forums

NCAA tournament chances

If Miami wins out will they make the NCAA tournament?

  • Yes

  • No

Results are only viewable after voting.
Advertisement
Just because we win are remaining games does not mean that the teams ahead of us are going to lose their remaining contests.
The best we can hope for is a eighth or ninth seed, outside change at a 7th, which gives us hope to win in the first round. We most likely will face a top four team next and I doubt we will advance any further. We have more bad losses than good wins, just do not see us getting into the tournament,
possibly a second win puts us on the bubble.
 
Advertisement
So many negative people.

First step is winning the next five games, one of which will be against a (likely) Top 4 ACC team going to the tourney.

Next step is positioning for the ACC Tourney. After the Top 4 (and above Miami) you have a clump of 8 teams with ACC records ranging from 7-7 to 6-9. That is EIGHT teams with either 6 or 7 conference wins (and Miami has 5). 4 of our last 5 games are against those clump teams. So, not only are they "winnable" games, but they also give us a chance to vault teams in the seeding, or to get a tiebreaker over certain teams for the seeding. The higher we can move into that pack of 8 (9 if you include us), the better chance we have of winning our first ACC tourney game.

So let's say you have a team with an 18-12 (10-10 ACC) regular season record, and 19-13 overall, a team with victories over UVa and Illinois, a team that just put together an 8-game winning streak before being knocked out of the conference tournament, and a team that had a rough stretch of losing 7 of 8 to VERY good teams when we were decimated by injuries...

That's a fairly decent resume and storyline for an ACC team to be considered for the Dance.

Of course, winning 2 ACC tourney games would put us at 20 wins, and I think we are a lock at that point, given our story line.

But we have to start by winning 3 straight road games and then beating UVa at home.
 
rch said:
Just because we win are remaining games does not mean that the teams ahead of us are going to lose their remaining contests.
The best we can hope for is a eighth or ninth seed, outside change at a 7th, which gives us hope to win in the first round. We most likely will face a top four team next and I doubt we will advance any further. We have more bad losses than good wins, just do not see us getting into the tournament,
possibly a second win puts us on the bubble.
Click to expand...


Again, Miami has 5 conference wins. There are EIGHT teams in Seeds 5-12 who have either 6 or 7 conference wins.

A) If Miami wins out, we would have head-to-head seeding tiebreaks over 6 of those 8 (Syracuse, Clemson, Boston College, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame and VaTech). Only teams we would not have a tiebreak over would be NC State and Pitt.

And of those 8 teams...

B) several "Group of 8" still have to play games vs. the ACC top 4 -
---NC State plays Duke twice and F$U once
---Syracuse plays Louisville
---Clemson plays F$U
---BC plays UVa and F$U
---ND plays F$U
---VT plays Duke, UVa, and Louisville
---Pitt plays F$U and UVa

C) several "Group of 8" play each other, guaranteeing that 1 loss per game
---NCS plays Pitt
---Syracuse plays GT, Pitt, and BC
---Clemson plays BC, GT twice, and VT
---BC plays Clemson, ND, and Syracuse
---GT plays Syracuse, Clemson twice, and Pitt
---ND plays BC and VT
---VT plays Clemson and ND
---Pitt plays Syracuse, NCS, and GT

So let's look at our chances

---NCS: we finish ahead of them if they lose to Duke (twice), F$U, and possibly Pitt (or UNC rivalry). If they win 3, we lose head-to-head tiebreaker
---Syracuse: we need Syracuse to lose to Louisville and lose at least one to GT/Pitt/BC, (and us of course)
---Clemson: we need Clemson to lose to F$U and two to BC, VT, and GT (twice)
---BC: we need BC to lose to UVa and F$U
---GT: we need GT to lose to one of Syracuse, Pitt, and Clemson (twice), (and us of course)
---ND: we need ND to lose to F$U (and us of course)
---VT: we need VT to lose to Duke/UVa/Louisiville (and us of course)
---Pitt: we need Pitt to lose to F$U and UVa

Thus, Miami could get to the 5 seed if:

---Miami wins out
---Duke, Louisville, F$U, and UVa win out against Group of Eight teams (with UVa losing to UM of course)
---Five key losses in the Group of Eight (NCS loses to Pitt; Syracuse loses to GT/Pitt/BC; Clemson with 2 losses to BC/Pitt/GT/GT; and GT loses to Syracuse/Pitt/Clemson/Clemson) - essentially, it would help us if Pitt kills it and Clemson sucks it

There are only 3 more games left among Top 4 teams:

Duke-UVa
Louisville-F$U
Louisville-UVa

So we root for Top 4 to destroy Group of Eight (with Miami beating UVa, of course).
 
Last edited:
One other note. Has any other ACC team had to play 7 games against the Top 4 teams in the ACC? We have gone 0-6 thus far, and we need to win the 7th.

In any remaining ACC game, here is the ranking order of who you should root for (always root for the team higher on the list in any head-to-head matchup):

1. Miami (always Miami)
2. UVA
3. Duke
4. F$U
5. Louisville
6. Pitt
7. NC State
8. Syracuse
9. BC
10. GT
11. Notre Dame
12. VaTech
13. Clemson
 
Advertisement
If this was a normal ACC year, then maybe you'd have a shot if you won out in the regular season. But the ACC is so down this year, that the only way Miami would make it is if they won the ACC Tournament. Even if we did win out in the regular season, the only win over a certain NCAA team would be that win against Illinois. Even Virginia is generally considered a "last 4 in" type of team right now, and according to Kenpom, Virginia would currently be underdogs in 4 of their last 6 games (and UVa would only be a 1 point favorite against us). I just don't see any way a 13-loss team (assuming a loss in the conference tournament) gets in with that limited number of quality wins. I don't even think a win over one of those top three teams in the conference tournament would be enough to put us in serious consideration.

This year for the conference is similar to the 2013 season, where you had a strong top tier (Miami/Duke in 2013; Duke/Louisville/FSU this year), but beyond them, teams weren't really pulling their weight (UNC and NC State were decent in 2013, I guess). The 2013 Virginia team was the 4 seed in conference tournament and entered Selection Sunday with a 21-11 record (11-7 in conference play), and still was relegated to the NIT.
 
In fairness, to the question. I do think Miami will win the rest of their regular season games, however, that is not enough to get an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Miami would have to win the ACC tournament to get into the NCAA tournament. Given the abnormally down year for the teams in the ACC combined with the underperformance of Florida and UCONN (two teams Miami lost too in the non-conference) along with Temple and Missouri State (two teams Miami beat in the non-conference) does not help our resume. Beating Illinois helps, especially if they win the Big Ten but that is not enough. Ending the regular season at 18-12 is a decent record but it is not enough. I do think Miami will win two games in the ACC tournament but that would then take our record to 20-13. Unfortunately, a 20-13 record screams NIT to me.

Actually, I would prefer Miami go to the NIT and win the NIT this year. Going to the NCAA tournament is good but Miami is hovering around the last four in territory, which means they would probably have to play a play-in game first then fly to another city for another NCAA tournament game or games during the first weekend. Two cities and possibly 3 games in a 6 day period with a 9 man team. Miami would probably get a #1 seed in the NIT so they will have few home games before going to MSG for the Championship game. That would be 2 games a week for the next three weeks.

It would be a great motivational tool for next season as we can all take about how Miami got snubbed from the NCAA tournament last season. Winning the NIT would be a good preparation for a deep run in the NCAA tournament next season.
 
miami.rivals.com

CanesCounty - Caputo: When we are full strength we can compete with anybody in ACC

The Canes are looking to build on the recent two wins. The situation? Read on for assistant coach Chris Caputo's take.
miami.rivals.com miami.rivals.com

I agree with this notion. If anyone has a rivals account, please feel free to post the cliff notes version.

Translation: Full strength means all nine guys are healthy and available. Not full roster, which means all 13 scholarships have been used.
 
Advertisement
People need to think about this.

ACC teams have 25 to 30% of their conference games left to play (regular season). A lot can happen in the next two weeks, not only for UM, but for other ACC teams as well. That's why I listed UVa and NC State as being teams to root for, as well as Pitt and maybe even VaTech.

Root for Illinois and The Gata too, and Temple.

I'm not saying it's a lock. But if our schedule looks better, and we can get to 19 or 20 wins, and the conference starts to smell better, that is good for UM. Bracketology is predicting 11 Big 10 teams...and we beat one of their best ones. We just need more quality (statistically).
 
A bit tired of getting downvoted, but a couple of surprising wins against very bad teams, with lotsa ugly moments, and we are talking NCAA? And Sam is the cats meow? He and DJ have regressed this year, as has Lykes. Frenetic is the word, for those athletic Canes that play with energy.

Best I can point out though is that with more healthy bodies, the competition for playing time (Lykes, Wong, Walker, Beverly, Kam) among the younger energetic mobile guys with some talent (not always executed) seems to keep them from trying to play hero a bit too much (too many shots and bad shots a la newton and Arod) and they seem to pass a bit more and otherwise are more shot-selective. This is GOOD!

On the other hand, confidence with DJ and Sam, who has been frozen, is disconcerting. DJ is a known quantity/quality having a very bad run of games; Sam is perhaps the second best long shooter on the team. In practice he sinks more 3pointers than anyone even DJ game after game Ive seen. But now wont shoot, although he did take one in last game and sunk it, was nice to see. Hoping for more and hope Im wrong.
 
Da_Lucky_One said:
In fairness, to the question. I do think Miami will win the rest of their regular season games, however, that is not enough to get an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Miami would have to win the ACC tournament to get into the NCAA tournament. Given the abnormally down year for the teams in the ACC combined with the underperformance of Florida and UCONN (two teams Miami lost too in the non-conference) along with Temple and Missouri State (two teams Miami beat in the non-conference) does not help our resume. Beating Illinois helps, especially if they win the Big Ten but that is not enough. Ending the regular season at 18-12 is a decent record but it is not enough. I do think Miami will win two games in the ACC tournament but that would then take our record to 20-13. Unfortunately, a 20-13 record screams NIT to me.

Actually, I would prefer Miami go to the NIT and win the NIT this year. Going to the NCAA tournament is good but Miami is hovering around the last four in territory, which means they would probably have to play a play-in game first then fly to another city for another NCAA tournament game or games during the first weekend. Two cities and possibly 3 games in a 6 day period with a 9 man team. Miami would probably get a #1 seed in the NIT so they will have few home games before going to MSG for the Championship game. That would be 2 games a week for the next three weeks.

It would be a great motivational tool for next season as we can all take about how Miami got snubbed from the NCAA tournament last season. Winning the NIT would be a good preparation for a deep run in the NCAA tournament next season.
Click to expand...
Highly unlikely we win the remaining 5 ACC games, then again you have picked us to win every single game we have played
 
Advertisement
jkdood said:
A bit tired of getting downvoted, but a couple of surprising wins against very bad teams, with lotsa ugly moments, and we are talking NCAA? And Sam is the cats meow? He and DJ have regressed this year, as has Lykes. Frenetic is the word, for those athletic Canes that play with energy.

Best I can point out though is that with more healthy bodies, the competition for playing time (Lykes, Wong, Walker, Beverly, Kam) among the younger energetic mobile guys with some talent (not always executed) seems to keep them from trying to play hero a bit too much (too many shots and bad shots a la newton and Arod) and they seem to pass a bit more and otherwise are more shot-selective. This is GOOD!

On the other hand, confidence with DJ and Sam, who has been frozen, is disconcerting. DJ is a known quantity/quality having a very bad run of games; Sam is perhaps the second best long shooter on the team. In practice he sinks more 3pointers than anyone even DJ game after game Ive seen. But now wont shoot, although he did take one in last game and sunk it, was nice to see. Hoping for more and hope Im wrong.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure it’s fair to say any of the three of them have regressed. Lykes was playing hurt in November and from mid January on, but in that short window he was healthy he played some great games (Admittedly Duke was not one of them). Sam and DJ have been asked to log more minutes than anyone, and Sam has been playing with a bad knee since mid-January. He has to go through a lengthy routine to get the knee loose before joining the rest of the team for halftime warmups. It’s no coincidence that Sam played his best game in weeks after getting a night off. With DJ you can absolutely see the fatigue in his suddenly poor free throw shooting.
 
I think the chances we win three straight ACC road games are between slim and none before even getting to the last two home games. If by some miracle we did, and won a couple at the ACC tournament to finish at 12-11 in the league, we’d have a pretty good shot at making the NCAA tournament.
 
Advertisement
Back
Top