Post by socobeaver on Nov 7, 2017 22:34:09 GMT -8
With the NCAA basketball season set to begin on Friday, various preseason rankings are out, so it is time for a look at the Beavers pre-season schedule. But first a quick overview of where the Beavers are projected. Ken Pomeroy, whose projections are based on returning players, quality of recruits, and a general regression to the mean, puts Oregon State as the 70th best team in college basketball, 7th in the Pac 12. Sports Illustrated, who do a more complex computer model that models production of the key players on each team as part of the projection, is a bit less bullish, placing the Beavers at 99th in the country and 8th in Pac 12. ESPN, who is the least clear on methodology, places them at 66th and 7th, pretty much in line with KenPom. So everyone is expecting a major turnaround, but not to tournament levels. Anyway, as before, here is a look at the non-conference slate, broken into tiers based on how difficult the games should be. Each team is followed by their rankings in parentheses (KP, SI, ESPN).
Tier 1 - Patsies at home: Arkansas Pine Bluff (349, 342, 344) and Southern Utah (335, 336, 338). While the schedule lacks marquee games, it does have fewer truely atrocious teams than in some recent years. There is remarkable consistency in how the models rate these teams, and they agree that they are bad. A loss in either of these would be terribly embarrassing. Kind of like losing to Savannah State. But that would never happen, right?
Tier 2 - Should cruise, but not total bottom feeders: Loyola Maramount (254, 271, 250), Long Beach State (262, 219, 246), and Eastern Kentucky (185, 205, 192). At least these teams are (probably) not in the bottom 100. They should be easy wins for a decent high major, but for a team trying to jell with a lot of question marks, I would expect that at least one of these play the Beavers close. Unless of course the season goes like last year, in which case we might play one of them close.
Tier 3 - Should win, but... Jacksonville State (164, 122, 172), St Louis (168, 113, 180), Kent State (179, 181, 193). Two of the systems see Jacksonville State and St Louis as more equivalent to Eastern Kentucky, but SI (whose preseason rankings have been best over the last several years) like them enough to give pause. Jacksonville State (not to be confused with the truely terrible Jacksonville) returns much of a team that went to the Dance last year (as conference champions). St. Louis was very bad (like Beavers bad) last year, but similarly looks to be much improved and Portland offers less of an advantage than Gill, so they join this tier. Kent State (who we shockingly beat last year) lost the top two players from a team that went to the Tournament last year, and looks to be much worse. Still, as a true road game that will be tough.
Tier 4 - Toss ups: Wyoming (89, 89, 102), St. John’s (51, 87, 63). At home, we should have he edge over Wyoming, but given their experience and the fact that it comes so early in the season, it seems to be a near toss up. St. John’s is the premier game on the schedule, although they still look to be (at best) a bubble team. That is the only game where at the outset Oregon State looks like the underdog, but it is still a very winnable game on a neutral court.
Wildcards: the rest of the Advocare Invitational. Beat St. John’s, and the Beavers should get two more quality opponents with a likely match up against Missouri (81, 39, 71- quite a spread) then either West Virginia (7, 11, 6) or UCF (60, 28, 72). Lose and we will likely have a rematch with Long Beach State, followed by either Nebraska (98, 81, 91) or (if we lose to LBSU) Marist (307, 311, 297). For the sake of strength of schedule, a win in round 1 is thus very important (although a loss might actually give a better chance of coming out of the tournament 2-1).
So where do we stand? A Tournament team should win everything in tiers 1-3, at least one (and likely both) of tier 4, and get at least one additional win in the tournament, coming out no worse that 10-2, and likely 11-1. I will take a lot of convincing that the Beavers are going to jump that high, however. More reasonably, if the Beavers are much improved but not great, they should win the Tier 1 and 2 games, at least two of the Tier 3, and one to two other games. That would put them as 8-4 or 9-3. Anything less than 8-4 will be a disappointment (even if an improvement on last year), and suggest they are still a bottom team in the Pac 12.
Tier 1 - Patsies at home: Arkansas Pine Bluff (349, 342, 344) and Southern Utah (335, 336, 338). While the schedule lacks marquee games, it does have fewer truely atrocious teams than in some recent years. There is remarkable consistency in how the models rate these teams, and they agree that they are bad. A loss in either of these would be terribly embarrassing. Kind of like losing to Savannah State. But that would never happen, right?
Tier 2 - Should cruise, but not total bottom feeders: Loyola Maramount (254, 271, 250), Long Beach State (262, 219, 246), and Eastern Kentucky (185, 205, 192). At least these teams are (probably) not in the bottom 100. They should be easy wins for a decent high major, but for a team trying to jell with a lot of question marks, I would expect that at least one of these play the Beavers close. Unless of course the season goes like last year, in which case we might play one of them close.
Tier 3 - Should win, but... Jacksonville State (164, 122, 172), St Louis (168, 113, 180), Kent State (179, 181, 193). Two of the systems see Jacksonville State and St Louis as more equivalent to Eastern Kentucky, but SI (whose preseason rankings have been best over the last several years) like them enough to give pause. Jacksonville State (not to be confused with the truely terrible Jacksonville) returns much of a team that went to the Dance last year (as conference champions). St. Louis was very bad (like Beavers bad) last year, but similarly looks to be much improved and Portland offers less of an advantage than Gill, so they join this tier. Kent State (who we shockingly beat last year) lost the top two players from a team that went to the Tournament last year, and looks to be much worse. Still, as a true road game that will be tough.
Tier 4 - Toss ups: Wyoming (89, 89, 102), St. John’s (51, 87, 63). At home, we should have he edge over Wyoming, but given their experience and the fact that it comes so early in the season, it seems to be a near toss up. St. John’s is the premier game on the schedule, although they still look to be (at best) a bubble team. That is the only game where at the outset Oregon State looks like the underdog, but it is still a very winnable game on a neutral court.
Wildcards: the rest of the Advocare Invitational. Beat St. John’s, and the Beavers should get two more quality opponents with a likely match up against Missouri (81, 39, 71- quite a spread) then either West Virginia (7, 11, 6) or UCF (60, 28, 72). Lose and we will likely have a rematch with Long Beach State, followed by either Nebraska (98, 81, 91) or (if we lose to LBSU) Marist (307, 311, 297). For the sake of strength of schedule, a win in round 1 is thus very important (although a loss might actually give a better chance of coming out of the tournament 2-1).
So where do we stand? A Tournament team should win everything in tiers 1-3, at least one (and likely both) of tier 4, and get at least one additional win in the tournament, coming out no worse that 10-2, and likely 11-1. I will take a lot of convincing that the Beavers are going to jump that high, however. More reasonably, if the Beavers are much improved but not great, they should win the Tier 1 and 2 games, at least two of the Tier 3, and one to two other games. That would put them as 8-4 or 9-3. Anything less than 8-4 will be a disappointment (even if an improvement on last year), and suggest they are still a bottom team in the Pac 12.