MVC Games Friday night

[tornado]

Missouri State plays St. mary's later tonight

but SIU already played Clemson and lost 83-75...in OT
The Salukis had a 7 point lead at halftime and lead virtually all of the 2nd half as well...
even holding an 8 pt lead with just over 3 minutes to go and got outscored 9-1 over the final 3:23 of regulation...during which SIU had several missed shots, missed FT's, and turnovers.

Clemson made 12-12 on FT's in the final minute of the OT as SIU tried to foul...


BTW -- since Damian Lillard scored only 22 pts last night while Doug McDermott got 27 --
the Missouri Valley now has the NATION'S leading scorer...(tie)
wonder when was the last time that happened more than 10 games into the season??

[tornado]

The C-Dale newspaper account of how SIU blew their late eight point lead are not kind...
they note gaffes and turnovers plus two really bad, long missed shots taken by Bocot early in the shot clock when all SIU needed to do was slow it down and milk the clock and the win was theirs.

[Bravesfan]

The C-Dale newspaper account of how SIU blew their late eight point lead are not kind...
they note gaffes and turnovers plus two really bad, long missed shots taken by Bocot early in the shot clock when all SIU needed to do was slow it down and milk the clock and the win was theirs.

Hmmm, sounds like a certain Chicago football team who did the same thing a couple of weeks ago!

[tornado]

BTW -- here's an interesting string of events...

SIU is on a bad losing streak - 2 in a row but 4 of 6 with the only two wins over 300+ opponents (SIUE & NIU) - in fact their only other win (Chicago State) was over the worst team in all of D-I...

but here's their chance -- Xavier (for reasons totally unknown to most sensible people) is still ranked #14..but they are really bad since the brawl screwed up the whole team..
Xavier has now lost 3 in a row including to tourney host Hawaii last night!!

this is the BATTLE for LAST PLACE in the Diamond Head Classic (7th/8th place game) and SIU can do wonders for their morale and RPI (as if that matters any more) by knocking off Xavier!

[45otseoj]

BTW -- here's an interesting string of events...

SIU is on a bad losing streak - 2 in a row but 4 of 6 with the only two wins over 300+ opponents (SIUE & NIU) - in fact their only other win (Chicago State) was over the worst team in all of D-I...

but here's their chance -- Xavier (for reasons totally unknown to most sensible people) is still ranked #14..but they are really bad since the brawl screwed up the whole team..
Xavier has now lost 3 in a row including to tourney host Hawaii last night!!

this is the BATTLE for LAST PLACE in the Diamond Head Classic (7th/8th place game) and SIU can do wonders for their morale and RPI (as if that matters any more) by knocking off Xavier!

Sensible people must not know:
1) The X was given the benefit of the doubt for losing the first game with a depleted roster.
2) Rankings haven't been updated since they fell off in Hawaii.

[tornado]

funny thing about sensible people - because when Purdue was ranked #2 in many preseason polls - then Robbie Hummel tore his ACL -- the very next day Andy Katz dropped them to #23..

So call it what you want but if nothing else, they are inconsistent and hypocritical to drop some teams purely on the prospect of roster depletion then not do it to others...

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/blog/_/name/katz_andy/id/5691781

[45otseoj]

funny thing about sensible people - because when Purdue was ranked #2 in many preseason polls - then Robbie Hummel tore his ACL -- the very next day Andy Katz dropped them to #23..

So call it what you want but if nothing else, they are inconsistent and hypocritical to drop some teams purely on the prospect of roster depletion then not do it to others...
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask...ndy/id/5691781

Losing a player for a game is different than losing a player for the season.

[tornado]

not really - because the rankings are week to week -- they are supposed to be where you rank them that week with or without their players...
...AND just maybe even more facts have borne out the truth in what I say and the silly speculativeness in what you say...

If Katz thought the loss of one player should drop Purdue more than 20 slots - then how can the loss of FOUR key players - including one who is more important to Xavier than Hummell is to Purdue - drop Xavier only a couple slots? (btw- Xavier's RPI is 29 - not top 20, and also btw - the breakdown on the polls DOES show that some voters did NOT rank them at all and a few dropped them to the high 20's - so they agree with common sense)

BTW -- Xavier's best player and superstar Tu Holloway WAS back for BOTH the Long Beach State game (loss) and the Hawaii game (loss) and starter/SG Lyons was also back for the Hawaii game - so they had basically their FULL lineup back and STILL lost to unranked teams!!! - Let's see if they stay at #14..
..although they should win today -- they're playing SIU...for last place in the tournament..

Sounds like just maybe those pollsters who kept Xavier up there didn't have a clue.

If you're saying the rankings should look ahead to what might be at the end of the season and then place them accordingly this week - that's absurd..

[TheAsianSensation]

but here's their chance -- Xavier (for reasons totally unknown to most sensible people) is still ranked #14..but they are really bad since the brawl screwed up the whole team..
Xavier has now lost 3 in a row including to tourney host Hawaii last night!!

t, first off, Xavier dropped from 9th or so (forget exactly where it was) to 14th....and those rankings don't reflect anything that happened in Hawaii so that's not unreasonable. New rankings tomorrow, and you can bet they'll be out of them. They only lost their best player, Tu, for one game, so it was reasonable to keep them at 14.

funny thing about sensible people - because when Purdue was ranked #2 in many preseason polls - then Robbie Hummel tore his ACL -- the very next day Andy Katz dropped them to #23..

So call it what you want but if nothing else, they are inconsistent and hypocritical to drop some teams purely on the prospect of roster depletion then not do it to others...
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask...ndy/id/5691781

C'mon, are you serious? Hummel was LOST FOR THE SEASON. That roster change to Purdue affected their entire season. These Xavier suspensions will all be served eventually and Xavier will be full strength again.

Yes, you drop teams on roster depletion, but the level of depletion is a factor. You still have to rank Xavier 14 (until this week, of course), because those players will comeback.

Rankings are a combination of merit and prediction. You rank the teams based on what they've done so far, but you have to have a predictive element of how you think the team will do in the future. The purpose of the rankings is to identify which teams are most notable in the near future, so you have to take the future roster and performance into consideration. When Purdue drops because of Hummel, it's because that is a team that will no longer have him. When Xavier doesn't drop as hard, it'll be because they'll eventually be full strength again.

Your concept of what the rankings should actually represent about a team is not shared by many, I'll tell you that. You seem to want to capture a "picture" of a team at a frozen moment in time and rank them based on that picture. In reality, though, every team is in motion, changing for better or worse at any given time, and you have to rank with that movement in mind. If Purdue loses Hummel forever, that's a permanent degrade. When suspensions happen at Xavier, those eventually get lifted. So you punish Xavier, but it's not as severe a degrade in the weekly poll.



All that said, Xavier should be sent careening out of the polls tomorrow.

[bdhove12]

not really - because the rankings are week to week -- they are supposed to be where you rank them that week with or without their players...
...AND just maybe even more facts have borne out the truth in what I say and the silly speculativeness in what you say...

If Katz thought the loss of one player should drop Purdue more than 20 slots - then how can the loss of FOUR key players - including one who is more important to Xavier than Hummell is to Purdue - drop Xavier only a couple slots? (btw- Xavier's RPI is 29 - not top 20, and also btw - the breakdown on the polls DOES show that some voters did NOT rank them at all and a few dropped them to the high 20's - so they agree with common sense)

The situations are not even close to being similar. The Purdue thing happened 3-4 weeks before the season even started. Having them at #2 was based on pure speculation, so dropping them after losing their best player for season is of course going to change how you view them. Katz ranking adjustment even happened 3 weeks before the first official AP Poll came out.

It should be pretty obvious that Xavier situation is not at all similar, because they had in fact established themselves as a Top 25 team with their play on the court. That's why 64 of 64 AP voters kept them in the Top 25 even with a loss to ORU.