How Do We Go Dancing? Week 2
by Adam Bittner on Jan 21, 2009 11:46 AM EST
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PrintBumped from the Fanposts. Fugimaster gives an excellent update on Penn State basketball's post season hopes. - BSD
Resume
Record: 15-5, 4-3
RPI: 88 (10th in Big 10)
Key Wins: at Georgia Tech, Purdue, Michigan
Key Losses: Rhode Island (12-6), Temple (9-7)
Last week, I set a goal of a 9-4 finish for the Nittany Lions to put themselves in good position heading into the conference tournament with a 22-9 overall record. Since then, the Lions have gone 2-0, winning in Bloomington against Indiana for the first time ever, and at home against Michigan. Both of these games were in the MUST-WIN category, and the Lions took care of business.
THIS WEEK:
The Lions host Iowa at 6 P.M. in the Jordan Center on Saturday. This game, too, is a must win. The Lions will then have 8 days to prepare for their trip to the Breslin Center for a rematch with the Spartans.
PATH TO 9-4
The Nitts must have all three of the remaining games against Indiana and Iowa to get to 18 wins. The other 4 will have to come from road trips to Michigan St., Michigan, Purdue, Illinois, and Ohio St. and home games against Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Losses should be expected at Illinois, Purdue, and Michigan St., meaning the Lions will need to go no worse than 4-1 against Minnesota, at Ohio St., at Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. The task remains daunting, but Ohio St. and Michigan have both looked very beatable in the last week, and Minnesota was tripped up by Northwestern. Don't forget, they shot lights out at the Barn a couple of weeks ago to beat the Lions, and a repeat performance on the road is unlikely. The Lions NCAA chances may well hinge on the home games against Wisconsin and Minnesota, unless of course, they manage to pull out a road upset or two.
UPDATE:
Just checked out Joe Lunardi's bracketology. He doesn't have us in, or even in his last 8 out, but what is interesting is that hes calling for 7 Big 10 teams to make the tourny:
Seed in ()
Ohio St. (9), Illinois (12), Michigan St. (2), Purdue (7), Michigan (10), Wisconsin (9), and Minnesota (5).
That surprises me. I was expecting four, maybe five bids for the Big 10. Considering this, I think a 7-4 the rest of the way leaves us in darn good shape, 6-5 shaky but possible, and 5-6 with an outside chance. Anything less than 7-4, though, and I'll be uncomfotable. Either way, this is definitely good news. Penn State could easily move into the OSU or UM spots, or possibly even higher with a 7-4 finish.
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RPI
If you’re getting your RPI from RealTimeRPI then it hasn’t been updated with the UM win. Other than that I agree with your assessment. Nice work.
Correct
Its a little late to wait :)
God Created the World Out Of Nothing, Paterno Built A National Superpower On Cow Fields...
by Adam Bittner on Jan 20, 2009 11:42 PM EST up reply actions
Haha
True, plus they haven’t been updating every 5 minutes like they used to. That’s kind of a bummer.
by psuphiman80 on Jan 20, 2009 11:59 PM EST up reply actions
Didnt we
lose to Towson and beat Rhode Island? which would make for a slightly worse loss but slightly better win?
Nope
Lost to URI (72-77) in the “semifinals” of the Philly Hoop Group Classic. That lead us to play Towson (instead of ’Nova) the next night, where we proceeded to roll, 78-54.
That hurt.
Our SOS was bad enough OOC, we needed that game against Nova. Even if it was a loss, it’s going to be hard to overcome so many cupcakes in the RPI.
As bad as OSU is playing right now, they have an inside presence that makes me nervous as far as how that matches up against PSU’s weaknesses.
BSD
You were really only expecting four or five bids for the Big Ten? At the beginning of the season, that might have made sense, but the conference had a really good showing in non-conference play (Minnesota beat Louisville, Ohio State beat Notre Dame, Illinois doesn’t have one great non-con win but three or four very good ones, Michigan beat Duke and UCLA) and I thought six was very likely at that point, seven possible.
Penn State has a real shot, which I didn’t expect at the beginning of the year. The Big Ten’s deep enough that 10-8 might do it (impossible to do without at least a few good wins in conference play) even with a weak non-conference slate.
(Also, Illinois is listed as a 6. Illinois State is a 12.)
Lets look at it though
The only teams that have wins that jump off the page at you are MSU, OSU, and UM, and Minn. Illinois is taking advantage of a weak schedule. Theres 5. Beyond that, though, what do Purdue and Wisconsin have other than the eyeball test? Yea, they’ve got a good non-con, but they lost all of those games but one each, and have racked up just abut everything else against crappy teams. Wisconsin is 3 back of Penn State in the win column, and tied in the loss, which is why its perplexing to me that he has them in especially. Purdue has dealt with injury, I’m aware, but I don’t think they give out bids based on how good you COULD be with everyone in there. I don’t know. 6 is pushing it, but 7 seems a bit out of line to me at this point. That said, as a PSU fan watching a team that could easily slide into one of those last spots, its good news.
God Created the World Out Of Nothing, Paterno Built A National Superpower On Cow Fields...
by Adam Bittner on Jan 21, 2009 3:36 PM EST up reply actions
Ott
I was at the game and was thoroughly impressed with Ott’s play…I totally forgot what it was like to have a dominant big man. He looks like he’s only gonna get better, and play a large chunk of time later in the season.
Well, let's just hope it's a confidence booster.
His effort is encouraging, but doesn’t mean everything else to this point didn’t happen, either.
--
Mr. Bob Dobalina
by Run Up The Score on Jan 21, 2009 4:00 PM EST up reply actions
(slight threadjack, but still on topic to a point)
but this post is why we need a friggen playoff in college football. If we were having a comparable season in football (figure cupcate schedule, ooc loss to a cupcake team, in conference losses to the major powers, and maybe even another loss to a middle of the pack in conference team) then we’d be looking at something like the Champs Sports Bowl, and hoping to get the Alamo Bowl, and hoping we don’t drop to the Insight or Motor City Bowls. Can you feel the excitement?
But here in basketball, teams like Penn State (and about 60 other teams “on the cusp”) are still battling out for slots in the tournament, not to mention the teams who are virtual locks for the tournament still jockeying for seed position.
Expectations....
I see what you’re saying, but our expectations for the hoops team aren’t as high as they are for the football team. If we were Duke we’d probably be pissed off that we were fighting for 12 seed. Whereas Duke would be thrilled to play in the Champs bowl.
that's not exactly what I was trying to say
If we were Duke, yeah, we’d be pissed off if we were fighting for a 12 seed (or even lower), but at least they’d (we’d?) get to fight for the chance to still win it all in the tournament. In football, with a comparable season, the year would effectively be over. They use the excuse for not having a playoff in college football “well then every game matters” and “the season is like a playoff”, but those are practically contradictory statements, since if the season truly is like a playoff, then no game after a team’s first or second loss matters anymore. For a majority of teams in football those 2 losses come fairly early, and outside of the top 10 you’ve basically “ended” the season for every team before the final few weeks of the season.
Of course you could turn this around and say that in basketball if PSU loses one more “winnable” game, then we have no chance for the tournament, and our season is “over”, but at least our hopes lasted longer than in a “football” type setting, where our season would likely have been over on 11/28 (URI), or 12/06 (Temple), and almost definitely by 1/3 (Wisc), but here we are in basketball land and we’re still alive on 1/21, even after 1/11 (Minn) and 1/14 (MSU). And you know there are dozens of other teams out there in similar shape that still get to cling to some hope.
by The JuggerNitt on Jan 21, 2009 6:11 PM EST up reply actions
Eh.
I don’t see it as an apples to apples thing. I don’t think the season would have been over after 2 losses. There are 30+ games in hoops, and only 12 in football. So, a 2 loss season in football is about a 6 loss season in basketball. Are you saying that you’d be favor of a tournament in football in which we could have been in with 4 losses? I wouldn’t. I think a playoff would be great, but no more than like 8 teams.
well I was trying to make a similar comparison
that here we are with 5 losses, which is just shy of the “6” losses that would be equivalent to a 2-loss football team, and we are still “in the hunt” as long as we don’t drop any more “critical” games. Right now we seem to be saying that if we only lose 4 more games then we have a decent shot of being on the bubble. That would be a 9 loss season, equivalent to a 3 loss football team, which depending on the status of the other teams that particular year, should have a legitimate case for being in a playoff. This year, pre-bowl, there were a handful of 3-loss teams in the top 16, which would be about as large-spanning in comparison to the NCAA basketball tournament.
Also, I don’t necessarily think that a playoff in football should be as wide-spanning, where multiple conferences would be sending nearly half of their teams to it, but just making the comparison.
by The JuggerNitt on Jan 22, 2009 2:47 PM EST up reply actions
And don't forget about
The Big Ten tourney. Even Indiana/Northwestern are going to have a 4 game shot at the dance no matter how badly they play the rest of the regular season. And worst case scenario – even if we falter a bit down the stretch and finish 18-13 or something, we still will have a shot at making it. It would sure be nice to be in position to get 1-2 wins in the Big Ten tourney to lock up a bid, which is what I’m hoping for.
Big Ten Tourney
Gotta get a couple wins there too. I still feel like we need to get a quality road win or two. That schedule looks pretty rough.
Also-we’re 77 in the RPI now.
Thanks For the Update on the RPI
And yea, 9-4 would be a lot to do about nothing if the Lions don’t win at least one game in the b10 tourny.
God Created the World Out Of Nothing, Paterno Built A National Superpower On Cow Fields...
by Adam Bittner on Jan 21, 2009 3:44 PM EST up reply actions
Lets focus on a benchmark
The resume – Ohio State 2007-2008
19-13, 10-8 conf.
5th place Big Ten finish
Notable wins: Syracuse(eh), Florida(eh), Purdue, Michigan St.
Notable losses: none
First round exit in Big Ten tourney
Was one of the last teams “out”, according to the Bracketologers.
If we can manage to go 21-10, and get a win in the Big Ten tourney I think we’d be in. Granted, who knows how the committee would look at us as we lack a respectable non-conf win. However, if we add a few more notable victims to the Purdue list, we might be fine. Speaking of the conf tourney, hope for a 6 seed instead of a 4 or 5. Check out the bracket to see what I mean.
..and to refute the comment in the original post (with all due respect Fugi)
As of right now, Purdue is the only win that the selection committee will consider “good.” Michigan may be good in our terms, and probably rightfully so, but if they continue to slide it won’t mean anything when the final resume is examined. Neither is Georgia Tech, the same Georgia Tech that is 9-9 and 0-5 in the ACC and apparently awful. The committee doesn’t give alot of leeway when determining whether a win is “good” or not. Purdue is the only one that means something so far.
Big Ten Standings
I think it’s crucial we work our way up in the Big Ten standings. The committee will probably look at the Big Ten as a whole this year and pick some arbitrary number of Big Ten teams to admit to the tournament. Probably five or six. So in my mind we have to finish in the top half of the conference in order to make the tournament. And if we’re the one that finishes sixth, they’ll only take five teams because Penn State is just not a big draw attendance wise.
Mike
Black Shoe Diaries
Wins
When I put those three games down, I put them down because I felt like they were our best wins, regardless of how much stock the committee will put in them.
Also, who else is giddy that we don’t have to play Northwestern again? Geez, they almost beat Purdue, and now have beaten MSU and Minnesota in the same week. Geez.
God Created the World Out Of Nothing, Paterno Built A National Superpower On Cow Fields...
by Adam Bittner on Jan 21, 2009 9:24 PM EST up reply actions
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