ESPN Bubble Watch

[BM1090]

The formula is simple. 12 Big East wins (total) and we should be in. That would give us a low 50's RPI, most likely.

10-8 with 2 BET wins, or 11-7 with 1 BET win and we should be safe. 11-7 with No BET wins or 10-8 with 1 BET win? RPI would be mid 60's, so probably not.

Now, can we accomplish that? I doubt it. But we'll have more of an idea after tomorrow.

[1SE]

Long Beach State
SOS: 30
Non-Conf: 1
Only 5 games against RPI 150+

Whose best win is over a (currently) 11-10 OkSt?  Compared to wins @Wisc, @Prov and neutral LSU (all higher RPI than OkSt).  RPI rewards losing to good teams.  We all know this. 

[humanlung]

Didn't Kevin O'Neil throw a really young team onto the court against Duke and some other heavyweights?  If I recall correctly, it was a bloodbath early on but it really toughened the young men up.

The non-conference diet of cupcakes is doing what cupcakes do - make you soft.  It has to stop.  Please, God, make it stop.

[Windyplayer]

Whose best win is over a (currently) 11-10 OkSt?  Compared to wins @Wisc, @Prov and neutral LSU (all higher RPI than OkSt).  RPI rewards losing to good teams.  We all know this.

RPI needs to be adjusted to mitigate the difference between playing a team between 150-200 RPI and 250+. It's called gaming the system and all teams should do it, but there are only so many below average teams (as opposed to outright bad) to play in the country. NCAA needs to intervene and mandate that the committee downplays weight given to the RPI.

[jsheim]

The formula is simple. 12 Big East wins (total) and we should be in. That would give us a low 50's RPI, most likely.

10-8 with 2 BET wins, or 11-7 with 1 BET win and we should be safe. 11-7 with No BET wins or 10-8 with 1 BET win? RPI would be mid 60's, so probably not.

Now, can we accomplish that? I doubt it. But we'll have more of an idea after tomorrow.

I agree with the "safe" zone you describe...but 10-8 + 1-1 BET I think is also safe. 10-8 would mean significant wins rest of schedule (6-3). the one BET win would be against probably BE 3,4,5 (tourney team)...and the loss probably against X or V. ... so what I'm thinking is the "committee" will see us winning lately and against high quality...and in a league that is significant.

I know that's a lot of Chinese math...but I had to do a lot to see us even getting to 10-8 so what the hey!?   

[ErickJD08]

Aren't we a little too concerned over RPI right now?  Isn't SOS calculated as you go and not projections?  Shouldn't our SOS get better as we play X, Providence, and Nova? 

And given our remaining schedule and our current record, aren't we a lock if we get 10+wins in the BE because we would have serious quality wins and a top 5 team in the BE?

[Benny B]

RPI is great when the distribution of teams (according to talent/performance) resembles a bell curve.  RPI isn't so great when you have teams bunched up around the median.

Without going too deeply into the math, very simply, consider a scenario where all 350 teams in D-I played an equal number of home and road games and the home team always won (i.e. absolute parity)... every team in D-I would be tied for 1st in the RPI rankings.

In other words, the more parity there is, the less accurate/relevant of an metric RPI is.

Considering the relative lack of an upper echelon of teams this year, I hope the selection committee includes someone who at least has a background in mathematics or statistics and can point this out because while Marquette may not be one of them, there may be many teams in the 50-100 RPI range that deserve more than a courtesy (or cursory) look this year... call me  biased against mid-majors if you will, but you can't tell me that Wisconsin, Butler, Georgetown, and Gonzaga (RPI 66, 67, 69 & 73) - with about a dozen marquee wins amongst them -  should be dismissed in favor of Valpo, William & Mary, South Dakota State, and Chattanooga (RPI 37, 39, 41, & 45) - four teams that haven't a single win vs. a ranked opponent.

[MerrittsMustache]

Aren't we a little too concerned over RPI right now?  Isn't SOS calculated as you go and not projections?  Shouldn't our SOS get better as we play X, Providence, and Nova? 

And given our remaining schedule and our current record, aren't we a lock if we get 10+wins in the BE because we would have serious quality wins and a top 5 team in the BE?

MU's SOS projects to be around 90 at the end of the regular season.

If MU gets to 10 wins by winning all but at X and at Butler (2 lowest probabilities), RPI would project to about 58.

[BM1090]

MU's SOS projects to be around 90 at the end of the regular season.

If MU gets to 10 wins by winning all but at X and at Butler (2 lowest probabilities), RPI would project to about 58.

If we win all but X and Butler we would be at 11 wins, but yes, the 58 number is accurate.

And just for fun, if we won out including the BET, our RPI would be about 24

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

Wisconsin being on that list is a joke, if you're going to leave MU off.

MU and Creighton both still have chances, but they're remote, so not surprised they were left off. 

[jesmu84]

RPI is great when the distribution of teams (according to talent/performance) resembles a bell curve.  RPI isn't so great when you have teams bunched up around the median.

Without going too deeply into the math, very simply, consider a scenario where all 350 teams in D-I played an equal number of home and road games and the home team always won (i.e. absolute parity)... every team in D-I would be tied for 1st in the RPI rankings.

In other words, the more parity there is, the less accurate/relevant of an metric RPI is.

Considering the relative lack of an upper echelon of teams this year, I hope the selection committee includes someone who at least has a background in mathematics or statistics and can point this out because while Marquette may not be one of them, there may be many teams in the 50-100 RPI range that deserve more than a courtesy (or cursory) look this year... call me  biased against mid-majors if you will, but you can't tell me that Wisconsin, Butler, Georgetown, and Gonzaga (RPI 66, 67, 69 & 73) - with about a dozen marquee wins amongst them -  should be dismissed in favor of Valpo, William & Mary, South Dakota State, and Chattanooga (RPI 37, 39, 41, & 45) - four teams that haven't a single win vs. a ranked opponent.

Good stuff, Benny.

[BM1090]

Wisconsin being on that list is a joke, if you're going to leave MU off.

MU and Creighton both still have chances, but they're remote, so not surprised they were left off.

I think by rule they don't write about any teams until the RPI is sub 100.

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

The formula is simple. 12 Big East wins (total) and we should be in. That would give us a low 50's RPI, most likely.

10-8 with 2 BET wins, or 11-7 with 1 BET win and we should be safe. 11-7 with No BET wins or 10-8 with 1 BET win? RPI would be mid 60's, so probably not.

Now, can we accomplish that? I doubt it. But we'll have more of an idea after tomorrow.

I'll keep repeating it...11-7 Big East team is not getting left out of the tournament, even with our NC schedule. No chance.

[Jay Bee]

RPI needs to be adjusted to mitigate the difference between playing a team between 150-200 RPI and 250+. It's called gaming the system and all teams should do it, but there are only so many below average teams (as opposed to outright bad) to play in the country. NCAA needs to intervene and mandate that the committee downplays weight given to the RPI.

The RPI doesn't CARE what the RPI of your opponent is. It's not part of the calculation. Just not how it works.

[Jay Bee]

MU would move up to 101.

Show your math? I find this to be incorrect.

Any idea what our RPI would be if Billy Garret (Depaul) missed that shot?  We would be 16-6 and 5-4 on the BE

(I'm trying to gauge how much that loss hurt)

High 80's to low 90's.  The main component wouldn't change at all (opponents unadjusted win-loss, ex games against MU). The opp's opp's unadjusted win-loss would be hurt slightly, but not a huge deal.

The first component - MU's adjusted win-loss is where this game would count..but you could sub in any home loss... not just DePaul.

MU's current adj W-L is 12.2-8.2 or .5980. If we had beat DePaul, we'd be 12.8-6.8 or .6531. That improvement multiplied by .25 = .0138 to our overall RPI. Let's say the offset on opp's opp's dropped us to +.0125..

Our current RPI jumps to .5517 from .5392.. and our RPI rank goes from the current 109 to 91.

As a reminder, the impact of a particular game depends on tons of other variables and changes most every day of games.

The DETAILS are important.

In common man's terms.. that loss sucked d for us. In RPI, it's hurtful.. the impact depends.. as of today (which will change), it costs us 15-20 spots in the RPI.

AND.. as a reminder.. again.. the RPI of your opponents doesn't matter. In FACT, the RPI often REWARDS you more for playing a team with a WORSE RPI than it does for playing a team with a BETTER RPI.

[Windyplayer]

The RPI doesn't CARE what the RPI of your opponent is. It's not part of the calculation. Just not how it works.

Um, OK. Let me re-phrase: RPI cares about everything that comprises a team's RPI.

[MerrittsMustache]

Show your math? I find this to be incorrect.

http://www.rpiforecast.com/wizard/Marquette.html

Switch the DePaul game to a win, drop remaining games. RPI: 101

[BM1090]

I'll keep repeating it...11-7 Big East team is not getting left out of the tournament, even with our NC schedule. No chance.

Hope you're right but they left out Texas AM last year who went 11-7 in the SEC, and non con only lost to Dayton, Baylor and Kansas State. Finished with RPI of #68. We would have very similar numbers at 11-7 and a first round BET loss this year.

[WarriorPride68]

Hope you're right but they left out Texas AM last year who went 11-7 in the SEC, and non con only lost to Dayton, Baylor and Kansas State. Finished with RPI of #68. We would have very similar numbers at 11-7 and a first round BET loss this year.

Damn, I did not know that about A&M last year. 21 wins overall + 11 wins from the SEC seems like a lock. That's scary

[Jay Bee]

http://www.rpiforecast.com/wizard/Marquette.html

Switch the DePaul game to a win, drop remaining games. RPI: 101

smh, that's not a logical exercise. Study-up on what rpiforecast.com does.

Anyway, my commentary is correct, your 101 is wrong.

[Benny B]

Damn, I did not know that about A&M last year. 21 wins overall + 11 wins from the SEC seems like a lock. That's scary

And now look where they are this year.

Maybe this can be the pitch to HE if MU is snubbed this year.  "We're going to be this year's TAMU next year."

(Of course, this means we all should start pulling for TAMU right now.)

[bilsu]

Wisconsin being on that list is a joke, if you're going to leave MU off.

MU and Creighton both still have chances, but they're remote, so not surprised they were left off.

Under things being considered by the committee are things that could of effected the preformance of the team. Bo Ryan retiring will be a mitagating factor in UW's 1-4 Big 10 start and could be a mitigating factor for the non-conference, if they look and see they were not playing well under Ryan. MU beating UW only comes into play, if both teams end up being on the bubble.

[wadesworld]

Didn't Kevin O'Neil throw a really young team onto the court against Duke and some other heavyweights?  If I recall correctly, it was a bloodbath early on but it really toughened the young men up.

The non-conference diet of cupcakes is doing what cupcakes do - make you soft.  It has to stop.  Please, God, make it stop.

Yeah we didn't play any heavyweights in our nonconference slate to toughen us up.  I mean, our best non-conference game was Iowa for Christ's sake.  They're never good at basketball! 

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Any idea what our RPI would be if Billy Garret (Depaul) missed that shot?  We would be 16-6 and 5-4 on the BE

(I'm trying to gauge how much that loss hurt)

I was playing around with RPI Wizard trying to see what our RPI might be with certain win combinations. For fun I changed the Depaul game to a win. At the end of the season it usually boosted us by 11 spots. Depaul is the only ugly loss on the season so far. Committee can forgive a lot of sins if there are no bad losses. Unfortunately, Garrett got his phantom foul

[Jay Bee]

I was playing around with RPI Wizard trying to see what our RPI might be with certain win combinations. For fun I changed the Depaul game to a win. At the end of the season it usually boosted us by 11 spots. Depaul is the only ugly loss on the season so far. Committee can forgive a lot of sins if there are no bad losses. Unfortunately, Garrett got his phantom foul

...but that wasn't the guy's question. His question has been covered, 'ain'a?