North Florida has a chance to earn an automatic bid Sunday if they can upset #1 seed Florida Gulf Coast in the A-SUN finals. Not surprising they made it to the finals, we all seen Nic Moore earlier this year when we played them, he’s a guy that could play and be the star on most high major teams. Them winning their tournament and getting an automatic bid would help our resume adding a victory over a team in the field.
Also, other teams in our non-conference that will have a good chance to win their conference tournament.
I agree it will help for N Florida to win it and the others we played and beat.
Next year it would be nice to play a little more high profile non conference schedule. I would like to see the Big 12 challenge continue and have the SEC start another challenge with the Big 10 and Big East.
I looked at Wisconsin, Cal, and a few others with similar records to ours. Our OOC RPI and OOC SOS seems to be higher. Not sure how much more high profile we could get. Now, I agree about B1G (but we are already playing Minnesota at BWA), and Big East (maybe ACC as well), I think the Top conferences should have at least one OOC with a team from each of the other top conferences (or should I say P5 conferences).
Tennessee (played Wisconsin, Oregon, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Gonzaga, Kansas State)
Florida (played Seton Hall, Gonzaga, Miami, Duke, Florida State, Oklahoma)
Vanderbilt (played Marquette, Butler, Minnesota, MTSU, Dayton, Iowa State + home/road vs. Kentucky and Florida)
Georgia (played Clemson, Kansas, Marquette, Georgia Tech + home/road vs. Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina)
Arkansas’s schedule ranks in the lower half of the SEC but is still rated high overall. The Hogs’ nonconference schedule ranks below average, and that wasn’t helped by Texas being pretty bad and SF Austin falling off the face of the earth.
Arkansas’s best nonconference opponents were Oklahoma State, Minnesota, Houston, UT Arlington and Texas. Should the Hogs be willing to play six tough nonconference games like Florida-Tenn-Vandy? I’d say it depends on how many games we have against the top end of the SEC.
According to RPI forecast, AR non conference schedule ranks 38 overall, and OOC RPI is 11. Not get where you’re saying below average. 38 seems high to me. And they’re ranked 7th in the SEC, with a projected non conference RPI of 10, and 42 OOC SOS.
I forgot to mention UT-Arlington. They are the team with the best chance to win their conference, and it’s possible they could get an at-large bid even if they don’t win it.
It’s interesting to me what Lunardi and Palm are saying. I compared SMU, Wichita St, Illinois St, and MiddleTennessee because of their similar records. Middle Tennessee should be in compared to the other three, but they’re the only ones that appear to be in a win tourney or out position (even though Palm has Wich St out).
The reason they both have us on the bubble is because we’ve only got one win against “tourney” teams. It appears that UTA, MSM (was in Lunardi’s projection Wed morning), and a few others were on there. Counting between Lunardi and Palm there were 12 teams listed that AR played. AR has only lost to 6 teams total, so we have to have beaten 6 tourney teams, correct?
That was Wed morning, their updates have us down to 7, but N Florida could put us back to 8, I believe Ole Miss and Vandy were two of the teams that disappeared.
Teams we’ve beaten he has in the field right now are… Mt. St Mary, South Carolina, UT-Arlington. Teams that are on the bubble on the outside we’ve beaten are… Vanderbilt and Houston.
Their resume: 17-13 record, 80 RPI, 43 SOS, 177 non-conference SOS, 2-8 road record, 8-10 vs top 100
This resume is exactly what they always say won’t get you in the tournament. Poor RPI, Poor road record, Poor Non-conference schedule, lost 13 or more games, and losing record vs the top 100. They’ve pulled some nice upsets against ranked teams at home, but that’s the only thing they’ve done. No way they should be in the field. And the media is saying they are a lock.
I agree, I also compared Wisky to AR. Very similar with AR having an edged in “most” of the areas the committee supposedly looks at. Wednesday they were a 6 seed, us a 9.
By the way the highlighted portion says played not beat. I just looked with the newest update on both. Palm has 7 teams we played (counting bubble teams) listed on his bracketology. Lunardi has 9 (counting bubble teams, plus GA). On Wednesday morning they had combined for 12. Today they have the same seven in the field, and Lunardi has three more on the bubble (counting GA).