If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

[chitown fanatic]

Your "sidekick" is very impressed. Not only with the post, but the time and commitment it took to put this together.

Well done.

yes, but hes no hacksaw though

[Redbirdgrad]

Replacing WSU with Western Michigan drops Drake's RPI 40 spots. That seems like it would have a large domino effect throughout the conference.

I'll respond at length to the last two inquiries when I get home. On my phone now.

Careful when comparing ratings and rankings.

[Wufan]

This is good stuff, and I think it illustrates the point well, but cdizzle is correct that your numbers are flawed because each team would not have played WSU and will therefore not be as good as you project. Again, I doubt if you went to the extraordinary work of simulating games against replacement level teams each season, that the outcome would be different.

The second point I'd like to make is that the original argument was "if WSU left the conference would drop to 16". With that statement, Royalshocks questions are still legitimately at play. Would the loss of the current "marquee" program hurt the overall brand of the MVC such that the rank dropped further than the numbers by themselves would indicate? Honestly, too much conjecture here to come up with a reasonable explanation, but much better to ponder than to dismiss as off topic.

[TheObserver]

That's a pretty good analysis, though I didn't read it verbatim.

The real questions are:

1. Will the MVC, sans WSU, have an at-large worthy team every year?
2. If not, will the coaching level continue to decline?
2b. If so, how that affect the ability to recruit better players to become at-large worthy?

These are the major points of the discussion. The Valley would take a pretty serious hit with their name program leaving. At that point, it doesn't matter if you're the 13th, 14th, 15th, or 16th rated conference.

[TheObserver]

This is good stuff, and I think it illustrates the point well, but cdizzle is correct that your numbers are flawed because each team would not have played WSU and will therefore not be as good as you project. Again, I doubt if you went to the extraordinary work of simulating games against replacement level teams each season, that the outcome would be different.

The second point I'd like to make is that the original argument was "if WSU left the conference would drop to 16". With that statement, Royalshocks questions are still legitimately at play. Would the loss of the current "marquee" program hurt the overall brand of the MVC such that the rank dropped further than the numbers by themselves would indicate? Honestly, too much conjecture here to come up with a reasonable explanation, but much better to ponder than to dismiss as off topic.

Exactly. It's all speculation. That's why nobody is wrong in their opinions. redbirdgrad is very much underselling a WSU loss in the conference. Regardless, nobody knows who would be added. Nobody knows how the teams would line up. Nobody knows how the RPIs would compute. The only thing we do know is that a consistent Top 30 program with traditionally high RPIs would be leaving the conference. It would hurt.

[Play Angry]

Interesting discussion.

There is some confusion (or maybe oversimplification, which could be parsed further) of correlation with causation regarding the decline in the conference's RPI following Creighton's departure. Below is the lazy summary of the comment:

This season (2016-17):

Creighton's RPI: 12 (.6554) (prior to tonight's thumping)
Loyola: 119 (.5296)

Last season (2015-16):

Creighton: 94 (.5433)
Loyola: 238 (.4587)

2014-15:

Creighton: 156 (.5050)
Loyola: 87 (.5406)

2013-14:

Creighton: 17 (.6237)
Loyola: 292 (.4214)


Now, let's take the lazy route and see where the MVC would have finished in RPI in each of those seasons when simply subbing Loyola's RPI with Creighton's (again, an oversimplification for the reasons stated above w/r/t scheduling impact, etc., but no way am I investing that sort of time):


This season (2016-17):

Current: 12 (.5070)
Adjusted: 11 (.5206)

Last season (2015-16):

Actual: 13 (.4974)
Adjusted: 13 (.5059)

2014-15:

Actual: 9 (.5186)
Adjusted: 9 (.5154)

2013-14:

Actual: 11 (.5084)
Adjusted: 10 (.5286)

*all numbers above taken from WarrenNolan


The biggest raw impact occurred, by far, in Loyola's inaugural season (coinciding with Doug McD's senior campaign). As you can see above, the oversimplified calculation of replacing Loyola's RPI with Creighton's results in the following:

Average Annual Difference in Conference RPI Rank: 0.5 spots
Average Annual Difference in Conference RPI Rating: .0098

Now, taking Redbirdgrad's numbers from the prior page (Average Conference rating in CU's final 4 seasons = .5284; Average Conference Rating in LUC's first 4 seasons: .5071), we can see the average difference in the MVC's RPI rating during these periods is .0213. The portion directly attributable to Loyola's RPI impact in lieu of Creighton is .0098 as noted above, which equals just 45.9% of the total average difference in the league's RPI during those seasons. In some years (2013-14), the impact is much greater. In others (2014-15), Loyola was actually a net positive vis a vis the Bluejays on the conference's overall rating.

However, the conclusion is that, while Creighton's departure impacted the league's decline in RPI significantly, the primary driver of decline was actually the cumulative deteriorating performance of the non-Loyola members of the MVC during those seasons (accounting for 54.1%, a narrow majority, of the decline).

Now, an interesting comparison for projection purposes would involve removing WSU's RPI and replacing it with the rating of projected replacements to judge net impact (again, oversimplified because of the impact on scheduling and other ancillary factors). Certain candidates (Valpo, etc.) would mitigate the loss substantially and others (UIC, etc.) would piledrive the league on a relative basis.

[Play Angry]

Another interesting projection would involve both (i) arresting the MVC's (remaining members') trendline decline following any projected departure by WSU, and (ii) projecting that the MVC's (remaining members') trendline decline continues on a straightline basis using the 8 year sample (pre and post Loyola) in an attempt to capture "outside factors" like recruiting impact of league peers following the exodus of a leading member, etc.

[Play Angry]

Now, an interesting comparison for projection purposes would involve removing WSU's RPI and replacing it with the rating of projected replacements to judge net impact (again, oversimplified because of the impact on scheduling and other ancillary factors). Certain candidates (Valpo, etc.) would mitigate the loss substantially and others (UIC, etc.) would piledrive the league on a relative basis.

This was stated inarticulately.

What I intended to say is that it would be interesting to project the net impact using specific, reasonable replacement candidates ranging from Valpo, etc., on one end, and UIC, etc., on the other end, and evaluating that net impact based on the actual conference RPI ratings for a given season during the sample period (rather than using the average historical rating of that slot during the sample period, this would involve using the year by year actual conference ratings to project the net impact on conference ranking, which was the method used in the post above detailing Loyola's portion of the "blame" for the league's sucktitude following CU's departure). The numbers are surprisingly volatile on a year by year basis, and the method above would result in a significant difference.

[LanceShock]

If WSU left, RPI is the least of any Valley team's worries that is aspiring to get an at large bid. A bigger issue, where being in the Valley has hurt WSU the last two year, is that it removes two games from the schedule against a team that (at least for now and into the foreseeable future) that can help give a team some of the good wins needed to get an at large. If you are a Valley team and something goes wrong with your nonconference schedule (ie an injury to a key player during the nonconference or opponents performing below what would have been expected), and all of a sudden you are looking at needing to win Arch Madness to go to the NCAA tournament.

[Rambler63]

Last season (2015-16):

Creighton: 94 (.5433)
Loyola: 238 (.4587)

Oddly enough this was the year Loyola beat Creighton head to head, not the previous year when Loyola had the better RPI.