Most Bracketoligists have us? in the 8-9 seed range, which puts us comfortably in for now, but realistically not that far off the bubble. CBS
https://cbssports.com/college-basketball/bracketology/ does a pretty good job of ranking the teams and showing their resume at the same time.
We? have a good NET ranking (29), RPI (21), and NC SOS (17). We'll end up with a lower SOS (currently 53, but will drop to the 80-90 range) and the biggest thing missing from our? resume is key wins. The new Quad system puts more of an emphasis on road games. Oregon is currently our? best win and only Quad 1 win (and barely) to go along with three Quad 2 wins (San Diego,
@Oregon State,
@Utah). The biggest games left are UCLA (Quad 2/3),
@UA (Quad 1),
@ASU (Quad 1), and home vs UO and OSU, which are borderline Quad 2/3 games depending on how they finish.
The easiest way to strengthen our? resume is obviously sweeping the Arizona schools so we can worry more about seeding vs just making the tourney. Having the Oregon schools finish out strong will also help.
Exciting times to actually have a decent team for the first time in awhile and worry about tournament implications.
Comments
I know Washington can't do anything to fix this, they can only play the games on the schedule. But the same can be said about Holy Cross, Fairfield, Bucknell, Rider, Colgate, etc. Yes, I'm comparing the Pac 12 to one bid mid-major conferences. The Pac 12 is really that bad.
If you look at the mid-major conferences that are traditionally better and might usually get 2-4 teams like the A-10 (VCU, Dayton, Rhode Island, Davidson, St. Louis, etc) and Mountain West (San Diego State, UNLV, Nevada, etc) they are bad this year and look more like 1, maybe 2 bid conferences. Even the Big East only looks like a 3-4 bid league.
The bottom of the tourney field is going to be wide open this year. Lunardi has Nebraska as a 10 seed and Indiana as an 11 seed right now and they are both 3-7 in conference (Big-10 is stacked, but still).
Just makes @UA and @ASU that much more important for the overall resume.
I hate the 7-10 seeds, have to play a 1 or 2 in the second round. Hoping for a 6 seed. Need to keep winning for that to happen. If we get the right 3 or 4/5 seed to play in the second round. A sweet 16 would be possible.
Find it interesting that Nevada is #6 in both the AP and Coaches Poll, but most places have them as a 4-5 seed because their wins look like ours. We need to beat the Arizona schools to have much hope of getting higher than a 7 seed unless we essentially win out.
With ASU dropping from 61 to 78 (NET) we lost a chance at a Quad 1 win. Looks like we only have 2 now with Oregon State also losing. Don't see how we move up another seed after this weekend even with a win @ASU with our "big" wins looking less than impressive.