Joe Lunardi has the Hogs projected in the NCAA field as a 12 seed in the play-in game. Against Northwestern, which has never made the NCAA Tournament. Ever. Nor have the Wildcats ever won 20 games. They may do both this year.
Minny is also one of Lunardi’s last four in at this stage.
<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket … acketology”>http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology</LINK_TEXT>
And by his math our supposedly lousy non conference schedule includes 5 NCAAt teams
I get your point that our non conference schedule is not nearly as weak as some contend, but it is disheartening to be 10-1 and be looking at a play in game (if the “expert” in question is correct.) I know I am living in the past, but it used to be if we were 10-1 we were ranked in the top 20 if not top 10.
I sure miss those days!
As usual, we’re locked in by preseason expectations. We were seen as a fifth or sixth place team in a three- or four-bid league. It wouldn’t have been a whole lot better if we had beaten Minny either, since Minny is also in the receiving-votes list.
I’m reminded of the first time we sniffed national attention in the Sutton era. In December 1976, we were 9-0 and just inside the top 20, maybe 18th or something (Has that been 40 years? Yikes!). Memphis State came into Barton Coliseum and beat us just after Christmas, and it took a few weeks to reestablish as a top 20 team that year (that was the 26-2 team that lost to Wake in the NCAA).
If we want respect, we need to beat Florida at Bud.
Yup. And even then, Florida isn’t ranked. If we really want respect, beat the Brand at Rupp.
The Gators have a top 5 RPI - and a good “brand”. A win against them will open some eyes around the country.
I agree with the general premise of this thread- there is a lag in outside recognition.
Some of that lag comes from gurus who have staked out public positions on teams and conferences. Agendas die slowly.
That said, Arkansas has history and will create a buzz if we keep playing ball. There is still the national knock on MA that he cannot win on the road. That is why these national guys can predict that we will stumble into the NCAAT. If you notice they also discount all our big home victories. We are fooling ourselves if we think a UF victory will change minds. They will immediately discount it as a typical Arkansas thing to do- win at home.
You want to see these gurus do a 180 on Arkansas? Start winning on the road. We don’t even have to win at KY to gain attention. Just winning half our road games would win over that national media.
Ya ya ya. This post is right on. And the idea of a play-in game enrages me also. But for all the celebration about our season so far, we have only played to expectations at this point. We have only played 1 road game. We have played 0 ranked teams. Texas was expected to be a good test, but Texas wasn’t expected to be worse than a top 100 RPI team. We have played a bunch of decent mid major teams at home, which is equivalent to a bunch of bad mid major teams on a neutral court. Seriously, RPI and SOS is important and all, but this is why it is only one aspect of the tourney selection. People know it matters if you are 11-1 from playing a bunch of unranked teams at home. We were expected to be a bubble team and just sneak in the field if we take care of business at home. That is exactly where we are right now.
Still, we have done what we are supposed to do. We haven’t played below expectations. We have put ourselves in position do get where we want to get. And we have createded an opportunity to exceed expectations. But now we have to take every game like it is going to define our season. We haven’t earned anything yet. Moses better show up for Florida. Fans better show up for Florida.
Do you think we should be ranked in the top 10? Top 20?
No. I don’t. Just miss the days when we were! I wasn’t knocking the polls.
I don’t watch enough college hoops to know if we should be ranked or not. I do know that when we’re playing well, we’re a tough out for anyone. It was encouraging that we were able to get some runs at key times to win the Texas game, in a game not played with a painted pig on the floor. Gotta do the same in places like Knoxville, Nashville, and especially Lexington, although I’m not sure we can beat the Calipari All-Stars even at our absolute best.
I agree 100%, wins on the road will change the perception, but is it perception or a fact. It’s what have you done lately that counts, last seasons road losses and us looking bad at Minnesota confirms what they thought, still can’t win on the road. If you can’t win on the road your not going to be going very far in any tournament even though it’s a neutral site, you beat some good teams on the road and the media will set up and take notice. Win the road games and good attention will come your way !! WPS
It’s still lazy. They said it throughout 2014 when we were a good road team. We won several road/neutral games that year and they still said it.
So, it has often been fact, but even when it wasn’t, they still stated it as fact.
We won more than half of the road games two years ago. Last year, we won 3. Over the last two years, we are second in the SEC in number of road games won.
It is going to be hard to win more than half the games on the road each year. No one but maybe three to five elite schools who do that. The big reason for the knock on Mike is because for a couple of years we won very few games on the road, but hardly lost at home and the knock on him stuck. Their analysis was we are playing up to par at home and underperforming on the road. The truth is we were overperforming at home.
Exactly. All of this.