Bubble Trouble: Volume I

Posted by Connor Pelton on February 4th, 2012

In this weekly piece we will be comparing blind tournament résumés. Each week we will take three Pac-12 teams that are on the bubble and compare them to three national teams that are facing the same fate. Since the Pac-12 is in such a down year, we realize that we are going to run out of NCAA Tournament bubble teams pretty quickly. That’s why in the coming weeks you will see some NIT and even CBI bubble predictions. We know that we aren’t the only Pac-12 basketball degenerates around here, and we understand that most of you could easily guess the Pac-12 team by seeing their good wins, record, etc. That’s why we’re putting a new twist to these résumés; You won’t see any records or team names, instead, those will be replaced by winning percentage and the RPI rank of their opponents. If you’re confused, read on anyway. We’ll give you all the answers after revealing to whom the résumés really belong to.

*All numbers and rankings as of February 3

Team 1 Team 2
 Winning Percentage: .727  Winning Percentage: .760
 RPI: 89  RPI: 38
 SOS: 152  SOS: 58
 Quality Wins (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 18, 59, 81  Quality Wins (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 20
 Bad Losses (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 127, 144  Bad Losses (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 141, 110

 

Take a quick glance at both résumés and it appears that team two is the logical choice here. Their winning percentage is only slightly better, but the key lies in the RPI and SOS numbers. Team two boasts an RPI ranking that is 47 spots ahead of their counterpart, and their SOS is 94 spots better. The lack of quality wins is the only thing I have reservations about. Click the jump to see whom the résumés really belong to.

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