New Jersey bracketology, Part IV: Is Rutgers back from the dead?

Plus: With Seton Hall, we’re so busy looking backward instead of forward.

Dear readers, Selection Sunday is now 26 days away. We’re past the one-month threshold. The Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day are behind us. It’s time to make plans for the rest of the regular season, conference tournament week and, ultimately, March Madness.

Can Seton Hall, Rutgers and Princeton make plans for where they’ll be in roughly four weeks’ time? Of course not. Their fates can change in an instant. And as a compulsive planner, that would bug the heck out of me if I worked for a college team. “Sorry honey, I don’t know if I’ll be in Pittsburgh or Spokane that week. It’s up to a committee of people I’ve never met.”

Enough vamping! Let’s dive in with the fourth edition of this year’s N.J. bracketology series.

Seton Hall

NET: 63; KenPom: 59; strength of record: 41

Quad 1: 5-5; Quad 2: 2-2; Quad 3: 2-2; Quad 4: 8-0

Seton Hall picked up its fifth Quad 1 win of the season Sunday against a St. John’s team that, in most games, apparently forgets how to basketball after halftime. The Pirates are undoubtedly a top-four team in the Big East. So you know what’s fun and appropriate? Relitigating what they did in November and December.

The discourse around Seton Hall’s bubble case is on the rise because the Pirates are struggling to get their NET above No. 63. Fan account @SOrangeJuice has taken to calling metrics nerds the “spreadsheet virgins,” which to me is a bit aggressive. But you read some of the counterarguments and you’d think Seton Hall lost to Coppin State and ran over a puppy with the mascot’s car during the non-conference schedule. It’s so overblown.

A lot of teams could have scheduled better. Seton Hall ranks No. 241 in non-conference strength of schedule and had single-digit losses to USC and Rutgers; when Rutgers was left out of the field last year, it ranked No. 314 in non-con SOS with a 2-4 Quad 3 record. I’m sure Shaheen Holloway thought he was getting a good game on the docket by playing Missouri (a Round of 32 tournament team 11 months ago) in Kansas City. The Pirates only won by six, and Missouri proceeded to start SEC play 0-12, which in part tanked Hall’s SOS.

Guess what? Each game of the season counts equally for the purposes of the NET. We’d get even more putrid matchups if the non-conference was de-emphasized. Guess what else? The NET is only a sorting tool! I’ll keep saying it! Quad 1 record is far more important for deciding who’s in and who’s out. Claim “at best, Seton Hall is Last Four in” all you want – Brad Wachtel has Seton Hall among his Last Four Byes.

AZ’s opinion, scale of 1-10: What are Hall’s odds of making the tournament? 7. It’s not a done deal yet because a loss in the regular-season finale to DePaul would be a tough bullet hole for the resume to absorb. But outside that, a 3-2 finish to the regular season would tie this up if I were a committee member.

Rutgers

NET: 89; KenPom: 83; strength of record: 74

Quad 1: 3-8; Quad 2: 3-2; Quad 3: 2-1; Quad 4: 6-0