It’s not silly. It’s actually petty easy. You can eliminate 9 of the 13 teams immediately. The three teams in Atlantis plus Michigan are the only teams that even have a chance. Providence has finished their noncon, is barely over .500, and is nowhere near the field as of now. The Big East is down this year, so their chances for high quality wins are limited. Louisville is 6-5 and also plays in a league that won’t get many bids, so they have minimal chances to improve their resume. Plus, they have multiple guys out for the year. They will be accomplishing quite a bit if they even manage to finish the year .500. Arizona is under .500 and will enter conference play with zero meaningful wins and a handful of blowout losses. They’ll have tons of Q-1 games in the Big 12, but they’ll have to win a bunch of them to have a chance.
it’s ridiculous for some on this board to act as if trying to assess the strength of a schedule and the quality of a team’s wins is like trying to solve the world’s toughest riddle. There are so many publicly available websites that tell you all you need to know.
So, yes, barring a massive rebound by Arizona, Wednesday is our only chance to beat a tournament team outside conference play. A win Wednesday is one fewer game we have to win in January and February. A loss puts us in the same spot we were in last year. You can say it won’t be that predictive because Michigan is a unique team with two really good bigs, but the computers won’t count that game any more or less based on Michigan’s size.
We are going to be playing 18 games in a conference that is a beast. If we lose Wednesday but end up winning 9 or 10 regular season conference games, we will be in, likely with ease. I’d prefer not to have to count on doing something that we haven’t come close to doing under Moser. When you put together a really bad nonconference schedule, it makes it that much more important that you don’t miss the one chance you have to land a big scalp.
