Dance Card

[paulxu]

That's really interesting, since it's the very first metric in their own published team listings.

http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball ... etball-rpi

[Omaha1]

That's really interesting, since it's the very first metric in their own published team listings.

http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball ... etball-rpi

If I could find the audio, I would post a link. Basically, he said the RPI is flawed because it treats a 40 point loss and a 3OT loss the same when clearly they aren't.

[paulxu]

Good point. If you have a chance, read on the Dayton board their publisher's experience as part of this years Mock Selection committee.
Fascinating stuff, and they uncovered a really interesting point about SOS that has been overlooked forever.

As to the RPI, he noted the following, apparently offered by Scott Barnes, this year's chair of the Selection Committee:

One point the NCAA made clear: margin-of-victory won’t enter the computer rankings any time in the near future. The committee felt margins create a moral hazard on the playing field, encouraging teams to run up the score over good sportsmanship for the sake of padding the resume’.

One other revelation before we got started: contrary to widespread rumors, there’s no additional yet mysterious post-RPI point system the NCAA uses to massage the rankings and reward or penalize teams for meeting or failing to meet certain performance standards. The committee uses the RPI straight out of the box and takes it no further than that.
That said, the NCAA does reference additional sources from time to time including Sagarin Ratings and Pomeroy Ratings, but does so more as a sanity check of their own data than a substitute. They want to acknowledge intelligent people beyond the NCAA’s perimeter that do great work and they aren’t blindly ignoring someone’s product that might add something to the process. But it’s mostly up to committee members to seek outside data on their own that is most compelling and helpful to their work. With Internet connections everywhere in the room, the barn door is open if one chooses to use it.

[stever20]

Good point. If you have a chance, read on the Dayton board their publisher's experience as part of this years Mock Selection committee.
Fascinating stuff, and they uncovered a really interesting point about SOS that has been overlooked forever.

As to the RPI, he noted the following, apparently offered by Scott Barnes, this year's chair of the Selection Committee:

One point the NCAA made clear: margin-of-victory won’t enter the computer rankings any time in the near future. The committee felt margins create a moral hazard on the playing field, encouraging teams to run up the score over good sportsmanship for the sake of padding the resume’.

One other revelation before we got started: contrary to widespread rumors, there’s no additional yet mysterious post-RPI point system the NCAA uses to massage the rankings and reward or penalize teams for meeting or failing to meet certain performance standards. The committee uses the RPI straight out of the box and takes it no further than that.
That said, the NCAA does reference additional sources from time to time including Sagarin Ratings and Pomeroy Ratings, but does so more as a sanity check of their own data than a substitute. They want to acknowledge intelligent people beyond the NCAA’s perimeter that do great work and they aren’t blindly ignoring someone’s product that might add something to the process. But it’s mostly up to committee members to seek outside data on their own that is most compelling and helpful to their work. With Internet connections everywhere in the room, the barn door is open if one chooses to use it.

Yeah, MOV won't enter the RPI equation probably ever.

Something tells me the Creighton guy is in the minority. Also, even if he says he doesn't use it, when he says something like top 50 wins, he's using the RPI.

[Omaha1]

Yeah, MOV won't enter the RPI equation probably ever.

Something tells me the Creighton guy is in the minority. Also, even if he says he doesn't use it, when he says something like top 50 wins, he's using the RPI.

I don't follow this stuff very closely at all, but I wouldn't simply dismiss his approach as being in the minority. It's possible to surmise that he learned it by seeing what others on the committee were doing as he's only been there one time. Most importantly, he is ACTUALLY ON THE COMMITTEE so we don't have to guess at what they think because he just told us!

[stever20]

Yeah, MOV won't enter the RPI equation probably ever.

Something tells me the Creighton guy is in the minority. Also, even if he says he doesn't use it, when he says something like top 50 wins, he's using the RPI.

I don't follow this stuff very closely at all, but I wouldn't simply dismiss his approach as being in the minority. It's possible to surmise that he learned it by seeing what others on the committee were doing as he's only been there one time. Most importantly, he is ACTUALLY ON THE COMMITTEE so we don't have to guess at what they think because he just told us!

We absolutely do have to guess at what the committee thinks because he is just 1 person on the committee. He might not look at the RPI, but we have no idea if the other 8 members ignore it. History has shown that is just not the case, that high RPI equates more with selection than a high Ken Pom. I mean case in point last year Tennessee was like #15 in Ken Pom but was in the first 4 because of their RPI(#42). If advanced stats were the metric, a team like Colorado last year would never have made the tourney at Ken Pom #68. Not only did they make it but they were a 8 seed. Their RPI- 34. So if he was on the committee last year- and all of them don't look at RPI but more advanced Metrics, how in the hell can you explain those 2? So it would definitely appear that he was in the minority for sure.

[ta111]

Creighton AD Bruce Rasmussen is on the NCAA committee and he did a radio interview yesterday locally. He said he doesn't look at RPI, but does look at BPI, KenPom, and something else (KPI?) generated by some guy in Michigan.

The question is going to be is he in the minority or the majority.

I can pretty much assure you he is in the minority. How, you ask can I do this? Easy, just look at KenPom's final rankings and compare them to the actual at large selections last year. He wasn't close. His rankings would have missed 8-9 teams. It is an RPI-centric selection. There are a couple of things I don't like about kenpom, he uses a "luck" factor, which I think is silly. You either win or lose. If you lose close games it means you are not a strong finishing team. Luck has nothing to do with it.

[Omaha1]

Creighton AD Bruce Rasmussen is on the NCAA committee and he did a radio interview yesterday locally. He said he doesn't look at RPI, but does look at BPI, KenPom, and something else (KPI?) generated by some guy in Michigan.

The question is going to be is he in the minority or the majority.

I can pretty much assure you he is in the minority. How, you ask can I do this? Easy, just look at KenPom's final rankings and compare them to the actual at large selections last year. He wasn't close. His rankings would have missed 8-9 teams. It is an RPI-centric selection. There are a couple of things I don't like about kenpom, he uses a "luck" factor, which I think is silly. You either win or lose. If you lose close games it means you are not a strong finishing team. Luck has nothing to do with it.

To be clear, he didn't say he based his decisions on kenPom, just that he looked at them. geesh.. tried to let you know what an ACTUAL commitee member said and the know it alls shout me down. Listen to the interview and then judge for yourself.

[Bill Marsh]

Good point. If you have a chance, read on the Dayton board their publisher's experience as part of this years Mock Selection committee.
Fascinating stuff, and they uncovered a really interesting point about SOS that has been overlooked forever.

As to the RPI, he noted the following, apparently offered by Scott Barnes, this year's chair of the Selection Committee:

One point the NCAA made clear: margin-of-victory won’t enter the computer rankings any time in the near future. The committee felt margins create a moral hazard on the playing field, encouraging teams to run up the score over good sportsmanship for the sake of padding the resume’.

One other revelation before we got started: contrary to widespread rumors, there’s no additional yet mysterious post-RPI point system the NCAA uses to massage the rankings and reward or penalize teams for meeting or failing to meet certain performance standards. The committee uses the RPI straight out of the box and takes it no further than that.
That said, the NCAA does reference additional sources from time to time including Sagarin Ratings and Pomeroy Ratings, but does so more as a sanity check of their own data than a substitute. They want to acknowledge intelligent people beyond the NCAA’s perimeter that do great work and they aren’t blindly ignoring someone’s product that might add something to the process. But it’s mostly up to committee members to seek outside data on their own that is most compelling and helpful to their work. With Internet connections everywhere in the room, the barn door is open if one chooses to use it.

Yeah, MOV won't enter the RPI equation probably ever.

Something tells me the Creighton guy is in the minority. Also, even if he says he doesn't use it, when he says something like top 50 wins, he's using the RPI.

MOV does not and will not enter the formula. That was the whole point of developing RPI in the first place.

However, that doesn't mean that MOV isn't a factor in voting decisions by individual committee members. They certainly have the game-by-game results of each team and are able to look at that information and use it when it comes to decisions about individual teams.

[Bill Marsh]

California last year 56
NC State last year 51

current formula
nc State 55
cal 63

So while maybe not saying NC State should have gotten in, but any idiot would know a team with a 63 RPI has pretty much a zero shot of getting in at large..

So I'm sorry- but them continuing to use the old RPI does cause problems. It makes absolutely no sense that they don't change the RPI component from the old formula to the new formula- you would think that it would make the rating much stronger.

It's just tough to take anything seriously that uses a component that isn't what is used to make the decisions.

I mean a poster-child right now is Dayton... In the old formula that Dance Card uses, they have the #51 RPI. Because of that they have Dayton at #56- or the 10th team out. Dayton's real RPI is #35- with as a result they are #36 in Bracket Matrix right now. 16 spots in the RPI is just a HUGE gap.
(for those wondering why Dayton is so different)
15-0 at home
4-5 on the road
2-1 neutral
So right now only have 4 RPI losses, to go along with 16.6 wins. 16.6-4 makes an own winning percentage of .806....

I went to the Dance Card sight and read their back up material. I think it's important to do this before dismissing them based on which version of RPI is used.

Their whole premise is that there is bias in the committee's decisions. Their formula was developed to identify patterns of bias and to predict the behavior of future committee's based on this identified patter. Judging by their results, the formula works, which is the ultimate test of its utility.

Given that they're trying to identify biased decisions rather than team ratings, I think which version of the RPI formula they use is irrelevant.