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I love complicated playoff scenarios and decision trees. And even with that, the ACC scenarios make my brain hurt. The important takeaways are 1) The one team that could get an at-large bid (Miami) is also the least likely of the 5-6 teams to make the ACC title game. 2) Duke is somehow still in it. If they won the ACC title, I would bet they would still sneak into the playoff, but they have 5 losses so it could easily be argued that two minor conference teams should get in and for them to be left out.

I think 5 possibly yes. I don't see a 6th possibility anymore, at least over Notre Dame in the standings. And since I don't see anybody else having enough on their schedule to prove enough to pass Notre Dame, ND should be in with 2 more wins. It would help if they were convincing wins like today was. The only other one I see as a possibility of passing ND would be BYU. The committee has ranked Miami too far down that I can't see them passing ND at this point if both win out.

It is curious. I'd have to really dig into why. The interesting thing is that the composite of the computers show similarly, although they have Texas down with Miami. But yeah, whether you have a 1-2 spot difference or a 6 spot, all those teams would currently be in the same tier IMO. Notre Dame and Miami both have @Pitt games left, so that should be a nice late season comparison for the committee. https://masseyratings.com/ranks

Indiana can probably take a loss at this point to someone unexpected and lose in the Big 10 Title Game if they qualify and still make the playoff. Notre Dame is getting the things they need right now to potentially make the playoff. They needed Texas A&M and Miami to keep winning, they have to keep winning themselves, they needed a conference to have a bid less than expected (in this case the Big 10 looking like they will only get 3 teams in), and then USC's win over Michigan likely gives them another ranked team to face next week. Check/check/check/check. But they likely will need many of those things to continue. And who knows how many or who of the SEC will make it.

I honestly don't remember that time. My impression was always the mid afternoon window used to be the biggest. But the Big 10 tended to put several of their bad games on in the early window, so that might have influenced perceptions.

It seems almost certain at this point. It's rough. And so much of the Pacers roster is there because their skillsets work well with how Haliburton plays.

That was rough. Great defense by OKC. Some Pacers players going cold. And really poor officiating last night. I certainly hope this is the last Scott Foster game. And yup, in 4 minutes the Pacers went from IMO 80-85 percent to win the title to 75 percent to lose. I think one of the three games remaining will be an OKC blowout, so the Pacers need to win the other two, and that's a hard recipe. This team doesn't ever lay down and die though, so I think they will make it interesting.

Sometimes I wish I was a sports better. The Pacers are 14-5 in the playoffs so far. They've been favored in 6 of those 19 games. This is going to be the second series they aren't going to be favored in a single game in. And while I get some of it, some of it doesn't make sense. OKC was favored by 5.5 last night. They won one road game in the playoffs by 6 points, that was the game in Memphis where Ja Morant got hurt. Other than that they have won by 5 or less or lost every other road game. The Pacers meanwhile have been a very good home team both in the regular season and the playoffs. I completely, 100% get why OKC is seen as the better team. The analytics are clear. But with their home/road splits, last night's game should have been seen as a complete tossup.

And Minnesota is still the smallest second round favorite, despite being the only favorite who isn't down in their series. Crazy start to the second round.

I mostly like the gambling aspects (Note: I never have gambled on sports myself). I like it because it has caused the analysis to be more precise. Before, it was a lot the favorite is going to win and the star player is going to play well. I especially like it before a season because it gives a reason for people to talk about every team in the league and exactly how good they think they are going to be. But 1) I'm a probability thinker, which a good chunk of people aren't and 2) that's not factoring in the lure of actual gambling.

This is a good point. Basketball is more complicated than ever and so harder for a casual fan to drop in and see what's going on. Defensive schemes in particular have become more and more complex and more oriented on each member of the team doing their part. So there are way less 1 on 1 battles than 20-30 years ago, which of course is way easier to focus on and sink your teeth into.

I get everything you are saying. And in what I'm going to say next, I'm not trying to get you to like the current version. But when I read what you wrote, it reminds me of when people say, baseball is just strikeouts and home runs, it's so boring. Where are hit and runs, double switches, bunts, productive outs, etc? Or when people say that it's an abomination that people line up in shotgun on 3rd and 2. Or go for 4th down constantly instead of taking the points. Or that people can't get hit over the middle anymore. Most major sports have changed drastically over the last 30 years as teams figure out what's best to win. Centers shooting 3's for example is a huge advantage in basketball. Not for the points themselves, but because drawing the opponent's big out of the lane is such a huge advantage to get layups. So it just kind of depends on what drew you to the sport in the first place, and whether you have kept up with it through the changes to whether you like what each sport has changed into. But it isn't just an NBA issue, and it isn't because they just chuck low percentage shots because they always have done that. Now, did I support baseball's rule changes to try to bring some of the older stuff back into the game? Yes. Would I support some of that in basketball? If it isn't too drastic, probably yes. It's fun to have the greatest variety of styles possible.

And they used to hoist a bunch of shots from 17-21 feet, and they didn't shoot very well from those either. The main difference is because they moved back 5 feet, we track those shots in the box score now. Here's the FG% of an average team over the last 7 decades: 24-25: .467 14-15: .449 04-05: .447 94-95: .466 84-85: .491 74-75: .457 64-65: .426

I don't advocate for my team very often, but if the Pacers can get past the Bucks (which will still be a hard series), I think they are going to give Cleveland a fight. They probably only win 20-25 percent of the time, but I don't think that will be a walkover series. The Pacers tend to play better against better opponents, and their starting lineup when they all play together has been really good both last year and this year. Part of this is I definitely see it as OKC, small step down Boston, a little bigger step down Cleveland, then an even bigger step to anybody else.

This is a great example of the NBA struggling to market its product if you're a Bulls fan enough to know that Caruso is on OKC but have never heard of a guy who finished 2nd in MVP voting last year and is likely going to win the MVP this year.

It does weaken the importance of some games, but I would argue it increases the importance of four times as many regular season games as it diminishes the importance of. There were so many fun twists and turns because more games mattered.

Are you referring to the break since the championship games? My guess is that is partially to make it closer to traditional bowl season, and partly because of the Army/Navy game last weekend blocking that out from being a playoff weekend.

It's reductive, but it comes mostly down to two things 1) People feel like Allen has done it with less talent and 2) wins and losses. There hasn't been an MVP winner from a 5 loss team since 2016. If the Ravens lose again, there hasn't ever been a QB who has won MVP from a team with 6 losses or more. And then I'm sure the fact that Lamar has 2 MVP's and Allen has 0 factors in as well. If it's close, people are going to give it to Allen. But I would agree, the fact that Allen is -900 and Lamar is +750 with 3 games to go is kind of crazy. If there were 1 game to go, I would agree with those odds. With 3 left, there's enough randomness left to potentially flip it.

Interesting to see that the initial lines for the first round are between -7.5 and -10.5. No utter mismatches, but Vegas doesn't see any game as anywhere close to even either.

Indiana and Notre Dame have only played once since the 1950's. Indiana's only victory at Notre Dame was in 1898.

I'm interested to see how the committee handles the conference championship game losers. Is it a regular penalty for a loss, a reduced penalty, or no penalty at all? Oregon/Texas losses would be pretty easy to figure out where they would slot in, but Penn State/Georgia losses are more uncertain, other than they would both be in the field no matter what. For personal reasons I would love for a couple matchups to be shaken up! And that's doubly so for the SMU debate if they were to lose. I wish I could have more outrage over Alabama still being in, but their metrics suggest it's probably the right move. It's at least close between them and the teams right behind them.

Oops, I forgot Miami didn't even make the ACC title game. That actually makes it more interesting because now we will have to see how far they fall compared to the trio of Alabama/Ole Miss/South Carolina. It's possible the committee keeps them ahead of those three. But we will know that this week and none of them play next week. And Clemson can still win the ACC, which would make Boise likely the 3 seed and Clemson likely in a fight with the Big 12 winner for the 4 spot if they end up accomplishing that.

I agree with this generally, but I think a few things depend on how championship games go. For instance, I think if Oregon wins tonight and loses the Big 10 Title game, they go to 5th and ND to 6th. I think a Texas win tonight and loss to Georgia would create a very interesting debate with Ohio State for 6th, and definitely ahead of Tennessee. Yeah, that 11 spot is down to Alabama/South Carolina/SMU if they lose in the title game (Miami has to win the title game no matter what now). Or Texas A&M winning the SEC title could essentially make that spot disappear.

Come on GT, you have an unbelievable power running QB. Use him on one of these 2 point plays!

From an outsider's perspective: Kyle is right that the ideal clock move is to not call the timeout and run the play.....if you trust your QB and your team's execution in an incredibly stressful situation. Kyle is wrong in this specific case because you shouldn't trust a rookie QB to be able to handle that situation correctly. I would rather trust my kick team to run on quickly than my offense to recover from the sack and not do something dumb in that situation. And as far as Caleb goes, you simply can't audible out of the play in that situation. It doesn't matter what you think of the call or how dumb it was, you have to run the play because audibling increases your risk of what happened today by a ton.