AAC Tournament Positioning
- Thread starter UofCT
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Does Tulane pack for the full week for the AAC tournament?
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When you look at our 1-7 record in true road games and compare it to nearly everyone else, you realize what an outlier it is -- what an unlikely deviation from the mean. It is reflective, of course, of a brutal road schedule but also of an incredible run of bad luck in down to the wire games -- the latter inflicting us at home and on neutral courts as well. Maybe it's an exaggeration to say that we are a 25-2 team with a 15-12 record, but anyone who takes us for a 15-12 team is in for a shock. If there is finally to be a reversion to the mean, it couldn't be better timed.
HuskyHawk
The triumphant return of the Blues Brothers.
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Those standings are such a horror show of what might have been. Join Mr. Peabody and Sherman in the Wayback machine. Well maybe not very far back machine. The would be change in our league record in brackets.
January 12. UConn Loses 86-90 to Wichita State in 2OT. [WSU 7-7; UConn 7-7]
January 23. UConn blows a late lead and loses to UH 63-59. [UH 10-5; UConn 8-6]
January 26. UConn up 3 with 1:55 to go and loses to Tulsa 79-76 in OT. [UConn 9-5; Tulsa 10-5]
February 12. UConn loses 79-75 @SMU. [UConn 10-4; SMU 8-7]
February 20. UConn up 3 with 26 seconds to go in OT and loses to Temple in 2OT 93-89 [UConn 11-3; Temple 5-9]
Five games. Won't even consider Villanova, Xavier or our failure vs. St. Joes. Five league losses all by 4 or less, three in OT or 2OT. We'd be in first place. 20-7 overall. Probably ranked where Houston is now. This team is so close.
January 12. UConn Loses 86-90 to Wichita State in 2OT. [WSU 7-7; UConn 7-7]
January 23. UConn blows a late lead and loses to UH 63-59. [UH 10-5; UConn 8-6]
January 26. UConn up 3 with 1:55 to go and loses to Tulsa 79-76 in OT. [UConn 9-5; Tulsa 10-5]
February 12. UConn loses 79-75 @SMU. [UConn 10-4; SMU 8-7]
February 20. UConn up 3 with 26 seconds to go in OT and loses to Temple in 2OT 93-89 [UConn 11-3; Temple 5-9]
Five games. Won't even consider Villanova, Xavier or our failure vs. St. Joes. Five league losses all by 4 or less, three in OT or 2OT. We'd be in first place. 20-7 overall. Probably ranked where Houston is now. This team is so close.
Hans Sprungfeld
Undecided
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8-hour bus ride, each way.
A simple in-and-out day trip, with a pit stop in Shreveport
Sam's Town Hotel and Gambling Hall, Shreveport - Wikipedia
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The temple and Tulsa games really stand out. Leads late, gotta finish those ones off. Even just getting those two flips you to 8-6 with 4 winnable games left. Oh well....
That Houston game was awful, stands out as the worst officiated game I can ever remember watching. Double tech to foul Bouk out of the game, not allowing a sub and having a walk on shoot the tying shot. Give me one of those Men In Black memory forgetters, I don’t ever want to think about that game again.
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This season -- to date -- has to be looked at two ways. In terms of recovering the program from the depths to which it had fallen, this year has clearly been a step forward. In terms of personnel, in terms of record, and, as far as predicting the future maybe most importantly, in terms of computer rankings.
On the other hand, Hurley's goal coming in was to compete for the AAC regular season championship, and in retrospect there is no doubt that we had a roster that was capable of doing so. Bad luck, in terms of injuries and key shots going against us again and again? Sure. But if you want to blame Hurley for the Bouk early season suspension, the inability to coach players up faster, the decision to put 20 pounds on Josh, and the inability to coach one more stop or hoop per game -- that's certainly not unfair either. Now, this isn't a second weekend tourney team if everything broke right, but did he squeeze every bit of juice out of the orange this year? Maybe (the heart and desire he's making part of the program is undeniable), but maybe not.
But the final story on this year's team hasn't been written yet. Another chapter is tonight. Let's get it done and go from there.
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If we could somehow get Tulsa as our 2nd round I would be pumped
tykurez
For Your Health
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This is what The Boneyard™️ is for.
McLovin
Gangstas, what's up?
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If the season ended today, based on those standings we would have a first round game vs ECU and second round vs Tulsa. Likely match-up with Cincy or Memphis in the semis. Avoid Houston until the championship. Probably the best case scenario we can hope for.
Linking this site once more:
If all goes according to Sagarin rankings, we'd be tied with and lose the tiebreaker with SMU. SMU is predicted to lose their last 3 games, so we can't pass them in any scenario without beating Houston. We would very much like to pass them to get that juicy 6 seed ECU then Tulsa matchup rather than USF then Cincy from the 7th seed.
However, if we win out, we actually get into a tie with Memphis for 5th/6th and beat them on tiebreak so we'd be the 5th seed (assuming Memphis loses at Houston, but beats WSU and Tulane at home). This gets us Tulane, but then Wichita and into Houston's side of the bracket.
So for what I think is the most likely ideal scenario to get the 6th seed we need (games in parenthesis go against predictions):
If all goes according to Sagarin rankings, we'd be tied with and lose the tiebreaker with SMU. SMU is predicted to lose their last 3 games, so we can't pass them in any scenario without beating Houston. We would very much like to pass them to get that juicy 6 seed ECU then Tulsa matchup rather than USF then Cincy from the 7th seed.
However, if we win out, we actually get into a tie with Memphis for 5th/6th and beat them on tiebreak so we'd be the 5th seed (assuming Memphis loses at Houston, but beats WSU and Tulane at home). This gets us Tulane, but then Wichita and into Houston's side of the bracket.
So for what I think is the most likely ideal scenario to get the 6th seed we need (games in parenthesis go against predictions):
- UConn wins out (Beat Houston at home)
- Memphis wins 2 including Wichita, but does not win at Houston.
- SMU loses to Wich and then wins at least one more. (One or both of at UCF or at USF).
- UConn wins out (Beat Houston at home)
- Memphis wins out. (Wins at Houston).
- SMU loses out.
- UConn wins out (Beat Houston at home)
- SMU beats Wichita and loses rest (Wins home vs. Wichita)
- Memphis goes 1-2. (Loses either at Tulane or home vs. Wichita).
- UConn wins out.
- Wichita St goes exactly 1-3, with the win exactly in the SMU game. This requires them losing at home to Tulsa and Temple and at Memphis, which is a stretch but not impossible.
- Everything else involving SMU and Memphis goes pretty much exactly to Sagarin (Memphis can lose at home to Tulane, but cannot beat Houston. SMU must still lose out as predicted).
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McLovin
Gangstas, what's up?
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This reminds me of those crazy "what if" scenarios they do for the NFL wildcards each year lol. Appreciate the analysis. I just hope we can avoid a second round match-up with Houston, Wichita or Cincy, whatever seed we get.
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Would love to sweep through the tournament and knock a bunch of teams on the wrong side of the bubble
I added a bit more lol. A 3rd main scenario. Let's see if I can boil it down to a rooting schedule.
Key games:
- Temple at Wichita - Tonight. We won't be able to get a top 4 seed if Wichita wins 2 of their last 4, so we definitely need Temple. Wichita is a 10 point favorite, though.
- Wichita at SMU - Sunday Mar 1st. Probably THE key game other than our Houston game. 1 point spread currently. This will tell us if we need to root for or against Memphis and SMU and who we want in the Memphis/Wichita game later.
- SMU at UCF - Wed Mar 4th. UCF 1 point favorite. Relevant, but who we want to win depends entirely on other games, including games not yet played.
- Houston at UConn - Thu Mar 5th. Obviously we need to win this one for all scenarios.
- Wichita at Memphis - Thu Mar 5th. Memphis 1 point favorite. If Wich beat SMU, we'd want Memphis. Otherwise, we really need Wichita in this one. Becomes very pivotal.
- SMU at South Florida. Sat Mar 7th. South Florida 1 point favorite. This one's too complicated at this point. If Wich beats SMU we usually want SMU in this one. If SMU won, it's not super relevant.
- Memphis at Houston - Sun Mar 8th. Houston favored by 9. We want Houston unless SMU has lost out and Memphis beat Wichita.
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Temple pulls a UConn. Up 4 with 4 minutes left, only scores 1 more point and loses by 3 to Wichita State.
I do not believe we can get a 4 seed or bye any longer. 5th seed is the best we can do.
There's a 5 seed scenario where we'd get Tulane, SMU, then Tulsa in the semi's that is pretty appealing, but would take Wichita losing @SMU, @Memphis, and home to Tulsa, and otherwise chalk. Doesn't seem so far fetched, though, to be honest.
I do not believe we can get a 4 seed or bye any longer. 5th seed is the best we can do.
There's a 5 seed scenario where we'd get Tulane, SMU, then Tulsa in the semi's that is pretty appealing, but would take Wichita losing @SMU, @Memphis, and home to Tulsa, and otherwise chalk. Doesn't seem so far fetched, though, to be honest.