UT's chance at March Madness

#1
zansdad

zansdad

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#1
I know it is still very early but it has been a slow day in VolNation so I was looking around at some old sites from the end of last year. Re-discovered Seed Madness (a side note: do not type seedmadness.com into your browser thinking that should be their URL. That sight could be NSFW depending on how tight they have their morality filter screwed on at your place of work). Here is a nice link to it Seed Madness

As you see, as of today, even as bad as things have been offensively, UT is still well within shot of the NCAA tourney. The next couple of weeks should really set a trajectory for the rest of the season. The key will be to win the games against teams UT is obviously better than. Resume wins should come (they did last year) it's avoiding let downs against the bottom dwellers and not taking advantage of beating bad teams on the road that kept the Vols out of the NCAA tourney last year.

Unless UT just runs rough shod through SEC play and/or wins the tourney they are going to be a slave to their strength of schedule. As I said, resume wins will be there, even with what few opportunities there are, but the bottom half of the SEC is just woeful. As of last week there were more losing records in the SEC than in all of the other BCS conferences combined. These teams are going to be anchors for all the bubble type teams in the SEC.

No other real defined thoughts on this, just wanted to get it out there for discussion. Any links to other 'bracketology" type sites are welcome.
 
#2
#2
I would say our chances our 50/50 as of now. Our defense can compete with anyone in the country, we just have to excel in our offensive play. Wichita was a big win for use simply because at the end of the year they should have 1 to 2 more losses to their record. If we can win these next 6 games before the kentucky game, we'll be in good shape. Memphis will be tough, but if we beat them i can see us beating Kentucky as well.
 
#4
#4
foreverorange24 said:
I would say our chances our 50/50 as of now. Our defense can compete with anyone in the country, we just have to excel in our offensive play. Wichita was a big win for use simply because at the end of the year they should have 1 to 2 more losses to their record. If we can win these next 6 games before the kentucky game, we'll be in good shape. Memphis will be tough, but if we beat them i can see us beating Kentucky as well.
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Pretty sure the first UK game is at Rupp. Winning there will be a tall order no matter how UT plays vs Memphis.
 
#6
#6
Our RPI is pretty bad, and the SEC is not going to help that a whole lot. We just have to win some of the meaningful SEC games, i.e. Florida, Alabama, Mizzou and Kentucky. I think the magic number for wins to get us into the tourney will be 19 or 20...If we we finish out of conference strong (which I think we will finish 10-4) I think we will go to the tourney. If we lose more than 1 OOC game and and win less than 10 SEC games I think our chances will be small...

There are a lot of easy wins in the SEC right now so it should be fairly easy for Tennessee to win 20 to 21 games this year...
 
#8
#8
i do not see any easy wins for this VOL team on the road.they might not win a road game all year as long as maymon is out because Stokes numbers will not be as good with yimi and hall as they would with maymon.
 
#9
#9
gardners_51609 said:
Our RPI is pretty bad, and the SEC is not going to help that a whole lot. We just have to win some of the meaningful SEC games, i.e. Florida, Alabama, Mizzou and Kentucky. I think the magic number for wins to get us into the tourney will be 19 or 20...If we we finish out of conference strong (which I think we will finish 10-4) I think we will go to the tourney. If we lose more than 1 OOC game and and win less than 10 SEC games I think our chances will be small...

There are a lot of easy wins in the SEC right now so it should be fairly easy for Tennessee to win 20 to 21 games this year...
Click to expand...

10-4? Only 12 non-conference games. They should be 8-3 when Memphis comes to Knoxville. Losing to Memphis at home would be very bad for UT's resume.
 
#10
#10
I prefer TeamRankings to SeedMadness. SeedMadness, especially this early on, has a lot of outliers that are nearly impossible to explain (like LSU).

College Basketball NCAA Tournament Projections on TeamRankings.com

TR's bracketology gives Tennessee a 37% chance of making the tournament. It gives UF a 100% chance, UK 95%, Ole Miss 81%, Missouri an 80%, Alabama 41%, and Arkansas 10%. Everyone else is in single digits.
 
#12
#12
volfan414life said:
i do not see any easy wins for this VOL team on the road.they might not win a road game all year as long as maymon is out because Stokes numbers will not be as good with yimi and hall as they would with maymon.
Click to expand...

Have you been watching Sports Source on Sunday mornings? Jimmy Hyams said the same thing Sunday. Sometimes I think he tries to say the dumbest thing possible just to see if anyone is still listening when he talks . Not winning a single game on the road? There are some terrible teams in the SEC and UT plays at least a few of them on the road. They'll win at least a few SEC road games.
 
#14
#14
GatorsGators said:
I prefer TeamRankings to SeedMadness. SeedMadness, especially this early on, has a lot of outliers that are nearly impossible to explain (like LSU).

College Basketball NCAA Tournament Projections on TeamRankings.com

TR's bracketology gives Tennessee a 37% chance of making the tournament. It gives UF a 100% chance, UK 95%, Ole Miss 81%, Missouri an 80%, Alabama 41%, and Arkansas 10%. Everyone else is in single digits.
Click to expand...

They all have strengths and weaknesses. UK's resume right now is worse than UT, so there has to be some "projecting" going on there. As the season rolls along the computer ones and the human ones will begin to come together.
 
#15
#15
GatorsGators said:
I prefer TeamRankings to SeedMadness. SeedMadness, especially this early on, has a lot of outliers that are nearly impossible to explain (like LSU).

College Basketball NCAA Tournament Projections on TeamRankings.com

TR's bracketology gives Tennessee a 37% chance of making the tournament. It gives UF a 100% chance, UK 95%, Ole Miss 81%, Missouri an 80%, Alabama 41%, and Arkansas 10%. Everyone else is in single digits.
Click to expand...

This site also has fla winning it all. Thats all i needed to see. Next please.
 
#16
#16
gardners_51609 said:
Our RPI is pretty bad, and the SEC is not going to help that a whole lot. We just have to win some of the meaningful SEC games, i.e. Florida, Alabama, Mizzou and Kentucky. I think the magic number for wins to get us into the tourney will be 19 or 20...If we we finish out of conference strong (which I think we will finish 10-4) I think we will go to the tourney. If we lose more than 1 OOC game and and win less than 10 SEC games I think our chances will be small...

There are a lot of easy wins in the SEC right now so it should be fairly easy for Tennessee to win 20 to 21 games this year...
Click to expand...

Our RPI is not pretty bad. We're right in the thick of it on the Bubble.
 
#17
#17
ukvols said:
Our RPI is not pretty bad. We're right in the thick of it on the Bubble.
Click to expand...

That is what I mean, The last I checked our RPI was in the low 70's that makes it a little tougher to get in since we do not play a schedule that screams RPI....
 
#20
#20
gardners_51609 said:
That is what I mean, The last I checked our RPI was in the low 70's that makes it a little tougher to get in since we do not play a schedule that screams RPI....
Click to expand...

Tennessee's RPI is sitting at 62 as of right this moment.

Live-RPI.com

This is a good site to keep up with RPI on a day to day basis.
 
#21
#21
gardners_51609 said:
That is what I mean, The last I checked our RPI was in the low 70's that makes it a little tougher to get in since we do not play a schedule that screams RPI....
Click to expand...

After last season, even the low 70's doesn't seem too bad. If we pick up some "bad" losses, we'll be in trouble again. But, if we beat the teams we are supposed to beat, I think we'll be fine.
 
#22
#22
zansdad said:
10-4? Only 12 non-conference games. They should be 8-3 when Memphis comes to Knoxville. Losing to Memphis at home would be very bad for UT's resume.
Click to expand...

And I am sorry I had flipped my numbers...I think we will only have 3 to 4 losses entering league play.

My prediction is we go 8-4 in OOC play...

And 12-6 or 13-5 in league play...

giving us a 20-10 or 21-9 record and with that we should make it....
 
#23
#23
UTvolinBGKY said:
This site also has fla winning it all. Thats all i needed to see. Next please.
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KenPom has UF #1 right now, and Sagarin has UF #2 (#1 in predictor). Are you going to throw those out as well because you don't like the fact that Florida is good this season?

Also, actually, TR gives Florida a 15.5% chance of winning it all as opposed to Indiana's 17%.
 
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#24
#24
zansdad said:
They all have strengths and weaknesses. UK's resume right now is worse than UT, so there has to be some "projecting" going on there. As the season rolls along the computer ones and the human ones will begin to come together.
Click to expand...
It undoubtedly involves a lot of predicting. But it's so early in the season right now that there needs to be a bit of predicting if you want your metric to be valuable.
 
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#25
#25
zansdad said:
Have you been watching Sports Source on Sunday mornings? Jimmy Hyams said the same thing Sunday. Sometimes I think he tries to say the dumbest thing possible just to see if anyone is still listening when he talks . Not winning a single game on the road? There are some terrible teams in the SEC and UT plays at least a few of them on the road. They'll win at least a few SEC road games.
Click to expand...

I've been thinking a lot about the Vols chances to make the NCAA tourny lately. Those that say that the Wichita St game was not a must win couldn't have been more wrong. Our RPI was 134 going into that game. We are at a manageable 63 now. A loss to Wichita State would probably have put us in a must win mode from here on out. You are right about the SEC. One bad loss against SC, GA, etc can put us completely out of the picture. I've been going to realtimerpi lately. They have projected wins and losses for us throughout the schedule. I find it intereesting that they do not have us winning one road game. Even though some of the worse teams in the SEC are on the road.
 
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