermott most of the time. If it was this year I think it would be the Serb. Since he will have graduated, I think Tree will do most of it, with Q, Harney and even a little Zeke in there.