by Altmanforprez » Sat Mar 01, 2025 11:12 am
It's cool and all that Xavier fans are juiced for this game, but looking at their resume this is a lot more of a tournament elimination game for them than it is a way to play onto the bubble.
1. Creighton isn't a Quad 1 win right now, unless we go on a run these last couple of weeks (aka blow out teams/win the BET) it will be tough sledding for us to crack the top 30
2. With that being the case, they will finish the regular season 1-8 in Q1 with their first round game either being DePaul or UConn in the quarterfinals (if they win today). They would HAVE to pick up two Q1 wins in the BET tournament to have a strong case
3. They are 52 in NET and 54 in KenPom and the rest of their remaining schedule won't move that much unless they beat the crap out of their opponents, but Seton Hall is the only team they've taken to the woodshed in conference play
The caveat will be how the committee takes into account the games Freemantle missed, if it's between the last spot and not in the tournament they may get the benefit of the doubt, but if there are a few bid stealers they are going to be in trouble.
It sucks for them and the conference because Xavier is a good team and we can absolutely lose today, but I think they are in a tough position. The metrics this year are wonky with the mega conferences, I hope there is some tuning done after the season because it's starting to feel like there's a lot of "garbage in/garbage out" going on with the numbers.