I don’t exactly know how much a 20 point loss vs. a 4 point loss would have affected the efficiency metrics — maybe by a point or two? But the margins at this point for ISU are really slim, so I think this smaller margin of defeat could end up mattering.
But I think a good deal of the “eye test” / “leaving a bad taste in the mouth of the committee”-type reactions is overblown. It’s a loss at a bad time, but they still have a decent shot. I’ll crunch the numbers tomorrow, but they’re largely competing with high major teams now, gotta hope most or all of them fail to make deep conference tourney runs.
Unfortunately I can’t call them safe. I’ll take a look tomorrow morning, but my guess is I’ll have them in Dayton. Very good NET, solid metrics, but only 1 Q1 win hurts them. I think a regular season conference title, .500 in Q1+2, and only 1 bad loss has them in by a hair for now… but they’re vulnerable.
I’m curious @tony, say tomorrow you woke up and you were the sole person in charge of making the 68 team field. What would be the things you personally would enjoy or look for in deciding who makes it in from the bubble or what would you tweak or completely blow up from the current system to make it how you’d like? Basically I’d love to hear how someone who dabbles in the bracketology realm, like yourself, would change things if even at all
So MSU wins their first game this week and they’re comfortably in. If they lose it probably doesn’t knock them out but sends them to Dayton pending whatever else happens. Got it.
Honestly, Izzo and MSU are always going to get the benefit of the doubt from the tournament selection process so they have to be firmly out to not sneak into Dayton. Feels like the only way that happens is for them to lose and a few other things happen to hurt their resume AND some bid stealers fill up spots.
