From @drew_toennies, who caught up with 2026 QB Landon Duckworth, who recently visited and received an offer

Presented by Sutherland & Belk, hope to do this today. Let’s keep this to current hoops/baseball topics, please.

Again, I would have barely put Vanderbilt in the field based on accomplishment. But of course the committee didn't and so I'm trying to look at what it did and find a pattern or two here. Maybe it's coincidence or maybe it isn't.

NET of some teams left out:

38. North Texas (24-7)
40. Rutgers (19-14)
43. Oklahoma State (18-15)
46. North Carolina (20-13)
47. Oregon (19-14)
54. New Mexico (21-11)
57. UAB (24-9)
60. Clemson (23-10)
61. Michigan (17-15)
65. Sam Houston State (21-7)
70. Cincinnati (20-12)
76. Virginia Tech (19-14)
78. Dayton (22-12)
79. Utah (17-15)
80. Wisconsin (17-14)
81. Vanderbilt (20-14)

Plus, based on where they were seeded, it seems obvious that Oral Roberts (NET of 38) and Charleston (51) and Drake (55) were not getting in despite NETs that had each in the vicinity, without winning league tournaments.

NET of some teams that got at-large bids:
67. Pitt (23-11)
66. Arizona St. (22-12)
56. Providence (21-11)
50. USC (22-10)
49. Mississippi St. (21-12)
45. North Carolina St. (23-10)
42. Missouri (24-9)
41. Northwestern (21-11)

A pattern I see here with Power 5/Big East teams is two things:

1. The NET number itself probably mattered to some degree, but not as much as people think... maybe? ; 67 and 66 were the lowest-two NET teams that got in with an at-large. The higher the number goes, the worse the optics are in a sense, but then again, St. John’s got in with a 73 one year with a 21-12 record. Maybe there was just a tolerance level that, say, outside the top 70, the committee just didn't have the appetite to let a team that high in?
2. But another thing jumps out. For Power 5 teams 12 losses, in some sense, seemed to be a cutoff; ASU, Providence, Mississippi State, Northwestern, NC State, USC, Pitt and Missouri all got in with 12 or fewer. Rutgers, Oklahoma State, UNC, Oregon, Michigan, Virginia Tech, Utah, Wisconsin and Vanderbilt did not, and a few of those teams (Virginia Tech, Utah) weren’t considered.
3. The exception is West Virginia, which went went 19-14 but also had the No. 5 strength of schedule and beat six teams that made the field. But the resume-based metrics had WVU as an 8-seed. WVU’s NET of 24 had it as a 6-seed. Instead, WVU got a 9. That makes me think it's more the high-loss total that did it, with the NET not helping.

Conclusion: If you were a Power 5 team and lost 13 or more, even if you played a tough schedule, you weren’t getting in except under an extraordinary circumstance. Even Oklahoma State (No. 8 strength of schedule) was left at home.

Angry!?

Hey Everyone,

The Barking Crow is the pre-imminent source for NIT bracketology etc.

They have a bracket challenge and it's rather rudimentary, but hey, it's a chance to stay engaged with our Dores.

9 pm central time on ESPNU

It appears the Grambling and S. Miss home losses were costly and drove the poor Net rating, but if Vanderbilt had won the game at VCU, would that have made a difference?

I don't recall if that was a televised game and I missed it, but I remember seeing the replay of the Robbins technical for tapping his head. And then Stackhouse getting ejected and really complaining about the officiating in that game. Since VCU ended up Atlantic 10 Champions, wondering if a road win there would have tipped the scales in our favor.

Nm

Unless we won the SECT.

I'm at my in-laws in Colorado, we'll be waking up at some hour of darkness to catch a flight home on Wednesday morning.

Joey is on spring break.

I've also got my SEC stuff to tend to and the NCAA Tournament is a hot topic there right now.

Fortunately there is no football this week.

I will try to cover NIT and baseball from TV out here on Tuesday.

Have to keep an eye on the NCAAs and baseball both and also have out-of-town company this week, no idea how I'm going to handle all that.

Anyway, there's going to be something or somethings I need to cover this week that won't get hit and I'm not sure what that looks like but just letting everyone know.

In the meantime. between getting out of town and having two separate family crises to deal, neither of which is going away any time soon, I've got that competing for my time.

Anyway, it's just kind of a resource challenge right now and I'll do my best but wanted to let you know ahead of time.

Are all of the formulas which comprise the end number of the NET publicly disclosed, or are only selective elements disclosed, e. g., the values ascribed to determine wins and losses attributable to the quads, or is it a complete black box? Where am I going with this? Do we need nerds to reveal the “do’s and don’t” for coaches? The problem is that the portal plus, to a lesser extent, injuries, plus other intangibles can screw up the best laid plans.

I started a separate thread so that the negative title of a different thread doesn't discourage people inordinately who glance in at titles and don't have a membership.

I'm not going to watch the NCAA tournament, but I *am* going to watch the NIT games we play and be very happy to see how far we could go.

It's possible it will be hard to have the energy to win several games in a row despite fatigue, but with some support from the fans in the gym, every little bit can help get the energy to win.

We all know the downside of not going to the NCAA tournament. I wonder if someone can articulate the upside of doing well in the NIT. Obviously we can always articulate the downside of anything.

For players who experienced a slump at the end of the season, perhaps they could use the tournaments to pull out of their slump and redeem themselves.

I don't want to put pressure on them to do that though because that could make it the slump even worse. I mean it as an opportunity without pressure.

I assume there is behind the scenes contact with the committee coming into this week highlighting the team's strength. Does Vanderbilt have the people in place to do this correctly?

Give me a break

You can't make this stuff up!

What an absolute joke. They should be ashamed. Arizona st? Miss st? Pitt? Nevada? Utah st? Gtfo

Do we have room to keep Ezra and Wright?

Obviously still have the NIT, but the off-season means more for the future of the program than the NIT does. We need a good offseason if we want to make the tournament next year. There’s potential to have a good group of returners with a couple really good veterans in Lawrence and Manjon. plus promising young players that we can expect to play a lot in Lewis, Dort, and Smith. They’ve got 3 freshman coming in, a guard that can help right away, a forward that has big potential, and a big that might be a reach(we’ll see). And QMB is coming back which some are excited about (I’m not but I’ve said that many times already).

But there’s plenty of questions. Is Jordan Wright leaving? Myles Stute and Thomas seem to be falling out of the fanbases favor and even Stack’s to a degree. Noah Shelby and Malik Dia weren’t even in the rotation at the end, and I don’t know if there’s a path to a lot of playing time for them next year either. This team needs to bring a transfer or two in to help. This team needs internal development (especially from Dort if we’re not bringing in a transfer 5). Lots of questions

Looking for 3 tickets Friday night Ole Miss.