Can someone explain to me

[lefty]

what the deal is with RPI and strength of schedule. Several on here said Brad stated at a meeting something to the effect that, if you won the games, scheduling weak opponents didn't hurt you. Is that correct ? a A couple weeks later, there's an article in the P-D in which he says we'll toughen up the schedule next year, implying it did and does hurt. Which is it ? Did BS not know what he was talking about ? The way the conference hierarchy is imploding, it could really cost us.

[SLUDrew]

Even if you win those games, it hurts your RPI. Grambling, Savannah St.and North Carolina A&T are all below 300, and Eatern Kentucky is at 230. When you play that mmany games agaisnt teams RPIs that low, it is brutally difficult to get your RPI above the mendoza line. I am surprised that we are as high as we are (89)

[AlumniFan]

Suppose we would have played three or four games against teams with RPIs averaging 150 or lower. Without Reggie we lose two, three or four games. Which scenario is better - the four patsies we almost definitely beat or four more competitive teams where we lose?

I honestly have no idea precisely how the math works out. Clearly, there is a point at which one scenario is better. For example, if we played the 1, 2, 3 and 4th ranked teams (by RPI) and lose, I assume that is much more attractive than losing to 4 teams ranked 150, 151, 152 and 153. So at what point does Brad's decision look good and at what point does it not?

Kwijybo...where art thou?

[billiken_roy]

i do not agree. we just beat charlotte and reggie contributed very little to that game and charlotte is a top 30 team. there is no reason we could not have beaten top 150 teams at the beginning of the season. our schedule was ignorant, and we will pay for it by year end.

[kshoe]

we made a mistake in scheduling teams ranked 275 and below when teams ranked 175-250 would have accomplished the same thing. You have to take the risk that even without Reggie we would have beaten those teams. Those 4 games are killing our RPI. The good news is Brad has learned from this and won't do it again.

[SIUSalukis]

Just think how better it would have been for your RPI if Coach Soderberg wouldn't have wussed out and cancelled the game at SIU.

[Basketbill]

the schedule is not that tough of a problem this year.....if we had Beaten SMS, Depaul, are RPI would be substantially better...... Our SOS has been falling steadily now down to 74......not much different than Marquettes 60 depite not having played Lousville and Cinci like Marquette already has. We need to beat Marquette then battle deapul and see if we can steal one....it will be tough

[billiken_roy]

siu, you wont find anyone that i am aware of on this message board that wasnt upset that we ducked the saluki's this year. we complain all the time about the tiger$ not playing us, and low and behold we do the same. i for one hope the series is renewed again next year and goes on forever. it is a great rivalry that should be played.

[Billiken75]

I agree 100% - SIU and SMS should always be on our schedule - alternating sites. Great regional rivalries that are always entertaining. It looks like the Salukis will be the only regional team in the Tourney and I for one, will be pulling for them.

[kwyjibo]

For a tournament bound team they should basically never play a team that would end up ranked roughly over 200 because it adds nothing to your profile and even beating the team will worsen your RPI (caveats about it is their actual W-L record and their opponents W-L that matter not the ranking apply). Of course, you do not know how the other team is going to end up exactly but you can at least guess a bit. There is no doubt that the 4 we played were easily foreseeable as bad teams in bad conferences and even if we played their slightly better conference mates we could have had a bit better RPI without much added risk.

So, playing teams around 150 are ideal if you want to maximize your chance of winning while not hurting your RPI.

Now, I should point out that while I was exactly right about how bad the 4 teams we chose to buy ended up, I was also wrong about how strong C-USA was going to be (and more exactly how our "mirror" opponents DePaul, Marquette, and Charlotte would do). C-USA has been a little better than I anticipated before the season so the impact of the 4 stinkers was lessened a bit (although they still hurt some). Overall, the schedule was OK so the complaint is really about the 4 bad buys, rather than a complete rant against Brad's scheduling.

[billiken_roy]

we probably thought that butler, west virginia and k-state would be better than what they turned out to be as well. but we also should have expected a "hit" due to only getting to play louisville and cincy once this year.

[Basketbill]

Here is a team that is one year removed from an RPI less than 50, now what is their RPI 200?? that swing probably hurt more than a change from tenn martin to EKU....., I wish we had played butler home last year and away this year.

CUSA is better this year, only 5 teams with RPI greater than 100, 6 teams less than 50 this year vs 4 last year, plus no team over 200 yet.....USF and ECU still have a chance.

[Tonka]

Agreed!

[Quality Is Job 1]

It's my opinion that SLU requested one year off in order to avoid playing both of its regional rivals from the Missouri Valley (SIU and SMS) on the road every other year. The preference is that one game would be at home and the other on the road.

It used to be like that (one home, one away), but when SLU played Southern Illinois at home in the Las Vegas Invitational in a game that was not part of the local series a couple of years ago, it threw off the alternation.

If I were a betting man, I put up a substantial sum that next season SLU will be going to Carbondale to play while SMS will be coming to Savvis.

[cheeseman]

Two comments - 1. What Brad said was that he should have probably scheduled no teams that were worse than 250 - he never said play teams that are 150. He also said this when SLU looked like it was going to have trouble breaking 100 - things have changed so who knows if he makes the same comment today or not. Clearly poor RPI teams don't help you if you win but they do not hurt you either. What Brad said he was told that it is a neutral impact. He choose this route for whatever reasons and he may have changed his mind a bit. 2. Playing SIU and SMS every year does not make any sense to me - I have no problem with playing one of them each year and then the other the next year. Neither team draws well in St. Louis so I just as well play teams that draw the same but are different to spice up the schedule. When we play Missouri - we sell out both here and in Columbia - you can not say the same for playing SIU and SMS. So, liking it to Missouri ducking us is not really the same. Before you start saying that lots of people come to the SIU and SMS games because there are numerous grads in town and that huge numbers of people drive in for the games is simply not true - check the attendance records. Also, this regional rival thing is simply not true also - why not play Southeast every year, what about Western IL, or UMKC. Many of us argued against the regional rivarly thing not making sense when we could have been invited to join the MVC. Why now is it such an important point? I prefer to play both SIU and SMS every other year and I want us to play other teams around the country such as PAC 10, or Big East, or SEC, or Big 12 or Big 10, or even better a decent CUSA team.

[SLUMS81]

I would also like to see us play Creighton every year or two as well.

[billiken_roy]

cheeseman, there is room on our schedule to do it all. we will be lucky to get more than one or two games with big name teams. if we do as we say, we will only host either siu or sms once a year and the other one is a road game, that still leaves about 4-5 other games to schedule of which in the past 3-4 would be these crazy "buy games". my thought has always been to use the likes of semo, umkc, eastern illinois, western illinois, bradley, illinois state as the backbone of these 4-5 other games. we dont have to use all of them in this manner, but say 2-3 are regional d-1 teams that are mid-majors or lower. that still leaves another game or two to bring in the likes of butler or creighton or illinois chicago, etc. i just dont see the point of the buy games.

[3star_recruit]

We have no business playing NC A&T or Grambling ever again. Those programs are totally undermanned.

[cheeseman]

Roy, I was not advocating or not for buy games. I think we would not have that much trouble lining up teams from the bigger conferences to play home and away series with us. I do not have any problems with playing the other teams you mention - I just don't want to pass up the chance of playing other big conference teams.

[kwyjibo]

>Clearly poor RPI teams don't help you

>if you win but they do not hurt you either. What Brad said

>he was told that it is a neutral impact

I do not know what Brad said or what the context was, but you are flat out wrong about this. Let's use tonight as our example (same is true for the end of the year as well but the math will be simpler):

Our current RPI is .55 (ranked 85th). As SLU's record is ONLY 25% of their RPI a win tonight will, of itself, add (.25* .0113) to our RPI. Now, Marquette will be 12-9(.5714) if they lose and our current opposition WP is .5498 so this will add positively to 50% of our RPI by a little (.5 * .001) as well. Now, Marquette's opponents are currently at .5576 and SLU's opponent's opponents record is currently .5289 so that will be a small boost as well to the final 25% of RPI (.25 * .0013). With Marquette a win will provide a real boost and a loss hurt a bit.

It does not take much imagination to see that if we played a team with a losing record (and/or their opponents had a losing record) the negative effects of just playing them (75% of RPI) would swamp the .0113 we will improve by winning tonight. For example, even if we beat a mediocre Indiana State tonight (8-14, .3636 WP and .5027 OWP) our RPI would go DOWN (it would change -.0017--full work available on request).

The effect would be much worse if we played Savannah St or N. C AT (or any of the 100 or so teams worse than Indiana State), for whom the negative hoodoo from just playing them is dramatic and real.

[billiken_roy]

that post made my head hurt. i will concede you know a hell of a lot more about it than me and just ask the questions and take your word for it hereafter.

:-)

[Quality Is Job 1]

When calculating a team's RPI, the games against the team in question must be removed from the opponents' winning percentage. See the explanation at CollegeRPI.com. I think the reason the various approximations of the RPI are different is the fact that some services don't take that into account.

As it pertains to SLU's RPI, Marquette's record must be reduced by 1-1. Therefore, instead of a winning percentage of .591 (13-9) counting towards SLU's opponents' winning percentage, a winning percentage of .600 (12-8) counts towards it.

[kwyjibo]

You are right, but my point--which was hopefully obvious-- is that even playing a team like Indiana State will hurt your RPI win or lose. NC A&T, Savannah St., Grambling all have worse negative impacts. There are levels of sugar content in cupcakes and we played a bunch of Super Sugar Smacks this year.

I did do manageable level of calculation any more and I would worry about my own sanity.

[cheeseman]

Kyjibo - you are clearly more schooled on the topic then me - all I was repeating was what Brad said earlier in the year when he was asked about why we were playing those 4 teams. According to Brad, he got his information from the people who do the RPI. As I said, you know more than me - I was only repeating what Brad said.