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February 25, 2007

Bubblicious March Madness News


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Georgia obviously isn't alone on the NCAA bubble. Two dozen or so teams entered today vying for about 8 to 10 slots at the bottom of the pile of at-large bids. Saturday ended with things going about as well as they possibly could've gone for the Bulldogs.

Our RPI is now up to 52. We were down to 59th pre-game.

Some teams we wanted to lose that did (new RPI as of 10:00 pm Sat.):
    -- Alabama (40) 6-8 in SEC
    -- Clemson (44) 5-9 in ACC
    -- Oklahoma State (48) 5-8 in Big 12
    -- Georgia Tech (50) 6-8 in ACC
    -- Mississippi (66) 7-7 in SEC
    -- Arkansas (62) 5-9 in SEC
    -- Mississippi State (67) 7-7 in SEC
Teams we wanted to lose that didn't (new RPI):
    -- Tennessee (11) 8-6 in SEC
    -- Illinois (30) 9-6 in Big 10 (now a tourney lock)
    -- Purdue (42) 7-7 in Big 10
    -- Texas Tech (43) 7-7 in Big 12
    -- Florida State (45) 6-9 in ACC (pretty much out)
    -- San Diego State (47) 9-5 in MWC
    -- Syracuse (53) 9-5 in Big East
    -- Michigan (55) 7-7 in Big 10
    -- Kansas St (58) 9-5 in Big 12
It looks like Southern Cal is probably going to move up after their game with Cal. We need to 9-7 in the SEC, and around 48 in the RPIs. A win over UK (RPI 7) or UT (RPI 11) would get us both of those things.

The above teams don't constitute a complete listing of all bubble teams, but they are some of the higher profile options. Looking at the above teams and their remaining games, I like our chances better than everyone listed above except UT (their RPI is so I high they might get in at 8-8), Illinois (now a lock), Purdue, Texas Tech and Syracuse.

PWD

All Stats from RealtimeRPI as of 10:00 pm Sat.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

All due respect Paul, to go dancing, we need a record better than .500 on games between now and the Madness.

Anonymous said...

Tennessee is all but a lock at this point. Even if they lose out a 20-11 team with an RPI and SOS around 12 is not going to be left out.

Scary thing for Uga is that the committee doesn't even recognize the 2 wins over D-2 teams. Therefore Uga will need to get to 22 wins to be considered a 20 win team.

Unknown said...

Anon - 2 things:

1. UGA has only 1 game against a Div II team. KSU is Div I now. Valdosta isn't. If you got to any RPI site, you can see that pretty clearly.

2. Not to point out the painfully obvious, but if UT loses out their RPI won't stay at 12. It won't fall much from losing to the Gators on Wed. But it would fall quite a bit for losing to us on Sat, and then if they lost in the SEC Tourney 1st round, it would fall much further. In a "lose out" scenario, their RPI probably falls to 25-28. Then it's not so unreasonable that they get left out.

That said. I think they're in. Just saying that their case in a lose out scenario isn't as strong as you make out. Nor is ours as weak.

Anonymous said...

My mistake re the D-2 schools. I had read an ESPN article calling KSU a D-2 school.

Even a "lose-out" TN scenario and an RPI of 25 will likely get the Vols a bid. The committee will likely also take note of a 1-3 record without Lofton (I read one site suggesting that the committee will essentially disregard the record without Lofton, therefore on paper TN is more of a 19-6 team than 20-9). To quote DawgSports, can we all agree than 1 more TN win against anybody, anywhere lead-pipe locks the bid?

 
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