App MBB vs Coastal, Saturday, Jan. 20, 4:30 p.m. ET, year two thousand and twenty four, Cure Bowl celebration game, cold

[AppStFan1]

I absolute appreciate the question about beating a ranked team and their success following the loss to App. Unfortunately,
it all still comes down to the need to win the Sunbelt tournament as I just don't see two teams getting in from this conference.

It would be really hard to get more than one team. Both of us better dominate the rest of the way and I think App and JMU are the only shot at getting 2 in. Our win over Auburn and theirs over Michigan State would make for interesting discussion if we go 26-5 and they go 27-4 with us both in the SBC title game. What if we both do that but one of us loses in the semis and Troy or someone else wins the title game with a 26-5 App and 27-4 JMU from regular season?

We need to be careful talking like this because it's supposed to be a beat ETSU mentality- LOL.
At any rate I just scanned through the current overall standings and kind of picked the teams likely to get bids to include several obvious one bid conferences. A tremendous amount will change but I counted about 62 probable teams. I don't think either JMU or App can afford a bad conference loss and we probably need to go 23-7 minimum and at least make the conference finals. It's just great to be in the hunt.

lol. Not looking ahead at all but just giving an example of where I could see it coming into question.
In my scenario I figured it is assumed that the losses would have to be to teams with a winning record. Could not have loss to a 7 win SBC team but if to a team who has 18+ wins then that could get a pass.

We have to be more consistent from 3-pt range and improve free throws if we want to even have a shot at a record like I said though. The good news is the potential is there and I do think we are a lot better than we were back when we played NIU and Oregon State for sure.

[spacemonkey]

If we run the table and JMU runs the table, other than the loss one of us is getting next Saturday, we both win our upcoming MAC challenge and the two MAC challenge teams win the MAC championship AND we both JMU/APP make the finals of the Sunbelt tournament then both are in. The champion will be a high seed and the other will be in a play in game. Just my two cents.


On another note....Some mid major conferences should give up their Autobid to the NCAA to have a 16 team team tournament and the 4 semifinal teams should get autobids.

CUSA/AAC/MAC/Sunbelt....instead of conference tournament...top 4 teams of each conference meet in a tournament and each conference team is in a different bracket. If all four sunbelt teams make the quarter finals it is a SUNBELT four team field in the NCAA field autobid. We should monetize the tv contract and the tournament or make it ESPN 4 conferences and charge ESPN more for the tournament. Play it the week before the p4 tournaments. I would go to this every year. It would have a lot of entertainment value and some great basketball.

EDIT: I changed my mind. I just looked at CUSA's top 4 and MAC's top 4 and no thanks on sharing a tournament with them. Maybe our top 8 and AAC top 8 and let both teams in the finals have the 2 auto spots. It could be two SUNBELT or two AAC teams.

[asumba95]

It is fun to track the forecasts for March Madness. With that said, I still believe SBC only gets one team in...and that will be tournament champion. How often has SBC got two teams in?

I think the answer to that is never. Best we win the tourney and leave no doubt.

[Bigdaddyg1]

If we run the table and JMU runs the table, other than the loss one of us is getting next Saturday, we both win our upcoming MAC challenge and the two MAC challenge teams win the MAC championship AND we both JMU/APP make the finals of the Sunbelt tournament then both are in. The champion will be a high seed and the other will be in a play in game. Just my two cents.


On another note....Some mid major conferences should give up their Autobid to the NCAA to have a 16 team team tournament and the 4 semifinal teams should get autobids.

CUSA/AAC/MAC/Sunbelt....instead of conference tournament...top 4 teams of each conference meet in a tournament and each conference team is in a different bracket. If all four sunbelt teams make the quarter finals it is a SUNBELT four team field in the NCAA field autobid. We should monetize the tv contract and the tournament or make it ESPN 4 conferences and charge ESPN more for the tournament. Play it the week before the p4 tournaments. I would go to this every year. It would have a lot of entertainment value and some great basketball.

EDIT: I changed my mind. I just looked at CUSA's top 4 and MAC's top 4 and no thanks on sharing a tournament with them. Maybe our top 8 and AAC top 8 and let both teams in the finals have the 2 auto spots. It could be two SUNBELT or two AAC teams.

Every regular season champion should get at least a slot in the playin round. An App or even JMU should not go like 23-7 win a tournament game, lose a tough championship game and get totally left out while a 19-11 5th place P5 gets in. Just have a regional first round on the Tuesday/Wednesday and also give byes to the top 16 for the Thursday/Friday round. Easy fix

[Saint3333]

I enjoy discussing hypotheticals, but we’ve got a couple of bad loses that will prevent an at-large bid. We are going to need to win the tournament to make the dance.

[spacemonkey]

I enjoy discussing hypotheticals, but we’ve got a couple of bad loses that will prevent an at-large bid. We are going to need to win the tournament to make the dance.

It will be an uphill battle. The NIU loss is horrible. But if Auburn keeps winning and we are the only team with a win against them (and Baylor #15). It will give the selection committee some coverage to let us in. I think it will take Auburn being a 1 seed and us only losing one more in the conference championship to JMU. Still a long shot if all of that happens.

[BambooRdApp]

I am high on our team. As stated above, I think SBC only gets 1 team. If we had only 2 losses thus far and ran table to only lose in SBC Championship game....then there may be a long shot chance we get at-large bid. It is what it is IMO opinion. Until the Sun Belt routinely beats very good P5s/major conference (whatever term you want to use) on a regular basis, this is probably how it will be unless tournament expands...which I hope it doesn't.
I will enjoy the regular season, hope our guys continue to get better...and achieve No. 1 seed in SBC tournament....as theoretically should be easier path to championship.

[APPdiesel]

Every regular season champion should get at least a slot in the playin round. An App or even JMU should not go like 23-7 win a tournament game, lose a tough championship game and get totally left out while a 19-11 5th place P5 gets in. Just have a regional first round on the Tuesday/Wednesday and also give byes to the top 16 for the Thursday/Friday round. Easy fix

I've been saying something similar on our radio show for a while...there are 32 conferences and a 64 team tournament. Every conference should get 2 bids. One goes to the regular season conference champ (rewarding the best overall body of work) and the other should go to the conference tournament winner (the team who got hot at the right time). If the same team wins both it should open up an at-large bid. There should also be some form of incentive (tournament units paid directly to the school, for example) for winning both, which should disincentivize "throwing a tournament game" to get two teams in from your conference.

It would make every single tournament important and watchable to find out if another at-large bid would open up or not.

[Saint3333]

There are 68 teams currently in the NCAA.

Eight conferences on average get multiple bids.

At least half of the remaining 24 conferences the best team wins the conference tournament.

If they expanded the tournament to 80 teams you could adopt the regular season winner goes to the tournament concept and not impact the at-larges.

This gives each bracket four play-in games and we get 8 play-in games on Tuesday, 8 on Wednesday and March Madness.

The downside is the "mid-major" programs likely need to win three games in five days to make the sweet 16.

[AppWyo]

There are 68 teams currently in the NCAA.

Eight conferences on average get multiple bids.

At least half of the remaining 24 conferences the best team wins the conference tournament.

If they expanded the tournament to 80 teams you could adopt the regular season winner goes to the tournament concept and not impact the at-larges.

This gives each bracket four play-in games and we get 8 play-in games on Tuesday, 8 on Wednesday and March Madness.

The downside is the "mid-major" programs likely need to win three games in five days to make the sweet 16.

Why do we not just add one more game and extend to 128 like Bobby Knight suggested...

[Saint3333]

There are 68 teams currently in the NCAA.

Eight conferences on average get multiple bids.

At least half of the remaining 24 conferences the best team wins the conference tournament.

If they expanded the tournament to 80 teams you could adopt the regular season winner goes to the tournament concept and not impact the at-larges.

This gives each bracket four play-in games and we get 8 play-in games on Tuesday, 8 on Wednesday and March Madness.

The downside is the "mid-major" programs likely need to win three games in five days to make the sweet 16.

Why do we not just add one more game and extend to 128 like Bobby Knight suggested...

Because the power schools don’t want to play three games in five days.

[Bootsy]

RED PANDA loves the mid-majors...

[311neers]

I enjoy discussing hypotheticals, but we’ve got a couple of bad loses that will prevent an at-large bid. We are going to need to win the tournament to make the dance.

100%. And the SBC is down this year. JMU is about the only game left than can improve our resume. All the other ones might hurt it.
Only 3 games left vs teams with winning records. We have 12 games left…

[Bigdaddyg1]

Interesting that currently NC State and FSU are both below us in the NET rankings yet near the top of the ACC. We really need Troy and JMU to win every game except when we play. It's a shame that we could win 25 games and get relegated to the NIT and some 17-12 power school will get in as a 10 seed and get waxed on day 1 of the tournament. I've never been an advocate of just putting a ridiculous number of teams in the tournament and I hate when some power school gripes and moans that they got left out after going 19-11 but they could easily just add a preliminary round on the Tuesday to include some regional matchups. Play it up as Super Tuesday. If we happened to lose our tournament but win the regular season that should count for something. Maybe a Super Tuesday matchup with UNCG or High Point as both of them look pretty good and could end up like us. Way too easy to add 32 teams with the winners advancing. Offset this with byes to the top 4 in each region. Byes makes the regular season more important and interesting.

[BambooRdApp]

If NC State and FSU keep winning, they will pass us just based upon the fact that ACC is considered a tougher conference.
Those are just examples....but, reality of situation is that, the people in the selection room, are human and make judgement decisions....and historically that has been to select P5 schools with lesser records than than mid-majors. For the Sun Belt, historically...since we typically only get 1 team in March Madness...SBC is not regarded very high by selection committee. It is what it is whether I believe we should get more than one this year.

[AppOrange]

I agree with most points here, however you got to limit the bad losses on your resume and that 13 pt loss to NIU (6-12, 0-6) and UNC-A (12-8, 4-1 - I know that dude hit 9 threes in the first half), really hurt our resume. Troy and Ore St. are fine I guess. Take the stairs, hit a free throw

[Bigdaddyg1]

Lunardi's weekly Bracketology has us a 13 seed (automatic qualifier). Guess as long as we stay in first that won't change much. Does that Auburn win offset the NIU loss? For what it's worth does the committee really dig that deep on schools like us? It's a shame that a solid mid major like us has to practically go undefeated to sniff an at large bid. And we could go 17-13 and go on a 3-4 day run like a few years back and get the AQ. It is what it is.

[appgrad95&97]

Obviously I want us to win the regular season and tournament titles and go to the big dance. But if that doesn't happen, the NIT would be quite an accomplishment. And we might make a run.

[CharlotteApp05]

Agree with the success of the season so far. However, with the removal of the regular season conference champion guarantee to the NIT, I don't even think the NIT is a given. We absolutely need to keep winning and do well in conference tournament just to get in NIT.

[Bigdaddyg1]

Interesting takes on the post season particularly with the NIT. I don't say this to spark some controversy but only as an observation. We have many dead set against a G5 football playoff/championship but some are ok with playing in the NIT. I know it's a different sport and not all is equal but there are big schools every year who turn down an NIT invite as they deem it secondary (I guess). Hopefully we run this thing out and get into the Big Dance and if we still finish strong but get left out an NIT invite would still be ok.