Aces1982 wrote:Aargh wrote:I'm not even saying that playing UConn close "counts" for anything. A lot of things that "don't count for anything" get teams invited. Nothing in the "eye test" counts for anything. Reputation seems to count A LOT! If the members of the committee recognize a name or remember a name, that seems to have some influence on invites.
For a non-football bubble team, anything that gets your name out there that is not negative helps with the committee. WSU didn't get much RPI-wise in Maui, but they showed they can play with some very good teams. I've heard many times that a team didn't get an invite because they had never shown that they could "play with" tournament-quality teams. As I recall that cost MSU in some of their great RPI years when they didn't get invited.
Here's how it works:Didn't Michigan State play UCONN close too? Or is that 70-67 final deceptive (34 all at half)?
Nice comparison to the then #2 team in the country. That's exactly what WSU got in Maui - the ability to be compared with the #2 team in the country.
So are you saying it is ok to compare scores? UE lost to Butler by 4 and had a shot to tie it with seconds left. I guess we could say they are just as good as the runner up last year? They also beat UNI which went to the S16, does that mean they are just as good as a S16 team. See how comparing scores really doesn't work? You lost, it does not matter if it was by 2 or 102.
I would think that losing by two points, or one possession, is different than losing by 14 points, or 5-7 possessions. The first lost indicates two evenly matched teams. The second loss indicates a team that was able to score more or defend better, or both. I have said a hundred times that there is not much difference between a 1 point victory and a 2-3 point loss.