Still a 3 Seed per Lunardi

[FtWorthCat]

Just updated this morning. As of this moment, we are 5-1 against the projected #1 and #2 seeds.

Men's Bracketology: Purdue, Kentucky losses are Wisconsin's gain

Let's map out the domino effects in the bracket as we get closer to Selection Sunday. The Badgers are among the big winners of any advantage.

www.espn.com

 

[wildcat_nation28]

I would take it especially if Kentucky got healthy

 

[MonsterMash79]

Damn! That’s crazy… I’d take it though

 

[BGCATFAN2012]

I might be wrong but its hard to imagine this team going on a run with the injuries stacked up. I glad we beat our rivals this season but even if Butler come back like the last game he played it's one play away from being done. Carr and his back problems is probably gonna keep him the same player he's been lately. Robertson hurts his shooting wrist only to go 5 of 35 from deep to close out. It's just to big of a hill to climb with the SEC Tournament being as tough as it will be these guys will be layed out everywhere by the end of Fridays game if they can make it that far. Then beating Auburn or Bama Saturday or Sunday, I give that a 10 % chance.

 

[CatFanInIlliniLand]

This is a different season. The committee knows how much better the SEC compared to the rest of the country.

 

[FtWorthCat]

I might be wrong but its hard to imagine this team going on a run with the injuries stacked up. I glad we beat our rivals this season but even if Butler come back like the last game he played it's one play away from being done. Carr and his back problems is probably gonna keep him the same player he's been lately. Robertson hurts his shooting wrist only to go 5 of 35 from deep to close out. It's just to big of a hill to climb with the SEC Tournament being as tough as it will be these guys will be layed out everywhere by the end of Fridays game if they can make it that far. Then beating Auburn or Bama Saturday or Sunday, I give that a 10 % chance.

I've thought all season long that getting to the Sweet Sixteen was a reasonable goal for this team. Looking at today's bracket, that would mean beating UNC-Greensboro and Illinois in Providence. If Butler plays, we would be favored in both. Then it would be Houston in Indianapolis, probably a 2-3 point underdog in that one.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

There is just no way we hold onto that. I actually think we will be lucky to get a 6-seed or better, assuming our injuries really don't get better.

 

[CatOfDaVille]

I've thought all season long that getting to the Sweet Sixteen was a reasonable goal for this team. Looking at today's bracket, that would mean beating UNC-Greensboro and Illinois in Providence. If Butler plays, we would be favored in both. Then it would be Houston in Indianapolis, probably a 2-3 point underdog in that one.

This team is an enigma. We could lose in the 1st round to a 13 seed or make a FF run. Neither would really surprise me at this point.

 

[FtWorthCat]

There is just no way we hold onto that. I actually think we will be lucky to get a 6-seed or better, assuming our injuries really don't get better.

If we finish 9-9 in SEC and get to quarterfinals of SEC Tournament, there is no way we drop below a 4 seed.

 

[Seth_C]

This team is an enigma. We could lose in the 1st round to a 13 seed or make a FF run. Neither would really surprise me at this point.

If we are down Butler and Robinson then I would say a Final Four run would be hugely shocking for me.

 

[JimboBBN]

We are finally getting a fair shake as long as we win the games we should. They know we are injured. They know outside of Auburn we have the best wins in the country.

 

[Padsfs07]

There is just no way we hold onto that. I actually think we will be lucky to get a 6-seed or better, assuming our injuries really don't get better.

I agree. I think will we be lucky to go 8-10, 19-12, playing on Wednesday in the SEC. Beat USC and MSU, lose Friday to Auburn for a 21-13 record - 5 or 6 seed. If we get lucky and snag a win among the 4 tough games left - Auburn @Alabama, @Missouri or the Friday matchup in the SEC, we can move up to a 4 seed. I can see us taking out Auburn if they come into Rupp still #1. It's much more likely we drop the early SEC tourney game.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

If we finish 9-9 in SEC and get to quarterfinals of SEC Tournament, there is no way we drop below a 4 seed.

God, I hope you're right. IDK if I just dont trust the SC after all these years, but maybe they will favor the SEC heavily for the schedule difficulty.

The problem is we are 3-5 since the injuries really ramped up, and two of those were against Tennessee who I think is kind of a bad matchup for UK. I think 9-9 is pretty optimistic for our injuries. We'd HAVE to start this off by winning at home against Vandy. We lose this game and 9-9 just isn't happening. I also dont think this team, presently, can make it to the quarter finals of the SECT.

The real worry is that this team might honestly not be favored to win in anymore than 1 MAYBE 2 of the 6 remaining games.. and persoanlly, with every SEC team being Kenpom 80 or better, I wouldn't favor UK in a single one of these games. Just being honest. I would not be shocked if we went 1-5 in this stretch and I'd say the odds are that we somewhere between 1-5 and 2-4 to finish.

Now, we get Butler back for the final 2 or 3 games? That changes things.

 

[aceman509]

I follow the selection committee process pretty closely, and people are going to be pleasantly surprised with how good of shape we are in.

There are essentially 2 factors when it comes to seeding: Resume and predictive metrics

On the resume front all that really matters is your quad record, and to be more specific, your amount of quad 1 wins and your amount of quad 2/3/4 losses

Kentucky has 8 quad 1 wins and 7 quad 1-A wins (quad 1 is broken down even further into quad 1-A and quad 1-B). For perspective, some teams that are fighting for our seed spot are St. Johns and Michigan. St. Johns currently has 3 quad 1 wins and only 1 quad 1-A win. Michigan has 6 quad 1 wins and 4 quad 1-A wins. Closer, but still behind us.

Kentucky also only has 1 loss outside of quad 1, and that is Arkansas who is quad 2. In fact out of our 8 losses only 3 are outside of quad 1-A. St. Johns has no bad losses, all 4 of their losses are quad 1, but they do have 3 losses outside of quad 1-A. Michigan has 3 quad 2 losses, and 4 out of 5 losses outside quad 1-A. So bottom line is our quality wins and lack of bad losses is elite.

Predictive metrics are KenPom essentially, and a couple of other KenPom like metrics with BPI and T-Rank. The metrics are a little bit more down on Kentucky, but all of them solidly have us around 20th. Combine that with our top 10 resume and that means we are easily a 3 or 4 seed.

The other piece of the metrics is it predicts future games, and it actually has Kentucky losing 3 of our remaining 6 games. So even if we do lose all of those games, our metrics won't actually fall, assuming we aren't losing by like 20+ points.

Bottom line is even if we go like 19-12 and win 1 or 0 sec tournament games, we won't fall lower than a 5 seed, assuming we aren't getting blown out in our losses.

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

If we finish 9-9 in SEC and get to quarterfinals of SEC Tournament, there is no way we drop below a 4 seed.

They gotta go 20-11 in the regular season and I would tend to agree with you

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

There is just no way we hold onto that. I actually think we will be lucky to get a 6-seed or better, assuming our injuries really don't get better.

Based on literally what? We are 6-6 in the SEC right now and a projected 3-seed. What has you thinking we will be “lucky” to get a 6-seed?

 

[The_Ghost_of_Born_and_Bread]

Based on literally what? We are 6-6 in the SEC right now and a projected 3-seed. What has you thinking we will be “lucky” to get a 6-seed?

Torvik projects us as a 6 seed…. #22 overall seed.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

Based on literally what? We are 6-6 in the SEC right now and a projected 3-seed. What has you thinking we will be “lucky” to get a 6-seed?

Idk how we are even a 3-seed honestly. Were ranked 17th, but Lunardi still thinks they are a top12 team? Already, he seems to be trailing behind.

And we are 6-6 in part because we had a full team to start the SEC. Do YOU think we're going to finish the season 3-3 or 4-2 and hold onto this 3-seed? Bookmark this post, because while I'd love it if you're right, I just don't see it with Jrob and Butler being out.

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

Idk how we are even a 3-seed honestly. Were ranked 17th, but Lunardi still thinks there a top12 team? Already he seems to be trailing behind.

And we are 6-6 in part because we had a full team to start the SEC. Do YOU think we're going to finish the season 3-3 or 4-2 and hold onto this 3-seed? Bookmark this post, because while I'd love it if you're right, I just don't see it with Jrob and Butler being out.

The team *can* beat Vandy, LSU and Oklahoma. Whether they will, no one knows. The tournament committed themselves told us just a few days ago we are sitting at a three seed and the only thing happened since then is a Quad 1A loss.

 

[The_Ghost_of_Born_and_Bread]

I've thought all season long that getting to the Sweet Sixteen was a reasonable goal for this team. Looking at today's bracket, that would mean beating UNC-Greensboro and Illinois in Providence. If Butler plays, we would be favored in both. Then it would be Houston in Indianapolis, probably a 2-3 point underdog in that one.

We wouldn’t be favored against Illinois. Sitting here today, KP has it a statistical tie, which would result in an opening line of a pick ‘em. Of course, there is no way to know where each team will sit in 5 weeks. UNC-G, on the other hand, is a different animal and the opening line would be UK -19

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

Torvik projects us as a 6 seed…. #22 overall seed.

If you’re using an analytic tool for this as opposed to the tournament committee themselves you’re going to wind up in serious error. There is no mystery to where we are right now. We are a bottom tier 3 or top tier 4 as of this moment.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

The team *can* beat Vandy, LSU and Oklahoma. Whether they will, no one knows. The tournament committed themselves told us just a few days ago we are sitting at a three seed and the only thing happened since then is a Quad 1A loss.

But a loss still stings, even if it's a good loss. The teams jockeying for top seeds in the tournament are doing so at razor thin margins. We saw last year at this time, any win or loss by almost any team could drop you a seed line in the Bracket Matrix. And again, I think Lunardi is trailing a bit.

I'm honestly not going to bet that this current team can go 3-0 against Vandy/LSU/Oklahoma.. I truly think the odds would be somewhere between 1 and 2 wins there. We are a total shell of what we were earlier in the year, and all 3 of those teams are in the top80.

 

[The_Ghost_of_Born_and_Bread]

If you’re using an analytic tool for this as opposed to the tournament committee themselves you’re going to wind up in serious error. There is no mystery to where we are right now. We are a bottom tier 3 or top tier 4 as of this moment.

The Committee bases the reveal on the here-and-now record, not on predictions of future performance, and therefore fails to weigh as a factor heavy or light scheduling in-conference at this point in time. If you are ignoring the predictive tools’ use of relative balancing, you are going to wind up in serious error.

 

[aceman509]

Torvik projects us as a 6 seed…. #22 overall seed.

Torvik actually has us projected as a 3 seed, as do the majority of all bracketoligists.

We are ranked as the 22nd most efficient team by torvik, but that doesn't mean we will be seeded like the 22nd best team.

 

[aceman509]

The Committee bases the reveal on the here-and-now record, not on predictions of future performance, and therefore fails to weigh as a factor heavy or light scheduling in-conference at this point in time. If you are ignoring the predictive tools’ use of relative balancing, you are going to wind up in serious error.

That actually isn't true, the look at both the resume and the predictive metrics to make their decisions. Hard to say which they do value more and which they should value more, but both are factors that end up on the team sheet.

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

I’m sorry but I don’t care what tool you’re using. The committee themselves have us a three seed, so anyone saying the “best” we can possibly get is a 6-seed is undeniably and factually incorrect period. If what you meant to say is “I think we are going to lose most of our remaining games” then fine just say that. Don’t say “the best” we can get is a 6-seed because that is objectively false.

 

[The_Ghost_of_Born_and_Bread]

That actually isn't true, the look at both the resume and the predictive metrics to make their decisions. Hard to say which they do value more and which they should value more, but both are factors that end up on the team sheet.

Yes we are speaking past each other. They do use the predictive efficiency metrics as they sit here today to compare apples to apples. But they aren’t saying “we project that on March 16, we believe based on predictive models that UK will be a 3 seed.” They are saying if the season ended (before the Saturday loss), we would be the last 3 seed. They don’t take into account the unbalanced conf schedule, which projects we lose 3 of our next 6 games, and say that if that comes to bear, UK would be the 4th 3 seed.

 

[Cats192]

The Committee bases the reveal on the here-and-now record, not on predictions of future performance, and therefore fails to weigh as a factor heavy or light scheduling in-conference at this point in time. If you are ignoring the predictive tools’ use of relative balancing, you are going to wind up in serious error.

Glad to hear you know more than the committee.

Most of the Bracket Matrix guys post on Twitter regularly. They all also have us as a 3 seed.

You seem to be implying that "not trying to predict the future" will result in error. But surely you understand, you can't predict the future. So predicting the future--results in error.

That's why the committee only goes with results that have happened. That's why Lunardi and Bracket Matrix peeps only go by results that have happened.

 

[Cats192]

Idk how we are even a 3-seed honestly. Were ranked 17th, but Lunardi still thinks they are a top12 team? Already, he seems to be trailing behind.

And we are 6-6 in part because we had a full team to start the SEC. Do YOU think we're going to finish the season 3-3 or 4-2 and hold onto this 3-seed? Bookmark this post, because while I'd love it if you're right, I just don't see it with Jrob and Butler being out.

I follow several of the Bracket Matrix guys on Twitter. They do daily updates.

Most of them have us as a 3 seed even after the Texas lost. I don't know if I've seen anyone have us as a 4 seed yet.

They say on a regular basis that the NET is not a power ranking. It's a sorting tool.

I've also seen multiple times where one or more have said something to the effect o: Kentucky's metrics say 5 seed. Kentucky's resume moves them up 2 seed lines.

 

[bucsrule8872]

We just don’t have any bad losses according to all of the computers and such and that’s what the committee looks at. The SEC is just that tough.

It’s crazy that we are losing games and not sliding down because the league is so good top to bottom. We could probably lose out and still get a 5 seed, maybe better than that. LSU is the only game that could really make us look bad if we drop it at home.

It’s unprecedented. Never seen a league this good and this well respected.

It use to be the SEC dragged us down, now it’s pushing us up.

 

[Boyd94]

Anyone notice the potential Cal vs. Pitino match up?

 

[BassProCat]

Didn’t the committee already say they are considering our injuries for our seeding?? It’s not that shocking at all we hanging at the 3 line …if we are down players going into the tourney then they will prolly seed us lower but long as we get healthy we are going to get a good seed.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

I think what some of us are doing is a bit of a projection on how the team will finish. I'm fine with UK being a 3 or 4-seed right now. I just don't think thats where we wind up.

 

[BBNinSC]

Every time I see a mock bracket, it looks like this team can win their first 2 games. I believe we will make the S16 and anything goes after that

 

[Aike]

Idk how we are even a 3-seed honestly. Were ranked 17th, but Lunardi still thinks they are a top12 team? Already, he seems to be trailing behind.

And we are 6-6 in part because we had a full team to start the SEC. Do YOU think we're going to finish the season 3-3 or 4-2 and hold onto this 3-seed? Bookmark this post, because while I'd love it if you're right, I just don't see it with Jrob and Butler being out.

We were 10 overall, then lost on the road, short-handed, to a team that was supposed to beat us.

Incredibly easy to understand how we are currently a 3.

The rest is just projection of what might or might not happen with our injury issues. That’s fine. This is a message board. But calling us a 3 right now makes complete sense.

 

[Aike]

I think what some of us are doing is a bit of a projection on how the team will finish. I'm fine with UK being a 3 or 4-seed right now. I just don't think thats where we wind up.

I responded before seeing that you said basically the same thing I did.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

I responded before seeing that you said basically the same thing I did.

Yeah I guess I should have led with that. But, I think that should be pretty easy to see, no? Unless we get some guys back, this team we have tomorrow is not the same team we had in January.. and our seed is surely going to drop. Of course, hope I'm wrong.

Also, FWIW, the difference between us being a 4-seed (which is what I think we are currently IMO), and a 3-seed, is again razor thin, and I do think Lunardi is still trailing a bit here. A lot of people have us as a 4 right now (Someone has us at a 5).. and I think the people who gave us 4 are more up to date than those who might still have us as a 3.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

Update: Bracket Matrix has almost 1/3rd of its rankings BEFORE the loss to Texas on Saturday. Essentially their brackets haven't been updated to include the Texas loss. so I feel very safe saying we'd be a 4-seed if the Selection Committee was today.

This was kind of a big sticking point last year when using Bracket Matrix.. make sure to keep in mind that some of these bracket updates are trailing by a game or so.

 

[The_Ghost_of_Born_and_Bread]

Glad to hear you know more than the committee.

Most of the Bracket Matrix guys post on Twitter regularly. They all also have us as a 3 seed.

You seem to be implying that "not trying to predict the future" will result in error. But surely you understand, you can't predict the future. So predicting the future--results in error.

That's why the committee only goes with results that have happened. That's why Lunardi and Bracket Matrix peeps only go by results that have happened.

Everything you say is correct; and that is why there is material error in a reveal now. If the tournament started tomorrow, the reveal would be useful. But because it does not take into account that we must play, for example, Auburn and Alabama in the next few games, it is not useful when the schedule is this backloaded for us in predicting where we will sit in 5 weeks. A 6 seed is thus surely not out of the question, which is how this debate started earlier in the thread.

 

[aceman509]

Update: Bracket Matrix has almost 1/3rd of its rankings BEFORE the loss to Texas on Saturday. Essentially their brackets haven't been updated to include the Texas loss. so I feel very safe saying we'd be a 4-seed if the Selection Committee was today.

This was kind of a big sticking point last year when using Bracket Matrix.. make sure to keep in mind that some of these bracket updates are trailing by a game or so.

I just did a quick count so I might be off by 1 or 2, but it looks like 65 of the brackets on bracket matrix were updated on Sunday or later, after our loss. The majority of those have us as a 3, though about 25% have us as a 4.

The Texas loss did very little to our resume at all, since it was a quad 1-A loss and the outcome of the game was pretty much dead on what the metrics had, meaning our metrics didn't drop.