Around the League / UNT Opponents

[BigWillie]

13 hours ago, Matt from A700 said:

Memphis does not play until Thursday night, meaning we have another opportunity of being sole possessors of first place for a night if we win in Wichita Wednesday.

It'd be cool to chase down that #1 seed but personally would rather take the 2 seed and the more attendance-friendly 6 pm start for that first tournament game at Dickies. The #1 seed would have to play at 12pm on Thursday.

Also not a fan of the inevitable banner and possibly rings our social media/AD will parade around for being "conference (regular season? champions."

The other thing is #2 shouldn't play #1 until the Championship if all goes according to plan. That would help with not seeing Memphis until our revenge game.

[Matt from A700]

9 minutes ago, BigWillie said:

The other thing is #2 shouldn't play #1 until the Championship if all goes according to plan. That would help with not seeing Memphis until our revenge game.

Us vs. Memphis in the final would be the best chance Dickies has of looking respectable before the conference tourney gets moved somewhere else.

[greenminer]

1/28/2025 in the AAC

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[GMG_Dallas]

Minnesota plays Michigan State and Oregon State plays Gonzaga tonight. Two big games involving our two best wins.

Another team I'm monitoring is Northern Iowa. They're currently a Quad 2 win for us. They get NET #66 Drake on the road tomorrow and #63 Bradley at home this Sunday. Those are Quad 1 and Quad 2 games, respectively. Just need UNI to stay in the top 100 and those are two important games for their NET ranking. They'll get Bradley and Drake again in two of their final three games of the season. 

[greenminer]

1/28/2025 Final

[Matt from A700]

Rice proving to have a fraudulent OOC record once again.

[greenminer]

oof didn't even notice that until now.  Rice just lost their 6th straight.

Irony: one of their OOC wins was Arkie State, which beat Memphis.

Edited yesterday at 05:27 AM by greenminer

[UNTLifer]

12 hours ago, GMG_Dallas said:

Minnesota plays Michigan State and Oregon State plays Gonzaga tonight. Two big games involving our two best wins.

Minnesota loses by 22. 
OR St. currently losing by 40. 

[THOR]

went up 1 in the net to 45

[Cooke County Kid]

If we end the season with a NET rating below 45 wouldn’t we be hard not to get an at large bid?

[greenminer]

43 minutes ago, Cooke County Kid said:

If we end the season with a NET rating below 45 wouldn’t we be hard not to get an at large bid?

IIRC, NIT champs were 38 NET as of Selection Sunday.  There's precedent.

[greenminer]

1/29/2025 Today in the American

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[GMG_Dallas]

15 hours ago, UNTLifer said:

Minnesota loses by 22. 
OR St. currently losing by 40. 

Dang. There's always next time...

[greenminer]

 

[NorthTexasSportsNetwork]

8 hours ago, Cooke County Kid said:

If we end the season with a NET rating below 45 wouldn’t we be hard not to get an at large bid?

0 Q1 wins won't help you here, no matter how highly ranked you are. These metrics rise with blowouts and high-efficiency offensive/defensive outputs. We could be 35 by the conference championship, lose and still be left out. Because at the end of the day, no matter the quantity of wins and blowouts, if you, as a mid-major in a not-as-great conference this year, don't have any QUALITY wins, they will snub you. Just like 2021-22 team and even the 22-23 team, just like MTSU in 2017-18, Belmont a few years ago etc... 

[greenminer]

2 hours ago, NorthTexasSportsNetwork said:

0 Q1 wins won't help you here, no matter how highly ranked you are. These metrics rise with blowouts and high-efficiency offensive/defensive outputs. We could be 35 by the conference championship, lose and still be left out. Because at the end of the day, no matter the quantity of wins and blowouts, if you, as a mid-major in a not-as-great conference this year, don't have any QUALITY wins, they will snub you. Just like 2021-22 team and even the 22-23 team, just like MTSU in 2017-18, Belmont a few years ago etc... 

I think it was Utah State a few years ago that was left out with 27 wins.

[CMJ]

Temple with a gut check win in 2OT.

Edited 14 hours ago by CMJ

[greenminer]

1/29/2025 Finals

[GMG_Dallas]

3 hours ago, NorthTexasSportsNetwork said:

0 Q1 wins won't help you here, no matter how highly ranked you are. These metrics rise with blowouts and high-efficiency offensive/defensive outputs. We could be 35 by the conference championship, lose and still be left out. Because at the end of the day, no matter the quantity of wins and blowouts, if you, as a mid-major in a not-as-great conference this year, don't have any QUALITY wins, they will snub you. Just like 2021-22 team and even the 22-23 team, just like MTSU in 2017-18, Belmont a few years ago etc... 

MTSU - choked in the conference tourney, lost to 9 seed sub-500 Southern Miss in their first game

Belmont has pretty much been 1 and done for the past 5ish seasons save for 2020-2021

Us in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 we had no deep conference tourney run and bad losses (30 points to St Mary's, UNC Wilmington, Charlotte, 12 point loss to Rice, etc...).

The reasons to snub all these teams were there. I don't like it but it just is what it is.

Some of the highest NET ranked teams to miss the tournament are:

in 2024: #29 Indiana State, #32 St John's, #37 Cincinnati,

In 2023: #38 North Texas

In 2022: #39 Oklahoma

In 2019: #33 NC State, #35 Clemson, #38 Texas

There's plenty of High-major getting snubbed, too.

This year, we have no great wins but no bad losses so far. If we can win out and have a deep tournament run, I like our chances. We just can't give any reason to doubt us, kind of like Indiana State did last year by losing to #178 Illinois State by 13 and then #116 So Illinois back-to-back in mid-February.

[Censored by Laurie]

12 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

This year, we have no great wins but no bad losses so far. If we can win out and have a deep tournament run, I like our chances. We just can't give any reason to doubt us, kind of like Indiana State did last year by losing to #178 Illinois State by 13 and then #116 So Illinois back-to-back in mid-February.

there might be a path, but man it's narrow. every other team I've seen listed as a bubble contender has at least one Quad 1 win. we just did not do enough in non-con / got screwed by a very down AAC year

there are 36 at large bids and the P5 are likely gobbling up a bare min of 30...that, at best, leaves 6 bids between the Mountain West, WCC, MVC, A-10 and AAC...while needing the chalk to play out in most tourneys, and especially hoping that someone like McNeese or UC Irvine don't lose in their conference tournament final. 

looking at resumes...it would be GREAT if Bradley fell off and Drake won the MVC...everyone at the top of the A-10 keeps beating up on one another ensuring a 1 bid league...and someone like Boise State doesn't start to make any noise. 

[UNTFan23]

1 hour ago, greenminer said:

1/29/2025 Finals

One of these is not like the others ...

[Censored by Laurie]

or another scenario that feels quite likely is that Memphis flames out in the 1st or 2nd round of the conference tourney and UNT loses in the final to say UAB or Temple. not a chance in hell this becomes a 3 bid league this season. 

[greenminer]

52 minutes ago, Censored by Laurie said:

or another scenario that feels quite likely is that Memphis flames out in the 1st or 2nd round of the conference tourney and UNT loses in the final to say UAB or Temple. not a chance in hell this becomes a 3 bid league this season. 

I mentioned this scenario a bit back and man! It would be a nightmare scenario for us.   I can't imagine the committee handing us a bid after having to take on the tourney champ AND Memphis.

Can you imagine winning out, getting 26 regular season wins, winning 2 (?) more games in the tourney, and being snubbed at 28 wins and a (estimation) 35-ish NET?

Edited 12 hours ago by greenminer

[greenminer]

Looks like Lunardi is starting to warm up to us.

[GMG_Dallas]

10 hours ago, Censored by Laurie said:

or another scenario that feels quite likely is that Memphis flames out in the 1st or 2nd round of the conference tourney and UNT loses in the final to say UAB or Temple. not a chance in hell this becomes a 3 bid league this season. 

Yeah I agree it's a long shot. I've thought of this scenario as well and just don't find it likely to get 3 AAC bids barring other conferences collapsing. For example if the Big 10 and Big 12 end up with a clear separation of top and bottom which leaves the bottom half of teams well bellow .500 in conference play, maybe? Those two conferences weren't strong enough in OOC to make-up for horrid conference records like the SEC was.

The more I think of it, the more it's apparent losing to Memphis was probably the nail in the coffin that is our at-large hopes. Had we beaten Memphis and then lost to Memphis in the conference tourney CCG, we'd at least have that one Quad 1 win but as it is, I just don't see how we can beat Memphis and not win the tourney but still get a bid.