The Double-Bye: Does Syracuse Really Want It?
by Sean Keeley on Feb 28, 2011 10:30 AM EST
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The Big East Tournament is a strange beast.
You want to win it...but maybe you don't. Every year fans want to see their team walk away with the trophy, but not at the expense of being healthy and rested for the NCAA Tournament.
Unless you're worried about qualifying for the NCAAs or need a lot of wins to improve your seeding, it's not paramount to be Big East champ. It's great. It's a nice bragging right. It's a great talking piece. But ultimately it's not your concern. The NCAAs are.
With their late-season surge, the Orange have worked their way back into the upper echelon of the conference. And thanks to girth of the conference and weird need to make sure DePaul gets to play, the set-up is just a little strange.
The top four teams will receive a double-bye and await the winners of the 2nd-round games. Syracuse fans know this setup all-too-well from last year when they sat idly by until Georgetown showed up and ended any chance of a tourney run in one fell swoop.
And that's a common occurrence. Last year, three of the four teams that received double-byes in this tournament lost their first game. And since they started doing the double-bye, those top four seeds are 7-6 in the tournament.
Card Chronicle throws down the stats gauntlet in discussing why they don't want Louisville to get a double-bye:
In a double-bye situation, the probability of UofL losing their one and only game is probably 45%. If UofL only received a single bye, the probability that they win the first game is probably 75% (onto #2 below).
The flip side is that a double-bye would give Syracuse some much-needed time to rest and recover from those injuries, as well as get more practice-time:
"The great thing about this is because of the league’s schedule, we’ve got two weeks to play two games," Boeheim said after Monday’s game at Villanova. "I hope to be able to get our freshmen going. We need some practices. I think that will help us get these freshman guys going again.".
Of course the Orange won't NEED to win in the Big East Tournament if they make it to double-bye status, but it would be nice to see the Orange win at least one more game. And getting a single-bye makes that a lot easier.
And if the Orange receive the double-bye there's a much-better chance for them to play a quality opponent rather than a mid-range one in their first game, an RPI/SOS bonus.
At the end of the day, it's a nice problem to have. When it comes to the double-bye, it's better to think of it as an advantage for the time-off rather than for how much closer it puts you to winning the BET.
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I don't think it matters....
….outside of winning the whole thing, nothing else in that tournament, maybe except losing the first game of a single bye, would do anything for the seeding. Let’s get these guys healthy and ready to swamp with the zone in the tourney.
you know what i don't get
why the #1 seed in the tournament plays at noon on thursday. shouldn’t the #1 seed be rewarded with the 9pm slot as the best team in the conference? i’m sure they want to help the noon session’s attendance with the #1 seed playing early but that never made sense to me.
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Take the #5 Seed
Beat whoever wins the 9/16 game and then pound St John’s at the Garden again. After that we can just fly back to Syracuse and wait on the bracket to come out. That is what this team needs. It will give us another ‘quality’ win and reminds St. John’s they can beat anyone they want in the Garden, save SU.
The Hoyas shuffled off with their twin cocktails of discontent - Dana O'neil 2/18/10
I think
9-16 winner plays 8th best team. I believe if we were the 5, we’d get the winner of the 12-13 game, but then again the format is absurd. We need to go back to 12 teams and you earn your way into the tournament.
Sadly we probably went to this format because DePaul complained about never getting to play in the tournament. You know what DePaul? If you have that much of a problem, win more games.
Without Gerry McNamara we wouldn't have won 10 f-- games, not 10
by PoetryInMoten on Feb 28, 2011 10:55 AM EST up reply actions
remember a couple years ago when they winless in conference
and then won the 9-16 game (I think against Cinci)? I’m okay inviting all 16 teams.
I just wanna tell you both good luck, and we're all counting on you.
I never want the Orange to lose
So that means I want them to get a double bye, even if I think the tourament format is silly.
I think
Syracuse needs to play at least 2 games in NYC. If they get the double bye they would have played 3 games in the 16 days leading up to 3/10. One and done sends them to the tournament with 4 games in the previous 23-24 days.
I don’t want us paired with Louisville on Thursday with all the trouble we have with them. Unfortunately, unless St John’s loses a game, it seems like SU and UL will be 4/5 in some order.
Go Cuse!
I'm torn between momentum, and rest.
But, after 6OT vs Uconn, I lean towards momentum.
Born in '87, Orange fan since '86
Getting the double bye makes it far less likely
to lose to a team like SH / Rutgers (which, as the likely 12/13 seeds, are who we would play on Wednesday as the 5 seed). Therefore I am in favor of it.
I just wanna tell you both good luck, and we're all counting on you.
SH/Rutgers
As if that rivalry game won’t overshadow the whole Big East Tournament.
Dictated, but not read.
Change the structure
I would love to see the double bye eliminated all together. 1-4 should play 13-16 on tue., rest and scout while the middle of the pack play on wed. and the remaining 8 teams finish it out from thur. on
it's not really in our hands anyway
Obviously we need to beat DePaul to be in the double bye conversation. But then we need St. Johns to lose one of its final 2 (or Lville to lose both of its final 2). Lville has tiebreaker over both, so if all 3 teams win out, then Lville will get the 3 seed, St. Johns the 4.
I just wanna tell you both good luck, and we're all counting on you.
Question
Before the tournament expanded to 16, did anyone ever hope Syracuse would finish outside the top four and avoid getting a bye?
by mcsteve on Feb 28, 2011 11:50 AM EST via mobile reply actions
IMO we need to get to Friday to get a 3 seed in NCAAs
And it is easier to get to Friday with a double bye. Like you said the NCAAs matter more so we need to improve our seed. It will be much easier getting to a Final Four as a 3 seed than as a 4 or 5.
Agreed
It looks like getting to Friday is the least amount Cuse has to do to get the 3. Anything less puts them on the four line. Whether it be two wins or 1 they have to beat L’ville/SJU/ND on Thursday to get a 3 seed.
I want the double bye, but it’s not going to happen unless SHU miraculously knocks off St johns on Thursday.
this.
this was my thinking too so i went ahead and bought tickets to the wednesday afternoon session after louisville knocked off pitt.
The otherthing I read in the Card Chronicle article was that with the single bye
We get to watch an extra game of SU basketball, which is a huge plus in my book.
I mean, we certainly can win a national championship and the rest may help, but to what extent? We have like a full week off before Depaul and then a few days off before the BE Tourney and then a few more before the First round of the NCAA Tourney. So the extra day b4 the BE Tourney would be marginally beneficial.
So as a fan, I want to see them play another game, especially one that we will likely win, thus putting Boeheim further ahead of the Great Satan, Calhoun, in all time wins.
by Rocket Ship Science on Feb 28, 2011 12:56 PM EST reply actions
Yes
because I don’t want to miss a game. I can’t get down to NYC till Thursday at the earliest so I’d like to be able to catch all the games.
/selfishreason
Syracuse '12
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