Searching for a Quality Win

Miami's NCAA resume despite a high RPI (35th entering Wednesday) is incomplete. Miami realistically must win one of the next two games (home vs Duke, home vs Maryland) to have any shot of making the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team. Then Miami would be forced to also sweep its final three games, against Virginia, Boston College and at Florida State. As of today those are the bottom three teams in the ACC. (Assuming Miami loses at Clemson- a win at Clemson coupled with a win against either Duke or Maryland likely puts Miami in the NCAAs).


From our friend Jerry Palm of Collegerpi.com

"Only four teams have received at-large bids with no top 50 wins in two or fewer attempts, and the highest seeded of those was Wisconsin-Green Bay in 1996. The Phoenix were 0-2 vs the top 50 and seeded 8th.

In 2004, Southern Illinois was a 9 seed after going 0-1 vs the RPI top 50, and the least deserving team to ever get a bid, Air Force in 2006, was also 0-1 vs the top 50 and a 13 seed. Manhattan in 1995 is the only team to get a bid without playing a top 50 team.

Only two teams have made it in with 1-0 records vs the top 50. Those were Fresno St in 2001 and College of Charleston in 1994. C of C was 22-3 that year and won the regular season title of what was then the Trans America conference (now the Atlantic Sun), but was not eligible for the conference tournament because it was new to the league.

This is a bit of a statistical oddity, but no team has ever received an at-large bid after going exactly 1-1 vs the top 50. Only two teams with RPI rankings better than 65 needed them though, and both were left out. Coincidentally, they were both ranked 43rd (Richmond in 2001 and Utah St in 2004).

In the previous 14 years that I have been tracking this data, only seven teams have finished exactly 2-0 against the top 50, and only three of those were in the top 50 themselves. Two, Creighton in 2001 and New Mexico in 1994 got bids and were 10 seeds. Kent St was left out in 2000."

Jerry didn't mention Miami in his piece (he in fact had Miami as the first team out of his bracket this week, so he seems to be more impressed with the Canes resume than I am....but let me state Jerry Palm has an almost flawless record of picking NCAA participants through in the eleven seasons I have been reading his website), but the Canes resume is incredibly thin for a power conference team. The lone marque victory was at Mississippi State and that was played on Decmeber 13th, long before the Bulldogs got on a roll which has put them two games clear atop the SEC West standings. But I wonder how you can have maybe two top 50 wins in ten or eleven attempts and justify a bid. That's the situation Miami is in currently. The Hurricanes still do not have a single truly marque February win since joining the ACC. Miami's best ACC win was a 2006 win in Chapel Hill over North Carolina. That game was played on January 19th. When the two teams met again a month later in Coral Gables, Carolina was the victor.

But Miami isn't the only team that bothers me right now for being on the bubble. Seeing teams like Florida, Wake Forest, and West Virginia in the bubble is a reminder that your margin for error is as wide as the Pacific Ocean if you play in a so-called power conference. Jerry's piece is an excellent analysis of what mid majors need to do to get a bid. But a similar comparison needs to be made for power conference teams. If you cannot beat a single top 50 team on the road (Miami has a quality win against Miss. St in Starkville), like Wake, Florida and West Virginia how can you justify even being considered for the NCAA Tournament?