This is the most realistic path. Correct, The Hall can't be cast aside. Of course, we would have to watch all the experts dragging SHU through the mud on the lead up to Selection Sunday. DePaul is the only concern now.
Realistic Chance to Dance
- Thread starter NYShoreGuy
- Start date
23-10 can be tossed aside when literally best quality win was before Thanksgiving dinner.
If they get to 23-10, their best win will have been in late Feb or early March.
I just mean historically the committee doesn't seem to put much stock in conference tournaments outside of placing auto bids or maybe determining the top overall seed.
While they all hurt, none hurt more than blowing the St.Johns game. Creighton, DePaul and Butler don't qualify as bad losses for our resume and wouldn't move the needle much if we won. Our Resume is very bland, no bad losses but no great wins. Beating St.John's at The Garden would give us something to hang our hat on. We have No Quality Win to move the needle.
22-9 (12-8) with a top 45ish NET would be difficult to keep out. Especially if Butler, PC and Creighton can win a couple games to finish top 75.
Look at the teams that are in above us...all these teams have warts on their resume.
Look at the teams that are in above us...all these teams have warts on their resume.
And the missed opportunities with SJU and Uconn. MWC is becoming the PAC 10/12 and they still need to add schools.
I truly believe that although UConn, Villanova and St. John's are favorites to go furthest in the BET, we are the team that no one wants to play because we have proven we can beat (or at least lose down to the wire) anyone (except Nova). Our defense rarely takes a game off. If we can go 4-1 the rest of the way, then make some noise in BET...let the cards fall where they may.
Beat them by 24...very nice
And I still say, while the league is not great, no teams are easy iuts. Ask kw.
Root for St. Louis to stumble some more and then the A-10 could become a 1 bid league.
VCU is a fringe bubble team out of the A-10 also.
They play each other this Friday.
Yeah we need to root for those 3 teams to finish strong. They are currently 79th, 80th & 81st. That's 6 games that can possibly improve into a higher Quad if any of those teams can finish in top 75.
L @ CRE Q2, 6 spots from Q1
L vs BUT Q3, 5 spots from Q2
W @ PROV Q2, 4 spots from Q1
W @ BUT Q2, 5 spots from Q1
W vs PROV Q3, 4 spots from Q2
W vs CRE Q3, 6 spots from Q2
Yeah they've fallen like a stone from the 50s to 80. Not only have they lost their last 6, 5 were double-digit losses before losing by 7 to us.
But if losing to the #80 team is our worst loss, that won't kill us. Lack of signature Wins are our biggest blemish. 1-5 vs Q1 and our 2nd best Win is over 11-15 Providence is no bueno.
We can be a pest no doubt, but haven’t UConn and SJU proven they can “beat anyone” given they have a whopping 2 losses between them and like 26 Ws, or whatever it is?
IMO 4-1 would give us 50/50 shot heading into selection Sunday. However, I learned a hard lesson 2 years ago and I will never make that mistake again.
Finish 5-0 and I would expect a bid. Maybe I didn’t learn a lesson
Finish 5-0 and I would expect a bid. Maybe I didn’t learn a lesson
For entertainment purposes only--Lord knows it gets plenty of facts wrong--I asked Claude AI to tell me what Mike and the Mad Dog would have had to say about Seton Hall's chances. Enjoy! And which one of you is Tommy from South Orange???
(Mike Francesa is leaned back so far he appears to be receiving a papal blessing from the ceiling. He has a Diet Coke. He is reviewing a printout with the expression of a Roman emperor who has just been handed an unsatisfactory tribute. Chris Russo is already vibrating at a frequency only dogs can hear, papers everywhere, one migrating toward the floor.)
RUSSO: AHHHHH GOOD AFTERNOON EVERYBODY! HOW ARE YOU TODAY! Welcome in! Mike, before anything else — SETON HALL! Eighteen and eight! They went into HINKLE FIELDHOUSE — built in 1928, Mike, Bobby Plump hit the shot THERE, they filmed Hoosiers THERE —
FRANCESA: Dawg.
RUSSO: — and BEAT Butler! Held them to thirty percent shooting! Then Providence at the Prudential Center, the place was JUMPING! And yet every bracketologist has them OUTSIDE the field! An eighteen-and-eight Big East team can't get in?! EXPLAIN it to me!
FRANCESA: (sets down the Diet Coke with the deliberateness of a man defusing a bomb) One. And. Five.
RUSSO: ...I'm sorry?
FRANCESA: Seton Hall's Quad One record, Dawg. Not two and five, which would already be a crisis. ONE win. FIVE losses. The whole yeah.
RUSSO: But those losses are to LEGITIMATE teams! UConn! St. John's! Villanova TWICE —
FRANCESA: Dawg. The committee does not give you a participation trawphy for losin' to good teams. They count the WINS. One Quad One win. NC State. In NOVEMBER. In Maui. Against a team that was ranked twenty-three at the time and has since revealed itself to be, at best, a borderline tawnuhment team. That is the res-u-may.
RUSSO: (papers shuffling, one achieving liftoff) FINE. But they have FIVE games left! Let's go through the schedule!
FRANCESA: Let's go through it.
RUSSO: DePaul tonight at home. WIN.
FRANCESA: WIN. Quad Three. Does absolutely nothin' for the res-u-may. You get credit for not embarrassin' the program. That's it.
RUSSO: Georgetown Saturday. WIN.
FRANCESA: Also Quad Three. Also meaningless to the committee. WIN. They're twenty and eight and the needle has not moved one single millimetah.
RUSSO: February twenty-eighth. AT UCONN —
FRANCESA: (Diet Coke pauses halfway to his lips)
RUSSO: I give them twenty percent —
FRANCESA: There's no twenty percent. LOSS. Dawg, Dan Hurley has built somethin' at UConn that is genuinely special. The man is an unbelievable motivatah. You think he's gonna let Seton Hall walk into Gampel Pavilion and embarrass him when he's fightin' for a one seed? Hurley will have that building at a level that Seton Hall simply cannot match on the road. LOSS. And it's not close.
RUSSO: March third — at XAVIER. Now THIS —
FRANCESA: Quad Two.
RUSSO: ...What?
FRANCESA: Xayviah is ninety-seven in the NET, Dawg. Away Quad One cutoff is seventy-five. Xayviah is ninety-seven. Quad TWO win. Good to have. Does not move the Quad One needle one inch.
RUSSO: It's still a good win —
FRANCESA: It's fine. Bettah than a loss. I'll take Seton Hall there, they're the bettah team with the bettah playahs. WIN. A Quad Two win.
RUSSO: Which means EVERYTHING comes down to March sixth. Senior Night. Prudential Center. ST. JOHN'S.
FRANCESA: (leans forward for the first time, requiring significant physical effort) NOW we're talkin'. St. John's is twenty-fourth in NET. Home game. Quad ONE. The ONLY remainin' Quad One opportunity on this schedule. The whole yeah comes down to one game on Seniaw Night against Rick Pitino.
RUSSO: Seton Hall HAD them in January! FIFTEEN-point lead in the second half —
FRANCESA: Couldn't hold it. Which Holloway has mentioned to his playahs approximately four hundred times since then. I'll take the Hall. Seniaw Night crowd, Holloway's defense, they win it fifty-five, fifty-two. Ugly. Nobody scores for four-minute stretches. WIN.
RUSSO: SO — twenty-two and nine! And the Quad One record improves from one and five to —
FRANCESA: Two and five.
RUSSO: ...Two and five.
FRANCESA: Two and five. NC State in November and St. John's in March. That's the case you're bringin' to Indianapolis. "We won twenty-two games and beat two Quad One opponents." One of whom is no longah ranked.
RUSSO: (long pause) That's... not a great case.
FRANCESA: No, Dawg. It is not a great case AT ALL.
RUSSO: BUT — the Big East brand! The strength of schedule! The committee RESPECTS —
FRANCESA: Twenty-five percent at-large. And the only reason it's that high is the Big East Tawnuhment. You win four games at Madison Square Garden, you're in automatically. THAT is the path. The at-large path is very, very difficult with this res-u-may.
RUSSO: FIFTY percent! And you know what this reminds me of?
FRANCESA: (closing his eyes) Please don't.
RUSSO: The 1969 METS —
FRANCESA: Tom Seaver won twenty-five games. Name me the Tom Seaver on this rostah.
RUSSO: BUDD CLARK! Thirty-one points against Providence! Reminds me of a young Kemba Walkah —
FRANCESA: You said someone reminded you of a young Kemba Walkah three weeks ago.
RUSSO: COMPLETELY different playah and a COMPLETELY different comparison and honestly BOTH of them hold up!
FRANCESA: (to producers, with the exhaustion of a man who has been having this conversation for thirty years) What innin' is it?
RUSSO: FIFTY PERCENT! Holloway! The Big East Tawnuhment at the GARDEN! This team is ALIVE!
FRANCESA: Twenty-five. The path runs through Seniaw Night and then four days at the Garden. Win the Garden, you're dancin'. Lose to St. John's and go out in the first round of the Big East Tawnuhment, you're watchin' Selection Sunday from your couch and you are not happy at eleven o'clock. Break. One call when we come back.
(Music. Commercial. They return.)
RUSSO: Tommy from South Orange, you're on with Mike and the Mad Dog —
CALLER: Hey guys. Mike, I think you're way off. Seton Hall is absolutely a tournament team. Holloway is a genius and Budd Clark is the best playah nobody's talkin' about.
FRANCESA: Tommy. What is their Quad One record.
CALLER: I mean... they've had some tough losses but —
FRANCESA: One and five. Their one win is NC State in Maui in November. NC State is no longah ranked, Tommy.
CALLER: Okay but — honestly Mike, I feel like you just don't LIKE Seton Hall. I feel like you're always gonna favah St. John's —
FRANCESA: (a silence so complete you could hear the Diet Coke carbonating) Tommy. I just told you — on the air — that I think Seton Hall beats St. John's on Seniaw Night.
CALLER: Oh. ...Really?
RUSSO: HE DID, TOMMY! Mike Francesa picked Seton Hall over St. John's! Write it down!
CALLER: Wow. Okay I take it back, Mike. That's — that's genuinely —
FRANCESA: You're welcome. Now. Do you have an actual argument for why they get in at-large, or did you call to tell me I don't like Seton Hall?
CALLER: I... I thought that WAS my argument.
FRANCESA: (to producers) Get rid of him.
RUSSO: Tommy! You were SO CLOSE —
(Click.)
FRANCESA: That's the at-large case for Seton Hall right there, Dawg. "I feel like you don't like them." We'll be right back.
(Mike Francesa is leaned back so far he appears to be receiving a papal blessing from the ceiling. He has a Diet Coke. He is reviewing a printout with the expression of a Roman emperor who has just been handed an unsatisfactory tribute. Chris Russo is already vibrating at a frequency only dogs can hear, papers everywhere, one migrating toward the floor.)
RUSSO: AHHHHH GOOD AFTERNOON EVERYBODY! HOW ARE YOU TODAY! Welcome in! Mike, before anything else — SETON HALL! Eighteen and eight! They went into HINKLE FIELDHOUSE — built in 1928, Mike, Bobby Plump hit the shot THERE, they filmed Hoosiers THERE —
FRANCESA: Dawg.
RUSSO: — and BEAT Butler! Held them to thirty percent shooting! Then Providence at the Prudential Center, the place was JUMPING! And yet every bracketologist has them OUTSIDE the field! An eighteen-and-eight Big East team can't get in?! EXPLAIN it to me!
FRANCESA: (sets down the Diet Coke with the deliberateness of a man defusing a bomb) One. And. Five.
RUSSO: ...I'm sorry?
FRANCESA: Seton Hall's Quad One record, Dawg. Not two and five, which would already be a crisis. ONE win. FIVE losses. The whole yeah.
RUSSO: But those losses are to LEGITIMATE teams! UConn! St. John's! Villanova TWICE —
FRANCESA: Dawg. The committee does not give you a participation trawphy for losin' to good teams. They count the WINS. One Quad One win. NC State. In NOVEMBER. In Maui. Against a team that was ranked twenty-three at the time and has since revealed itself to be, at best, a borderline tawnuhment team. That is the res-u-may.
RUSSO: (papers shuffling, one achieving liftoff) FINE. But they have FIVE games left! Let's go through the schedule!
FRANCESA: Let's go through it.
RUSSO: DePaul tonight at home. WIN.
FRANCESA: WIN. Quad Three. Does absolutely nothin' for the res-u-may. You get credit for not embarrassin' the program. That's it.
RUSSO: Georgetown Saturday. WIN.
FRANCESA: Also Quad Three. Also meaningless to the committee. WIN. They're twenty and eight and the needle has not moved one single millimetah.
RUSSO: February twenty-eighth. AT UCONN —
FRANCESA: (Diet Coke pauses halfway to his lips)
RUSSO: I give them twenty percent —
FRANCESA: There's no twenty percent. LOSS. Dawg, Dan Hurley has built somethin' at UConn that is genuinely special. The man is an unbelievable motivatah. You think he's gonna let Seton Hall walk into Gampel Pavilion and embarrass him when he's fightin' for a one seed? Hurley will have that building at a level that Seton Hall simply cannot match on the road. LOSS. And it's not close.
RUSSO: March third — at XAVIER. Now THIS —
FRANCESA: Quad Two.
RUSSO: ...What?
FRANCESA: Xayviah is ninety-seven in the NET, Dawg. Away Quad One cutoff is seventy-five. Xayviah is ninety-seven. Quad TWO win. Good to have. Does not move the Quad One needle one inch.
RUSSO: It's still a good win —
FRANCESA: It's fine. Bettah than a loss. I'll take Seton Hall there, they're the bettah team with the bettah playahs. WIN. A Quad Two win.
RUSSO: Which means EVERYTHING comes down to March sixth. Senior Night. Prudential Center. ST. JOHN'S.
FRANCESA: (leans forward for the first time, requiring significant physical effort) NOW we're talkin'. St. John's is twenty-fourth in NET. Home game. Quad ONE. The ONLY remainin' Quad One opportunity on this schedule. The whole yeah comes down to one game on Seniaw Night against Rick Pitino.
RUSSO: Seton Hall HAD them in January! FIFTEEN-point lead in the second half —
FRANCESA: Couldn't hold it. Which Holloway has mentioned to his playahs approximately four hundred times since then. I'll take the Hall. Seniaw Night crowd, Holloway's defense, they win it fifty-five, fifty-two. Ugly. Nobody scores for four-minute stretches. WIN.
RUSSO: SO — twenty-two and nine! And the Quad One record improves from one and five to —
FRANCESA: Two and five.
RUSSO: ...Two and five.
FRANCESA: Two and five. NC State in November and St. John's in March. That's the case you're bringin' to Indianapolis. "We won twenty-two games and beat two Quad One opponents." One of whom is no longah ranked.
RUSSO: (long pause) That's... not a great case.
FRANCESA: No, Dawg. It is not a great case AT ALL.
RUSSO: BUT — the Big East brand! The strength of schedule! The committee RESPECTS —
FRANCESA: Twenty-five percent at-large. And the only reason it's that high is the Big East Tawnuhment. You win four games at Madison Square Garden, you're in automatically. THAT is the path. The at-large path is very, very difficult with this res-u-may.
RUSSO: FIFTY percent! And you know what this reminds me of?
FRANCESA: (closing his eyes) Please don't.
RUSSO: The 1969 METS —
FRANCESA: Tom Seaver won twenty-five games. Name me the Tom Seaver on this rostah.
RUSSO: BUDD CLARK! Thirty-one points against Providence! Reminds me of a young Kemba Walkah —
FRANCESA: You said someone reminded you of a young Kemba Walkah three weeks ago.
RUSSO: COMPLETELY different playah and a COMPLETELY different comparison and honestly BOTH of them hold up!
FRANCESA: (to producers, with the exhaustion of a man who has been having this conversation for thirty years) What innin' is it?
RUSSO: FIFTY PERCENT! Holloway! The Big East Tawnuhment at the GARDEN! This team is ALIVE!
FRANCESA: Twenty-five. The path runs through Seniaw Night and then four days at the Garden. Win the Garden, you're dancin'. Lose to St. John's and go out in the first round of the Big East Tawnuhment, you're watchin' Selection Sunday from your couch and you are not happy at eleven o'clock. Break. One call when we come back.
(Music. Commercial. They return.)
RUSSO: Tommy from South Orange, you're on with Mike and the Mad Dog —
CALLER: Hey guys. Mike, I think you're way off. Seton Hall is absolutely a tournament team. Holloway is a genius and Budd Clark is the best playah nobody's talkin' about.
FRANCESA: Tommy. What is their Quad One record.
CALLER: I mean... they've had some tough losses but —
FRANCESA: One and five. Their one win is NC State in Maui in November. NC State is no longah ranked, Tommy.
CALLER: Okay but — honestly Mike, I feel like you just don't LIKE Seton Hall. I feel like you're always gonna favah St. John's —
FRANCESA: (a silence so complete you could hear the Diet Coke carbonating) Tommy. I just told you — on the air — that I think Seton Hall beats St. John's on Seniaw Night.
CALLER: Oh. ...Really?
RUSSO: HE DID, TOMMY! Mike Francesa picked Seton Hall over St. John's! Write it down!
CALLER: Wow. Okay I take it back, Mike. That's — that's genuinely —
FRANCESA: You're welcome. Now. Do you have an actual argument for why they get in at-large, or did you call to tell me I don't like Seton Hall?
CALLER: I... I thought that WAS my argument.
FRANCESA: (to producers) Get rid of him.
RUSSO: Tommy! You were SO CLOSE —
(Click.)
FRANCESA: That's the at-large case for Seton Hall right there, Dawg. "I feel like you don't like them." We'll be right back.
Again subjectivity of the committee. Virginia got in over SHU 2 years ago with their best win before Thanksgiving.
The OOC results say the Big East stinks.
You think St. Louis would get in if they don’t win the A-10 tournament? I don’t, so no bid steal,
Great analysis, as always, Fishjam. Unfortunately, Butler and Creighton are going in the wrong direction and probably the two Big East teams I have the least confidence in right now. That leaves us with Providence as the team most likely to move up to the Top 75 down the stretch. As a side note, Georgetown (#91) has been quietly playing well lately and may be the most dangerous team of the bunch.
IDK but I feel a UConn win will be worth more than St. John’s win. Winning at UConn would be huge.
I mean if we can win our rest of the season ( expectations low and realistic though think team will themselves a chance by big east tournament), it can drastically increase our chances.
Regardless team has to win games in the big east tourney. I do think if your only beating St. John’s or even UConn, you have to get to semis of big east tournament.
I mean considering we have beaten almost every other team outside big three, I feel we are capable of making the final four.
Team is still frustrating and this team can easily choke this DePaul game considering how sloppy they still are.
team just has to get around 20-22 wins by the BE tournament and everything is in their hands.
I mean if we can win our rest of the season ( expectations low and realistic though think team will themselves a chance by big east tournament), it can drastically increase our chances.
Regardless team has to win games in the big east tourney. I do think if your only beating St. John’s or even UConn, you have to get to semis of big east tournament.
I mean considering we have beaten almost every other team outside big three, I feel we are capable of making the final four.
Team is still frustrating and this team can easily choke this DePaul game considering how sloppy they still are.
team just has to get around 20-22 wins by the BE tournament and everything is in their hands.
One thing for sure is what you or I think does not matter. Especially your statements like they don't use Net to determine bids. In 2024, Dayton did not win the A10 tournament and did not have a win over a single team in the NCAA that year and made the dance. But at least they beat Nevada in the dance that year when the MWC capitalized on Net.
Lunardi, DeCoursey and the Athlectic all have St Loius in as a 7-9 seed and probably not because they need to run the table.
All that will take is beating a bad Creighton team. Wouldn't move the needle.
Exactly, it's mostly subjective by whoever is selecting the teams. NET and other metrics are overblown.
Those same experts also had Indiana State as a 7-9 seed two years ago before they lost in the MVC tournament and then they did not make The Dance. (And coached by the same guy!!)
Is it at all possible we can play some political game..Val let those who need to know that her conference was screwed two years ago..and she plays some politics to make sure she gets a 3rd team in from an optics standpoint
Or not enough juice to pull it off
Miami of Ohio is even worse and there is talk they could get in under the circumstances we are discussing.
Our worst loss is DePaul at 109. Realistically perhaps our worst losing performance as well. It helps that Marquette at 111 is the worst ranked BE team in NET. We were hurt two years ago by Georgetown and DePaul going 2-38 combined in BE play.
A couple of other notes:
St. Louis No. 22 NET with 18 of 23 win beings Q3/4. They are however 5-2 against Q1/2 which can't hurt them.
Miami (OH) is No. 49 NET and has played one game above Q3. They eight Q3 and 14 Q4 wins.
Still too early for me to get into scoreboard watching. Loss tonight and it's over. Win and the hope is still alive.
Neither Miami of Ohio nor St. Louis should get in if they don't win their conference tournaments. Both teams look good but the schedules have a lot to do with that.