Its February 1st. 9 regular season games remain on the schedule and at least 1 game in the ACC playoffs is on tap.
As of right now, Virginia Tech is 16-5 and 5-4 in conference; good for a tie for 6th and only 1.5 games back of earning a double bye in the playoffs.
Virginia Tech also sits 39th in the RPI with a 2-3 record against the top 50 and an 8-5 overall record against the top 100.
Virginia Tech has 5 remaining games against RPI top 50 teams, 3 against 51-100, and 1 @BC
As of right now, the dreaded worst loss was against #88 Texas A&M. The best win was over #16 Duke.
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Is it just me or has our RPI been climbing every game, despite the result? I feel like we were between 50 and 60 a couple weeks ago, and despite the arguably pedantic play and results, we keep climbing.
That's not a bad thing. We win all the games against the teams with RPI 50+, even if we drop all the games against the Top 50, we should be sitting pretty come Selection Sunday. Have to wonder how nice we would look right now if our OOC schedule wasn't so bad.
It went up by a couple after our double-digit loss to UNC, but fell more after our win over BC.
Agreed on this, even though we had a great non-conference slate. Even though we dropped a game to TAMU, going 12-1 through those games is a huge deal. Buzz was talking about expecting a few losses through our tough road stretch of California tournament than @ Michigan.
Here's the thing. If we pick up one road game, we can drop another home ACC game and still end up at .500 in the ACC.
What we have left is:
Home --Virginia, Clemson, Miami, Wake Forest
Away -- Virginia, Miami, Pitt, Louisville, BC
I think we can win @ BC and @ Pitt. I'm also slightly too confident about having UVA in our place when all the students are on campus and the place is sold out. Given all that, it's very possible we look at 10-8 or 11-7 in the ACC. And even though we've been snubbed many times, there isn't a Zima's chance in Charlottesville that we don't make the tourney with a conference record like that.
It would be interesting to see where our RPI would be if we just replaced a game or two.
Let's say we scheduled VCU (33) instead of Charleston Southern (319)
or if we had schedule UNC-Wilmington (31) instead of Maine (320)
We really need to do a better job of scheduling for RPI going forward.
Plus, no one benefited from beating the Citadel while scoring 113.
Yea, I think the gimme games have to be against a RPI 150 team, not 300. They should count the same in the wins column but the impact on the RPI is important.
Or my idea of scheduling a home-and-home with Georgetown (53) and George Mason (118) so that we play in the DC area every year, and we get the other team at home.
Likewise with VCU (33) and Richmond (109) to get a game in RVA every year.
And all 4 of those are attractive OOC home games. More people will show up to see Richmond and GMU than Maine or UMBC. Georgetown and VCU are big draws.
Dont knock UMBC this season. The Retrievers are 14-7, 5-3 in conference. The turnaround of that program is astounding, and if it wasnt such a low level D-1 school, Ryan Odom should be up for some coach of the year nominations. They were 7-25, 3-13 last year before Odom got there. They arent world beaters yet but they beat up most of the other teams cited here, including Maine and the Citadel. Only lost to Richmond by 3 near the buzzer, beat James Madison, beat Duquesne, and thats after one season under Odom. (Dont forget Odom used to be an assistant coach at Tech)
Edit: They are now 15-7, 6-3 with a win last night.
My only knock was that they aren't an attractive opponent for fans, mainly for casual fans.
Pedantic?
do you mean pedestrian?
Shallow and pedantic...
sorry seth, it would only let me give this one leg
It is quite possibly one of my favorite all time family guy scenes, especially when he says perhaps. But thank you for the leg!
I'm glad someone else got where I was going with that
Perhaps...
smooth coverup
I'm sure somebody on here can say what would have happened if we had played a Div 2 team instead of Maine in our opener.
Well you could say the ball is in our court here...
A&M has really fallen off over the course of the season, still not a horrible loss. I expect 9-9 to be enough for VT to make the dance, outside of a snub of blatant brand name favoritism for more storied programs(See 9-9 Pitt, Syracuse in 2016).
I'll use this thread to chime in on the 'blue bloods' of college basketball.
Why the hell does Dook get the kind of consistent respect from national writers and coaches? They slid from #5 to #8 after losing in Blacksburg. Their best win is Florida. Until playing @ND earlier in the week, they were limping through ACC play and only beating up on the ACC bottom feeders. Yet, they stayed in the polls. I hope and expect those blue bastards finish .500 or less in conference. They'll still be brandishing a top 20 ranking and get a 5 seed come tourney time.
Also, what makes our OOC so bad? Is it a factor or how much the RPI 150+ wins bump us down?
OOC wins over New Mexico, Nebraska, Michigan and Ole Miss with a loss to A&M. None of those teams have had spectacular season but are in the RPI 51-100.
Duke as a 2-seed gets eliminated by 15-seed in the first round of the NCAAs this year. Calling it now.
My finest March Madness bracket had Duke losing to VCU in the first round. Everyone called me an idiot (I was working in Raleigh at the time). VCU then went on to break at least 75% of my coworkers' brackets.
Again
Psh what are the chances of something like that happening to Dook again?
Amazing lehigh!
Classic Eric Maynor
The team will be 3-3 against the top 50 rpi after we beat LOLUVA tonight. I am calling for the upset at John Paul Jones.
What's the number? I'd also like to call.
1-800-surrender-cobra
Okay, so I might have been a little wrong...
So....we lost by 20 and yet somehow we moved up in the RPI
they just want to show a bigger swing when we beat them by 15 in our house...yeah, that's it.
Very possible to do this with the calculations the RPI uses. They rely alot on your Opponents winning percentage and then their opponents winning percentage.
Is it just me or should be concerned about the numerous bad road losses? The metrics and overall record show of an NCAA tourney team but we now have multiple big losses on the road. Don't get me wrong, road games in the ACC are tough but losing by 20+ points on a regular basis doesn't look good on the resume.