I’d venture to say the teams-we-should-beat list includes @ Chickens, @ Misery, A&M, and @ Vandy. That alone gets us to 18. The list from which we need to steal one or two is Moo U, @ Auburn, @ Jellycats, Ole Miss and Bama. Win two of those homies and the four we should win is 20 wins and we should be pretty safe. Our SOS isn’t bad at 36 and it will get better after playing those five on the need-to-steal-one list.
Swine, not sure how the new selection process will work out, but I would change your should-beat list to must beat. The highest ranked of those four in the NET is Missery, at 80 (at least they were 80 this morning). I don’t believe we can afford a loss to any of those four.
I also like our chances against Mistake, Ole Piss, and Bama at BWA. If we hold home court and win those three @ games (must beat games). We should be sitting pretty.
I also believe we can’t afford a one and done in the SECT, think we need to be at least 1-1.
Must wins (4) Need to win( 2)
@. S. Carolina. Miss St
@. Missouri. Ole Miss
Texas A&M. Alabama
@. Vandy
Bonus games need to be competive
@ Kentucky
@ Auburn
I don’t think the 20 win total means that much. We’ve been left out with 20 wins before. We need to beat the teams we are comepeting with in the SEC for an at large bid.
SEC tournament at least 1 win. I really suspect the best seed we are getting this year would be a 9. Kiss of death 8-9 to matchup up with a 1 seed if you win the first game.
Those bad losses to WKY and Georgia Tech along with the Texas loss are the reason the hogs are on the outside of the dance looking in from the bubble conversation. They are in familiar territory as usual.
Need a few good wins.
We’ve won 20 games 29 times. We’ve made the NCAAT 28 times, we’ve made the NIT once. So that 20 win mark is important. The NIT year, the SEC was considered weak and our OOC was considered weak. That’s not the case this year. I watched the end of the Mistake vs LSWhooo game, and they said on there that there is a strong possibility that the SECCG and the ACCCG could decide number one seeds or possibly all four number 1 seeds. They suggested that TN, KY, VA, and Duke could all be one seeds. That helps the conference with bids. Also, many forget but we were actually in a win and in situation according to the bracketologists and we lost the last game of the season and went 0-1 in the SECT. 20 wins this year maybe considered better than it was four years ago (when we went to the NIT.
I think we need 22 to not be nervous. If you read my post, we win our four home games, the three road games @USCe, Missery, and Vandy and that gets us to 21. 1-1 in the SECT gets us to 22. We’ve NEVER missed the NCAAT with 22 win
20 wins is in… before or after the SECT… not even a consideration about not getting in… look at the bubble teams around us and you see they will be struggling for 20 wins, some with a worse SOS… 19 is the number that could have us sweating on selection day… even then when comparing to other possible invitee’s, we’d still be in pretty good shape… Bubble teams are making their hay right now against other bubble teams… 5 and 3 with an SECT win and we are in… the question is can we go 5 & 3 the rest of the way…
We can’t go 5-3. 9 games left, not counting SECT. If we finish 5-4 and 1-1 in SECT, I’m willing to bet we don’t get in. Problem is, I don’t believe we finish 5-4. More like 6-3 (which is 20 wins, not counting SECT) and I personally think 7-2. I’d be shocked with anything less than six.
How many SEC teams are expected to make it? That has something to do with us getting in doesn’t it? We are in a group of like 8-9 other SEC teams. Arkansas could finish anywhere from 4-10 in the standings.
Yes, they could finish anywhere from 4-10. However, finishing 4th would probably have us over the 20 win total. Finishing 10th probably would have us at 17-18 wins. The more wins the better the chance of making the tourney.
I think 18-19 wins, we’re probably sweating on selection Sunday, 18 might be on the wrong side and 19 might have us anywhere from a 9-11 seed. 20 wins, no matter how you slice it I think we are in safely anywhere from a 7-9 seed. Our SOS right now is 41. Our projected ending SOS is 47.
Also, another positive thing to keep in mind. Outside of the Texas A&M home game, the rest of our remaining games are Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 2 games. Despite Vandy’s record their NET is still 115, so if we beat them on the road, it still helps our resume because it will go down as a Quadrant 2 win.
Just for discussion purposes let’s say our schedule ends like this.
@SC - L @Mizz - L
Miss St - W @Auburn - L
TAM - W @UK - L
Miss - W @Vandy - L
Alabama - W
That puts us at 18-13 and 9-9 in conference. We’d have wins over Miss St, Ole Miss, Alabama, @LSU, and Indiana. Which are all tournament teams. 2 of which would be Quadrant 1 wins if season ended today. We’d only have 2 bad losses (Quadrant 3) in Western Kentucky and Georgia Tech. I think in that scenario, you need 1 SEC tournament win against a decent team and that could POSSIBLY get you in at 19-14. Getting to 20 wins with a 47 SOS is going to be real hard for the committee to turn us down, especially with our road/neutral site record, which is pretty good.
If the hogs get beat by Missouri, Vandy, Texas A&M or South Carolina the only hope for post season is the NIT.
The big thing for our young hogs is winning. If they can push the SEC winning streak to 4 this weekend at South Carolina and then 5 at Missouri on Tuesday the hogs record would be 7-4. They will separate from the pack. Then Saturday February 16th Miss St at Bud Walton. That’s actually the big game. Win that one and I think they can make the dance without a problem as long as they avoid another bad loss.
Saturday the 16 th after all the SEC games are complete we will have a clue to how where the season is headed.
Check the conference standings out.
Tenn. 9-0
Kentucky. 8-1
LSU. 8-1
S. Carolina 6-3
Auburn. 5-4
Arkansas. 5-4
Alabama. 5-4
Ole Miss. 5-4
Miss St. 4-5
Florida. 4-5
Missouri. 2-7
Georgia. 1-8
Texas A&M. 1-8
Vandy. 0-9
These next 3 conference games will separate this pack.
I agree about Vandy and USCe, but believe it or not, Missery could actually be a Quadrant 1 by the time we play them (currently 80, 1-75 on road is Quadrant 1, and they play aTm Sat, I expect Missery to win).
Now, if we hold serve on our home games (as of now), Miss St (Q1), Ole Miss (Q2), aTm (Q3), Bama (Q2), other than aTm, those are good wins. Now, the road, I actually expect to beat USCe (Q2), Missery (Q1/2), and Vandy (Q2). That gives us 21, but if we lose Mistake and Missery (both could be Q1), that would put us at 19, and I think 1-1 in the SECT could make it very interesting.
By the way, I actually always pencil us in for a win @AUB (Q1). Since they built their current building, we are 4-1/5-1. We play good there. I wouldn’t count us out.
Now, saying that, I actually think we finish 6-3 (20 wins) and go 1-1 in the SECT, but I can see us going 8-1 (only loss to KY, 22 wins) and maybe 2-1 in the SECT (at least semifinals). I think we can actually do that, but what I’m curious about is how many people will complain we didn’t win the SECC or the SECT?
That’s not true, everybody keeps looking at their record and don’t factor in their NET. All 3 of those teams on the road would be considered quadrant 2 games, and as Baked mentioned Mizzou is really close to be quadrant 1. The SEC is so strong this year, Vandy hasn’t even got an SEC win yet, and their NET is 115, which isn’t bad, they win 1 or 2 games and they are a top 100 NET team.
I’ll give you an example. Last year Alabama made the NCAA tournament as a 9 seed with a (19-14 overall record) (8-10 SEC Record).
Their worst losses were… @Vanderbilt (132 RPI), neutral Minnesota (171 RPI), home UCF (84 RPI), @Georgia (79 RPI), and @Mississippi (141 RPI)
In the scenario I laid out for the Hogs our worst losses would be… home Western Ky (127 NET), home Georgia Tech (108 NET), @SC (106 NET), @Mizz (80 NET), @Vandy (115 NET)
If NET system was in affect last year. Alabama made the tournament with their worst losses being two Quadrant 2 losses and three Quadrant 3 losses.
In the Hog scenario we would have three Quadrant 2 losses and two Quadrant 3 losses.
So our losses would be less than theirs, and the SEC is better from a rankings (NET/RPI perspective). Now Alabama did have 3 SOS, they scheduled really well in the non-conference. But, as I said they made it in comfortably as a 9 seed. I think if season ended today and those NET stayed about the same I think 19 wins has us sweating but we get in. 20 for sure no matter how we get there we’re in.
I don’t expect them to win the SEC tournament. I do expect at least a 5 th place finish in confeeence play. The top 3 finish would give the hogs a couple days rest finite for the tournament
Everyone is ignoring one factor: 19 wins means a winning conference record, and that generally gets you in in the SEC, particularly when the league is as strong as it is this year.
That’s my opinion as well… 19 and an SECT win, we are in, 19 with no SECT win, sweating out Sunday selection… I think worse case to still a bid is, 18-13 with a 1-1 SECT… that’s probably the worst we can do… and that will be close… these next 3 games are big… we need 2 of them but could lose all 3…