Brackets and Rankings: 2024-2025

[Xavgrad08]

Michigan wins at OSU. I know OSU has some decent wins and a good net, but I think they will end up a bubble team.

[xubrew]

It was about as good a weekend as you could hope for bubble wise for X. The UConn game was hard for the Q1 potential. It’s possible X catches them in the big east standings though.

X is 1.5 games back from UConn. They have @St Johns and home against Marquette left. If they lose the Nova game then I think X will catch them. If not, I could see a tie for 4th and I’m not to sure who wins that tie breaker. Frankly finishing 4th or 5th doesn’t matter really with the 4/5 seed playing each other first in the BET anyways.

I think it would have been much better for X had UConn won that game. Metrics and teamsheets aside, it's a process by committee. if Xavier lands on the bubble, some on the committee will argue for them and some will argue for other teams. The members who argue for X will point to UConn as a key win. The ones arguing against X can now say "Well, Seton Hall also beat them and they are perhaps the worst power conference team."

Having said that, I think Drake losing at home really helped X today. I really got the sense that the committee was going to put them in on the first ballot if they won out to the conference tournament. They still might, but it's far less than a guarantee. Drake is good, but they're evaluated the same as everyone else. They have very few high caliber wins, and they lost a home game to a team that's nowhere near the field. That may not kill them, but I think it will at least break a bone.

Now having said THAT, I also feel that generally speaking, the more a team feels like they have to focus on teams other than themselves, the more in trouble they likely are.

[noteggs]

Honestly, I’m at the point to say just win the last five!

[Xville]

Honestly, I’m at the point to say just win the last five!

Agreed. It’s all right there. Favored in 4 of the 5 with the butler/creighton games a point on either side. It’s doable!

[Xville]

I know we all want and expect more the remainder of this year but something that struck me this morning. If X gets two more wins in conference, that will be only the third time since the 2016-17 season (encompassing 9 seasons) they've had better than an above .500 conference record. It's been a rough few years.

[Tim]

I'm much more worried about at Butler than Creighton. I hope we win out but I'm expecting all but the road Butler game for many reasons.

[xubrew]

I'm much more worried about at Butler than Creighton. I hope we win out but I'm expecting all but the road Butler game for many reasons.

Yeah, I guess Butler is annoying like that. They are the most likely team to completely ruin a good thing for everyone.

[JTG]

I'm much more worried about at Butler than Creighton. I hope we win out but I'm expecting all but the road Butler game for many reasons.

I'm with you. The 2 Butler games are the only games I dread every year. They seem to have a knack for making life miserable for X. Talentwise they should never beat us, but they do.

[xukeith]

I know we all want and expect more the remainder of this year but something that struck me this morning. If X gets two more wins in conference, that will be only the third time since the 2016-17 season (encompassing 9 seasons) they've had better than an above .500 conference record. It's been a rough few years.

I say to myself, "Miller is a good coach. He has a 3 year plan. But these injuries start the excuses and our expectations as fans are darn depressing. "

X might have blown 2 complete recruiting classes and had very dissappointing transfer classes. X is getting worse in these tough BE seasons.

[Xavier]

For the record, if X finished with just one more loss they’d have its 4th best season in the Big East (record wise, couldn’t find an easy site to see standings wise). Having said that, it’s easy to do with only 4 seasons above .500 in the BE so far. A couple right at .500, too. So unfortunately, X isn’t actually getting worse in the BE.