Andy Glockner Blogs on bigger Big East RPI Effect

[Dish]

No RPI change for bigger Big East posted: Monday, October 1, 2007

For those of you who read last week's Big East ShootAround, it was noted that the move from 16 league games to 18 might actually give teams an RPI boost, contrary to many of the coaches' beliefs.

On the surface, the coaches' claims that Big East teams will be eating extra losses is almost certainly true. In order to play two extra league games, the teams will be sacrificing two nonconference games in which they likely would be strongly favored. Now, instead of a composite record that could approach 32-0 in those games, they will end up a combined 16-16.

Whether those extra losses will hurt teams' RPIs and chances for NCAA Tournament berths, though, is much less clear. Why? Because a team's win/loss record is only 25 percent of the RPI, and with the mathematically flawed way the NCAA built in home and away weightings, even that component can be impacted by where you won and lost the games.

Take Syracuse, the league's biggest bubble team from last season, for example. The Orange finished 22-10 with an RPI of 50 (raw RPI: 0.6377). How would an 18-game league slate have affected them? First, some reasonable assumptions:

-- Syracuse sacrifices nonconference home games against Baylor (a guarantee game) and Charlotte, keeping the local small-school rivalries and big-conference national TV games instead. Syracuse won both of those games last season. Baylor finished 15-16 while Charlotte was 14-16.

-- Instead, Syracuse faces two "average" Big East opponents. Last season, the median Big East win/loss record was 21-10.

-- Syracuse goes 1-1 in those league games, winning at home and losing on the road.


-- There is no significant change in Syracuse's Factor III by switching opponents, as there's relatively little difference in the category across major-conference teams.

So, what would be the RPI impact of that switch?

Raw Record Adj. Record (FI) Change in Factor I (25%) SOS (FII) Change in Factor 2 (50%) Total RPI change
16-game Big East 22-10 17.6-10 (.6377) N/A .5717 N/A N/A
18-game Big East 21-11 17-10.6 (.6159) -.0054 .5845 .0064 +.0010 (2 spots)


Yup, in this case, removing two nonleague wins and adding in a split of the extra conference games actually helps Syracuse's RPI slightly. Last season, that small bump would have pushed Syracuse up two spots to 48th in the RPI.

The bottom line: It's the variables involved -- which Big East teams you play in the two extra games, where you win/lose them, who you sacrifice in nonconference play to make room -- that dictate whether this change helps or hurts a team's RPI. If you carefully choose which games to drop and make sure you win the extra league home game, your RPI almost certainly will come out ahead, even if your actual overall record doesn't.

[🏀]

First and foremost, I don't think Syracuse should have been in the NCAA.

Second, this analysis is great. I'd trade cupcakes for BE in the first place. A RPI boost just makes it sweeter.

[mu_hilltopper]

Hmm .. dunno why he picked Baylor and Charlotte (141-146 RPI) for sacrifices.  Those are 2 of SU's better OOC games.

If the writer had chosen some of SU's other cupcakes, like St. Francis-NY (280) and  St. Bonaventure at 278 .. the RPI bump would have been much greater than only 2 spots.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

Hmm .. dunno why he picked Baylor and Charlotte (141-146 RPI) for sacrifices.  Those are 2 of SU's better OOC games.

If the writer had chosen some of SU's other cupcakes, like St. Francis-NY (280) and  St. Bonaventure at 278 .. the RPI bump would have been much greater than only 2 spots.

I took that as SU would continue to play the small local schools vs. the teams from farther away b/c of tradition, rivalries, demand from fans at NYU to play the in-state schools.....

[🏀]

Also could have been to display how even the better RPI teams in their schedule aren't better than 1-1 in the BE play.

[bilsu]

If we would have played two extra games last year, I would have assumed we would have played Cincinnati there and St. John's here. Everything else being the same, a loss to either of those teams could have cost us a bid. On the other hand maybe we would not have played North (South?) Dakota St. that was an embarassing loss.

[dwaderoy2004]

The NDSU game was the championship of the now defunct blue and gold classic.  we had no choice in playing them.  although we did invite them...