Why the sky is falling attitude

[Snaggletooth]

http://www.kentucky.com/2009/02/11/690551/slive-says-ncaa-wont-consider.html

The Southeastern Conference's modest Ratings Percentage Index should not adversely affect individual teams' chances of receiving an NCAA Tournament bid.

That was SEC Commissioner Mike Slive's stated view on a teleconference on Tuesday. And his view counts for a lot, considering he will serve as chairman of the tournament's selection committee this year.

SEC at the time had a "Modest" conference RPI of 6.

"The committee is not going to consider Conference RPI," Slive said. "It will not be a factor. It will not be part of the nitty-gritty, not on the cheat sheet and not available in the room."

Irrelevant whether they consider the conference rpi as a discrete metric or not. It still matter, and has affect. There is a direct correlation between Conference RPI and at-large bids.

And Snaggletooth, I think most people know at the non-BCS level's resume's are built in non-conference play, not during conference play.

Yeah, and that is why people are worried. Because if a league has a good non-conference season the league then can feed off of it. If you have a bunch of sub-par 175 to 200 RPI teams it won't matter how well a team does, their RPI will suffer.

And it's very very earlier to talk about this stuff. Heck some teams have only played 1 or 2 games.

And some teams have played 5-6 games. As I have pointed out before, if you talking about individual RPI yes, it is to early. But for conference RPI a third of that portion of the season has been finish and the number are more meaningful and trends are developing.

[jayball]

Bad start for the Valley, no question about that and no need to sugarcoat it.

However, the conference RPI rank as of today doesn't mean anything. It could jump 5-10 spots if WSU wins 2 games in Maui. there aren't enough games played to make that number meaningful yet. If we stay in the 20s there is something seriously wrong because I dont' think that has ever happened.

However, if things continue this way we definitely have a good chance to fall out of the top 10 conferences. We have been there for the past 10-12 years. We can’t have teams losing at home in the noncon and you’d like to think we could take a few teams at their place 1-11 on the road is ridiculous. Hopefully a few teams can figure it out.

Reality is that nonBCS teams have almost zero margin of error, that margin gets even smaller if the conference isn’t doing reasonably well. MSU practically has to win out now to get at large consideration. Our teams have to be almost perfect in the noncon, with a notable scalp or two or win in St Louis. Those are the only options to get in the dance for the MVC. So you can see early sometimes if there any at large chances. As of right now the MVC isn’t going to help its contenders make a case to be included. We need a big winning streak.

Shockers, I’m looking at you.

[cpacmel]

Irrelevant whether they consider the conference rpi as a discrete metric or not. It still matter, and has affect. There is a direct correlation between Conference RPI and at-large bids.

Well last year there were conferences behind us that got more bids total than we did.

Last year the MVC was the 9th rated conference RPI wise --> 1 total bid

Last year the WAC was the 10th rated conference RPI wise --> 2 total bids

Last year Conference USA was the 11th rated conference RPI Wise --> 2 total bids

Last year the West Coast conference was the 13th rated conference RPI Wise --> 2 total bids

It's early. I used to get in these big debates with Tornado about the RPI. He would start talking about the RPI before Thanksgiving and in the end things always seemed to even themselves out. Not saying it will happen that way this year, but give it (the rpi) more data and see how things shake out or don't! Panic!

I see the correlation your trying to make between conference RPI and individual team's resumes. It's just been my experience and opinion that the conference RPI thing doesn't mean much, if anything.

[Snaggletooth]

Irrelevant whether they consider the conference rpi as a discrete metric or not. It still matter, and has affect. There is a direct correlation between Conference RPI and at-large bids.

Well last year there were conferences behind us that got more bids total than we did.

Last year the MVC was the 9th rated conference RPI wise --> 1 total bid

Last year the WAC was the 10th rated conference RPI wise --> 2 total bids

Last year Conference USA was the 11th rated conference RPI Wise --> 2 total bids

Last year the West Coast conference was the 13th rated conference RPI Wise --> 2 total bids

It's early. I used to get in these big debates with Tornado about the RPI. He would start talking about the RPI before Thanksgiving and in the end things always seemed to even themselves out. Not saying it will happen that way this year, but give it (the rpi) more data and see how things shake out or don't! Panic!

I see the correlation your trying to make between conference RPI and individual team's resumes. It's just been my experience and opinion that the conference RPI thing doesn't mean much, if anything.

The examples you point out show examples where a team still has to earns it way regardless of their conference. That is why I will agree with the statement that "conferences don't earn bids, teams do". But when they also say "conference RPI doesn't matter", that means that person who says that really doesn't understand math and the interconnection between the two. I will actually look at in more depth to see what the actual correlation is.

The MVC really should have had 2 teams in the NCAA tournament, but WSU didn't take care of business when they needed it most. They were 1 or 2 wins from getting the resume, with the loss to 244 RPI team like Evansville being a killer (I think they really needed another top 50 win).

[pafan]

The current RPIs really are completely absurd.

Indiana currently has the top RPI in the Big Ten according to realtimerpi.
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_186_Men.html
Dayton has the top RPI in the nation despite being unranked in either poll. Only 3 of the top 11 RPI teams are in the top 25 pol (either poll)

And UE went up 100 spots on their RPI ranking by losing yesterday.

[Red]

And UE went up 100 spots on their RPI ranking by losing yesterday.

Finally some good news. If our teams keep losing at the current pace, we're bound to be the #1 ranked RPI conference by the end of the season.

[BirdmanBB]

I love it when everyone blames us for our schedule. Why is our schedule your excuse? If you want your team to go to the NCAA tourney, then all you need to do is win...and keep winning the games on your schedule. Yes, in this league and any, it should be about yourself. I will say that ISU made the mistake of not scheduling tougher in the past and we paid the price for it. Our school paid the price, not yours. Our team currently is young and inexperienced. Throwing them up against stiff competition in the non-con doesn't do our players any good come time for valley play. The only thing they will learn to do is lose, which is not good for anyone. In the valley, when you know your team will be good and be competing in the upper half of the MVC you schedule tough to maximize your chances for a bid. When your school is rebuilding/has a young team, you schedule accordingly to get that team experience so that someday they will be in a position to schedule hard and compete for a bid. If your team loses to us and we didn't schedule hard enough so it drops your RPI/SOS who's fault is it really? If you are not good enough to beat us, then chances are you are not good enough to make the NCAA tourney. Simple as that. So for everyone that is or has been critical of our scheduling, maybe you should expect more out of your team and not more out of ours. Win the games that you scheduled and the rest will take care of itself.

[Snaggletooth]

I love it ..... snippage of long rant

I think you got the wrong thread. This is about MVC teams not actually winning their games. Scheduling is two doors down on the left.

[Aargh]

I complain about schedules - and I'm a bit disappointed that my season tickets are really only worth having for league games.

Scheduling good teams isn't as easy as you might think. Marshall has said on several occasions that NOBODY would agree to play WSU this year. That's one of the reasons WSU's schedule wasn't finalized until around October and why there was only one game scheduled prior to Maui. UConn with 4 games and WSU with only 1 was a factor in the outcome of that game.

Some of the deals Marshall was offering for better games were insane. One BCS team turned down 2 neutral site games and one at their place and WSU was willing to throw in some cash. You can't beat who you don't play and you can only play the teams that agree to play you - except for conference teams - and this isn't looking like a good year to get any national brownie points for playing other Valley teams.

[Snaggletooth]

Historically from (2000-2010), Conferences with RPI 7 or less have been multi-bid conference. The drop-off from there follows a linear trend.





data taken from:

http://statsheet.com/mcb/conferences/stats/?season=2009-2010