GW board says slu bubble team if

[kwyjibo]

SLU does have a somewhat remote but real chance to get an at-large bid. Of course, winning 4 more games in a row is a real challenge in itself (but also very possible).

If SLU finishes with two more victories they will have an RPI ranked around 69.

After that it gets tricky based on who SLU plays, but basically SLU will improve if they play GW in the finals. Going 2-1 will mean that SLU's win percentage does not go up. SO we need our Opps Win percentage average to go up. The BEST case would be to play Xavier(6), Charlotte(3) and then lose to GW (losing to GW will currently improve RPI because of their .960 win percentage). This will provide some boost to the Opp Win Percentage (I estimate the final impact of playing expected teams will be around .035). Playing GW/LS will lower the OOWP a bit but that will be less than .005 to final RPI impact. We also need other past foes to win games as well.

So, if we play the best possible teams in the tourney SLU can get an RPI up into the MID to HIGH 40's. This means we would actually need a lot of help to get an actual bid but it is possible.

For the record, SLU WILL definitely get a "look" from the committee simply by finishing in the top 100 RPI. That is exactly how the RPI is officially used. From there SLU will have a few factors in their favor (last 10 games and some top 100 road wins) but otherwise has a lukewarm profile in that they have no a top 25 win and only one top 50 win.

People in this thread are also completely wrong to speak in absolutes. A lot depends on how things shake out in the play remaining (upsets in conf. tourneys, etc.) and decisions of the committee. That said it is UNLIKELY SLU gets a bid without the conference tourney crown.

[kwyjibo]

For a while now I have thought it would be nice to but all the selection factors (RPI PLUS all the profile bits) into a single number. Well, a North Florida professor does that and claims his "DanceCard" is highly accurate.

How accurate it will be this year I do not know but currently they are showing that our profile improves our position compared to "just" RPI by 15 ranks. This is higher than even I would have guessed.

See the DANCE card data here: http://www.unf.edu/~jcoleman/dance.htm

[StlCardinal]

Great info, as usual, kwyjibo. Keep it coming!

[jjray]

>What you are not getting...is SLU winning out to conference

>final doesn't give them anything to think about. They will

>NOT be thinking about or considering SLU, period. Either

>autonatic or no. Winning the rest or losing the rest will

>not matter. I have a better chance at winning the lottery.

I'm not sure what you're all worked up about Courtside. My impression was that we were having a "what if" message board discussion about whether or not SLU will get some bubble talk come selection Sunday if we win out but lose in the conference tourney. Talk does NOT necessarily mean within the NCAA selection room. I mean the talking heads on TV, whoever. They talk about lots of teams who don't get into the tourney. If our RPI moves below 60, we have 20 wins, and we have won 8 of our last 10 / 12 of our last 15 ... will we get a mention in the bubble talk on the internet, on cable? Yeah, I think so. Not an unreasonable assertion. The universe of teams getting bubble talk is always 10 or so teams greater than those who actually get in. I fully comprehend your position that it's a mathematical impossibility for us to actually get in the field (although I'm not sure I agree).

[kshoe]

Hey Kwijibo a quick question if I may.

I was doing a quick analysis of how much our RPI would improve if we had simply won one more game this year (and thus lost one less). To calculate this I took our current winning % (61.5%) and assumed our winning % was now (65.3%) and multiplied by the 0.25. Our RPI would increase by .0096 points which equates to us moving from 78th to 64th. Two extra wins and we'd be ranked 53rd. Those are pretty big moves.

But what I realized is that these moves actually understate the real move that would happen as a win (road or home) actually affects the assumed winning % of the teams we are playing. A win over a good team on the road would make their winning % 1.4 times what its currently being treated as. The same goes for a home win as we'd get the full % instead of the 0.6. Do you agree with this? What would you have our RPI at if we had beaten Richmond? What about if we had pulled out the GW game?

My overally point is that the difference between being a 78th ranked teams and a team in the 40s (what we'd probably be with 2 more wins) is as thin as a Danny Brown 3 pointer against GW and an OT win @ Dayton.

[kwyjibo]

If I read your post correctly you used unadjusted RPI for your quick calc so I will do the adjusted version (which is what I think you are asking).

Currently our Home/Away adjusted WP is .6182 (13.6 - 8.4). If we had won 2 more road games (and it does not matter which ones) our wins would go up by 2.8 and our losses would go down by 1.2 which would significantly improve our RPI. Our WP would be .6949 (improvement of .0312). That translates into a final RPI improvement of .0192. That would put us at 53rd which is exactly what you got.

More importantly if one of those wins was against GW we would get a BIG profile boost for a top 50 win on the road.

I think you are asking about the effect these "SLU win what ifs" would have on SLU by affecting our opponents record--that answer is none because the Opp Win Percentage used excludes games against the team it is being calculated for (so Xavier's Win Percentage in our RPI is higher than any other Xavier opponent).