Does 2011-12 Paradise Jam hurt/help MU's SOS?

[HouWarrior]

We played 17 ranked teams this year, but our too many sub 200(?) games still drove our SoS lower than one would expect. It seems reducing the number of games with unknown cupcakes is fixable.

CBS projects us into the field below for the Paradise Jam. does that field help/hurt our SoS? What are your thoughts, on this tourney field, and our Sos next year?

Paradise Jam  Dates TBA  U.S. Virgin Islands: 

Drake, Drexel, Marquette, Mississippi, Norfolk State, Texas Christian, Virginia, Winthrop 

[77ncaachamps]

LAST YEAR'S RPIs/SOS
Drake 215/166
Drexel 74/137
Mississippi 83/75
Norfolk State 271/285
Texas Christian 208/89
Virginia 140/103 (wonder if the scrimmage pays off)
Winthrop  221/183[/size]

[shoothoops]

Virginia will be much improved.

[brewcity77]

The problem isn't the Paradise Jam. It's the sub-250 cupcakes. The only thing in our schedule that needs fixing is the bottom end. There's a much bigger difference between Centenary and a top 200 RPI team than there is between Duke and Ole Miss. Fix the cupcakes and you fix the schedule. It's that simple.

[Hards Alumni]

The problem isn't the Paradise Jam. It's the sub-250 cupcakes. The only thing in our schedule that needs fixing is the bottom end. There's a much bigger difference between Centenary and a top 200 RPI team than there is between Duke and Ole Miss. Fix the cupcakes and you fix the schedule. It's that simple.

Here is what I always thought was funny about this whole system.

Is there really a BIG difference in quality from teams 150-330+?  IMO, no.  But for some reason the computers think so.  Would we have a higher chance losing to a 150-200 team than a 250-300?  Probably not.

I realize this post doesn't really answer any questions, and in advance, I know it is disjointed.

[brewcity77]

In terms of actual quality, probably not much in that we should win against either at home. But the difference of 80 spots in the RPI between a Duke or an Ole Miss is vastly different than the 180 spots between Centenary and #163 RPI, especially when it's a computer calculating the averages.

[Hards Alumni]

In terms of actual quality, probably not much in that we should win against either at home. But the difference of 80 spots in the RPI between a Duke or an Ole Miss is vastly different than the 180 spots between Centenary and #163 RPI, especially when it's a computer calculating the averages.

I understand the math behind it just fine, I just think that in terms of beatability (word?), there is little difference between 150 and 300.

[Marquette84]

W/L performance is more important than SOS.  

If we wind up with a 3-0 record in the Paradise Jam, it will be better for our RPI than the 2-2 record from the CBE Classic, despite the fact that the strength of our opponents was stronger in the Guardians.

Factor in that our 2 wins only counted as 1.2 total wins (because two games were at home)--playing Duke and Gonzaga to two losses was a negative last year.

Comparing with RealTimeRPI figures (pre-NCAA tournament)
MU:  64 RPI, SOS of 30
Pitt:  10 RPI, SOS of 31
Syr:  18 RPI, SOS of 29

Why was MU rated so much lower than Pitt and Syracuse?
Pitt: 5 losses
Syracuse: 7 losses
MU:  14 losses

Stop obsessing over SOS--in conference play it will take care of itself.  The only thing we need to worry about is winning.

[Nukem2]

Yep, winning is what its really all about.  As 84 points out, the BE schedule will take care of SOS.

[brewcity77]

I understand the math behind it just fine, I just think that in terms of beatability (word?), there is little difference between 150 and 300.

Agreed, which is why we need to schedule our cupcakes better.

[whodem]

No, assuming we win out. Either way playing in this tournament is a great thing because the 3 games count as 1 game on our schedule so we get to play 2 extra games we wouldn't be able to if we didn't play in the tournament.

[Stuckin1977]

2 problems with Paradise Jam 2011:

- No victory in this tournament will be a "quality win" for us
- Anything short of winning this tournament will be a disappointment

But who knows, if UVA or Ole Miss is much improved then both of these statements could be wrong.

The other posts on this thread are right in saying that we're not diluting our SOS by playing in this, but we also aren't moving up the RPI ranks with it either.

[Nukem2]

Duke and Gonzaga helped the SOS; unfortunately, that was offset by the L's.  Win the Paradise games and MU will have more benefit than last year's CBE from an RPI standpoint. 

[HouWarrior]

W/L performance is more important than SOS.  

Stop obsessing over SOS--in conference play it will take care of itself.  The only thing we need to worry about is winning.

I dont think one off season thread asking for thoughts on a  preseason tourney field and its impact on the SoS, constitutes something requiring of your "Stop obsessing" command.

Think (thought is not obsessing) about the thread point differences to your W/L point. Pre conference Tourneys/Scheduling is something a program and coach can control (witness Duke's mastery of such over the years)....vs W/L is not something as coach controllable.Your conf schedule, including in the BE, largely,  is not coach/program controllable.  

If a coach tries to hard too fatten up with easy pre conference Ws (viz 200 plus RPIers), the SoS will penalize. Likewise losing to a pre conference cupcake, posts the "bad loss" on the NCAA resume. Your season and seeding can be messed up before conference play begins, by bad losses, and by ill thought voluntary scheduling.

The ideal body of pre conference work includes a decent to very good tourney, and a bunch of better than 200 RPI Ws, with most preferably scheduled at home. Only play the toughies, if possible, on nuetral courts. Give yourself 3-4 games that are likely resume builders.  

Regretably, in today's college game, it is riverboat gambling to ignore controllable points (like voluntary scheduling/SoS) which can give your team an edge,.....
.... in favor of your  simpler approach, that....'the ONLY thing we need to worry about is winning'.

[DaCoach]

Here is something I put together around tournament time. It's much more about Ws and Ls than SOS.

Our Non Conf SOS was 282 this year. But before we suggest that was our biggest problem, let's look at some other team's numbers.
Ohio State  245   32-2      Seed 1
Pitt            242   27-5      Seed 1
ND             246   26-6      Seed 2
Louisville     286   25-9      Seed 4
Cinn           337   25-8      Seed 6
Clemson      243   21-11    Seed 12
MU             282   20-14    Seed 11

Only 4 selected teams had 14 losses and were invited. All of their records were 19-14.
Penn State   148   19-14    Seed 10
MichSt          32    19-14   Seed 10
USC             55     19-14   Seed 11
Tenn            31     19-14   Seed  9

Obviously our 14 losses had much more to do with our seed than the Non Conf SOS. At best we could have moved up to a 9 but the real damage was done by our numerous losses. Let's not agonize about playing Centenary. We just need to win more games.

[Marquette84]

I dont think one off season thread asking for thoughts on a  preseason tourney field and its impact on the SoS, constitutes something requiring of your "Stop obsessing" command.

I guess the question is why you'd worry about the SOS and not the more important RPI?

3 - 0 in this tournament, even if the field isn't a strong, is going to be FAR better for our RPI than the 2-2 (really only 1.2 wins) we saw in a pre-season tournament last year.

The easier field should greatly improve our chances to win the tournament.

Think (thought is not obsessing) about the thread point differences to your W/L point. Pre conference Tourneys/Scheduling is something a program and coach can control (witness Duke's mastery of such over the years)....vs W/L is not something as coach controllable.Your conf schedule, including in the BE, largely,  is not coach/program controllable.  

If a coach tries to hard too fatten up with easy pre conference Ws (viz 200 plus RPIers), the SoS will penalize. Likewise losing to a pre conference cupcake, posts the "bad loss" on the NCAA resume. Your season and seeding can be messed up before conference play begins, by bad losses, and by ill thought voluntary scheduling.

The ideal body of pre conference work includes a decent to very good tourney, and a bunch of better than 200 RPI Ws, with most preferably scheduled at home. Only play the toughies, if possible, on nuetral courts. Give yourself 3-4 games that are likely resume builders.  

Regretably, in today's college game, it is riverboat gambling to ignore controllable points (like voluntary scheduling/SoS) which can give your team an edge,.....
.... in favor of your  simpler approach, that....'the ONLY thing we need to worry about is winning'.

If we go 32-0, we're going to be a #1 seed, regardless of whether our 5 worst non-conference games were ranked in the 300s, 200's or 100's. 

If we go 15-15, we're not making the tournament at all, even if we played the #1 most difficult non-conference schedule in college basketball.

The experience of Cincinnati (SOS rank of 86 / 6 seed) would suggest that our tougher non-conference schedule (SOS rank of 30 / 11 seed) did not help us much, and their weaker non-conference schedule did not hurt them much.

[HouWarrior]

I guess the question is why you'd worry about the SOS and not the more important RPI?

3 - 0 in this tournament, even if the field isn't a strong, is going to be FAR better for our RPI than the 2-2 (really only 1.2 wins) we saw in a pre-season tournament last year.

The easier field should greatly improve our chances to win the tournament.

If we go 32-0, we're going to be a #1 seed, regardless of whether our 5 worst non-conference games were ranked in the 300s, 200's or 100's. 

If we go 15-15, we're not making the tournament at all, even if we played the #1 most difficult non-conference schedule in college basketball.

The experience of Cincinnati (SOS rank of 86 / 6 seed) would suggest that our tougher non-conference schedule (SOS rank of 30 / 11 seed) did not help us much, and their weaker non-conference schedule did not hurt them much.

You're right-- lets pursue the Mad Magazine, What me worry? approach, blow off scheduling concerns, and things we can actually control, play 15 cupcakes (300 plus RPIers), and simply plan on going undefeated...no one can argue , (or should obsess) with that, as undefeated equals a national championship. The analysis depth astounds.

[HouWarrior]

The problem isn't the Paradise Jam. It's the sub-250 cupcakes. The only thing in our schedule that needs fixing is the bottom end. There's a much bigger difference between Centenary and a top 200 RPI team than there is between Duke and Ole Miss. Fix the cupcakes and you fix the schedule. It's that simple.

I totally agree. With this limited schedule resource, I needed something for the thread starter point...but yours is closer to the point.

Especially if we arent in a Maui, or similar, and we are due to play in this apparently softer tourney field, its imperative the sub 250s get stiffened with better replacements. We shouldnt have to argue our way into a ranking, heading into conf. play, lets earn one...on the court.

Centenary level games do so little good, and one of these years we'll stumble on such a game...giving ourselves the bad loss tag. These arent even mid majors. In FB, they'd penalize by saying the win doesnt figure in your bowl eligible total. I guess my rule of thumb would be if the conference didnt place an at larger , or two, in the NCAA field over the last 2 years, we should try to avoid scheduling any team in such a conference(example Prarie View is in SWAC--no Swac teams, please).

[Marquette84]

You're right-- lets pursue the Mad Magazine, What me worry? approach, blow off scheduling concerns, and things we can actually control, play 15 cupcakes (300 plus RPIers), and simply plan on going undefeated...no one can argue , (or should obsess) with that, as undefeated equals a national championship. The analysis depth astounds.

No, no, you're right after all.  Lets schedule our non-conference games all on the road--and lets play at UNC, Duke, Kansas, UCLA, Arizona, Washington, Texas, Kentucky, Florida, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State.  Let's blow off concerns over whether we actually win any of those games, and just plan on the committee being so impressed with our willingness to play an schedule of unprecedented strength that we are awarded the national championship trophy by default.

In the meantime, I stand behind the comment that 3 neutral court wins in the Paradise Jam would result in a stronger RPI than the weighted 1.2 wins and 2 losses we had in a similar tournament last year even after accounting for the marginal difference in schedule strenght.

Therefore, I believe worrying about whether the SOS in this particular tournament will hurt is  the worrying about the wrong thing.

As we saw last year, having a strong SOS does not get rewarded by the committee with a high seed (we only got an 11).  We also saw that having a poorer SOS but more wins actually DOES get rewarded.

How about this--instead of getting snarky with a response, you go out and find all those examples of 14 loss teams that received high seed based on their strength of schedule.

And if you can't put a list of such examples together, then maybe its time to admit that perhaps  and its more important to actually win games than try to engineer an SOS that would mask a higher number of losses.

[HouWarrior]

No, no, you're right after all.  Lets schedule our non-conference games all on the road--and lets play at UNC, Duke, Kansas, UCLA, Arizona, Washington, Texas, Kentucky, Florida, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State.  Let's blow off concerns over whether we actually win any of those games, and just plan on the committee being so impressed with our willingness to play an schedule of unprecedented strength that we are awarded the national championship trophy by default.

In the meantime, I stand behind the comment that 3 neutral court wins in the Paradise Jam would result in a stronger RPI than the weighted 1.2 wins and 2 losses we had in a similar tournament last year even after accounting for the marginal difference in schedule strenght.

Therefore, I believe worrying about whether the SOS in this particular tournament will hurt is  the worrying about the wrong thing.

As we saw last year, having a strong SOS does not get rewarded by the committee with a high seed (we only got an 11).  We also saw that having a poorer SOS but more wins actually DOES get rewarded.

How about this--instead of getting snarky with a response, you go out and find all those examples of 14 loss teams that received high seed based on their strength of schedule.

And if you can't put a list of such examples together, then maybe its time to admit that perhaps  and its more important to actually win games than try to engineer an SOS that would mask a higher number of losses.

No one will argue with your repetitive point that we should try to win the games we play, and that winning helps. Its an excellent point, and one that was needed to be made. Your hypothetical extreme does not coincide withe ideal scheduling formula I noted, so we wont digress there.

If i can glean one  point you make is that you are happy with the weaker p Jam field. I too can accept that, but only if we tighten/toughen the Rpi of the other voluntary games, as in Brewcity's point, and as my above concurring post references.
The Centenarys of the schedule need to go.

We seem to differ on whether it helps to fatten up on sub 300 RPi teams, especially as to the degree/amount of those games. Dont  presume that means I support a bunch of top 25 away games...but there are literally hundreds of teams to play/voluntarily schedule between such extremes(see my ideal--above, and again, below....).

....."The ideal body of pre conference work includes a decent to very good tourney, and a bunch of better than 200 RPI Ws, with most preferably scheduled at home. Only play the toughies, if possible, on nuetral courts. Give yourself 3-4 games that are likely resume builders. ...."

[brewcity77]

Also, @ DaCoach, I disagree. If you want to figure out why those teams were seeded like that, look at how many sub-250 teams they played. How did UT get a 9 when we got an 11? Why were we seeded 2.5 lines lower than the bracketologists had us? Why were Va Tech and Colorado snubbed? Just count the number of sub-250 opponents.

Saying that winning more games will help us is about as insightful as saying your odds of winning a game improve when you outscore the other team. While true, it's not exactly a revelation.

There was a straight line correlation between the number of sub-250 opponents (regardless of W/L record) among teams in the bottom at-large seed lines. I'm not saying we should schedule more Dukes, North Carolinas, or Ohio States. On the contrary, we should schedule less of them. Our powerhouse opponents should be in the 35-80 range. Higher win probability and in terms of RPI not much different than playing top 25 teams. But our cupcakes should be in the 150-225 range, not the 245-345 range. If you want to see masterful non-con scheduling, look at Villanova, Tennessee, or Georgetown. It's brilliant. And while we complain about how much it costs to bring in a RPI 160 team instead of a RPU 320 team, let me remind everyone that we have the second-largest basketball budget in the NCAA.

Plain and simple, our scheduling sucks, and it nearly cost us a tourney bid this year. The idea that you can offset 6 awful crapcakes with 4 games against ranked teams is simply incorrect. Play better cupcakes and lesser top-100 teams and not only will our win total and RPI go up, so will are SOS.

[brewcity77]

Oh, and the reason non-con SOS is so important is because the committee knows it's the one thing a team can control. It's the one place Marquette, Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth, and Missouri State are all equal. Get a top-20 non-con SOS along with the other measureables and our average seeding will improve vastly. We have to prove two things, that we can win out of conference and that we aren't ducking teams. This year, Va Tech and Colorado thought they were in, but weak non-con SOS's kept them out. It had us in the last 6 in. Improved scheduling would fix that. Proper scheduling could have easily had us going into the tourney with a 22-12 record, a top-20 non-con SOS, and a top-10 overall SOS, which probably would have earned us a 5 or 6 seed.

[77ncaachamps]

nvm

[Marquette84]

No one will argue with your repetitive point that we should try to win the games we play, and that winning helps. Its an excellent point, and one that was needed to be made. Your hypothetical extreme does not coincide withe ideal scheduling formula I noted, so we wont digress there.

If i can glean one  point you make is that you are happy with the weaker p Jam field. I too can accept that, but only if we tighten/toughen the Rpi of the other voluntary games, as in Brewcity's point, and as my above concurring post references.
The Centenarys of the schedule need to go.

We seem to differ on whether it helps to fatten up on sub 300 RPi teams, especially as to the degree/amount of those games. Dont  presume that means I support a bunch of top 25 away games...but there are literally hundreds of teams to play/voluntarily schedule between such extremes(see my ideal--above, and again, below....).

....."The ideal body of pre conference work includes a decent to very good tourney, and a bunch of better than 200 RPI Ws, with most preferably scheduled at home. Only play the toughies, if possible, on nuetral courts. Give yourself 3-4 games that are likely resume builders. ...."

I think we differ on whether anybody is going to be lulled into thinking we're a better team simply because we beat a team ranked 175th in the RPI instead of one ranked 300th.  

My view is that if we play well in conference, it won't matter who our non-conference opponents were--just like it didn't matter for Cincinnati this year.

And this wasn't an isolated case.  Go back and look at 2010. Louisville did exactly what you propose--no non-conference opponents with an SOS over 300, only three above 250. (and one more at 250).  Their SOS was ranked 7th.

MU played 4 opponents worse than 300, 6 worse than 250.  Our SOS was ranked 40th

MU and UL both finished in a tie for 5th place with an 11-7 record.

Despite our significantly easier non-conference schedule, and UL's approach to schedule more "resume builders" in 2010--we wound up with the 6 seed.  They got a 9 seed.  

So when I suggest that we don't have to worry about "beefing up" the five worst teams on our schedule, I'm not doing so out of some idle disregard for the marginal improvement in SOS.  I'm doing so based on observed history.  

I just can't see why so many people matter-of-factly state that we HAVE to improve the schedule or we'll somehow be harmed with respect to our tournament chances.  I don't see it, and I've got examples (MU '10, UL '10, UC '11) to support my argument.

As I see it, strengthening the cupcakes offers zero tangible added benefit, at the increased risk of an additional loss which WILL have a negative effect on our seed.

[Lennys Tap]

So you're saying that nobody with any basketball sense pays attention to a stupid system like RPI which punishes playing lower level cupcakes. I concurr.