davidnark Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 For those who missed it, Dan O'Neill wrote a well-thought and researched article about SLU's struggles. http://tinyurl.com/6rk27 Dan points out that Eastern Michigan, Oral Roberts, Hawaii, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee have collectively lost only one game! Knowing that we were entering the season with a freshman point guard and a new starting forward, would it have made sense to open the season at home against a couple of cupcakes? Hindsight is 20/20, but I think that may have changed the tone for the entire season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 no it would have made more sense to have "counselled" the seniors all summer on how important it was to show up october 15 in tip top shape and ready to take over the team, kick a$$ and take names. no matter what hawaii, oral roberts, umw etc collective record is, to make the ncaa's we have to be able to beat those teams. i think brad was sideswiped by our seniors and juniors not being all they can be as much as we were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlumniFan Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 ... isn't this the exact opposite of the argument we had about last year when the low RPI teams hurt our chances at the end of the season? I am not saying you are wrong at all, David. However, it is interesting that we seem to have come full circle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schasz Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 I agree with the notion that we should be beating those teams especially if we have/had any post-season aspirations. The way I see it, either the talent on this team was highly over-rated to begin with or it wasn't all that good in the first place. Now they do have many more games to start changing fans minds...early on, it does not look too good at all for salvaging any kind of season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3star_recruit Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 "Knowing that we were entering the season with a freshman point guard and a new starting forward, would it have made sense to open the season at home against a couple of cupcakes?" Austin Peay without their best player and Troy are cupcakes. It took us 45 minutes to score 45 points in one game and the Troy game was nip and tuck for 38 minutes. The problem goes deeper than competition level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 we are playing good teams from mid-major conferences that would benefit the RPI IF you get the wins. This is exactly the type of schedule we should play every year. Playing teams ranked 250-300 is never the answer. Fact is this team just isn't that good, has had some bad luck, and certainly isn't playig to its potential. The schedule makers are not to blame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 Absolutely. I believe the saying is "you can lead a horse to water . . . ." While the Billikens are not doing well, the scheduling has been excellent; you cannot ask more than playing beatable teams that win their other games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 You always seem to have the ability to create custom RPI numbers. Any idea what our current RPI rank would be if we had won our first two games, lost to Arkansas, won the three home games and lost to Gonzaga. If its not easy to do don't worry about it but I think it would be interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 I am not sure if this line of inquiry is healthy, but here goes. Adding Arkansas into the mix would be a little complicated but if our record were 5-2 against our current competition (and our SOS reflected the other teams losses to us as well as some adjustment to the fact that teams we played at Paradise Jam play each other) I would estimate SLU's RPI would be around .617 which would put us around 34. As Arkansas currently has an excellent RPI, playing this game instead of Troy would raise the counterfactual RPI a few hundredths to get us into the high 20's. In case you wondering how I did this you can easily adjust our record in the fictional history case, adjust the W-L of our opponents as well, and then make a rough estimate of how those changes impact of the record of our opponents' opponents. All the usual caveats about this ranking being pretty meaningless with only 7 games applies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quality Is Job 1 Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 When calculating a team's RPI -- specifically the opponents' winning percentage -- the games against the team in question are removed from the winning percentage. That is, Gonzaga's record may be 7-1, but as it pertains to SLU's RPI, they're 6-1. Another way to say it is, for SLU's RPI, what is the winning percentage of the opponents for every Div I game they've played except SLU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 this shows that our schedule was exactly what we wanted and if we had just won the games everything would be great. With a solid non-conference strenth of schedule (we haven't even played the difficult portion against teams like Iowa and SIUC) and the usual strong competition of CUSA we would have had little problem getting in the NCAA with 20 wins. Now I'm just hoping we get to 10 wins. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufanskip Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 But isn't it true our RPI would be inflated somewhat as the teams like ORU and Hawaii's RPI will go down once they start to play their conference schedule? Official Billikens.com sponsor of H. Waldman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 but Oral Roberts doesn't exactly play in a major conference. Hawaii could be a different story but I expect them to get 20 wins after this nice start. It is a RPI fact that of the strength of schedule component of the RPI (which makes up 75% of your RPI) 2/3 is based on your opponents winning percentage and 1/3 is based on your opponents strength of schedule. Thus, it is generally preferable to play the top teams from mid major conferences (the type that get 20+ wins but have a weak strenth of schedule) then it is to play the middle/lower half of the power conferences (teams that get 15 or fewer wins but have a strong strength of schedule). The point is we are better off playing the UWM, Oral Roberts and SIUCs of the world then we are the K-States of the world. As an aside, I do feel a little bad for teams like UWM that thought they would get an RPI boost from playing SLU, win or lose, but now are stuck with a win over an RPI #260 team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mobile-iken Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 "As an aside, I do feel a little bad for teams like UWM that thought they would get an RPI boost from playing SLU, win or lose, but now are stuck with a win over an RPI #260 team." Yeah, I feel real bad for them...NOT!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quality Is Job 1 Posted December 14, 2004 Share Posted December 14, 2004 > But isn't it true our RPI would be inflated somewhat as >the teams like ORU and Hawaii's RPI will go down once they >start to play their conference schedule? We don't care what happens to their RPI. We care about what happens to their winning percentage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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