RPI 12/9

[stever20]

Villanova #7
St John's #47
Butler #51
Creighton #57
Georgetown #60
DePaul #78
Marquette #85
Providence #88
Xavier #110
Seton Hall #123

A billion games to go before this counts, but keep in mind that the unofficial 'safe' cutoff on RPI is 40. If you are lower than 40, great chance you get an at-large bid (unless you are SW Missouri State that got outed at an RPI of 21). If you are higher than 40, then you need some breaks to go your way. So we better get some intense upward movement in the next two months if we want three or four bids.

I think we are in pretty good shape for 4-5 bids. Remember, alot of the other power conferences have multiple teams in the 100-200 RPIs. 8/10 of our teams will be good wins (top 100 RPI) so if a team can accumulate 9 or more conference wins, plus a decent OOC, they should get in.

I think it'll hinge on who the 9 win team(s) are. If it's someone like Marquette- I don't think they get in- even right now, that'd be 13 losses, plus one in the BET. A loss to New Mexico, and 10 wins may not even be enough for them quite frankly. 14 losses almost never gets in now, unless you are a Nova last year with all those crazy top 10 wins they got in Jan/Feb.

I think Xavier could be a 3rd team that is higher than a 100 RPI if they struggle in these last 4 games. And Providence would likely be sub 100 if they are a 7th/8th place team and like a 7-11 type season. Right now, Providence is our only team that hasn't played a current RPI team(though Kentucky will)- and only 2 current RPI top 100 teams(Vandy other one!) It's still very fluid of course.

[adoraz11]

Does RPI mean much at this point when Mass is #1 ???

BE has three teams in the top 25 in Kenpom.

[Bill Marsh]

Does RPI mean much at this point when Mass is #1 ???

BE has three teams in the top 25 in Kenpom.

No, it doesn't mean much at this point, and it doesn't mean a heck of a lot more in March. RPI IS a flawed stat that was developed to meet a political agenda and not really based on any valid way of measuring team performance. It's overly influenced by wins and losses, which is why UMass is up there right now.

There are much better measures and Ken Pom is just one of them (not one of my personal favorites). Sagarin also has 3 Big East teams in his top 25, but TeamRankings.com does not. They have only Villanova. I think the best picture is derived from looking at more than one of these because they all use different formulas, each of which has its own bias. The bias factor will tend to be evened out by using multiple measures. Both Sagarin and Team Rankings have a predictive power rating as an alternative to their coo site ranking. The predictive rating is the true power rating as originally developed and is the best tool for measuring performance if you choose to go to these sites.

[Lavinwood]

UMass has not really been tested much yet. They have PC, a tough Ohio team, FSU, and St. Joe's coming up. They will definitely be out of the top 25 soon. Things have a way of balancing out. UMass is good, but not THAT good. They will also get beat up by GW, STL, VCU, Dayton, Richmond, and St. Joe's in conference.

[stever20]

UMass has not really been tested much yet. They have PC, a tough Ohio team, FSU, and St. Joe's coming up. They will definitely be out of the top 25 soon. Things have a way of balancing out. UMass is good, but not THAT good. They will also get beat up by GW, STL, VCU, Dayton, Richmond, and St. Joe's in conference.

Not been tested much? Played 5 ken pom top 100 teams, and 4 top 43 teams. 4 of those 5 neutral site. Ken Pom has them at 32 SOS. Sagarin has them at 30 SOS. If that's not been tested, what in the hell is it?

About RPI- it matters a lot more to predicting who gets in the tourney than ken pom or any of those other ratings. Folks might not like the rating, but it has a bigger impact than anyone would want to admit. When you hear top 50 wins, it's RPI top 50 wins. Not Ken pom top 50, etc.

[stever20]

also, I would say the predictive rankings aren't used much at all in team selection. I mean just look at football. If preditctive rankings were used, Alabama would be in the title game right now instead of Auburn. What's used is a rating to decipher what has happened so far.

Also- I'd say the committee used to look a lot more at predictive. It's why you used to see a team like a 16-14 Georgia make the tourney. That's just not happened recently at all.