Updated MVCfans.com Arch Madness projections

[PantherSigEp]

Pretty hard to believe that UNI has that kind of scoring margin and we still don't feel good about being all alone in 3rd. The most consistently inconsistent team is a real treat...

[SHOXMVC]

Agreed that the policy of penalizing teams for playing cupcake city should be brought back.

I don't recollect the penalty phase. What was it?

[Rambler63]

Isn't the tiebreaker based on non-con SOS a penalty? In a three or four way tie, it makes the difference between finishing fourth or fifth and playing on Thursday.

[Wufan]

Isn't the tiebreaker based on non-con SOS a penalty? In a three or four way tie, it makes the difference between finishing fourth or fifth and playing on Thursday.

This is correct. If two or three teams have the same record (7-11), the first tie break is head-to-head. If the h2h doesn't break the tie, then the second tie breaker is SOS. For instance, if WSU and UNI both finished the season 14-4 and split home and home, then UNI would be the higher seed and WSU the lower seed based on UNIs better SOS using the RPI formula.

It used to be that team's that didn't have a non-con SOS in the top 150 were penalized NCAA payouts, or something similar.

[PantherSigEp]

I guess I'm no expert in the specifics of the formula but basing it on the ranking, not the score seems a bit unfair. There are already gripes about how you can't control "how your opponents play", which has some merit to it, but my issue is that an SOS score in 2013 could be Top 150, but that same SOS score in 2014 might not be Top 200. I could easily be wrong, as I'm not sure how the number is calculated but let's look at the past two seasons as an example.

In the 2012-13 season #150 in non-con SOS was Elon with a .5082

In the 2013-14 season #150 in non-con SOS was Cal-Irvine with a .5114

UNI's this season is .5694 which is good for 30th in the country. Last season a .5694 would've been top-20, at #18 (right after Kansas).

Actually, what the heck am I talking, about? UNI's non-con SOS ended up at #10 with a .5828! We've gotten worse! That's barely Top 20 this year though.

So if my interpretation is correct, a team could actually have a decent SOS score but their rank might suck one year and they get penalized, but then the reverse happens the next year and they get rewarded. Sounds a little off

[AndShock]

I guess I'm no expert in the specifics of the formula but basing it on the ranking, not the score seems a bit unfair. There are already gripes about how you can't control "how your opponents play", which has some merit to it, but my issue is that an SOS score in 2013 could be Top 150, but that same SOS score in 2014 might not be Top 200. I could easily be wrong, as I'm not sure how the number is calculated but let's look at the past two seasons as an example.

In the 2012-13 season #150 in non-con SOS was Elon with a .5082

In the 2013-14 season #150 in non-con SOS was Cal-Irvine with a .5114

UNI's this season is .5694 which is good for 30th in the country. Last season a .5694 would've been top-20, at #18 (right after Kansas).

Actually, what the heck am I talking, about? UNI's non-con SOS ended up at #10 with a .5828! We've gotten worse! That's barely Top 20 this year though.

So if my interpretation is correct, a team could actually have a decent SOS score but their rank might suck one year and they get penalized, but then the reverse happens the next year and they get rewarded. Sounds a little off

Basketball (rankings, RPI, SoS, KenPom, etc.) is all relative. 30-0 might be good enough for #1 most years but if 10 teams go 30-0 against a better SoS, you aren't going to be #1. It's not a reward/punishment it's just the way basketball works.

[Wufan]

I guess I'm no expert in the specifics of the formula but basing it on the ranking, not the score seems a bit unfair. There are already gripes about how you can't control "how your opponents play", which has some merit to it, but my issue is that an SOS score in 2013 could be Top 150, but that same SOS score in 2014 might not be Top 200. I could easily be wrong, as I'm not sure how the number is calculated but let's look at the past two seasons as an example.

In the 2012-13 season #150 in non-con SOS was Elon with a .5082

In the 2013-14 season #150 in non-con SOS was Cal-Irvine with a .5114

UNI's this season is .5694 which is good for 30th in the country. Last season a .5694 would've been top-20, at #18 (right after Kansas).

Actually, what the heck am I talking, about? UNI's non-con SOS ended up at #10 with a .5828! We've gotten worse! That's barely Top 20 this year though.

So if my interpretation is correct, a team could actually have a decent SOS score but their rank might suck one year and they get penalized, but then the reverse happens the next year and they get rewarded. Sounds a little off

At the time it was implemented, all the schools that attempted to put together a top 150 schedule were able to, however, I'm pretty sure most schools had to take a road buy game or two...then, we won a few buy games and quit getting offers.

[Turner]

We don't need to take buy games we need to avoid awful rpi 300+ teams.

[Mikovio]

IIRC the rule used to be that a program had to either put together a non-con schedule of teams that would have made for a 150 or better SOS the prior year, or finish with an actual 150 SOS the coming year. Meet either of those criteria and you avoided the $50k fine. Yeah, I think the league office should bring that back.

[Shockerfan13]

Elgin was on a local radio show in Wichita a week or so ago and mentioned that they have or are implementing a program to penalize schools with weak non conference schedules. I believe I have heard him before say he was looking at bringing back the previous rule as well.