Tourney (MAC and NCAA) picture

[clarkwgriswold]

Well, I guess Senderoff gets to start his recruit calling marathon early this year!  The extra time will also give Jimmy Hall time to work on his nuclear physics degree,

 

Monmouth deserves a spot in the tournament (THE NIT!).  If that team didn't have the creative group of 6th grade level geniuses at the end of their bench, you'd have never heard of them this season.  Their league championship game against Iona had about 7 people in the stands.

[NWAkron]

Agree.  Can't imagine Akron's coaching staff putting up with that nonsense.  That was all about PR and spiking media interest.

[zippy5]

14 minutes ago, clarkwgriswold said:

Well, I guess Senderoff gets to start his recruit calling marathon early this year!  The extra time will also give Jimmy Hall time to work on his nuclear physics degree,

 

Monmouth deserves a spot in the tournament (THE NIT!).  If that team didn't have the creative group of 6th grade level geniuses at the end of their bench, you'd have never heard of them this season.  Their league championship game against Iona had about 7 people in the stands.

They beat UCLA, Notre Dame, USC, Georgetown.. They should be in.

[zippy5]

2 minutes ago, NWAkron said:

Agree.  Can't imagine Akron's coaching staff putting up with that nonsense.  That was all about PR and spiking media interest.

Nonsense? Heaven forbid some college kids have some fun sitting at the end of the bench. They should be banned from the tournament unless they politely golf-clap all of next season.

[NWAkron]

That works for me

[LZIp]

[ace]

I'm all for kids having fun during basketball. And honestly, bench reactions are hilarious. Like in the NBA when a huge dunk goes down and the whole bench just absolutely loses their minds, but those are all spontaneous. Monmouth was fun but like all fads got kind of old after a while. Their whole scripted routine started to feel pretty forced once the media jumped all over it. 

[kreed5120]

17 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

They beat UCLA, Notre Dame, USC, Georgetown.. They should be in.

 

They are a 7 loss team with a 199th ranked SOS. If Akron isn't a at-large contender, which they aren't, with 7 losses and a 129 SOS then Monmouth certainly isn't. There are plenty of other at-large teams that have more than 4 RPI top 100 wins.

 

Edit: 3 of their losses were to teams that had RPIs in the 200s

Edited March 8, 2016 by kreed5120

[zippy5]

2 top 50 wins. Committee has valued big wins more than they discount bad losses lately. Most of the writers I follow think they'll be in and I tend to agree. They've been rewarding the teams that go on the road OOC and come away with wins.

[skip-zip]

Ok, I will buy into the idea that Monmouth had the guts to go on the road and pull off some good OOC wins.  This is something that Akron needs to do more. 

 

But, how can anyone on here (and some of the pundits) be talking about a team with a #56 RPI (Monmouth) deserving an NCAA bid, and simultaneously be categorizing a team with a #34 RPI (Akron) in the "not a chance in hell" category?

 

Regardless of how someone might feel about how the committee might view Akron, I still trust that they value the ENTIRE RESUME more than anything else.  And Akron's season worth of performance has far more stature.  By a wide margin.   

[kreed5120]

22 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

2 top 50 wins. Committee has valued big wins more than they discount bad losses lately. Most of the writers I follow think they'll be in and I tend to agree. They've been rewarding the teams that go on the road OOC and come away with wins.

They are probably in...for now, but there are plenty of bubble teams that have opportunities to make statements in the coming days. 1 of those 2 RPI top 50 wins is against USC who has lost 6 out of last 8 and has an RPI of 43. They will easily fall out of top 50 with another loss. They need to cheer for Notre Dame and USC to do well and for chalk in the remaining games. You have to expect some team(s) that are borderline bubble will put together a decent run and steal a spot.

 

Edit: 16 of their wins came against teams with RPIs 200 or greater. Their conference schedule killed them.

Edited March 8, 2016 by kreed5120

[tpsjugglerdude]

49 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

They beat UCLA, Notre Dame, USC, Georgetown.. They should be in.

 

UCLA (15-16) 99RPI
ND (20-10) 37RPI
USC (20-11) 46RPI
GT (14-17) 103RPI

2 of these teams have losing records, but are historically good which helps their perception.

[zippy5]

25 minutes ago, skip-zip said:

Ok, I will buy into the idea that Monmouth had the guts to go on the road and pull off some good OOC wins.  This is something that Akron needs to do more. 

 

But, how can anyone on here (and some of the pundits) be talking about a team with a #56 RPI (Monmouth) deserving an NCAA bid, and simultaneously be categorizing a team with a #34 RPI (Akron) in the "not a chance in hell" category?

 

Regardless of how someone might feel about how the committee might view Akron, I still trust that they value the ENTIRE RESUME more than anything else.  And Akron's season worth of performance has far more stature.  By a wide margin.   

We beat a bunch of 150-200 RPI teams, they beat a bunch of 200+ RPI teams. Their RPI suffers comparatively for that, but they also had some nice wins that we are lacking. The committee probably sees through the RPI # and knows that if they had our conference schedule, their record would be very similar and their RPI would be higher than ours. You can't control your conference schedule, but you can go on the road and take on some tough teams before January. We feasted on cupcakes, they were beating ND, USC, UCLA and GTown, and they'll most likely get rewarded for it.

 

And our resume? Look, I love the Zips, but what have we done compared to them? Beat OU, KSU, BSU compared to them beating Niagara, Quinnipiac and Siena? I mean, our competition was a slight step up, but you can't point to our conference record as something to beat your chest about. There's no comparison on OOC body of work.

Edited March 8, 2016 by zippy5

[skip-zip]

4 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

We beat a bunch of 150-200 RPI teams, they beat a bunch of 200+ RPI teams. Their RPI suffers comparatively for that, but they also had some nice wins that we are lacking. The committee probably sees through the RPI # and knows that if they had our conference schedule, their record would be very similar and their RPI would be higher than ours. You can't control your conference schedule, but you can go on the road and take on some tough teams before January. We feasted on cupcakes, they were beating ND, USC, UCLA and GTown, and they'll most likely get rewarded for it.

 

Someone already pointed out that they have 3 Sub-200 losses.  If you tout their biggest wins, you also have to tout their truly awful losses as well.  If you really think Monmouth wins 13 games in our conference, that's up to you.  I disagree. 

 

Ok, forget about RPI and just look at Akron's #129 SOS and Monmouth's #199 SOS.  We're 70 spots higher, even with all of the "cupcakes", and our records are similar.

 

Seems like a "no brainer" to me.   

 

 

 

 

[zippy5]

We will see in 5 days!

[RowdyZip]

12 hours ago, Captain Kangaroo said:

FIFY

 

13 hours ago, K92 said:

Weeping and the gnashing of teeth in Portage County.  The rivalry misses them in Cleveland. 

Just checked their board and man, both of their fans are PISSED. 

[kreed5120]

Let's not forget that we beat the same team by 14 on a neutral court that they loss to twice, once at home and once on a neutral court.

[skip-zip]

16 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

We will see in 5 days!

 

Yes, we certainly will. 

 

What's funny is that if the selection committee gives a bid to a team without a "name" or a traveling fan base.....like Monmouth...it would possibly signal that they don't have a one-track mind in terms of who they select.  Maybe that's good news for all of us down the road. 

 

But I just don't understand, based on everything we have to grade the two teams, why someone would think that Monmouth is "IN" and Akron is a "no way". 

[LZIp]

13 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

Let's not forget that we beat the same team by 14 on a neutral court that they loss to twice, once at home and once on a neutral court.

Then we also can't forget that the team we beat by 14 on a neutral court was without their best player that averaged 22ppg this season.

[kreed5120]

17 minutes ago, LZIp said:

Then we also can't forget that the team we beat by 14 on a neutral court was without their best player that averaged 22ppg this season.

 

Fair enough. It still doesn't change my opinion. A 7 loss team from the 20th ranked conference that barely has a top 200 SOS should not make the tournament unless they receive their conferences auto-bid. You might say it isn't fair to penalize them for what conference they play in, but by letting them in over other mid majors that have similar records, but got stuck playing a vastly more grueling conference schedule (and schedule overall) would be equally, if not more, unfair. Why should Akron have to play the same difficulty OOC schedule then get stuck playing a vastly more difficult conference schedule?

Edited March 8, 2016 by kreed5120

[kreed5120]

The #1 most accurate bracketologist over the last 4 years currently has Akron as a #13 seed and facing Texas A&M. The good news is many of the teams seeded near them like Yale, Iona, Northern Iowa, and UNC Wilmington can no longer build on their resume and teams like Chattanooga, Ark-Little Rock Akron should be able to gain on and perhaps pass.

 

http://assemblycall.com/bracketology/

[zippy5]

Looks like we need Northern Iowa and Little Rock to drop one in their tourneys to move up to the 12 spot. 

[kreed5120]

10 minutes ago, zippy5 said:

Looks like we need Northern Iowa and Little Rock to drop one in their tourneys to move up to the 12 spot. 

UNI already clinched the MVC. Akron still has the opportunity to leap them, especially if they meet OU in the finals as what is currently 2 top 80 wins right now could perhaps turn into 3 top 60 wins. They probably need Ark-LR to lose, but they might be able to leap them as well, however, I feel that is less likely.

[zippy5]

45 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

UNI already clinched the MVC. Akron still has the opportunity to leap them, especially if they meet OU in the finals as what is currently 2 top 80 wins right now could perhaps turn into 3 top 60 wins. They probably need Ark-LR to lose, but they might be able to leap them as well, however, I feel that is less likely.

Didn't realize the MVC tourney was in the early week. Lunardi has us as a 12, we're close. Let's win the MAC first!

[ace]

2 hours ago, skip-zip said:

 

Yes, we certainly will. 

 

What's funny is that if the selection committee gives a bid to a team without a "name" or a traveling fan base.....like Monmouth...it would possibly signal that they don't have a one-track mind in terms of who they select.  Maybe that's good news for all of us down the road. 

 

But I just don't understand, based on everything we have to grade the two teams, why someone would think that Monmouth is "IN" and Akron is a "no way". 

Because of media exposure and because of Monmouth's perception earlier in the year. They were "giant killers" and that reputation had stayed with them whether it is still accurate or not. If you look at the body of work you'd see that Akron and Monmouth are close in resume strength but Monmouth certainly has a stronger perception from fans.