NCAA Tournament Field is Set
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bracket
My main takeaway is that the selection system is broken. Mid Major regular season champs are left out if they don’t also win their conference tournament. The regular season is essentially pointless. USF and Indiana State deserved to get in. Also, Michigan State getting in the tournament is an absolute joke.
I would have swapped Virginia with Indiana State. That's the only real grievance I had. Even Stevie Wonder could see that MSU was going to make the tournament.
Of course, they got in on reputation alone. They have two good wins Illinois and Baylor.
Also Indiana State by a dozen. They don’t beat Indiana State their fates might be reversed
I'm not sure that would have mattered in the end; maybe it knocks them down to the 10 line but that would be a "good loss" for MSU according to these analytics. Seemingly there are some schools/programs where they get ranked high early on and unless they just crater you don't see them drop too much.
I see why MSU made the tournament but a 9 seed seems pretty crazy to me. They're 3-9 in Quad 1 games and 9-14 in Q1+2 games. NET seems like one of those systems where once you get high enough you never can fall that far because every loss you suffer is considered a "good" loss because the team that beat you gets a bonus for beating a "good" team so unless you just crater nothing really happens to you. Witness Kansas and MSU seemingly not budging much all year despite being underwhelming.
College basketball, the sport where you get rewarded for losing
A few years ago I remember Buckeye fans trying to count a 3-9 Nebraska as a quality win because they had a lot of close losses when arguing about playoff chances.
If that were the case we would have been the number one overall seed with a double bye.
MSU seems to really figured out how to work the NET rankings. 19-14 overall and 3-9 vs the best teams they played yet ranked in the mid-20s is a joke.
Perhaps you shouldn’t get punished for losing to top teams but your likewise shouldn’t get a benefit from losing to them. Anyway you look at it, going 3-9 vs the top teams and 6-5 against the meh teams is not a tourney team resume for any neutral observer
Yeah, it's not that I don't think they should get some credit for scheduling tough games out of conference but...you gotta win some of them. I looked at their KenPom numbers and here are their wins away from Breslin - meaning true away games or neutral-site ones:
- Baylor @ LCA, 88-64
- Maryland, 61-59
- PSU, 80-72
- UM, 73-63
- Minnesota @ BTT, 77-67
That's it. Baylor and Minnesota are the only teams in that lot to finish with a winning record (and Minnesota only got there because they played a terrible OOC schedule), and only Baylor made the tournament. Hell, Indiana finished 19-14, same 10-10 conference slate, and have 7 road/neutral-site wins and nobody even thought of them as a bubble team. Yes, those road wins were all over bad teams but, like, they mostly are the same as MSU's.
I don't have a big problem with them getting into the tourney but it probably should have required a stop in Dayton first, but then again UVa shouldn't have even gotten in so the committee seemingly only watched a couple of games this year and then just went by names.
Too much reliance on brand names and the "eye test". Need a pariwise for basketball.
They have their precious NET.....and then don't look at the damn thing when they stick Virginia in and leave Indiana State home.
The commitee loves their Baylor blowout win and their net ranking . ISU got shafted
Apparently they don’t give much of a shit about ISU’s NET ranking.
Go Oakland. I hope they have a good run. They can become a mainstay.
One unintended consequence of Michigan losing a lot of games - St Johns loss to U-M looked worse and worse. They were right on the bubble: Michigan probably kept slimeball Rick Pitino out of the NCAA!!!
Then our master plan worked. Excellent.
The season WAS a success!
Beating Pitino at Louisville in his final game as a 7 vs 2 seed and knocking him out of college bball felt like knocking Saban out of college football. But the cockroaches can be hard to kill. Pitino popped back up, and we squashed him again with our worst team ever. Will Saban come back?🪳🪳
I would have to say that one win that accounted for 12.5% of our season total was worth way more than that!
It is? The women’s field is being set right now, not yet done.
(we’re a women’s basketball school now)
And the men's hockey field is yet to be set.
While Michigan is 100% in per the probability site https://www.collegehockeynews.com/ratings/probabilityMatrix.php, I prefer Michigan to keep it's #10 ranking. #16 St Cloud St just beat #11 WMU while (I think) #13 Colorado College is leading #11 Omaha 1-0 w 6 minutes to go in the 2nd. (I think Omaha just had a goal waived off.)
On the margin, it should be helpful for the lower ranked teams to win. WMU is now #13 while St Cloud is now #14. https://www.uscho.com/rankings/pairwise-rankings/d-i-men/
(Sorry, I was looking for a place to put this w/o creating a new thread.)
Edit: Omaha beats Colorado College 2-1.
Staee making the tourney:
March 17th, 2024 at 11:35 PM ^
underrated show!
MSU getting a 9 and in the weakest quad is so on point. Izzo has pictures. Lots of them. It is the only reason he never a gets technical calls and they get an easy path. Yet, Izzo sucks so they will be home by Sunday.
I can’t help but think of Izzo’s jeering at Harbaughs expense during the football season with a “how’s Harbaugh these days?” kinda comment when the sign stuff was raging.
Well Tom, Harbaugh is a defending national championship coach and you just steered your preseason top-5 team into a ditch in the weakest Big 10 during your tenure. You will soon be joining the rest of us sitting on our couches by next Monday.
That guy is such a petty dickhead, just like Mork. Hope they go out in the opening round.
The Omaha session may have the most interest for UM fans and the East as a whole - DeVries, Otzelberger, Smith, Dutcher, May. If Colorado State was in there they could advertise it as a playoff for the Michigan job.
It's weird, but you kinda want your top choice(s) to go out early. A deep run increases chances of contract extensions
March 17th, 2024 at 10:25 PM ^
We will just tell their AD its sunny here and they dont stand a chance so no need to counter offer.
Yeah, the fact ISU and USF were skipped but UVa, which was the 70th team to KenPom and 54th to NET this season (for comparison UM last year was 44th and 61st to those metrics last year and didn't get a sniff of the tourney), got in because reasons. Similarly, MSU got a ton of credit for losing to a bunch of good teams and beating a couple, and that's why they're a 9 seed despite a resume that looks far more questionable.
But in terms of Michigan's coaching search I guess it's nice two of the top-ish targets are heading to the NIT, meaning they're likely even more amenable to overtures from UM.
Vermont is in! Go, Cats, Go! BEAT DUKE!
MSU was never even really considered THAT much of a bubble team, so idk why people are surprised they got in. 9 might be a little ambitious but at least it means they're likely one and done at best (also: boo M women getting the 9 seed).
MSU's tourney streak is starting to feel a lot like the Red Wings playoff streak. At the end of the day everyone accepted mediocrity just to keep the streak going. That seems to be where their program is now so good for them I guess? Obvi I'd love michigan to be consistently, uh, present in the postseason but their identity is so ingrained in basketball so I enjoy seeing their slow fall. Hopefully like the wings, once they miss a tourney (and when izzo retires) they'll *really* hit a stretch of irrelevance
They lost 14 games this year! Whenever you lose 14 games, you should be on the bubble. This is not a good basketball team.
I used to go to random NCAA tournament games with my dad where we got tickets months in advance. We would hate first round games wjth some random power school with double digit losses up against another random power school with double digit losses. They are boring.
March 17th, 2024 at 10:22 PM ^
I'm not saying the bracket predictors online are experts, but both Lunardi at ESPN and Palm at CBS has MSU in the last 4 in (play-in game). That means they felt they were a bubble team.
March 17th, 2024 at 10:26 PM ^
Meh… MSU’s streak ended in 2021. They were gifted a play in game because they didn’t have covid. Any other year they would have been sent home.
March 17th, 2024 at 10:39 PM ^
Yup, call it "round 1" all you want but when you lose the "play-in game" you are OUT.
March 18th, 2024 at 12:35 PM ^
MSU is the only Non Automatic Qualifier that does not have at least 20 wins.
March 17th, 2024 at 10:14 PM ^
The Tom Izzo bias is very clear
March 17th, 2024 at 10:25 PM ^
Who cares. MSU totally mid and not doing anything in the tourney. "Mr. March" - what a joke. Tiny Tim had kept all the the Sharty fanbase from completely imploding over their train wreck football season and program due to a top 4 ranking going into the season and dreams of a National Title. LOL - "WaIT TiLl BAskeTBAll SeASOn!"
Overrated mid team, not going anywhere. Absolute disappointment of a year for them unless they go on a magical run to the Final Four. Not happening.
And UM football still won the National Title and they need to choke on that forever.
Is Michigan State the only "non Automatic Qualifying team" with less than 20 wins in the tournament field?
They are not going anywhere, but that is kind of the point. The annual Izzo Lifetime Achievement Award Overseeding deprives some other deserving team of an opportunity.
March 17th, 2024 at 10:32 PM ^
January, February, Izzo?
/s
March 17th, 2024 at 11:14 PM ^
Indiana State
Since the NET ranking was introduced in 2018, no team ranked in the top 30 ever missed the tournament − until now.
Indiana State won't be dancing despite having a No. 29 NET ranking on Selection Sunday, the highest rank to miss out on the tournament.
March 18th, 2024 at 12:15 AM ^
That's just brutal.
On the flip side, any team in the B1G, Pac 12 or ACC probably gets a 5 seed with that NET ranking.
Larry Bird has to be livid...
The NCAA Selection Committee - amazing fans across the country.
This makes absolutely no sense - none whatsoever. Indiana State seems more deserving than Colorado, Colorado State, or Virginia - and, not to mention Michigan State.
March 18th, 2024 at 12:49 AM ^
Virginia in is a fucking travesty. Indiana St got robbed. Texas A&M + Miss St also...gross.
Long Beach St. is going to the tournament with a fired coach (fired him a week ago but asked him to still coach the conference tournament, which they shockingly won). After punching their ticket dude dropped this gem:
On Monday Dan Monson was fired after 17 years at LBSU. Now he's dancing.
— Brenna Greene (@BrennaGreene_) March 17, 2024
"When Jim Harbaugh says who's got it better than him, someone's got to tell him Dan Monson... I have the 1999 run at Gonzaga, but as Mark Few said over text, why don't we have a run in the first year and a… pic.twitter.com/Cb5MCctlS8
Monson should've never left Gonzaga. :)