RPI is killing MU - Schedule tougher Cream Puffs!
Written by: jpudner@concentricgrasstops.com (bamamarquettefan1)
At this point in the season, MU is so far ahead of my expectations coming in and DJO is such a better player than I could have hoped for to give us a third threat, that I can’t believe I am contemplating that we could get an NCAA bid this year. In addition, even if we sneak in as a 12-seed, I think this is the kind of team that could shock a 5-seed in the opening round.
Unfortunately this leads me to my one criticism of the program â€" scheduling. If we continue to play this well, we could head into Selection Sunday on the bubble, and if that is the case then the fact that we played Presbyterian, Centenary, MD Eastern Shore and Grambling should cost us the bid.
Remember that the biggest frame of reference for the selection committee is the RPI, which doesn’t care about margins of victory. There are two things that make you drop in the RPI â€" losing a game OR playing a team not in the Top 200 (give or take a few spots) at home regardless of the result. Pomeroy (www.kenpom.com) is a much truer measure of how good a team is because it accounts for victory margins, so beating Presbyterian by 40 or losing at West Virginia by 1 point both make you move up in the standings. But for the RPI, both make you move down.
So in short, Marquette has the worst possible schedule for the RPI. Playing in the Big East every year we play a ton of games we could lose (the first way to drop) and then we schedule six home games against teams nowhere near the Top 200 that will make us drop substantially even if we beat them 100-0.
As a result, MU is the 22nd best team in the US according to Pomeroy, but only the 81st best team in the land according to RPI, which is about 31 spots below where you typically need to be to get an at-large bid.
I know I harped on this last year, but I want to walk through the numbers once from my RPI spreadsheet in an urgent plea to stop scheduling these bottom 100 teams and just move the cupcake schedule up one notch so we are scheduling the teams that are in the top 200.
For arguments sake, let’s say the Pomeroy projects play out for everybody and MU finishes a strong 20-10.
The first thing you need to understand is that the RPI calculation only gives us credit for 0.6 wins for a home win (and likewise we only are given 0.6 losses for the games at WVU and Wisconsin, but get 1.4 losses for NC State and will get 1.4 wins for each road victory). Therefore, despite beating up on the four previously mentioned cupcakes at home, the 20-10 projection would have us going 13-4 at home, 2-1 on neutral courts, and 5-5 on the road, which once adjusted for home court means the RPI formula just considers us a 17-10 team.
If that were to play out, then the RPI calculation works like this (ignoring the Big East tourney for the moment):
MU real record 20-10
RPI record 16.8-9.6 (25% of formula)
Opponents record 550-350 (50% of formula)
Opponents’ opponents’ record 15,000-12,000 (25% of formula)
Final RPI: .5694, 68th best, about 18 spots out of tourney
Now, to make my point, let’s pretend we didn’t play Presbyterian, Centenary, MD Eastern Shore and Grambling so I drop all their projections out of the equation. Even though we give up four wins (or 2.4 wins on RPIs scale), look what happens to our RPI calculation once we get all of their losses plus the losses of all their opponents out of the equation. Now this is what the NCAA selection committee is reviewing.
MU real record 16-10
RPI record 14.4-9.6 (25% of formula)
Opponents record 513-272 (50% of formula)
Opponents’ opponents’ record 14,000-10,000 (25% of formula)
Final RPI: .5976, 44th best, easily in the tourney
Just by NOT PLAYING those four games we would move up about 24 spots in the RPI and clearly be in the tournament. Now I realize it isn’t really practical to just play 26 games. But let’s say we upgraded just a little â€" not to the Top 200 which I advocate, but added four more games against teams just as good as South Dakota and North Florida. At that point the end of year RPI equation â€" getting our four wins back but against slightly better competition, looks like this:
MU real record 20-10
RPI record 16.8-9.6 (25% of formula)
Opponents record 579-324 (50% of formula)
Opponents’ opponents’ record 14,500-11,000 (25% of formula)
Final RPI: .5877, 50th best, on the bubble but 20 wins and in Big East should pull us through.
Obviously realistically we need to schedule six creampuffs that we know we will go 6-0 against, particularly in a year like this where Buzz needs to experiment with new players.
How risky would playing Top 200 creampuffs be? Since 2005, MU has gone 27-2 when playing a home game against a team ranked between 101st and 200th in the land in Pomeroy, with the only two losses being to St. Louis after Travis Diener broke his hand and we had no point guard, and to a North Dakota State team that went on to go 20-8 and was ranked 127th.
Going 6-0 against Top 200 creampuffs instead of teams ranked from 250th to 347th will typically move us up 30 spots in the RPI each Selection Sunday, and even if we get tripped up and go 5-1 against Top 200 Creampuffs, we will be much higher than being dragged down by six wins against bottom 100 teams.
That being said I really am hopeful that we will be in the NCAA tourney with this team ahead of schedule, but for future years we will make tournaments and get much better seeds if we upgrade our Creampuff schedule even a little bit.
We aren’t the only team. Here are the 10 teams most hurt by scheduling based on comparing how good they really are by their Pomeroy ranking to how many spots lower they are in the RPI due to bad scheduling:
Team, Pomeroy rank, RPI rank, difference due to scheduling weak opponents:
UTEP 38, 155, -117
Utah State 50, 146, -96
Arizona St. 21, 114, -93
Missouri 12, 104, -92
Wright St. 40, 125, -85
Memphis St. 20, 94, -74
Ohio State 18, 89, -71
Georgia Tech 24, 92, -68
Marquette 22, 81, -59
Minnesota 7, 61, -54
http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2009/12/rpi-is-killing-mu-schedule-tougher.html
You lose the 3 Amigos so you cannot schedule harder opponents. It's admirable but doesn't make much sense with a young, inexperienced, short team.
The problem with scheduling teams who are in the top 200 is that they usually want a 2 for 1 or a 3 for 1 (home and away series, like we signed recently with UWGB and UWM). This is financially straining to a team like Marquette since the home team makes a LOT more money than does the away team.
This is why continue to schedule 'cupcakes'. We tell them that we will pay for their room and board and transportation to get here, and all they have to do is play. This keeps them afloat financially, and it keeps money rolling into Marquette's coffers.
If you'll notice, the reported attendance for the Presb. game was around 14k. That means 14k seats were sold... I'm sure the people at the game can tell you that far less were actually in attendance.
Now, the problem arises when we no longer have that 14k attendance for a game... and instead we are playing away at UWGB and get a zero. Do we share some of the ticket sales and other stadium revenue from the UWGB home game? Maybe, depends on the contract... something I can't comment on since I haven't seen a contract.
What we gain from playing 'cupcakes' hurts our RPI, but allows us to treat our MU players like they are royalty (we spend something like $183k per basketball player per year, according to the NCAA... which by the way is the most anyone spends per player per year). This is what we can offer.
At least, this is my fairly basic understanding and explanation of the reason behind scheduling 'cupcakes'.
its a financial necessity. Perhaps someday we will be a top tier program once again and will be able to afford to spend less on players 'needs' and as a result we will be able to schedule stronger NC opponents. But this sort of thing will take time. In my opinions TC really understood that this was the best path to rebuilding MU basketball, and honestly, I commend him for it.
Quote from: 77ncaachamps on December 31, 2009, 12:22:12 PM
You lose the 3 Amigos so you cannot schedule harder opponents. It's admirable but doesn't make much sense with a young, inexperienced, short team.
I can't believe losing the three amigos means we can't play top 200 teams? That doesn't make any sense to me.
Is it a money issue?
RPI forecast differs with your evaluation.
They say we will end up at 51.
http://www.rpiforecast.com/index.html
only fools with too much time on their hands worry about SOS in December. No different than the last 4 years after the BE schedule our SOS will be more than fine. Syracuse and the majority of the BE brethren have been scheduling this way for 30 years and it has worked out Ok for them. I cannot beleive someone just analyzed that. WOW!
Quote from: MuMark on December 31, 2009, 12:38:36 PM
RPI forecast differs with your evaluation.
They say we will end up at 51.
http://www.rpiforecast.com/index.html
That's bubblelicious territory if it ends up there. MU will need a big road win at some point to help with the RPI, which makes Tuesday all the more frustrating.
A bit early to worry about RPI yet though, we'll get a better picture as we get deeper into January,
My questions are:
-Are we the exception or the norm? Just by quick glance it looks like Seton Hall and Syracuse both have six of these games, Cincinnati and Norte Dame have five each.
-Is it even possible to know? Something tells me getting the date and time and the money numbers worked out were of much more priority to Buzz and the athletic department than trying to predict that North Florida was going to have an RPI between 101-200. I'd love it if we could predict when we're scheduling which teams are going to be respectable, but it seems like there's not much control over it.
-I remember reading an article by Gary Parrish at CBS Sports a couple years ago around this time saying that it's completely pointless to even look at the RPI numbers until the end of January. (http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/9907871) Wouldn't it make sense to wait and see before lamenting that we didn't schedule William & Mary (currently #5) or Richmond (#19) until we see their final RPI, which will move downward considerably? For all we know, Centenary could wind up having a top 200 RPI by the end of the year and North Florida could be over 200. We all know Michigan's final RPI will be well under 100 with half the Big Ten schedule under their belts.
I didn't even bother reading your post, aside from the first few sentences. People who bitch about the scheduling absolutely drive me crazy. LOOK AT OTHER HIGH MAJOR SCHEDULES!!!!!!! They are all basically the same. Some tough games, some mid majors, and plenty of cupcakes. That's a NORMAL, BALANCED schedule.
Seems to me that people who bitch about it have tunnel vision and follow Marquette hoops and that's it. These people just assume every other team is playing a ranked team every game in the non-conference. Stop being so naive.
This team lost a ton last year, everybody knows that. They started with some easy games to get confidence for a very good Orlando tournament, then came home to play 3 very good opponents, and finished it off with 2 cupcakes in case they needed some W's to get some confidence heading into the league. I think the schedule was well laid out this year.
Well, you should read the post, then. It's not bitching about the schedule. There's some real math (if it's correct) that theorizes our RPI would be ~24 spots better if we simply didn't play those bottom teams.
24 spots better is 24 spots better .. easily could mean the difference between NIT and NCAAs.
it is a complete dumb argument and an absolute wast of time to even evaluate it. Does mu Know those teams are going to be that bad? Heck Michigan and xavier simply having btter year might equal how many RPI spots. bottom line it is all a crap shoot. Go 10-8 or better in the BE and you are fine every team in the BE knows that regardless of who they play or dont play in the pre -con. its arguing a meaningless point.
Providence went 10-8 last year(including a win against 1 seed Pitt)and didn't make it.
We make free throws against Fl. State and UWV, and don't blow a 15 point home court lead to NC State, then the numbers would really change at selection time. NC State home and home was a good start to fortifying the schedule abit. Lets get one more home and home with a quality team, along with UW and it will be fine.
Nice analysis though BAMA.
Admittedly I am looking at only what helps get us into the NCAA tournament, and of course there are other considerations such as revenue, of course, and a new team that didn't look like it would necessarily be good enough to play better teams. So the point isn't exactly what will happen, it is just that once you get into the RPI math you can expect to drop several spots for any of these teams that are consistently in the bottom 100. I flew from Alabama to watch both the South Dakota game and the Grambling game, and South Dakota is a great game to schedule because they'll have a winning record, but anyone we schedule from the SWAC is going to hurt us. I realize we had a Milwaukee kid playing there, who tragically passed away, so there are those kind of reasons too. I just want to make sure we are cognizant that any time we can get out of a sure basement dweller for a game, we are hurting our RPI for several spots, so if we can upgrade even a couple of those games a little bit, it can be the difference on making the tourney in a bubble year.
If other considerations outweigh it for certain games, then of course the game is scheduled.
Good news is in the future I think we are going to be talking about how it affects whether we are a 2-seed for a 4-seed, not how if could effect whether or not we make the tourney!
I know people are sick of the scheduling discussion, but this is mathematical proof that scheduling the worst teams in the country hurts you in the RPI.
Even if we switched a couple of the cupcakes out (not all six) it would be nice.
My question is would these Top 200 teams demand anything more than a buy game (3 for 1, 2 for 1, etc.)?
Bethune-Cookman
Canisius
Brown
South Carolina State
Tennessee Tech
UC-Riverside
One other point is that kenpom attempts to measure the quality of the team, while RPI tries to measure the quality of the record. Thus, a couple of 1-point road losses to good teams can boost the rating on kenpom, while RPI doesn't care if it's a 1-point loss or a 30-point loss.
Not saying a softball schedule doesn't play a part, but there are other factors at work too.
Blah, blah, blah, you guys who don't like this conversation .. let's talk again on March 14th, when the fates' willing, MU will be on the bubble and you'd give your left nut to not be 66th in the RPI, but 50th .. regardless of missing some FTs against team X, or blowing a 15 point lead against team Y.
There is something to gain by playing the RPI game to your advantage. -- Economics always comes up, but I do wonder, what's the economic impact of making the NCAAs versus losing a home game because you signed up for a 2 for 1 with a top 150 team? (Or some scenario like that.)
Seems like a math problem someone could work out .. come up with an optimal RPI to $$ graph.
From a dollars and cents perspective, as Bama has pointed out, simply not playing 4 cupcakes increases our RPI by 24. Say each game brings in $200k in bottom line revenue. MU is getting $800k to lose 24 RPI points. Anyone know what a NCAA game share is? (Probably less than $800k, I imagine.)
Anyhow, it shows there's some math that can be applied.
Quote from: MarquetteDano on December 31, 2009, 03:04:35 PM
My question is would these Top 200 teams demand anything more than a buy game (3 for 1, 2 for 1, etc.)?
Bethune-Cookman
Canisius
Brown
South Carolina State
Tennessee Tech
UC-Riverside
Which of those teams will be top 200 next year? Actually, which are still going to be in the top 200 within the next three days since the RPI number goes up and down eratically this early in the season? The article I posted above by Gary Parrish shows an example of a team in early January going from 94 to 72 in the RPI in one day despite not playing a game. I'll agree that if we have a choice we should try not to play the teams like New Jersey Tech that are guaranteed to not have a shot at the top 200 in any year because they don't belong in D1, and we may have had a couple of those teams on the schedule this year. Other than that, when we evaluate who to schedule it's got to be pretty much a crapshoot to predict the RPI of teams that are willing to come for a buy game. If we're going to be "solid" in our prediction that a team will have a good RPI, then hilltopper has a great point: rather than measure the money that a buy game brings, consider what a 2 for 1 with a team that might be knocking on the top 100 gets us as it increases the probability of making, as well as getting a better seed and therefore advancing in the tournament.
Rpi is not as important as you want to make it out.
Boston College not only made the field with an RPI of 68 last year but they were a 7 seed.
If you are good enough to have an RPI of 30 or better and your in a BCS conference you are almost assured of getting in but its not the RPI that assures it....its the way you played to get that RPI.
Substituting one bunny for another isn't going to impress the selection committee.
Its who you beat and who beat you.
If we don't get in it will because we couldn't pull out winnable games against NC state(especially at home) and FSU(not to mention a giant gold star if we could have beat WVU) and not because we blew out Prysbertian and Grambling instead of Canisius and Quinnipiac.
I do not think we should ever schedule a team that is expected to be 300+ in the RPI. It is not going to help that two of our mirror games are against DePaul & Providence. We probably need 12 Big East wins including the conference tournament to get a bid. I just do not see that happening.
Quote from: chapman on December 31, 2009, 03:44:17 PM
Which of those teams will be top 200 next year? Actually, which are still going to be in the top 200 within the next three days since the RPI number goes up and down eratically this early in the season? The article I posted above by Gary Parrish shows an example of a team in early January going from 94 to 72 in the RPI in one day despite not playing a game. I'll agree that if we have a choice we should try not to play the teams like New Jersey Tech that are guaranteed to not have a shot at the top 200 in any year because they don't belong in D1, and we may have had a couple of those teams on the schedule this year. Other than that, when we evaluate who to schedule it's got to be pretty much a crapshoot to predict the RPI of teams that are willing to come for a buy game. If we're going to be "solid" in our prediction that a team will have a good RPI, then hilltopper has a great point: rather than measure the money that a buy game brings, consider what a 2 for 1 with a team that might be knocking on the top 100 gets us as it increases the probability of making, as well as getting a better seed and therefore advancing in the tournament.
I hear what you are saying but you know some teams are going to stink. I am sure they do a little analysis of these teams. If a team is in the Top 200 one year and they graduate three starters without a Top 150 recruit they probably will not be good the next year.
RPI, SCHMARPI...on Dec. 31 I really do think it is meaningless.
And if a team can't hold a five point lead in the last minute to the #6 ranked team in the country, misses free throws to a beaten and mid-ACC Florida State team and blows a 15 pt. lead at home to another middling ACC team...then guess what? We don't deserve to go to the tournament.
Let's see how this all pans out. I think we would all agree that the notion of an NCAA bid this year may have been a stretch before the first tip and Buzz' Boys have been a pleasant surprise. I gotta believe that there are more surprises in store, perhaps some of these tough losses will balance out into respect-earning wins and we will have an impressive BE ledger that the committee won't be able to deny.
And if we are sent to the NIT with a chip on our shoulder and a chance to win it, that's not the worst thing in the world for this young team either.
I do appreciate the analysis, though found it taxing to read and would bet that your wife would rather that you'd cleaned out the garage instead.
Quote from: MUrugger on December 31, 2009, 07:13:36 PM
And if we are sent to the NIT with a chip on our shoulder and a chance to win it, that's not the worst thing in the world for this young team either.
I'm pretty sure the percentage of teams "with a chip on their shoulder" who actually care about the NIT is lower than the already low average for NIT teams who care. Playing less-than Big East level competition which also doesn't care at the end of a long and trying season is not going to provide any benefit to the returning players next year.