Brackets and Rankings: 2024-2025

[XUMIOH12]

It's worth pointing out that he has UC San Diego and George Mason seeded ahead of the First Four. How much does he think they would drop if one or both ended up needing the at-large bid?

If Drake and UC San Diego both win out until their conference tournaments, I think the committee takes them. I obviously can't prove that, and others may disagree, but it is my own personal opinion that this particular committee will select those two teams if they win out. I could also see them possibly selecting UC Irvine simply because of the sheer number of games they have won away from home. Again, I could be completely wrong, but they have the type of profile that the committee NORMALLY (albeit not always) places inside the bubble.

Another thing that I noticed about the committee's top 16 teams this past week. Where a team tops out carries a lot of weight. Kentucky has some garbage in the middle of their profile, but the top of thier profile is outstanding and the committee gave them a protected seed. That is NOT a good sign for Xavier because the top of X's profile is not that great. It's also bad for UC Irvine, who I know I just said might get selected, but I'm just saying. Perhaps they're both left out.

Just a side note, Yale does not have the profile and won't get in without winning the Ivy Tournament, but holy crap are they good!! They didn't get up to their full speed right away, and therefore didn't quite get the wins early in the season that they needed, but February Yale would blow November Yale off the floor, and if Yale were to play the four teams that Lunardi has on his 10 line, I think they'd blow all four of them off hte court.

I always like seeing these teams get in, but when I look at Irvine, I just don't see it with their resume. George Mason kind of in the same boat in my opinion. UCSD and Drake I think have a good case to get in if they win out regular season. Xavier better hope that those two teams win their conference tournaments!

[waggy]

T-Rank has X's efficiency over the last 10 games at #30. Maybe meaningless, but X has been playing like an at large tourney team of late.

[Xville]

Vandy and Arkansas both lose. Been a great few days for x

[Xville]

On the other side of the coin, UCONN and Creighton are now 36 and 37 in the net respectively. Don't know why Creighton dropped 3 spots last night...some opponent must have dropped quads or something. I don't think there is enough runway for either of these teams to get to the Top 30, but you never know.

Just keep winning. 4 left.

[Xville]

https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/st...ld-predictions

It’s laughable at this point. Oklahoma as first team out. Bottom of the sec getting way too much love. I get it, sec and espn are in bed together but come on

[GoMuskies]

We moved up a spot, right? After beating Butler. Hard to complain too much.

KenPom ranks Oklahoma right ahead of us. Net rankings has Oklahoma behind us by 2 spots. Massey composite rankings (52 different ranking systems) has Oklahoma 2 spots ahead of us. Objectively speaking, there's just nothing to separate Xavier from Oklahoma. Maybe you can quibble with Oklahoma being four spots higher on Joe's Bubble list, but objectively they're in about the same position fighting for a spot.

[xubrew]

Keith Gill, who is the Sun Belt Commissioner and who is on the committee, said in this interview that the new WAB metric is something the committee is paying particularly close attention to. X's WAB is 54, and the OOC WAB is 70, which is not awful, but also not the best.

In addition to the advanced metrics already on the official team sheets (such as BPI/KPI/KenPom) the Committee received some new metrics for this season (Torvik/WAB): how have you made use of these metrics, and do you have a favorite 1? What is helpful about the WAB is that it helps you compare schedules/results. It is very beneficial to take a team with less Quad 1 opportunities and compare them to a power-conference team: if we did not have WAB then it would be like comparing apples and oranges.

https://hoopshd.com/2025/02/20/sowin...er-keith-gill/

[GoMuskies]

WAB = Wins Above Bubble for those of you who were planning to look it up (like I just had to).

And Oklahoma's WAB is 36 to Xavier's 54.

[Xville]

We moved up a spot, right? After beating Butler. Hard to complain too much.

KenPom ranks Oklahoma right ahead of us. Net rankings has Oklahoma behind us by 2 spots. Massey composite rankings (52 different ranking systems) has Oklahoma 2 spots ahead of us. Objectively speaking, there's just nothing to separate Xavier from Oklahoma. Maybe you can quibble with Oklahoma being four spots higher on Joe's Bubble list, but objectively they're in about the same position fighting for a spot.

My issue then is the computer game. Last year it was the big 12, this years it’s the sec. The sec is good at the top don’t get me wrong and they won against the teams in non-con but if you look closer it was mainly at the acc’s expense which is a garbage conference this year. They were 5-4 against the big East for instance.

IMO no matter how strong the league is, when you are 3-10 in it, you shouldn’t even be a consideration at that point. Vandy, Arkansas and Georgia are also getting propped up with numbers that don’t match the quality of their teams.

[xubrew]

WAB = Wins Above Bubble for those of you who were planning to look it up (like I just had to).

And Oklahoma's WAB is 36 to Xavier's 54.

It's an interesting concept. It essentially creates a mythical team that is squarely on the bubble, then measures how that mythical team would do against each team on your schedule, and then compares your actual performance to the mythical team's mythical performance. So Oklahoma has done better against their actual schedule then this mythical 45ish place team would have done, and Xavier has not done quite as well.