12/29 | Middle Tennessee | 4:30PM (No TV?)

[rambone 78]

I certainly can see how this game will be close.

They look like a different team at home...probably more comfortable shooting 3's.

Losing by 1 to Bonnies and leading a good team like Belmont late tells me they are a different team at home.

Plus we haven't played a true road game in a while.

Repeat after me....road games are difficult. Don't want it to be close at the end...just don't.

[reef]

This team could be dangerous just in the fact that they were down 20 against a decent Belmont team and did come back and grab the lead

I will stick to my prediction that this line closes at 7.5

[theblueram]

If we don't beat the crap out of this team, this board will be on melt down. They are a top 300 team. Will the hand wringing be the same against Brown?

[DC_Rams]

One of the next two are def trap games.

[theblueram]

If this team wants to dance, they need to go on a 5 game win streak starting Sunday.

[Rhody83]

If this team wants to dance, they need to go on a 5 game win streak starting Sunday.

Their 5th game is at VCU which is the second hardest game left on their schedule. To say they need to win that if they want to dance seems exaggerated to me. They can definitely lose at VCU and at Dayton and still Dance under many scenarios.
They have already won 2 games so it would really be a 7 game win streak.

[RamStock]

One of the next two are def trap games.

Agree completely on the trap games, but these aren’t games that they can afford to lose at all. It would be a dagger. If they are going to go the route of only losing to good teams, but not many quality wins in the process they need to continue on this route. I think they win both games, but picture one of them being a rock fight.

[theblueram]

83, the team has no big wins. They are ranked 83 in the NET. If they don't start to turn heads soon it's A10 tourney champs or bust.

[TruePoint]

College basketball is a game of attrition. Avoid losses and the numbers take care of themselves in the end. NET is not singularly determinative of postseason outcome, and even if it was it doesn’t matter what it is today. If we go 13-5 or 14-4 in the conference then the NET number will very likely be where it needs to be. Don’t worry so much.

[Obadiah]

College basketball is a game of attrition. Avoid losses and the numbers take care of themselves in the end. NET is not singularly determinative of postseason outcome, and even if it was it doesn’t matter what it is today. If we go 13-5 or 14-4 in the conference then the NET number will very likely be where it needs to be. Don’t worry so much.

Really!! Are you next going to post that the world is round.

[theblueram]

So we go 13-5 in conference and lose to Dayton twice, VCU twice and say Richmond once. That get's us in? I say no.

[Rhody83]

83, the team has no big wins. They are ranked 83 in the NET. If they don't start to turn heads soon it's A10 tourney champs or bust.

Not sure what “turning heads soon” has to do with getting in the NCAA Tournament.
This is exaggerated but what if they went 9-3 OOC and 16-2 in A10 losing at VCU and at Dayton? They would be 25-5 and finish in 1st or 2nd place. They don’t need to win at VCU.

They could go 14-4 (would finish in top 3) with losses at VCU, at Dayton, at Bonnies and at Davidson.
That would give them quality A10 wins against Dayton, VCU, Richmond, SLU, Davidson, Duquesne & at G Mason.
They would finish the regular season 23-7. Most likely play VCU in the A10 semis.

[theblueram]

Sure 83, I agree. But at what point do we start to be mentioned on a bracket? You say we win the next two and lose two games in conference. That's like a 10 game win streak. I will agree if we go on a 10 game win streak we might be in the conversation.

[TruePoint]

College basketball is a game of attrition. Avoid losses and the numbers take care of themselves in the end. NET is not singularly determinative of postseason outcome, and even if it was it doesn’t matter what it is today. If we go 13-5 or 14-4 in the conference then the NET number will very likely be where it needs to be. Don’t worry so much.

Really!! Are you next going to post that the world is round.

And yet people post here like they do not understand this at all.

[theblueram]

I only post about where this team is today. 83 NET. Not in the NCAAT. Unless you have the Grays book of Sports from Back to the Future, it's all conjecture.

[Obadiah]

College basketball is a game of attrition. Avoid losses and the numbers take care of themselves in the end. NET is not singularly determinative of postseason outcome, and even if it was it doesn’t matter what it is today. If we go 13-5 or 14-4 in the conference then the NET number will very likely be where it needs to be. Don’t worry so much.

Really!! Are you next going to post that the world is round.

And yet people post here like they do not understand this at all.

Give me a few specific examples of that generalization.

[TruePoint]

Really!! Are you next going to post that the world is round.

And yet people post here like they do not understand this at all.

Give me a few specific examples of that generalization.

I was responding to this post below. I’m not going to go scouring the board for examples and call people out, but I think Rambone would admit to having a similar opinion as blueram expressed here.

Was trying to not specifically call anyone out, but since you asked I think those guys are pretty on the record with this line of thinking about the season so far.

83, the team has no big wins. They are ranked 83 in the NET. If they don't start to turn heads soon it's A10 tourney champs or bust.

ETA: since I answered your question in good faith, maybe you’ll answer mine: what exactly about what I said has you so torqued off? Apparently you think it was so obvious as to be offensive in some way, but I see people post things here that I think everyone regards as obvious and don’t recall you or anyone else aggressively questioning it.

[ramster]

College basketball is a game of attrition. Avoid losses and the numbers take care of themselves in the end. NET is not singularly determinative of postseason outcome, and even if it was it doesn’t matter what it is today. If we go 13-5 or 14-4 in the conference then the NET number will very likely be where it needs to be. Don’t worry so much.

Really!! Are you next going to post that the world is round.

And after we play our 30th game the NET will be its most reliable.

[phipsiGD'11]

Fun fact of the day: the earth is not round, and we still have lots of games to either sink us or buoy us as a tournament team (starting Sunday which we can all agree is a can't lose...or is it a must win)

[Obadiah]

Sorry, your example doesn't confirm that people on this board don't understand the NET. All posters know that the NET on Selection Sunday is the important criteria and not what your NET is on December 26. All posters know that wins improve the NET and losses diminish it and that some wins have and losses have a bigger impact than others. theblueram is correct - the team has no big wins as of now - Alabama and PC may become big wins, but as of today, they are not. #83 does not get you an at-large NCAAT, close to 40 does. And to improve #83, theblueram is again correct that you have to "turn heads" and that means getting votes in the polls because you are piling up wins and beating good teams. We all hope that happens.

[Rhody83]

I only post about where this team is today. 83 NET. Not in the NCAAT. Unless you have the Grays book of Sports from Back to the Future, it's all conjecture.

The NET in December is meaningless. Looking at a hypothetical NCAA bracket in December is a complete waste of time. No one is in the NCAAT right now. Take a picture of the NET top 50 from last week (Dec 16th) and let’s compare it to the NET top 50 on March 15th before the bracket is announced.

Maybe someone has a way of comparing last December’s NET top 50 to last year’s NCAA Tournament bracket.

[TruePoint]

Sorry, your example doesn't confirm that people on this board don't understand the NET. All posters know that the NET on Selection Sunday is the important criteria and not what your NET is on December 26. All posters know that wins improve the NET and losses diminish it and that some wins have and losses have a bigger impact than others. theblueram is correct - the team has no big wins as of now - Alabama and PC may become big wins, but as of today, they are not. #83 does not get you an at-large NCAAT, close to 40 does. And to improve #83, theblueram is again correct that you have to "turn heads" and that means getting votes in the polls because you are piling up wins and beating good teams. We all hope that happens.

I’m not sure exactly what prompted you to come at me here or what point you’re trying to make, but you definitely have not convinced me that I was wrong in what I said.

You’re saying everyone recognizes that NET doesn’t mean anything at this point, but yet people are citing it to make the case that Rhody has to completely catch fire to have a shot at a bid - which I think is wrong - and there are entire series of posts and threads bemoaning the unfairness of it because it does not line up with what people’s perception is right now. I can’t say for sure what people’s understanding actually is, but I can say that the way it is being cited and talked about doesn’t make much sense to me.

So some posters here are putting way too much stock into what the NET number is now. Not sure why that statement is a trigger for you, but I did not mean to upset anyone. Blueram is good people who I like very much, but I don’t think his dire description of the situation is accurate. The path to a bid isn’t exactly easy, for sure, but it is pretty clear to me: finish in the top four of the league (three is safer, obviously, and I think URI is the third best team and so it is very doable) and the NET and other metrics will take care of themselves. I came into the season with the belief that URI was one of the best four teams in the conference, and I still think that. NET and Kenpom and whatever other metric you want to use say there are several A10 teams ahead of URI today that I don’t think are actually better, but we get to play all those teams and will have plenty of chances to sort it out over the next 2 months.

If URI finishes third in the conference they will make the tournament and the NET number will be where it needs to be. Obviously a lot can happen, and I could just be flat wrong about how good the team is relative to the rest of the league. If I am wrong then they won’t get a bid, but that would mean that they weren’t that good in the first place and thinking about a bid was always pointless anyways. If you think this team is good enough to contend for a bid, there’s no reason to worry at this point - they haven’t done anything to hurt themselves and plenty of opportunities are ahead.

Ultimately, whether people “understand the NET” is besides the point. The point is whether there should be panic about where we are, and people appear to be using the NET ranking as of today as an excuse to hit the panic button. To this point, URI has beaten all the teams it was supposed to beat and lost a few games they were very unlikely to win. If they just continue to do that, I think the NET will be fine because they will pick up both quality and quantity of wins in conference play. If someone “understands the NET” then it seems like this should be obvious and there should be no reason to worry. On the other hand, if you just don’t think the team is good enough to get those wins in the conference, then the concern is the team and not the NET, so not sure why we would need to cite today’s NET ranking to make that case. Either way, today’s NET ranking is pretty irrelevant which was the whole point.

Edited for clarity

[rambone 78]

This will shake itself out soon enough.

We will know if we are potentially NCAA tourney material after the next 5-7 games.

One thing that seems strange is that our NET went from 72 to 83 without us losing a game.

Margin of victory in our case is hurting that number.

Maybe it's picking nits, but we need to start playing more of a complete game to cover the spreads more often.

That number needs to start going down, not up.

If we keep winning, including against better teams, it will but how much is the question.

As a mid major, we need to be in the low 40's or better to get an at large bid.

I guess it depends on how confident one is on whether we keep winning......

[ram1980]

Just keep winning. 1 point, 20 points. Who cares. If they start worrying about size of win that's too much pressure. Win as many as you can and win that last one in Brooklyn by 1 point..

[rhodysurf]

The URI team from 2015-16 (I think thats the year? The one that lost the davidson game at home and beat nebraska) is widely considered to have a solid shot at the tournament if they had beaten davidson. That teams only solid win was Nebraska who turned out to suck. Everyone is overstating the non conference. They didnt do amazing but they did fine.

[Rhody83]

Finish third or better in conference.
Go either 14-4 or 13-5.
Gets wins vs Richmond, Dayton, VCU, SLU & Davidson.
Get to the semis of A10T.
Equals NCAA Tournament bound.

[RamStock]

Just keep winning. 1 point, 20 points. Who cares. If they start worrying about size of win that's too much pressure. Win as many as you can and win that last one in Brooklyn by 1 point..

Agree. The key is not to stumble and have bad losses. The rest will work itself out if they are deserving. Quality wins and studying away from bad loses. Simple math

[sevegny7]

The URI team from 2015-16 (I think thats the year? The one that lost the davidson game at home and beat nebraska) is widely considered to have a solid shot at the tournament if they had beaten davidson. That teams only solid win was Nebraska who turned out to suck. Everyone is overstating the non conference. They didnt do amazing but they did fine.

Numerous Power 5 conferences had rough years in the OOC this year. IMO the power 5 conference programs did not dominate like they used to which means more at large bids being opened for a conference like the A10. I think it is almost a guarantee by the end of the year the A10 will have three teams in the tourney barring the league completely cannibalizing itself. I agree completely with Rhody83. We would have all have felt better with the WVU win but URI still can control its' own destiny. Alot of big name programs did not have good OOC performances.

[NYGFan_Section208]

Nothing like some good NET talk to start off the day.
Shorts are all a-bunch about this...
Simple science: win every game left and they're in...chances are reduced with each loss.
Not sure there's relevance to the NyET yet...maybe with some losses, but not nYet...

[rambone 78]

I will also agree with 83's requirement list to make the dance as an at large.

Now for the hard part....actually DOING that lol!

[TruePoint]

Half the teams in the conference have a path to a bid if they have a good enough conference season. Only two or three (very outside shot at four) will do it. It really comes down to how good you think URI actually is this year. The good thing about the A10 having a relatively strong OOC is that there will be plenty of chances for quality wins and the cumulative impact of playing teams with strong metrics (and beating them) will be to gradually raise your own metrics. The downside is that getting thru the schedule will be harder - there is no faking it on your way to 15 conference wins this year, especially with URI’s draw on the round robin. If they are what I think they are, it will pay off.

[Obadiah]

One question is how large and vocal a crowd will the Rams see on Sunday. So far the Blue Raiders have not drawn well. Their opening game against DIII Maryville had 8055, but that was because the game was part of CBB's opening day festivities starting at 11 AM and was attended by huge group of elementary schools students from around the county. Most of the games since the opener have drawn in the 3000 range. Another factor is start time overlaps with the Tennessee NFL game at Houston.

However, the URI game is part of doubleheader with women's game vs. TCU and given that the event is in between holidays when folks are looking for things to do, my guess is the game will draw better than most of the previous MT home contests.

[Rhody83]

One question is how large and vocal a crowd will the Rams see on Sunday. So far the Blue Raiders have not drawn well. Their opening game against DIII Maryville had 8055, but that was because the game was part of CBB's opening day festivities starting at 11 AM and was attended by huge group of elementary schools students from around the county. Most of the games since the opener have drawn in the 3000 range. Another factor is start time overlaps with the Tennessee NFL game at Houston.

However, the URI game is part of doubleheader with women's game vs. TCU and given that the event is in between holidays when folks are looking for things to do, my guess is the game will draw better than most of the previous MT home contests.

If typically a good % of their crowd is students, that will hurt their crowd on Sunday.

[theblueram]

So is everyone fired up for this game already? These long layoffs between games are killing me!

[RhodyRam86]

One question is how large and vocal a crowd will the Rams see on Sunday. So far the Blue Raiders have not drawn well. Their opening game against DIII Maryville had 8055, but that was because the game was part of CBB's opening day festivities starting at 11 AM and was attended by huge group of elementary schools students from around the county. Most of the games since the opener have drawn in the 3000 range. Another factor is start time overlaps with the Tennessee NFL game at Houston.

However, the URI game is part of doubleheader with women's game vs. TCU and given that the event is in between holidays when folks are looking for things to do, my guess is the game will draw better than most of the previous MT home contests.

A hostile environment would be very low on the totem pole of my concerns for this game.

[Rhody72]

We have no good wins (Top 50) at this point. Losing this one will be a bad loss even on the road. With Walker we are better than ever and would have had a better record if he played all year. We cannot afford a bad loss and this would be a bad, bad loss.

[steveystuds06]

Truepoint what the heck did you do to Obadiah to get him so upset at you?

Can you answer a question for me. Is the earth round????

[TruePoint]

Man I have no idea. I like Obadiah a lot and have a ton of respect for what he does here. I literally have no idea why he got so mad, but it’s not the first time he’s gone after me.

[hrstrat57]

Obadiah’s top of the keaneyblue pile far as I’m concerned

Not that anyone cares what I think but there it is...

[TruePoint]

He puts in the work for sure. Aside from ATP, nobody has spent more time making this place worthwhile than Obadiah has. I hope people realize the time and effort it takes to track all the games played by our entire schedule every day, and to organize and update the prediction contests, among other things. I have no beef with the guy at all. If I disagree with a basketball take, I’m going to say that and hope it leads to a reasonable discussion - I don’t care who it is. That’s why we’re all here, I think. But the weird thing is that I wasn’t even talking to him or about anything he said.

[rambone 78]

Obie's takes are for the most part spot on, and I tend to agree with him way more often than not.

Many here don't want to hear it or admit it, but his reality based opinions are based on fact.

Does that make him a Debbie downer? I don't think so whatsoever.

We would all like to think we're going to make the NCAA tourney. And why not?

But it takes more than just hoping.

Our performance to date is not worthy of a dance invite. Simple as that.

We will find out if we're good enough soon. That's all we can do.

We can go back and forth about ratings until we're blue in the face.

It all means nothing until we play the games.

[eli#10]

You may be right Rambone but let's not overlook that we all expect to be a better team now that Walker will be playing.

[hrstrat57]

Who has accused Obadiah of being “Debbie Downer” ?

I sure missed that one...

My expectations have surged after seeing Walker in Cox’s high post sets. We have the fastest player in the A10, one of if not the smartest and most clutch players in the league and now 3 bigs. Sure Martin needs to adjust to the quickness required when he moves to guard from time to time but I’m optimistic that things are falling into place IAW Cox’s plan. Sheppard not available hurts a lot and a couple injuries or bad losses could derail the Rhody train (captain obvious) but I like where we are at 10 games in.

Go Rhody.

[theblueram]

As I look at the NET, with a week to go before Conference play, we have 3 Q1 games (Dayton twice, and VCU on the road. A 4th with GMU at #73 a long shot potential). Some are saying the NET doesn't matter right now. But in a week, that's what our Conference is giving us as potential Q1 wins.

[NYGFan_Section208]

I think it's going fine. Just keep winning and let the non-likers* non-like until they can't anymore. There's way more of the season left, than played so far. Until there's a loss in A10 play, they're "undefeated in conference play" and whoever carries that into the season any distance will get noted. If the team is good enough, they get through the conference in fine shape, rack up enough cred and it's not a problem. And.... with a double bye in Brooklyn...anything could happen anyway.

#morehomegamesnextyearplease

ETA: *polls, rating systems, etc

[Obadiah]

We should try to stick to the thread subject rather than get into discussions which go off the rails. Everyone is entitled to his own opinions. I have nothing more to say on the subject and regret any contribution I made in screwing up this thread. Now back to the subject at hand.

MT is a guard oriented team with four guys getting the majority PT - 6-2 Antonio Green, 6-5 Jayce Johnson, 6-5 CJ Jones and 6-1 Donovan Sims. Green is the guy who torched the Rams last season with 26 points, with 5-9 on treys, but he is in a bit of shooting slump this season and has especially struggled from downtown.

The big difference from last year is the addition of Arkansas transfer redshirt junior CJ Jones (17.6 ppg) who is currently MT's leading scorer and who also leads the team on three point efficiency, 31-67, .463. Jones is also great at the FT line, putting in 96% of his shots.

Their big man is 6-9, 245 lbs freshman forward, Tyson Jackson who averages 9 points and is the leading rebounder with almost 6 per game. Another big guy coming off the bench is 6-7 freshman Tyler Millin who is averaging 15 min PT (2.8 rpg and 4.5 ppg). MT also benefited in the SBU game with the return of two forwards, Reggie Scurry and Jo'Vante Millner both of whom will help improve MT's front court which has been a weakness.

If the Rams can shut down their 3-point shooting, MT will pull back and take less than 20 attempts. Given they are at home, they will be more comfortable in gunning, so then expect 25-30 attempts They were 11-26 in the home game with the Bonnies and 13-30 in the Lipscomb road match, their only D1 win. We should beat this team.

[Rhody74]

Sounds like we match up well with them.

[reef]

I also agree that if we put up a Top 3 A10 resume that we will dance. This conference is definitely getting 3 this year so let’s hope we are 1 of the 3 which is within our reach

[Running Ram]

We all get snarky from time to time with others here, myself, TP and even Obi included. It happens. Maybe someone close to Obi is a stroke survivor and he doesn't appreciate TP wishing strokes on people. I mean just sayin TP, you wished someone a stroke but can't take some snark about the overly simplified analysis you offered. Not that any of it is my business, but there's a lack of interesting threads atm.
Also, some people know the world is flat, we're not buying Obi's crazy "science"
How's that for off the rails?
I'm not drunk posting...

[Rhode_Island_Red]

The URI team from 2015-16 (I think thats the year? The one that lost the davidson game at home and beat nebraska) is widely considered to have a solid shot at the tournament if they had beaten davidson. That teams only solid win was Nebraska who turned out to suck. Everyone is overstating the non conference. They didnt do amazing but they did fine.

Numerous Power 5 conferences had rough years in the OOC this year. IMO the power 5 conference programs did not dominate like they used to which means more at large bids being opened for a conference like the A10. I think it is almost a guarantee by the end of the year the A10 will have three teams in the tourney barring the league completely cannibalizing itself. I agree completely with Rhody83. We would have all have felt better with the WVU win but URI still can control its' own destiny. Alot of big name programs did not have good OOC performances.

Let’s not forget that obvious nepotism hire Dan Gavitt has one job — pacify The Cartel.