Bracketology '17

[EMT]

Illinois St RPI 33
Texas-Arlington RPI 45
Monmouth RPI 49

Looks like the committee is saying that RPI doesn't matter for mid major teams.

Makes me think that Wichita St RPI 32 wouldn't have gotten in if they lost to Illinois St in the MVC finals.

[Bill Marsh]

Illinois St RPI 33
Texas-Arlington RPI 45
Monmouth RPI 49

Looks like the committee is saying that RPI doesn't matter for mid major teams.

Makes me think that Wichita St RPI 32 wouldn't have gotten in if they lost to Illinois St in the MVC finals.

Not necessarily. Those 3 all had bad losses, but WSU didn't have any. They still had a weak resume, so you might be right, but it would have been a different set of factors being considered.

[EMT]

Illinois St RPI 33
Texas-Arlington RPI 45
Monmouth RPI 49

Looks like the committee is saying that RPI doesn't matter for mid major teams.

Makes me think that Wichita St RPI 32 wouldn't have gotten in if they lost to Illinois St in the MVC finals.

Not necessarily. Those 3 all had bad losses, but WSU didn't have any. They still had a weak resume, so you might be right, but it would have been a different set of factors being considered.

Main point is that if you are a mid major, you need to win your tourney and that a good RPI doesn't matter....As a mid major, it doesn't appear that you can play enough top 50/100 teams to satisfy the committee, let alone win them.

[stever20]

Given that Wichita was #38, and ahead of at large selections 39 Marquette, 40 VCU, 41 Xavier, 42 Providence, 43 Wake Forest, 45 USC, and 46 Kansas St- or 7 teams- I don't think losing to Illinois St would have knocked them behind 6 of those 7 teams.

[Bill Marsh]

Illinois St RPI 33
Texas-Arlington RPI 45
Monmouth RPI 49

Looks like the committee is saying that RPI doesn't matter for mid major teams.

Makes me think that Wichita St RPI 32 wouldn't have gotten in if they lost to Illinois St in the MVC finals.

Not necessarily. Those 3 all had bad losses, but WSU didn't have any. They still had a weak resume, so you might be right, but it would have been a different set of factors being considered.

Main point is that if you are a mid major, you need to win your tourney and that a good RPI doesn't matter....As a mid major, it doesn't appear that you can play enough top 50/100 teams to satisfy the committee, let alone win them.

St Mary's and Cincinnati managed to do it. The difference is that neither of them had any bad losses.

Dayton and VCU did it too. In their cases both had some bad losses, but both also had several top 50 wins to compensate for the bad losses.

I think the moral is, don't lose to teams ranked below 100 unless you're going to come up with enough top 50 wins to make up for it.

[EMT]

Main point is that if you are a mid major, you need to win your tourney and that a good RPI doesn't matter.

RPI should compensate for good wins and bad losses, but it doesn't.

[Savannah Jay]

Main point is that if you are a mid major, you need to win your tourney and that a good RPI doesn't matter.

RPI should compensate for good wins and bad losses, but it doesn't.

I think the RPI is one factor...and if you are a mid major, you gotta have something else on your resume. Looking out our former conference mate, Illinois State played 3 games against top 50 RPI (all against Wichita, the last two were complete drubbings, with Wichita beating them by 41 and 20 points) and 2-4 against top 100 teams with the other win against New Mexico (who is 17-14 this year vs. D1).

The single biggest factor going against Illinois state is the fact that the other 8 teams in the valley are terrible. The next best RPI besides Wichita and ISU is Southern Illinois, with a 145 RPI. So they didn't play anybody out of conference (and still managed to lose to Murray State, TCU, Tulsa, and San Francisco).

ESPN had Illinois State's non-conference strength of schedule at 157 and their non-conference RPI was 92. They were 20-1 against teams with sub-150 RPI. They have 6 top 150 RPI wins, and three of them were Southern Illinois (who's barely top 150).

So if you are a mid-major, you have to something on your resume in addition to your RPI. Using only Illinois State as an example, they have an excellent RPI but what other criteria would you use to give them a bid?

I speak as someone whose team was left out of the tournament with RPIs in the 40s (in both 2006 and 2008), I think the mid majors have a steeper hill to climb if the conference doesn't offer any chance at good wins. you have to have some marquee games outside of conference or you end up like ISU this year. The valley is a terrible basketball conference right now outside of those two teams and that was reflected in WSU's seed and ISU going to NIT.

[GumbyDamnit!]

The Committee really struggled with what to do with the B1G10. Minny as a 5? MD as a 6? Yet Wiscy as a 8? I don't get it. If you go by conference success Wiscy finished 2nd in regular season and the tourney. In the B10 tourney MD loses basically on its home floor to NW, who turns around and gets completely waxed by UW. Minny falls before UW as well.

OOC Wiscy schedules @ Creighton (with Watson); vs UNC (both losses), then beats Cuse and Oklahoma. It's not their fault both FF teams from a year ago were not that great this year. Minny on the other hand played FSU OOC (lost) and got both Vandy and Arkansas early (wins). Other than that they played slop OOC. And BTW Wiscy beats Minny twice, as well as Maryland. Their reward? A 8/9 game vs a good P6 team and the #1 overall the next round.

Kenpom #s make it all the more head-scratching. KenPom: UW - 23; Minn. - 33; MD - 45

And this is a UW team that has had success in the tourney before. You'd think they'd get the benefit of the doubt. WTF?

[stever20]

The Committee really struggled with what to do with the B1G10. Minny as a 5? MD as a 6? Yet Wiscy as a 8? I don't get it. If you go by conference success Wiscy finished 2nd in regular season and the tourney. In the B10 tourney MD loses basically on its home floor to NW, who turns around and gets completely waxed by UW. Minny falls before UW as well.

OOC Wiscy schedules @ Creighton (with Watson); vs UNC (both losses), then beats Cuse and Oklahoma. It's not their fault both FF teams from a year ago were not that great this year. Minny on the other hand played FSU OOC (lost) and got both Vandy and Arkansas early (wins). Other than that they played slop OOC. And BTW Wiscy beats Minny twice, as well as Maryland. Their reward? A 8/9 game vs a good P6 team and the #1 overall the next round.

Kenpom #s make it all the more head-scratching. KenPom: UW - 23; Minn. - 33; MD - 45

And this is a UW team that has had success in the tourney before. You'd think they'd get the benefit of the doubt. WTF?

The problem is you can't just reward teams because they tried to schedule good.
Minnesota OOC SOS 23 overall 23
Maryland OOC SOS 114 overall 44
Wisconsin OOC SOS 276 overall 68

Wisconsin had 5 games vs Central Arkansas, Chicago St, Prairie View, Idaho St, and Florida A&M. 5 of the 41 worst Ken Pom teams, and 5 of the worst 50 teams in RPI. Minnesota had only 1 team in the worst 100 teams of RPI in NJIT.

you look at the RPI and it shows why Minnesota is where they are
Minnesota 20, Maryland 34, Wisconsin 36.
also top 50 records
Minnesota 7-7, Maryland 4-3, Wisconsin 4-6.

Maryland is ahead of Wisconsin due to being 11-3 away from home, compared to only 10-7 for Wisconsin.

[Savannah Jay]

The Committee really struggled with what to do with the B1G10. Minny as a 5? MD as a 6? Yet Wiscy as a 8? I don't get it. If you go by conference success Wiscy finished 2nd in regular season and the tourney. In the B10 tourney MD loses basically on its home floor to NW, who turns around and gets completely waxed by UW. Minny falls before UW as well.

OOC Wiscy schedules @ Creighton (with Watson); vs UNC (both losses), then beats Cuse and Oklahoma. It's not their fault both FF teams from a year ago were not that great this year. Minny on the other hand played FSU OOC (lost) and got both Vandy and Arkansas early (wins). Other than that they played slop OOC. And BTW Wiscy beats Minny twice, as well as Maryland. Their reward? A 8/9 game vs a good P6 team and the #1 overall the next round.

Kenpom #s make it all the more head-scratching. KenPom: UW - 23; Minn. - 33; MD - 45

And this is a UW team that has had success in the tourney before. You'd think they'd get the benefit of the doubt. WTF?

The problem is you can't just reward teams because they tried to schedule good.
Minnesota OOC SOS 23 overall 23
Maryland OOC SOS 114 overall 44
Wisconsin OOC SOS 276 overall 68

Wisconsin had 5 games vs Central Arkansas, Chicago St, Prairie View, Idaho St, and Florida A&M. 5 of the 41 worst Ken Pom teams, and 5 of the worst 50 teams in RPI. Minnesota had only 1 team in the worst 100 teams of RPI in NJIT.

you look at the RPI and it shows why Minnesota is where they are
Minnesota 20, Maryland 34, Wisconsin 36.
also top 50 records
Minnesota 7-7, Maryland 4-3, Wisconsin 4-6.

Maryland is ahead of Wisconsin due to being 11-3 away from home, compared to only 10-7 for Wisconsin.

Is it those 5 games dragging Wisconsin's OOC schedule down so much? Cause just looking at the two non-cons (Wisky and Minny), it doesn't seem like that big of disparity.