Tell Me What it Takes...

Girl, before I met you, I was F-I-N-E, fine.
But your love made me a prisoner, now my heart's been doin' time...

Sorry, I had to get that out of my system since Steven Tyler's rendition of the song that shares this entry's title has been bouncing around my head, preventing me from writing anything for several minutes.

Now, as a Nebraska a fan, it may be a completely unnecessary exercise, but every year at about this time I like to try to set my own personal goals for the team, which if met, should result in an NCAA berth. Obviously, my goals have gone unmet since the nineties, but so far, it hasn't detered me.

Now, given the firestorm of excitement last week, a share of the conference lead, a smattering of AP and Coaches' votes, and Joe Lunardi jumping on the Big Red Bandwagon, I think a lot of us may have had brackets in our eyes.

That's been tempered now thanks to the hot hands of the Iowa State backcourt, but nonetheless, as unbelievable as it is, an NCAA Tournament berth isn't completely unrealistic if the Huskers can hold serve at home and steal a just few wins on the road.

But to address the question originally proffered by Tyler, Perry, et al., we need to look at what the NCAA committee has required from Big XII teams in the last several years in the way of overall record, conference record, and RPI. The following figures reflect the selection data since 1999, with the percentage of teams who were selected with the following bubbleicious variables:

Overall Record

NOTE: While this is probably the least predictive of any of the stats, its still worth looking at as there are certain 'landmark' numbers of wins or losses that prove to be very determinative.

Total Wins:

-21: 100% (4 for 4)
-20: 100% (6 for 6)
-19: 43% (3 for 7 thanks to 1999)
-18: 75% (3 for 4)
-17: 0% (0 for 4)

Total Losses:

-9: 80% (4 for 5, only 2005 aTm missed out)
-10: 75% (6 for 8)
-11: 75% (3 for 4)
-12: 33% (3 for 9)
-13: 0% (0 for 5)

Conference Record

10-6: 80% (8 for 10)
9-7: 88% (7 for 8)
8-8: 0% (0 for 2, but what is more amazing is that only 2 teams have gone 8-8 in 6 years)

RPI

30-39: 100% (3 for 3)
40-49: 78% (7 for 9)
50-70: 36% (4 for 11)


So, since Nebraska is currently setting 12-4 (2-1) with an RPI at 103, and 13 regular season games remaining, we can start to get an idea of what it takes for them to pull off the first trip to the Big Dance in eight years.

It looks like, at a minimum, the Huskers would have to finish the regular season at 7-6 to have a shot at the tourney. That would likely put them at 19-11 or 20-11 depending on what happened in the first two rounds of the Big XII tournament. But given the weakness of the Big XII this year, even a 9-7 conference record with 20 wins might not be enough.

Going 8-5 from here out in the regular season, however, would guarantee a 10-6 conference record, and at least 20 wins, which has been very predictive of NCAA Tournament teams from the conference, and would probably do what it takes.

So, here's what is left:

@ Kansas
@ Colorado
Mizzou
@ Okie St.
Baylor
Kansas
@ Texas
@ Iowa St.
Texas Tech
Colorado
@ aTm
Kansas St.
@ Mizzou

Can you find 8 wins in there?

An Unlikely Cowboy

Every Tuesday, I get a nice email from the folks at Itunes outlining the new music that is available for purchase that particular week. Normally, I skim through it, paying half-attention to little things like the fact that the entire cast of "My Wife and Kids" now has enough clout to get their own celebrity playlists while I marvel at the fact that Fall Out Boy keeps churning out downloadable hits.

But this week, I was taken back by one of the new artists. That's right, it's the kid-shrinker, Rick Moranis. He's got a new album coming out called the Agoraphobic Cowboy which you can get on Itunes, but can only pre-order on Amazon. Could that be any weirder? As you may expect, the entire thing is something of a satire on country music, but he also says that he's been listening to a lot of Widespread Panic and String Cheese Incident, and he dabbles in playing it straight on some of the songs. I listened to snippets of the album and almost all of the songs seem like a cross between Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and Shawn Mullins' "Lullabye" with a smidge of Chris Gaines thrown in for good measure, most of which end up with him trying too hard to be clever.

The weird thing is that the album seems to be getting fairly consistent good reviews from amateur critics on blogs and on Itunes, and I'm guessing that the music media will follow suit. I'm almost sure he'll soon show up on the ultra-hip XM Radio Channel 75, which I often play in my living room to impress guests. Man, I never thought that not thinking Rick Moranis was cool would negatively influence my own coolness, but given my historic ability to stay alongside my peers in terms of my music choices, I'm not sure why I'm surprised.

John Mabry Reads this Blog

Apparently, he shares my obsession with the RPI.

A Pleasant RPI Surprise

We know that the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee relies, to a degree, on RPI rankings. For example, it is fairly good bet that if you want to get an at-large bid to the dance, that you'd better end up better than #50 in the RPI (there are a few exceptions, see 2005 Iowa St.-#63 and NC state-#65, 2004 Washington-#60 and Air Force #70, 2003 NC State-#53). Also, you can almost set your watch to the rule any team that is in the top 40 of the RPI after the Conference Tournaments is nearly guaranteed an at-large spot.

However, raw ranking isn't the RPI's only value to in that weekend-long meeting in the Marriot Convention Center on the second weekend of March. The Committee also looks at one specific aspect of the RPI--each team's record vs. RPI Top 50 teams. Interestingly enough, right now there are 16 teams that have at least 3 wins against RPI top 50 teams and a winning record against those teams. They are:

RPI Rank, Team, (Record vs. Top 50)

1. Duke (5-0)
2. Memphis (4-2)
3. Wisconsin (5-1)
4. Illinois (5-1)
5. Villanova (3-1)
8. Michigan St. (5-3)
12. UCLA (5-2)
13. Texas (4-2)
15. Cincinnati (5-3)
19. Northern Iowa (4-2)
21. UCONN (4-1)
27. Creighton (4-1)
40. Iowa St. (4-2)
60. West Virginia (3-2)
67. Bradley (4-3)
91. Nebraska (3-2)

I know, its hard to believe, but I didn't even really manipulate this statistic to make Nebraska fit in this list. Right now their 5 games against RPI Top 50ers were: vs. #40 Marquette (W), vs. #39 UAB (L), @ #27 Creighton (L), vs. #34 Oklahoma (W), and @ #46 K. State (W).

Since Iowa State is currently at #50, even a win against them will likely keep Nebraska's RPI record at 3-2.

The next logical question is why Nebraska's RPI is so low when team's with comparable records against the those teams are about 30 spots higher? The answer lies in Nebraska's record against teams with RPI ratings of 200+. The Huskers have faced 7 such teams. Only three teams ranked ahead of Nebraska (Florida St., West Virginia and Air Force) have faced as many NCAA bottom-feeders.

The good news in all of this is that despite all of the criticism of NU's early schedule, the team has made for themselves a fairly solid RPI base with a good non-conference win against Marquette combined with the fact that they haven't lost a game to a non RPI top 100 team (only 14 other teams ranked 50-100 can say that). In other words, if the Huskers can eek out a 9-7 record, they'll probably put their RPI position in that important 40-50 range, which would place them right on the bubble. If that happens, it might come down to whether the Huskers win a game or two in Dallas.

Now, whether they can keep this up and win 9 league games, I have no idea. But its good to know that there's still some hope after what, at times, felt like a miserable non-conference season.