The Bubble: 2022

I think I want to take back my tweet about leaning towards rooting for SLU tonight. Upon further review Richmond winning is probably better for us. A large part of me thinks SLU loses 2 of their last 3 as they are bad on the road and only have VCU at home left.

The Bona VCU game is pretty much an elimination game for at large chances. The team that loses drops off the bubble and the team that wins probably doesnt see much gain in a vacuum.
 
Jive36 said:
I think I want to take back my tweet about leaning towards rooting for SLU tonight. Upon further review Richmond winning is probably better for us. A large part of me thinks SLU loses 2 of their last 3 as they are bad on the road and only have VCU at home left.

The Bona VCU game is pretty much an elimination game for at large chances. The team that loses drops off the bubble and the team that wins probably doesnt see much gain in a vacuum.
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Unfortunately I think you are right about VCU-SBU, which sucks. Although both teams resumes should be in the same position after that game but 1 more loss on either side might break the camels back, hard to say. I think a win helps us more than it hurts them but I think a loss hurts us more than it helps them.
 
Bona03 said:
Unfortunately I think you are right about VCU-SBU, which sucks. Although both teams resumes should be in the same position after that game but 1 more loss on either side might break the camels back, hard to say. I think a win helps us more than it hurts them but I think a loss hurts us more than it helps them.
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03 and Jive,

You're both likely right. While Bona could still work it's way back onto the bubble with a loss, it would be very difficult.

We'd need every bubble team to lose and then we'd need to make it the A10 finals against a non-bid thief. Would be a difficult scenario to envision.
 
Slu last night and dayton today was huge. Basically have a bye as long as they dont fall on their face. 2 seed is up for grabs. Also now one less in the at large pool.
 
Bona03 said:
Slu last night and dayton today was huge. Basically have a bye as long as they dont fall on their face. 2 seed is up for grabs. Also now one less in the at large pool.
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Yet there's another top A10 team playing in Philly tonight. 🤮
 
I hope Osun recovers with no permanent limitation from the injury, but let's assume we won't have him for any games through the A10 tourney. The question is how this affects the prospects of a team that now sits squarely on the bubble. We will have to pull a few games right out of our collective ass. Foremost will be the coaching decision as to how to fill the void. You can look at Big Daddy's statistics and see that he can only make it through about 27 minutes before hitting the foul limit. Durosinmi is a longshot to fill the void. I expect to be seeing a little small ball. For sure, our four healthy starters will have to play "above and beyond" to get through this with colors flying. It's going to be quite a buzz if it happens.
 
The one caveat is how they evaluate teams when players miss games. They will know that Lofton missed 3 and Shoon however many. If Shoon is able to come back, we might get some benefit of the doubt but I am not holding my breath. Schmidt will go small when Cool is out, maybe Duro for small stretches just to see if he can contribute anything. I seem to remember an A10 team doing this a few years back and reminding us time and time again about it.

For today:
SMU @ Houston
Illinois @ Michigan
Indiana @ Minnesota
Wichita St @ Memphis
 
Bona03 said:
The one caveat is how they evaluate teams when players miss games. They will know that Lofton missed 3 and Shoon however many.
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I could definitely be mistaken, but I feel like I've read in the past that while the committee does factor in missed time by key players, it's typically used when it comes to seeding and not when determining which teams are given at-large bids outright.
 
The injury obviously casts a pall and sets a whole new unknown dynamic. I really believed we were on a determined path to be playing basketball on Sunday 3/13. Can't control it though, and what ifs are a dreaded part of sports you can't get hung up on.

We got down on the guys for a bit there because they lost their fire, but they've even acknowledged as much, and it's obviously been corrected. With that, I'm just proud of and grateful for our seniors. The program as a whole is achieving recognition and success at levels we haven't in a long time, and are positioned well to keep building off it. These 5 have a ton to do with that, and are by all accounts genuinely good guys, too.

Not intended at all to be a typical ra-ra wave the flag type post, but I'm just trying to embrace that and savor the remaining ride with these guys.
 
While we all wait to hear if Shoon is done or not, the show must go on.

Shit list:
Syracuse @ UNC - sorry guys, root for the orange tonight
San Diego St @ Wyoming - I feel both are in right now but SDSU is close to the cut line

Thats it, light schedule tonight.
 
Getting harder for me to see us in the at large picture even if we winn the next 4 and lose Sunday in the finals. We've basically gained no ground in 4 wins since SLU. I'm not sure the remaining opportunities are enough to leapfrog anyone, without multiple teams ahead of us completely slipping in their own opportunities.

For me at least, a winn without Shoon tonight would be less about bubble implications, and more about how good it would feel to win without him to the dismay of the delusional, oblivious, glass house stone-chuckers that are VCU fans.
 
I agree. So far we have had very little luck with teams ahead of us/in the field losing games that would bump them down. And we are before any bid thieves which is a real possibility in OVC, WCC, MWC, and maybe MVC depending what you think of Loyola. And that doesnt count our own tournament where I find it hard to believe Davidson will roll through. Last year we were the first team to win the regular season and A10 tourney since the mid-2000s GW team did it.

I havent completely given up hope of an at large but we need help at this point and the only way we control our own destiny is going through DC.

A win tonight gives us a real shot at the 2 or 3 seed.
 
Bonnies have their work cut out tonight. It's pointless to think about anything but this next game. I'm just going to live in the moment, forget about all the global troubles for two hours, and hope we see some balls-to-the wall basketball by our champions.
 
I had a rather long, positive post but I am saving it for tomorrow. Depends how things go tonight. I would not give up hope yet and while many things I read here are true. There are other factors.
 
My personal thought is it's A10 or bust. I do think they're rounding into form, but don't think they've done enough to justify AL status. But like everyone else, I just want to see a Winn because.. VCU. Well, VCU fans to be exact.
 
Not sure why anyone would have expected us to gain a ton of ground with us being heavy favorites at home.

You move up by winning against better teams on the road. IF we win tonight at VCU, I would expect us to be top 70 by the Richmond game.

Obviously very disappointing with OO out, but if we somehow win the next three or four in a row, we would likely be in as an 11 or 12 seed. We'd have five or six Q1 wins (if things go as planned) and 3 Q2 wins. That's an NCAA resume especially with only one loss outside of top 100. Our net would likely be top 60 if all that went as planned.

I'm very guarded with expecting OO to return and be of quality before Selection Sunday, so I just hope we look good without him in there. We remember how bad we performed two years ago when OO missed a handful of games in 2019-2020.
 
3rdShayCripSet said:
I'm very guarded with expecting OO to return and be of quality before Selection Sunday, so I just hope we look good without him in there. We remember how bad we performed two years ago when OO missed a handful of games in 2019-2020.
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2020 we were running Ikpeze, Winston and Planutis out there at the 4/5 when OO was hurt. I'm much more confident in AKC and Adaway.

Now to veer off topic from this thread but there is no VCU thread so deal with it.

We played VCU that year without OO and got off to a super slow start and never recovered. VCU shot 59% from 2 that game and won the rebounding battle. Hopefully with a couple of days to prepare we have a plan to either go small and keep switching everything or a plan to defend the Ace/Ward/Stockard pick an roll with AKC that forces tough shots. We controlled the first matchup with VCU but AKC only played 4 minutes and VCU immediately put him in the pick and roll when he came in. My memory says this led to easy buckets or at least good looks for VCU.

I think the matchup zone we have shown at times could work but we need to make sure Williams and Baldwin dont get open on reversals. VCU loves to score assisted baskets and we give up a ton of assisted points. I think a key point will be if we force VCU to play iso basketball or if they have the ball moving. I think this is where Adams gives us a nice spark because he loves to cheat in passing lanes and is quick enough to recover right when the ball arrives which disrupts a shooter or the drive.
 
3rdShayCripSet said:
Not sure why anyone would have expected us to gain a ton of ground with us being heavy favorites at home.

You move up by winning against better teams on the road.
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Yeah I dont think anyone is denying that or saying they expected to gain ground based on those wins alone, it's that we're not necessarily getting the stumbles we need to gain ground by proxy. We need several teams to stumble down the stretch and/or not capitalize on the opportunities that they have - and most of them will have the same number of opps or more as us, and in many cases, better ones. It's a lot of help we're asking for. I'd love to be wrong.

I'm with X on this one. Gimme a laser focused, ballsy Shoon-less win tonight at the Stu that will fire me up enough to not fall asleep until 1, and then take it from there.
 
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