On the Bubble: ORU's At-Large Chances (if needed)

[Old Titan]

 

[Old Titan]

ORU has one of the most unique resumes the committee will have ever considered should the Golden Eagles lose in Sioux Falls:

• No Quad 1 wins; only one Quad 2 win (Liberty)
• Four Quad 1 losses on the road, no Quad 2 losses (can you be penalized for not having the opportunities to win, and rewarded for not having the chance to lose?)
• One Quad 4 loss (whoever the loss is to in Sioux Falls)
• Multiple metrics that put them in the top 68 teams in D1 (NET ranking, KenPom, Sagarin, etc.)
• Max Abmas (seriously, if ORU gets in as an at-large, this in my mind may be the determining factor)

No friends so to speak of on the selection commitee; maybe former TU AD Bubba Cunningham at North Carolina?  FWIW, I think Butler AD Barry Collier played against ORU in the old Midwestern Cities Conference when he was with the Bulldogs...

[oruvoice]

Quad 1 record - 0-4

Quad 2 record - 1-0

All the remaining games are Quad 3, Quad 4, and non D-1. 

Seems like we've figured out how to "work" the NET rankings, for sure.

The argument that "Can you be penalized for not having the opportunities to win, and rewarded for not having the chance to lose" is flimsy. We could have scheduled more aggressively, but chose not to. 

All that said, if we run the table until the conference title game and lose, I do think we deserve an at-large. 

[ORUTex]

22 minutes ago, Old Titan said:

ORU has one of the most unique resumes the committee will have ever considered should the Golden Eagles lose in Sioux Falls:

• No Quad 1 wins; only one Quad 2 win (Liberty)
• Four Quad 1 losses on the road, no Quad 2 losses (can you be penalized for not having the opportunities to win, and rewarded for not having the chance to lose?)
• One Quad 4 loss (whoever the loss is to in Sioux Falls)
• Multiple metrics that put them in the top 68 teams in D1 (NET ranking, KenPom, Sagarin, etc.)
• Max Abmas (seriously, if ORU gets in as an at-large, this in my mind may be the determining factor)

No friends so to speak of on the selection commitee; maybe North Carolina AD Bubba Cunningham?  FWIW, I think Butler AD Barry Collier played against ORU in the old Midwestern Cities Conference when he was with the Bulldogs...

A loss at the tourney to SDSU (current NET 162), would likely be a Quad 3 loss (NET 101-200 at a neutral site). Also possibly St Thomas (current NET 202). Anyone else would be Quad 4.

And ORU would need to be a lot better than top 68 to get an at-large. At least 20 auto qualifiers (including the Summit tourney champ) would be well outside 68. Need to be in the top 45 or so to have a realistic chance, and the hypothetical Summit tourney loss (which isn't going to happen!) would likely knock them out of that range.

[GoldenEagleFan]

12 minutes ago, oruvoice said:

We could have scheduled more aggressively, but chose not to. 

Really? Please tell me the quad 1/2 teams begging to play this ORU team. The argument you had during the off-season was eliminating non D1 games with more Q3 and Q4 teams at home. Which by that logic would have put us maybe 20-30 pts worse in the NET. The non D1 games are what is giving us the CHANCE to be an at-large. Had we won 1 of the 4 Quad 1 games we would be much higher in the consideration for an at-large. 

[Old Titan]

7 minutes ago, ORUTex said:

ORU would need to be a lot better than top 68 to get an at-large. At least 20 auto qualifiers (including the Summit tourney champ) would be well outside 68. Need to be in the top 45 or so to have a realistic chance, and the hypothetical Summit tourney loss (which isn't going to happen!) would likely knock them out of that range.

The "68" number was an arbitrary reference re: the number of teams in the field; ORU is much better ranked than that by most metric sites:

• NCAA NET Ranking - 36
• KenPom - 50
• Sagarin - 57
• Haslam - 45

[oruvoice]

4 minutes ago, GoldenEagleFan said:

Really? Please tell me the quad 1/2 teams begging to play this ORU team. The argument you had during the off-season was eliminating non D1 games with more Q3 and Q4 teams at home. Which by that logic would have put us maybe 20-30 pts worse in the NET. The non D1 games are what is giving us the CHANCE to be an at-large. Had we won 1 of the 4 Quad 1 games we would be much higher in the consideration for an at-large. 

Yes. Like I clearly said...we have figured out the NET. Not sure why you are arguing with something I just stated that I agreed with?

As far as the scheduling debate, it's not worth re-hashing. You don't have any clue what you are talking about. Period.

[Old Titan]

Good stuff from a previous post elsewhere by ORUTex:

Today's update of ESPN's "bubble watch" has ORU as a team with "Work to Do."

"The thinking around Bubble Watch HQ has been that Oral Roberts can put forward a plausible case for an at-large bid as long as it keeps breezing through the Summit League. That thinking was tested but ultimately left in place as the Golden Eagles escaped with a 95-88 win at St. Thomas. At 22-4 overall and 13-0 in the Summit, ORU claims a top-40 NET ranking (or close to it, depending on the day) and one of the nation's top scorers in Max Abmas."

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/insider/story/_/id/35583387/bubble-watch-2023-ncaa-tournament-march-madness-bracket-selection#Others

---

Two things to keep in mind regarding this thread:

• It is hopefully an academic exercise.
• It's in response to national speculation (such as above) of ORU's at-large bona fides.

[GoldenEagleFan]

7 minutes ago, oruvoice said:

Not sure why you are arguing with something I just stated that I agreed with?

I was arguing the fact you said we chose not to schedule more aggressively…. Like it was our choice. We scheduled the 12th most difficult schedule in the country. 

 

8 minutes ago, oruvoice said:

As far as the scheduling debate, it's not worth re-hashing. You don't have any clue what you are talking about. Period.

 

[Otis 83]

8 minutes ago, Old Titan said:

Good stuff from a previous post elsewhere by ORUTex:

Today's update of ESPN's "bubble watch" has ORU as a team with "Work to Do."

"The thinking around Bubble Watch HQ has been that Oral Roberts can put forward a plausible case for an at-large bid as long as it keeps breezing through the Summit League. That thinking was tested but ultimately left in place as the Golden Eagles escaped with a 95-88 win at St. Thomas. At 22-4 overall and 13-0 in the Summit, ORU claims a top-40 NET ranking (or close to it, depending on the day) and one of the nation's top scorers in Max Abmas."

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/insider/story/_/id/35583387/bubble-watch-2023-ncaa-tournament-march-madness-bracket-selection#Others

---

Two things to keep in mind regarding this thread:

• It is hopefully an academic exercise.
• It's in response to national speculation (such as above) of ORU's at-large bona fides.

My  dream scenario is that all this bubble talk keeps us in the national conversation and elevates the way our program is viewed....and then becomes entirely academic.

[oruvoice]

19 minutes ago, GoldenEagleFan said:

I was arguing the fact you said we chose not to schedule more aggressively…. Like it was our choice. We scheduled the 12th most difficult schedule in the country. 

350 D1 schools and we could only manage to get 9 of them to play us non-conference. Riiiight.

Yet, no other school had this problem and was "forced" to schedule 4 non D1's. Got it.

[GoldenEagleFan]

8 minutes ago, oruvoice said:

350 D1 schools and we could only manage to get 9 of them to play us non-conference. Riiiight.

Wait…. Your argument is we should have scheduled any team in the top 350?  And you think I have no clue what I’m talking about?

I’m just going to chalk this one up to ignorance on my part because I cant read between the lines in your posts since you won’t come out and say exactly what you want to say. 

[oruvoice]

5 minutes ago, GoldenEagleFan said:

Wait…. Your argument is we should have scheduled any team in the top 350?  And you think I have no clue what I’m talking about?

I’m just going to chalk this one up to ignorance on my part because I cant read between the lines in your posts since you won’t come out and say exactly what you want to say. 

Not sure how I could be any more clear? 

I'm done on this topic. Take care. 

Looking forward to winning the automatic bid! 

[GoldenEagleFan]

5 minutes ago, oruvoice said:

Not sure how I could be any more clear? 

I'm done on this topic. Take care. 

Looking forward to winning the automatic bid! 

Personally I don’t think ORU will get an automatic bid. But it wasn’t for lack of scheduling. It was for lack of beating 1 of the 4 Quad-1 games. 

[oruvoice]

2 minutes ago, GoldenEagleFan said:

Personally I don’t think ORU will get an automatic bid. But it wasn’t for lack of scheduling. It was for lack of beating 1 of the 4 Quad-1 games. 

You don't think we'll get the automatic bid? 

I completely disagree.

[GoldenEagleFan]

5 minutes ago, oruvoice said:

You don't think we'll get the automatic bid? 

I completely disagree.

my fault. I don’t think we’ll get the at-large bid. 

[jmg1984]

It's ok men. Were not going to lose in the Summit league tournament anyways. ORU will be the #1 seed. Advantage of a days rest before playing qtr and semi games and the the early semi. Add to that a experienced and improving team. Not gonna happen

[oruvoice]

Just now, jmg1984 said:

It's ok men. Were not going to lose in the Summit league tournament anyways. ORU will be the #1 seed. Advantage of a days rest before playing qtr and semi games and the the early semi. Add to that a experienced and improving team. Not gonna happen

Bingo!