RPI Problems

[kshoe]

I have no axe to grind since the Bills have no shot at anything but man the RPI is messed up this year by adding in the home-away factor. They overshot all believability.

Not to pick on a local team but who do people think is better? Louisville with a 22-4 record with losses to Iowa, Kentucky, Houston and Memphis and wins over Stanford, Florida and Cinci twice or Southern Illinois who is 23-6 and has losses to Hawaii, Arkansas Little Rock, Louisianna Lafayette, Wichita St, Southwest Missouri and Northern Iowa. their only win over a team from a "power" conference is Vanderbilt. According to the RPI, SIU is the 12 best team while Louisville is 24th. This implies SIU is in line for a 3 seed!

I respect the MVC and I respect SIU a lot. But come on. Something is wrong here.

Kansas is higher than Illinois. Akron, Buffalo and Holy Cross are higher than Georgia Tech.

For those that believe the RPI is the ultimate predictor of who will make the field I think this year it will be different. There will be a lot of grumbling as bigger name teams from power conferences are picked before teams like Akron and Buffalo.

http://kenpom.com/rpi.php

[billiken_roy]

what will be interesting to see imo is if they have the guts to now stand behind those changes. if not, what was the point of instituting them?

[kshoe]

but they went too far with it. Its better to schedule a mediocre team on the road and get the 1.4 times points for a win on the road then it would be to beat a dominant team like Illinois at home and only get 0.6 times points. The numbers should have been more like 1.1 or 1.2.

[Major Majerus]

When did they announce the 1.4 .6 thing. I knew they were going to change it, but isn't the RPI formula supposed to be secret?

[Billiphan]

The RPI is just one tool that the committee uses. The changes seem to be helping the mid majors out which I think is good. I hope you remember how skeptical you are of the RPI when the shoe is on the other foot and we're talking about SLU having a better RPI than a team from a power conference. Will we be happy if the national people are saying "well SLU has a better RPI than(pick a power conference team, any team) but there not really a better team.

[SluSignGuy]

Previous post was by me, not Unca. I was still logged in his account from fixing it earlier. Sorry!

[kshoe]

http://kenpom.typepad.com/ha/2004/12/the_new_and_imp.html

You are correct that it is a secret and if in fact the numbers are closer to 1.1 then a lot of the numbers people have been seeing are wrong and their will be a lot of disapointed mid-majors out there.

[StLouBlue]

I looked into this and will try to give reasons for why SIU is higher than Louisville.

1. MVC is a higher rated conference than the CUSA this year.

2. Louisville played only one road non-conference game this year against a Div 1 opponet, beating Florida.

3. SIU played 4 non-conference road games, only going 1-3. Road losses hurt less this year than in past.

4. SOS SIU-34, Louisville-89

5. Bad wins, beating teams that are rated over 250 in RPI

Louisville: NC A&T-310

Lafayette 258

Morehead St 277

S Miss 269

Tulane 272

SIU-None

6. Finally, the teams they lost to with their RPI rating.

Louisville: Iowa-67, Kentucky-11, Houston-61, Memphis-119

SIU: Hawaii-147, Ark LR-45, Louisiana Lafayette-49, WSU-34, SMS-82, UNI-44.

Lastly, on the site you linked, it shows what the RPI ranking would have been on the old way. It shows SIU at 19 and Louisville at 21. Kind of what I was thinking, both are good teams, not sure who would win if they played each other. I am a lot more happy with the RPI now, I hope it forces the bigger name schools/conferences to go on the road more and prove their worth like the smaller schools have had to do for some time. I think it is good for the game.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Despite all the expressed claims about various factors, in the recent past, the NCAA field has strictly mirrored the RPI, with only 2 or 3 exceptions per year. One year, Butler received an at large bid with an RPI of 74 or thereabouts. One year SMS was left out with an RPI of 31. As I recall, one of Rich Grawer's SLU teams was left out on Selection Sunday with an RPI of 47. Those were the days when the old MCC was considered a one team league, and Xavier was a perennial roadblock for SLU.

There used to be an unwritten de facto rule that a team from a power conference had to have at least a .500 conference record to get an NCAA at large bid, but that was broken several years ago when a team with a sub-.500 conference record from the ACC (Was it Wake Forest?) received an at large NCAA bid.

At this point, per a pure following of the RPI, the MAC would have 4 NCAA teams: #27 Miami-OH, #41 Akron, #42 Buffalo, and #46 Kent State. The MVC would have 3 NCAA teams: #12 SIU, #34 Wichita State, and #44 Northern Iowa. Right now the NCAA would cut off at #52 Notre Dame. That number inevitably will fall once the upsets begin in the mid-major conference tournaments. Big conference teams #53 West Virginia, #54 Pittsburgh, #70 Indiana, #74 Texas A&M, and #79 Iowa State would be out.

Despite recent history re the RPI, I do not believe that all those big conference teams will be left out. At this point,I think the MVC will get 2 teams, not 3, and the MAC will get 2 teams, not 4.

This is a strange year, with the West Coast Conference (#10 Gonzaga and #29 St. Mary's) ranked as the 7th toughest conference, the MVC ranked #8, both ahead of C-USA (#9), and SLU's future league, the A-10 having fallen all the way to #14, with only 1 NCAA team, its automatic bid, per a pure following of the RPI.

Finally, despite SIU's great year and recent past, I do not understand how SIU could have a higher ranking than Cincinnati (#16) and Louisville (#24), among many others. Does anyone really think that SIU would beat Cincinnati or Louisville in an NCAA game on a neutral floor?

[Iggy]

"Does anyone really think that SIU would beat Cincinnati or Louisville in an NCAA game on a neutral floor?"

YES.

[StLouBlue]

Yes, I think SIU could win these games.

[former_d1]

I this siu can win those games too. SIU's talent is still as good as it ahs been over the last 5 years but the coaching has dropped a little this year.

[former_d1]

ull and ualr both being below 50.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Sure upsets happen, and despite those RPI ratings, in my view for SIU to beat either Cincinnati or Louisville would be an upset. From what I have seen of these teams on TV, I do not think SIU would beat Cincinnati or Louisville. I am not saying it couldn't happen.

SIU has a higher RPI than Wisconsin and Michigan State too.

SIU doesn't have the inside beef like these teams from big conferences.

[StLouBlue]

I think it is great, there is good basketball being played in smaller conferences and if the RPI is showing it well maybe others will start to notice also.

Looking at the RPI site, did anyone notice the A-10 has now slipped to 17th, below the Ivy League. After all of the success last year I can't believe the league has fallen as bad as it has.

[kshoe]

couldn't beat either of them. Obviously on any given night SIU could beat one of those teams but if they played 10 times Louisville and Cinci would win 7-8 of them.

Do you believe SIU is deserving of a 3 seed which is what the RPI indicates?

[kshoe]

Are you kidding me?

they are a team I could see in the Elite 8 or Final 4. There is no way they don't get an automatic invite.

All those people that are holding onto the RPI in hopes the MAAC, MVC etc. get 3-4 teams each are going to be sorely disapointed on Selection Sunday.

[Bay Area Billiken]

No, I do not think SIU should be a 3 seed, more like a 6 seed.

Although SIU's RPI is 12, that is not reality. That SIU team barely beat a poor Indiana State team last night, a team that had trouble making shots ...

I have nothing against SIU. It just seems the RPI system is a bit skewed.

[billiken_roy]

to believe that an siu win over louisville or cincy is an "upset" proves how the media brainwashes the public. siu is a better team than any team in conference usa imo.

this is a problem i believe the ncaa purposely creates. they go out of their way to protect and promote the old standby powers and then love to play up the tourney "upsets". the fact is, most of these wins in the tourney are not really upsets. it just shows how peception wont allow us to believe that an siu or st mary's is a better team.

while i agree there are maybe 10 teams that are true head and shoulders different and better, it has long been my opinion that after that, the next 100 or so teams are far more even than what the media wants everyone to believe. that is why the whole 64 err i mean 65 teams in is unfair. the tourney should be opened up to at least 256 teams imo. play two games and then reseed. if for no other reason that to get the bottom 20 right.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Yes, Pittsburgh's RPI was #64 before last night. And Pittsburgh won last night at Boston College (#9 RPI) by a score of 72-50.

The road win at BC should help Pitt's RPI when the new simulated RPI rankings come out today.

[billiken_roy]

siu is deserving of somewhere between a 3 and no worse than a 5 imo.

[billiken_roy]

at indiana state. all teams have trouble winning on the road. especially when they have the conference bullseye on their back. the fact is though, they won. more than can be said for boston college last night who got blown out.

[Bay Area Billiken]

But will the NCAA give SIU a seed like that?

Although the NCAA has strictly followed the RPI in choosing the field in recent times, usually with only 2 or 3 exceptions, the gerrymandering seems to come in the seedings. (By the way, a beneficiary of one of those RPI field exceptions was Mizzou several years ago.)

The SLU team that made the NCAA in Charlie Spoonhour's second year was 14-0 at one point, finished 23-6, and was ranked throughout that season, finishing at 25th, which SIU is currently ranked in one poll. I don't know what SLU's RPI was that year.

The NCAA gave that SLU team a #6 seed. The Billikens were sent to Wichita in the Midwest Regional, where they lost to #11 seed Maryland, led by freshman Joe Smith.

If the NCAA strictly followed the RPI in the seedings, then SIU indeed would be a 3 seed. But I am a Doubting Thomas on that one.

[Bay Area Billiken]

after last night's big road win at BC. That would put Pitt back in the NCAA field.

[Bay Area Billiken]

The RPI simulation at kenpom.com still has the A-10 with a conference RPI of #14. But last year the A-10 was #7. That is quite a fall for our future league. Right now the A-10 would have only its automatic bid winner in the NCAA field. Only 3 A-10 teams have RPI's below 100: #61 George Washington, #86 St. Joseph's, and #95 Temple.

I do think this year is an aberation for the A-10. Otherwise, people like Bernie M. are going to have more fodder to use.