Savage Hall is our Sarlacc Pit.

Anyone going to the game? It’ll be my first time to Savage. I think the Section I got (110, natch) is behind OUr bench.

We are a 4 point underdog.

Agreed. The modern day practice of dismissing the grind of the regular season bothers me.

This game is big - insofar as it comes to seeding for the MAC tourney between the outright best two teams. Beyond that? Not so much.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to capture the 1 seed and give them some payback. I'm just not going to freak out if we don't.

The "but we could get an at-large bid" talk is laughable nonsense.

Look, 68 teams make the dance. 32 teams are auto qualifiers as conference champs. That leaves 36 at-large bids. Roughly (depending on the year) the top 10-12 conference champs will also be one of the top 68 ranked teams. That means approximately 20-22 of the auto qualifiers AREN'T in the top 68. Take those spots away and you're left with only the top 46-48 teams making it in.

This is why teams ranked in that 40-45 range are on the bubble, but likely in (last 4 in) and teams ranked 45-50 are on the bubble but out (first 4 out).

And where, you ask, are our Bobcats ranked? Well, sadly our 2 votes from sportswriters matter not to the selection committee. They go by computer rankings.

As of tonight, here are the various computer rankings for Ohio and Toledo:

KenPom: Ohio - 87, Toledo - 75
Bart Torvik: Ohio - 77, Toledo - 80
RPI (from CBS): Ohio - 55, Toledo - 45 (getting close, but sadly the outlier)
NET (from CBS and what committee relies on): Ohio - 81, Toledo - 75

So our highest is 55 and average is 75. Neither of those are sniffing the top 45 required for an at-large. Neither is Toledo.

Neither of these teams are getting an at-large bid - whether they win out the rest of the season or not. The MAC just isn't good enough. For that matter, the MAC has 2 really good teams, 3 decent teams (Akron/Kent/Buffalo) and the rest are awful. Beating awful teams 25 times doesn't matter much unless you get some top 40/quad 1 wins.

This is precisely why I said our at-large chances went out the window back in December after the UK and LSU losses. Not enough quality opponents left on the schedule, regardless of won-loss record.

So - I say all this not to be a Debbie Downer or even downplay tonight's game. It should be a good one and I hope we win. But win or lose it ultimately all comes down to Cleveland. Just like every year.

Which is indicative of who is most likely the better team more often? Is it the regular season or the tournament? If you say it is the tournament then I don't know what to say to you. Some people say that since UMBC defeated Virginia in thr first round few years ago that not only makes UMBC deserving of advancing to the next round, which they were, but also makes UMBC unassailably the better team. But if I kidnapped them and made them pick between the two to win a game against a top ten team a few days later and if their team lost then I would execute them then how many of would those people hold fast to that idea?

Best team and Champion are not synonyms. The Champion is the team that became champion by meeting the pre established requirements. Best team is who we would pick in the execution scenario and is always a matter of opinion. If Champion is a synonym of best teams then how do teams that were not conference Champs win national championships? There is always a huge amount a luck involved in sports, especially in a single game, which hopefully averages out some over time. But there are not faries sprinkling pixie dust in tournament games that make the luck factor suddenly go away and make the winner unassailable better.

But our society values the tournament more so its worth to the University since its exposure is more. So that is more valuable to the mission of the coach and AD as well. How did this come about? Well that's how capitalism works. If you can convince the consumers of your product that the outcome based on luck is what is most valuable then you can sell more of your product. If you had a system where you actually had to be one of the 3 or 4 best teams to have a realistic shot them most of your potentual consumers would quickly lose interest. This is where increasing the luck factor in what you are selling in sports has come to have value to the seller.

This was my absolute favorite thing I've seen on BA for a while.

Of course the March memories are the greatest. But as Victory outlined, part of that is just how huge of a deal it is to the general public at large and how many eyes are watching.

Both these things can be true. We can say "we can still go on a run in March" and "This regular season game in February is important and I really hope we win it" at the same time. I want it all - regular season titles, higher winning percentages, rivalry dominance, March success. So even though we can still achieve the shiniest and most marquee stuff in March regardless of tonight's outcome, I still will desperately want to win this game tonight and be sad if we don't.

As I have said. I think that this is not entirely true. The first two are predictive rankings. The .NET is a mixture of a predictive and resume based. The RPI is really just a computer ranking a 3rd grader could have written and is absurd nonsense. Our SOR is well within what is needed to get in. It is not OUr win/loss record and schedule that has put us in a bind. Teams have gotten in with worse resumes that what we have. What is killing us is you have to wonder just how good of a team we are because we let teams like WMU stay in the game to long. That's why Pomeroy, Sagarin, Torvik, Massey...,which are predictive algorithms, put us down around 80 or 90. But that's easier to change. You just have to start blowing out people. Running the table from here with blowouts would change our resume really quickly. The question is are we actually good enough to put bad teams away quickly. History says no. We have not played well enough to do that. And with that, if we aren't that good, statistics say that even if we beat Toledo we will probably drop a game to an Akron or Kent State. But if we go 30-4 even in down MAC at 30-4 our SOR would be too good not to keep us on the watch list.

Let me expand on my own thought here. What is the difference between us a Belmont? Why are they on the bubble on most lists right now when we have a better record and have beaten them? This seems to drive some of our posters crazy. The have an SOR in the low 40's in most such algorithms. But they beat bad teams the way a bubble team should so their predictive ratings are also in the 40s and thus last I looked so is their NET. We usually have an SOR in the mid 30s but we don't beat bad teams like we should if we are really a top 40 team.

Yes, there's that. This could be our last opportunity at a Q1 win unless we meet with Toledo again in the tournament. The most recent bracketologies have us at a 13 seed if we get in. I think we're better than that... we're 14-0 in Q4 games, 2-0 in Q3 games. We're proving we don't lose to bad teams, but we're not yet proving we can beat very good teams.

I also look at this game as important for MAC seeding. I want that #1 seed as I have a feeling there's a gap between Akron and the rest of the MAC field not including Ohio and Toledo.

What UT has done this year continues to amaze me for several reasons. And the Rockets will only get better if 6-10 AJ Edu returns to some semblance of what he showed as a freshman 3 years ago. If nothing else, his return will give UT a big man off the bench to play defense and rebound.

Most impressive to me is that their backcourt from last year of Marreon Jackson and Spencer Littleson could have returned. However, Jackson, the MAC POY last season, is now playing for Hurley at Arizona St. and Littleson, who led the country in 3-pt field made last season, went pro and is playing in Europe. Despite these two losses I think their offense is more balanced and efficient this year. And on defense, something coach K and the Rockets haven't been known for in previous seasons, is a team strength this year.

The MAC will start getting 2 (or 3?) NCAA bids when other teams around the conference start catching up to what Coach K and Boals are doing in Toledo and Athens. I believe the coaching changes at NIU, WMU and EMU are steps in the right direction.

The selection committee has to be amazed that we are leading the nation with 14 Q4 wins. Wait, Montana St. just surpassed us with 15 Q4 wins!!!

At least the selection committee will be frothing over our margin of victory against these weaker opponents.

The average MAC Team has a net of around 210. If I am on the selection committee my primary goal is to make sure as many big money teams get in the field.

Then allow "the most deserving mid majors".

Between being in the "MAC" and being 20-0 or 19-1 against T4 competition we will have a very solid argument for an at-large-bid.