CMJ

NT 80 ---------- Tulane 76 Final

NT 70 ---------- Tulane 62 4:13 to go Buckle up fellas...this is where some games have slipped away this season!

NT 66 ---------- Tulane 59 5:56 to go Noland, Scott, and Edwards all with big plays in that stretch. We need a long stretch of good defense...Tulane is shooting well this half.

NT 59 ---------- Tulane 54 7:54 to go This is starting to really feel like some of our games we lost in the final minutes. Need to really focus here.

NT 58 ---------- Tulane 47 11:34 to go Playing very well that segment...seemingly regained control.

NT 47 ---------- Tulane 40 15:27 to go Got the lead up to 13 but they're on a run.

NT 36 ---------- Tulane 27 Halftime Good half...gotta keep it up.

NT 31 ---------- Tulane 22 3:45 to go Playing solid ball right now. I like that Scott's offense has seemingly come alive again.

NT 24 ---------- Tulane 19 7:13 to go I feel like Jones and Noland are both looking more like their old selves.

NT 14 ---------- Tulane 11 11:42 to go Our offense has cooled down and the Green Wave has hit some shots. It's rarely easy on the road.

NT 12 ---------- Tulane 3 15:48 to go Scott, Jones, Edwards, and Buggs all with three so far. Balanced scoring!

If we do it and everyone else doesn't (and then loses to a bunch of names), or if some of our colleagues schedule weakly and lose several games, it ends up hurting us badly. The way this works is if the whole conference schedules similarly and basically goes undefeated.

Not just us....the whole league. And we can't lose to any.

I never said that exactly, though I can see how you may have misread it that way. I've said in multiple threads that the Big XII did really well OOC which means the league starts from a position it can't really fall from as they beat each other up. On the other hand when a conference takes a lot of OOC losses then when you beat each other up it just makes it seem as though it's mediocre. Leagues like ours do better when 1 or 2 schools (like Memphis and FAU) that do well in the OOC then go on to basically run roughshod though the rest of the conference. But when schools, like us, that lose to Fordham then defeat a Memphis - or FAU loses to Charlotte (who went down to Stetson) it really kills them. An opposite example of this from a power league perspective is this year's Pac-12. Someone like UCLA who lost to CSUN (at home no less) has gotten better as the season has gone on, but their first 15 games being so poor ruined their season. And now when they beat teams perceived as better it kills the league. That's why only Arizona and Washington State are likely to get in. And a conference like ours who cleaned up in the OOC (the MWC) is currently projected to get in six.

Because the the bottom half of the league is lowly ranked enough to bring the rest of us down just enough. Our league is the 10th rated this season, which makes it tough to get multiple teams in unless the top two to three schools are clearly better than everyone else. But if there's 5-6 teams that start to pile up losses in league play the math just won't work the way it does when 7-8 schools in the Big XII beat each other up simply because they all did so much better OOC than we did.

Of course a Bottom rung Big XII team would this year because the league itself was so damn strong OOC. But look at the Pac-12, another Power league that had a bad year in the non conference. Right now only two schools are projected in. I remember other years when various power leagues only got 2-3 teams in. Sure it's not one, but the committee also punishes the big boys when they have down years in the OOC.

Because quite a few schools have bad losses, or a lot of wins over marginal opponents. So if schools with bad losses win over the schools high in the rankings, it kills the numbers of those schools. It's not just in the AAC either.

The results in OOC just aren't there except for Memphis and FAU. And both of them have struggled more than they can afford in league play.

It's the same reason a plenty of quality places have a lot of bad yelp reviews. People rarely go to the site to comment after a good experience, but LOVE to if they have a bad one.

Well earned given their sparkling record in league play.

I think by the 25th of January we would have defeated Fordham, LSU, and arguably Boise State. All three were games we probably should have won at the time. Now I would expect all three to be losses by more than we lost to them then.

In my humble opinion, many of those early season losses would not have been losses by the time of the SMU win. We seemed like we were really jelling and figuring things out more so than a lot of other teams were. The improvement from LSU to then was profound, and I believe we would have defeated the Tigers if we'd been played January 25th. That said, we've really regressed the last month. A lot of that is injuries, but not all.

I'm not saying it's fair, just that it's the truth.

With FAU losing today, we're down to a 1 bid league again.

Even using last year's criteria it seems very unlikely we would sneak in.