The Case for Indiana St

[DoubleJayAlum]

Such a weak and pathetic excuse....the league cost us the bid. Look in the mirror. It wasn't the league, it was because you couldn't win a few more games. So tired of that excuse, it's everyone else's fault.

I knew somebody would say this. And I knew that somebody would be a fan of a team that is never on the bubble.

I suspect that Indiana St fans were saying this previously as well. Now, however, they are probably saying, "Crap, this sucks. We beat Miami, who just beat North Carolina at UNC, but we still have to to beat Creighton and WSu, or WSu twice, to get into the NCAA tournament? Any losses to other teams in the conference may be enough to keep us out? Our SOS is going to drop 50 spots or more just from playing conference games!?! This sucks!"

The point, Aces 1982, is that you are missing the point. In the MVC, this is how it goes:
1) To earn an NCAA bid, you have to do it in the noncon;
2) Even if you earn a bid in the noncon, you can lose it if you don't DOMINATE within the conference.
3) If you did not earn a bid in noncon play, you can not earn your way into the tournament through conference games (unless you win in St Louis).

Other true mid major conferences like the A10 and MWC allow teams enough of an opportunity to get NCAA quality wins IN CONFERENCE and earn a bit to the dance. In 2006, the MVC provided opportunities to win your way in (see Bradley for an example) to the NCAA tournament.

There is no excuse for have 7 or 8 teams with RPIs over 100. Since about 2006, the MVC has looked more like a low major conference than a mid major conference. It is sad, but this is what the MVC has become.

[isumvc1]

Such a weak and pathetic excuse....the league cost us the bid. Look in the mirror. It wasn't the league, it was because you couldn't win a few more games. So tired of that excuse, it's everyone else's fault.

I knew somebody would say this. And I knew that somebody would be a fan of a team that is never on the bubble.

I suspect that Indiana St fans were saying this previously as well. Now, however, they are probably saying, "Crap, this sucks. We beat Miami, who just beat North Carolina at UNC, but we still have to to beat Creighton and WSu, or WSu twice, to get into the NCAA tournament? Any losses to other teams in the conference may be enough to keep us out? Our SOS is going to drop 50 spots or more just from playing conference games!?! This sucks!"

The point, Aces 1982, is that you are missing the point. In the MVC, this is how it goes:
1) To earn an NCAA bid, you have to do it in the noncon;
2) Even if you earn a bid in the noncon, you can lose it if you don't DOMINATE within the conference.
3) If you did not earn a bid in noncon play, you can not earn your way into the tournament through conference games (unless you win in St Louis).

Other true mid major conferences like the A10 and MWC allow teams enough of an opportunity to get NCAA quality wins IN CONFERENCE and earn a bit to the dance. In 2006, the MVC provided opportunities to win your way in (see Bradley for an example) to the NCAA tournament.

There is no excuse for have 7 or 8 teams with RPIs over 100. Since about 2006, the MVC has looked more like a low major conference than a mid major conference. It is sad, but this is what the MVC has become.

you're probably right double Jay, like I mentioned above, we really need to beat WSU and CU in TH to get 2 more top 50 RPI wins. We did our work in the non con, it's really too bad we didn't beat New Mexico in Terre Haute, that would REALLY look good on our resume and would have given us a 3-3 record vs. the RPI top 50. The team knows what they have to do to get an at-large bid, hopefully we don't have any more "Morehead State" type nights the rest of the season.

[Khan4Cats]

I don't know that the Trees have to beat both WSU and CU at home, but probably one of them. The big key is not losing any stinkers-particularly at home. It also sucks that they are a home Bracketbuster team as there really aren't any quality teams for visitors outside of the Valley and they won't get any bonus for a 'road' win either.

[DoubleJayAlum]

They had two good wins over WSU (36). After that, they had nothing. Their only other top 100 win was at home to Indiana State.

Exactly. The MVC provided two whole opportunities at a top 50 win (which they got both) and two more opportunities at top 100 wins (they got 3 out of 4), but still didn't get in. If the MVC was better, MSU wouldn't have been punished when MVC losses came about and they would have had more chances to book top 50 and top 100 wins.

Its always easy to say just win more games. But the reality is, MSU could have won more games in conference and it wouldn't have mattered anyway because the committee did not respect the quality of those wins.

[DoubleJayAlum]

Really if anything, the main issue within the conference regarding ability to get bids is that we are often TOO good as a whole. Its too hard to win in our league because there are rarely a large group of weak teams like other conferences have. Look at a comparable mid-major conference like the WCC, they have Gonzaga at the top and St Marys has been right up there for the last several years as well. After those two, there is nothing there. They are able to run through their league without much damage. Whereas, in the Valley its difficult to go on the road and beat the 7th or 8th place team and you are going to lose a few of those games. And every year it changes--nearly everyone in this league has had their time at the top in the last 10-12 years.

BYU is now in that conference too. That gave that conference 3 teams with under 50 RPIs last year.

However, prior to that, the conference champs had about the same conference record as the MVC champs (2009 was the last time that somebody had a substantially better record).

[shoxrox]

Such a weak and pathetic excuse....the league cost us the bid. Look in the mirror. It wasn't the league, it was because you couldn't win a few more games. So tired of that excuse, it's everyone else's fault.

Typical.

If you're in a strong conference with good teams, you don't have to go 18-0 to get an at large bid. You can afford losses to good teams. In the Valley, losing to an Evansville or Missouri State can end that chance. And no team is going 18-0 in conference play, so don't use the tired line of, well just win and don't lose.

Since you're a fan of a team that is always sucking the teet that feeds you, your response is typical and equally as tired.

[Smooth007]

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology

ISU checks in as a 12 seed in this projection.

CU and WSU with 4 seeds.

[isumvc1]

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology

ISU checks in as a 12 seed in this projection.

CU and WSU with 4 seeds.

that's insane, the ONLY way we get in is by winning the MVC tourney at this point. So I assume they think we're going to win in St. Louis.

[denjayfan1]

They did beat the current leaders of the ACC and SEC and took the Mountain West Leader to overtime.

[Ace Dad]

What about tourney worthy teams in the 18-22 conferences that fall under the MVC that cannot get an at large bid?

About half the posters on this thread sound like whiny school girls.

There is no fair way to select 69 out of 344 teams. There will always be 80-90 teams that are deserving.

Indiana State should have beat 2-3 more non conference foes if they wanted to be taken seriously. Just like Evansville.