Seminoles Basketball Bracketology Part Four 2/8/2010

This is part four of my weekly look at our NCAA Tournament resume. Just like last time let me explain a couple things about the chart:

The graph below is broken into three columns: teams we've already beaten, teams we've yet to play, and teams we've lost to.

You'll notice numbers beside each teams name. If a team's name is bold then that means they are projected by ESPN's Joe Lunardi as a tournament team. The number next to their name represents their corresponding tournament seed. If a team is not in bold then they are not projected as a tournament team. The number next to their name is their corresponding RPI ranking as per RealTimeRPI

[Note: I do not include the AP or Coach's Poll Rankings because they are not used by the selection committee making them obsolete in college basketball]

Current Record: 17-6             Current ACC Record: 5-4

Current RPI: 43                       Current SOS: 57

Current Projected Seed: 8

We took a baby step back this week. Although the Maryland game wasn’t essential, it was one we could’ve won and you hate losing any ACC games at home. Also, the home loss hurt us more than the home win against Miami helped us in the RPI. The Maryland loss really hurt our chances at getting to 10-6 and securing a nice NCAA seed. 9-7 is looking more than likely and that could very easily put us in the dreaded 8 or 9 seed territory.

The Clemson game this week is huge. We currently only have beaten one tournament bound team and a road win would do wonders for our resume.  I’m going to take two different views this week with regards to our upcoming schedule: pessimistic and optimistic.

Pessimistic: I generally consider myself a pessimistic fan. As the season has gone on I figured our resume would have improved but it really hasn’t. Looking at our upcoming schedule the only real gimme is the Boston College game this week at home. Besides that it is very conceivable that we go 3-4 or worse on out, don’t do well in the ACC tournament, and spend another post season in the NIT

Optimistic: Although we’ve only beaten one Tournament bound team, Marquette and Virginia Tech are both knocking on the door. We only have one bad loss for our resume so far (NC State) and the rest of our losses are against probable tournament teams. Besides a Duke away game, I think this team is capable of beating any team in the ACC at any time. 5-2 is definitely in the realm of possibilities in our upcoming games. This would put us at 10-6 on the season, with a few quality wins and a very nice NCAA seed.

As has been the case for a couple of weeks, 9-7 looks likely. That is a lock for the tournament, which is good, but that will likely yield us an 8 or 9 seed which would set us up for a second round exit at best. The Miami game showed me some signs of life in our guards, and the play of Derwin Kitchen and Luke Loucks will be the key to our success in our next seven games. Go Noles!