The road to 2 NCAA bids

[tdawgs87]

No one has every said it was fair, just got to learn how to play the game. Hopeful for the future of the Valley. Out of 15 players named to the all MVC 1st -3rd teams only 4 are seniors.

[Milanmiracle]

Someone posted this on Panther Nation last night, I know that the RPI wasn't perfect, but it is interesting to see the difference between the RPI and NET

Was looking at NET vs. good ol’ RPI today.

RPI
UNI 19
B1G teams ahead of UNI 1 (next closest is at 32)

NET
UNI 37
B1G teams ahead of UNI: 10

Weird, I wonder why they switched to NET?!?

Actually, there was an article recently about how the Big Ten adjusted to NET, not the other way around. Matt Painter was a big part of the league switching to a 20 game season.

Purdue is scheduled to play 31 games this season. 20 of those are Big Ten games, one is an ACC/Big Ten challenge, and another is the Hoosier Classic (vs Notre Dame or Butler). So now you’re looking at a possible 9 games to schedule your out of conference schedule and your strength of schedule is protected by the conference and other two arranged games. Some of those remaining 9 games are going to be NET stat padders.

Summary, it’s best to have a statistics major figure out what the NET needs to be to put your team in the conversation for an at-large. I know Belmont admitted to working the formula in their favor last year. I suggest more do the same. Here’s part of the issue

“ The margin of victory component is capped at 10, however net efficiency, the second most important factor, is as close as you can get to an uncapped margin of victory without explicitly using uncapped Margin of Victory.”

So you schedule a terrible terrible team who hurts your strength of schedule, but allows you to bring up your cumulative stats. Scheduling a good mid major serves little to no purpose in that equation. Chicago State should be very, very popular.

[tdawgs87]

Someone posted this on Panther Nation last night, I know that the RPI wasn't perfect, but it is interesting to see the difference between the RPI and NET

Was looking at NET vs. good ol’ RPI today.

RPI
UNI 19
B1G teams ahead of UNI 1 (next closest is at 32)

NET
UNI 37
B1G teams ahead of UNI: 10

Weird, I wonder why they switched to NET?!?

Actually, there was an article recently about how the Big Ten adjusted to NET, not the other way around. Matt Painter was a big part of the league switching to a 20 game season.

Purdue is scheduled to play 31 games this season. 20 of those are Big Ten games, one is an ACC/Big Ten challenge, and another is the Hoosier Classic (vs Notre Dame or Butler). So now you’re looking at a possible 9 games to schedule your out of conference schedule and your strength of schedule is protected by the conference and other two arranged games. Some of those remaining 9 games are going to be NET stat padders.

Summary, it’s best to have a statistics major figure out what the NET needs to be to put your team in the conversation for an at-large. I know Belmont admitted to working the formula in their favor last year. I suggest more do the same. Here’s part of the issue

“ The margin of victory component is capped at 10, however net efficiency, the second most important factor, is as close as you can get to an uncapped margin of victory without explicitly using uncapped Margin of Victory.”

So you schedule a terrible terrible team who hurts your strength of schedule, but allows you to bring up your cumulative stats. Scheduling a good mid major serves little to no purpose in that equation. Chicago State should be very, very popular.

Like I said you have to figure out how to work the system.

[uniguy]

One would think having a team like Murray on the schedule instead of two MEAC or SWAC type games would more-often-than-not help with NET. Who knows, though, since the NET formula isn't public.

[Milanmiracle]

...But I also believe that from top to bottom the Valley has to schedule better. When SIU was getting at large berths they did it by trying not to schedule teams that had rpi''s lower than 150, and scheduling a good MTE. The problem for UNI this season isn't their non-conference schedule was bad it is losing to teams in the league that's NET scores are low because they played too many dogs in the non-conference season. SIU played the 303 ranked schedule in the country( Barry's parting gift to SIU). That is terrible for the league and worse yet we had a losing season when the Valley season started. We have to schedule as a league much better and smarter. The A10, WCC and the Mountain West have worked on it. Those leagues are going to get multiple berths this year. We can't be playing the dog conferences of college basketball MEAC, SWAC and even the OVC (other than Murray and Belmont) conferences . We are better off to lose games to higher ranked teams from top mid-major leagues than beat teams from dog conferences. Hopefully by scheduling better we will win games against better teams. I know that it is difficult to schedule we just need the Ad"S to work on scheduling and not let their coaches schedule just to pad their record. Hinson was the master at scheduling poorly and unfortunately the league and SIU suffered for it. I see the league getting better and am fully confident that SIU will help in that endeavor, and I also believe that Mullins will schedule better.

Actually, that’s debatable. The NET values efficiency as the second most important part of the equation, at least according to CBS Sports. So while margin is capped, inflating your points per possession can be manipulated by playing a bad team. The NET doesn’t take into account you shot 30% against Kansas and 70% against SE Northwest Sisters of the Poor and Homeless, all it knows is that you shoot 50% on the season.

And to your previous response of “schedule better”, the Purdue example is exactly why that will be harder than ever. They need less games to increase the strength of schedule than they ever have and want teams that pad the stats. Northern Iowa accomplishes neither of those goals. Again, as an example, Purdue at 15-14 has a higher NET than Illinois at 19-9 and N.Iowa at 23-5. Why?

[stable genius]

There have been more rough days on the bubble lately and now it's looking again like the margin of error for UNI is again down to zero. That hardly seems fair since they haven't even played but that's life. A bid with a loss in STL is certainly not out of the question but as it stands right now I wouldn't bet on it.

[stable genius]

Today's big games:

Washington @ Arizona State: ASU -5.5
Wichita @ Memphis
Stanford @ Oregon State
New Mexico v. Utah State - MW Tournament


All these are big, big games. If USU and WSU win today, Lunardi will have UNI out of the tournament in tomorrow's update. Bracketville has a good track record and he also has UNI as the second to last team in.

[VUGrad1314]

ASU Stanford and WSU all lose. Utah State wins. Illinois also loses allowing UNI to climb one spot in the NET to 36 while Valpo's narrow victory over Evansville took them off the Q2 line. Very mixed bag for UNI but on the whole a good day. Really looking like they'll need to just win the auto bid.

[VUGrad1314]

I don't think these shooting numbers will hold for Drake but the Panthers had better wake up or it's UNIT.

Despite the UNIT quip I take no pleasure in this at all because without UNI we're a one and done one bid league and that is really bad for us all. This is very disappointing. All credit to Drake they've been outstanding but this is not good for the MVC at all.

[Red]

UNI loses this and they are kaput.