Syracuse loses! Shox lone unbeaten

by **isumvc1** » February 19th, 2014, 8:20 pm

congrats WSU, you're the last team standing! Will you be #1 next week?? For the MVC it would be great!

**Sponsor**

by **rlh04d** » February 19th, 2014, 8:25 pm

WSU will not be #1. Florida will be, even after struggling with a bad Auburn team.

I wouldn't have put Syracuse behind WSU with a loss @Duke, but a loss at home to Boston College ... they absolutely should fall further. I don't know that they will, but they don't deserve to be #2 after that. If WSU lost on the road to Loyola tonight we'd fall four or five spots.

by **isumvc1** » February 19th, 2014, 8:33 pm

rlh04d wrote:WSU will not be #1. Florida will be, even after struggling with a bad Auburn team.

I wouldn't have put Syracuse behind WSU with a loss @Duke, but a loss at home to Boston College ... they absolutely should fall further. I don't know that they will, but they don't deserve to be #2 after that. If WSU lost on the road to Loyola tonight we'd fall four or five spots.

man, it'd be way more than that, you'd be out of the top 10 for sure.

by **rlh04d** » February 19th, 2014, 8:45 pm

isumvc1 wrote:
rlh04d wrote:WSU will not be #1. Florida will be, even after struggling with a bad Auburn team.

I wouldn't have put Syracuse behind WSU with a loss @Duke, but a loss at home to Boston College ... they absolutely should fall further. I don't know that they will, but they don't deserve to be #2 after that. If WSU lost on the road to Loyola tonight we'd fall four or five spots.

man, it'd be way more than that, you'd be out of the top 10 for sure.

I wouldn't put it by a lot of the voters, but I don't think so. There's wiggle room with all of the losses teams keep taking lately.

by **Play Angry** » February 19th, 2014, 9:23 pm

Florida @ Ole Miss this weekend is no gimme.

by **rlh04d** » February 19th, 2014, 9:36 pm

Play Angry wrote:Florida @ Ole Miss this weekend is no gimme.

No game is a gimme in February.

Glad to see Saint Louis squeaked out that OT win over 9 win George Mason.

by **AndShock** » February 19th, 2014, 9:41 pm

Syracuse got Evansville'd

by **Aargh** » February 19th, 2014, 10:07 pm

Looking at rpi, Syracuse losing at home to BC is about the same as WSU losing at home to Drake. WSU plays Drake at home Saturday night.

by **MissouriValleyUnite** » February 19th, 2014, 11:55 pm

As stated, good for WSU's SOS that Saint Louis survived both of Paul Hewitt's Overtime scares (whose George Mason team is much better than their record).

I believe WSU is safe in the Top-10, even with a home loss to Drake (which won't happen). For reference, Murray State dropped 7 spots when they lost to Tennessee State 2 years back, and the Ohio Valley was much less respected than even this trough of a season for the Missouri Valley.

by **rlh04d** » February 21st, 2014, 12:50 am

This is a very, very good article on the Shockers: http://msn.foxsports.com/kansas-city/st ... ned-022014

Quick selected bits from it:

13-4. That's the Shockers' record on road and neutral courts -- outside of league tourney and NCAA tournament play -- against the RPI Top 75 since October 2011.

...The Bluejays' record, same criteria, since October 2011: 8-9.

...The Billikens' record, same criteria, since October 2011: 6-5.

...Butler? Six wins, fourteen losses. VCU? Six wins, twelve losses. Among a peer mid-major group that includes Creighton, Butler, Saint Louis, Gonzaga and VCU, only the Zags have posted a similar winning percentage (10-5) against those Top 75 RPI programs over the past three seasons to Wichita's, and only Butler has scheduled more tilts (20) than the Shox's 17 against that level of pre-tourney competition.

...Which is not to say they haven't tried. Let's go back to that pool of Shocker peer schools again. Since the fall of 2011, Wichita's average non-conference strength of schedule rank is 44th in the country. Of those other five Cinderellas, only Gonzaga's is close over that same span (65th) and the rest are near, or at, triple digits, with Creighton at 99th, VCU at 110th, Butler at 127th and Saint Louis at 129th, on average.

...But if you're curious, here's how the Florida Gators stack up against the RPI Top 75 on road/neutral courts, not counting March tourneys, since October 2011: Eight wins, 11 losses.