pre-season rankings???Hoxwurth wrote: ↑Thu May 19, 2022 2:48 pmIf Maryland loses, the winner will hang a banner, and I doubt many will question it.MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Thu May 19, 2022 2:24 pm
What if Maryland loses?
(I don't think they will)
Seriously, on what basis can you claim that ND would have been there on Memorial Day or even Final 4 Saturday? They did not beat any of the tournament bound teams, two of which they lost to have already lost their first round match-ups. Only two left that they played all season are in the final 8. Only one will be in the Final Four.
I'm not arguing that there wasn't a case for them to be in the tourney as a bubble team, but claiming they'd be in the Final Four, much less Memorial Day, with any sort of confidence, is belied by their in-season performances...
Want to be in the tourney, win more games.
Don't lose all the games against the teams which do well.
Don't let it be a question.
I'm not claiming that they would be in the Final Four, but they would have had a better chance than all of the other bubble teams and some of the seeded ones, too. As for evidence, there's all sorts of predictive measures like preseason betting odds, blue chip index, Massey ratings, and Lax-Elo. In particular, preseason rankings are useful predictors of postseason success. See here, for example.
ND did win games against a top-10 team, and the committee pretended those weren't quality wins despite the committee's own criteria.
come on, you gotta win the games...or not.
Which "top 10" team did they beat? You mean one that didn't make the tournament either, but were once ranked in the Top 10 by the media polls?
Seriously, if you'd asked me to select and told me I could do it any way I wanted, I'd have chose ND over Harvard, but I might well chosen another school. Frankly, I didn't think either earned it.
But we're talking bubble regardless...ND simply didn't earn better than consideration on the bubble.