[Matt Velazquez] Steve Wojciechowski discusses method behind Marquette's 2015-'16 schedule

[CTWarrior]

Marquette gambled and lost. The margin for error was very thin and the losses to DePaul and Creighton killed them. Win those 2 and MU finishes 4th in BE and heads into a BET match-up with Providence. IOW, they'd be in the NIT.

Cry all you want about the non-conf schedule but if MU doesn't blow two winnable, conference home games, it's a moot point.

That argument doesn't really work because we were great in close games.  We could easily have lost both Providence games, the home Georgetown game, the LSU and ASU games, the IUPUI game, etc.  Heck, a play here or there and we could have lost all three St. John's games.  We basically would have had to win every single close game we played to get in. 

There's an old saying that great teams win the close games.  That is not true.  Great teams win lop-sided games. 
Our 12 wins against high majors were by 13,8,6,6,5,5,5,5,2,1,1,1 (4.8 avg)
Our 12 losses against high majors were by 28,21,20,18,17,15,10,10,8,8,3,1 (13.3 avg)

Only double digit win was at DePaul without their best player and the 8 point win was the SJU BET game, where we actually trailed with under 2 minutes.  That's part of why I am a little less optimistic about next season.  I think we were a little lucky to have the record we ended up having.

[mu03eng]

Maybe, maybe not. Were the last two years "normal years"? We missed the NIT in 2014 with a 92 RPI and last year the lowest RPI was 90 for Arizona State. Perhaps most shocking this year is that Creighton not only made the field, but will get a home game. With their 100 RPI, they are the lowest in the field by 12 spots. Hmm...maybe the NIT knows they will pack 19,000 in for that game?

Tin foil hat alert.....Marquette told the NIT to not admit us in 2014...I'm not kidding there is some inside knowledge that indicates this

[mu03eng]

That argument doesn't really work because we were great in close games.  We could easily have lost both Providence games, the home Georgetown game, the LSU and ASU games, the IUPUI game, etc.  Heck, a play here or there and we could have lost all three St. John's games.  We basically would have had to win every single close game we played to get in. 

There's an old saying that great teams win the close games.  That is not true.  Great teams win lop-sided games. 
Our 12 wins against high majors were by 13,8,6,6,5,5,5,5,2,1,1,1 (4.8 avg)
Our 12 losses against high majors were by 28,21,20,18,17,15,10,10,8,8,3,1 (13.3 avg)

Only double digit win was at DePaul without their best player and the 8 point win was the SJU BET game, where we actually trailed with under 2 minutes.  That's part of why I am a little less optimistic about next season.  I think we were a little lucky to have the record we ended up having.

If something happens enough, at some point it's no longer luck driving it. Also think it's a glass half full/half empty view point, because there are a couple of loses that could have easily gone our way (Creighton, DePaul, Xavier and/or Georgetown away)

[mu03eng]

I will say this. If you take Grambling, Maine, San Jose State, and and Chicago State and replace them with Loyola-Chicago, Colgate, South Alabama, and Rider, we have a top 90 RPI. We'd be in the NIT for sure.

But to get into the NCAA, even with that schedule, we would have had to have beaten Creighton, DePaul, and Butler(only thing that gets us a top 60 RPI).

Looks like more and more, LSU, NC State, St Johns and DePaul killed us.

[CTWarrior]

If something happens enough, at some point it's no longer luck driving it. Also think it's a glass half full/half empty view point, because there are a couple of loses that could have easily gone our way (Creighton, DePaul, Xavier and/or Georgetown away)

A couple that didn't could have gone our way but 8 or 10 that could've gone against did go our way.  That was my point.  You can call it skill, but one possession games are essentially luck because the difference can be so many things unrelated to your team (a crucial bad call, other team misses a FT, etc)  And we never got closer than 6 at Georgetown, were down double digits almost the whole game and we never had the ball in the second half with the score closer than 8 (meaning every time we cut it to 6 Georgetown scored on the next possession.)  That was a more comfortable win for Georgetown than perhaps any of our wins against high majors were for us.

[Aughnanure]

I just want to know when we can schedule a home series with at least one of Cincy, Louisville, Notre Dame. Maybe a Pac-12 of Big XII team who could use it too (we seem play AZ St every year anyway).

Would also be smart to lock in a multi-year series (2 for 1 or 3 for 1) with a mid-major we can expect to be decent to solid in the coming years (SLU, Duquesne, Western Kentucky, etc).

[Loose Cannon]

  So the question to me is, did I see anything in this team that interest me to see next year's team without Henry?             

[brewcity77]

Tin foil hat alert.....Marquette told the NIT to not admit us in 2014...I'm not kidding there is some inside knowledge that indicates this

I've heard another rumor they turned the NIT down because they wouldn't get a home game. Regardless, left out with a much better (18 spots) RPI than this year.

[Litehouse]

There were about 21 teams with RPIs higher than ours that also didn't make the cut for the NIT.  Tough to tell if we would have made it with fewer auto-bids.

75  UC Irvine
81  Ohio
85  Texas A&M Corpus Christi
86  East Tennessee St.
87  Stanford
90  Kansas St.
92  Grand Canyon
93  Evansville
94  LSU
96  ULM
97  Ole Miss
98  UC Santa Barbara
99  Sienna
100 Arizona State
102 Boise St.
103 UCLA
104 James Madison
105 UT-Arlington
106 Georgetown
107 Albany
108 Northeastern

111 Marquette

[MerrittsMustache]

That argument doesn't really work because we were great in close games.  We could easily have lost both Providence games, the home Georgetown game, the LSU and ASU games, the IUPUI game, etc.  Heck, a play here or there and we could have lost all three St. John's games.  We basically would have had to win every single close game we played to get in. 

There's an old saying that great teams win the close games.  That is not true.  Great teams win lop-sided games. 
Our 12 wins against high majors were by 13,8,6,6,5,5,5,5,2,1,1,1 (4.8 avg)
Our 12 losses against high majors were by 28,21,20,18,17,15,10,10,8,8,3,1 (13.3 avg)

Only double digit win was at DePaul without their best player and the 8 point win was the SJU BET game, where we actually trailed with under 2 minutes.  That's part of why I am a little less optimistic about next season.  I think we were a little lucky to have the record we ended up having.

MU had very little margin for error and they didn't get it done. It's not a matter of winning close games. It's a matter of winning games that they should win. MU is better than DePaul and should have never lost to them at home. MU is on par with Creighton, had them on the ropes at home and let it slip away. When the margin for error is as thin as it was, a team can't afford to drop games like that and expect to be playing in the postseason.

[mu03eng]

There were about 21 teams with RPIs higher than ours that also didn't make the cut for the NIT.  Tough to tell if we would have made it with fewer auto-bids.

75  UC Irvine
81  Ohio
85  Texas A&M Corpus Christi
86  East Tennessee St.
87  Stanford
90  Kansas St.
92  Grand Canyon
93  Evansville
94  LSU
96  ULM
97  Ole Miss
98  UC Santa Barbara
99  Sienna
100 Arizona State
102 Boise St.
103 UCLA
104 James Madison
105 UT-Arlington
106 Georgetown
107 Albany
108 Northeastern

111 Marquette

Remember, the NIT is much more about eyeballs as a determining factor. They are going to take names over pure rankings(see Creighton). if there were 5 auto bids this year, you would see at least LSU and Georgetown show up in the NIT.....no way to prove it I suppose so you'll just have to trust me. 

[mu03eng]

I've heard another rumor they turned the NIT down because they wouldn't get a home game. Regardless, left out with a much better (18 spots) RPI than this year.

If I had a gun to my head, I'd wager it was Marquette out of NIT that year, not the NIT selection process (no home game + bad Buzz divorce). But it's a cow's point now(MOOt)

[79Warrior]

MU had very little margin for error and they didn't get it done. It's not a matter of winning close games. It's a matter of winning games that they should win. MU is better than DePaul and should have never lost to them at home. MU is on par with Creighton, had them on the ropes at home and let it slip away. When the margin for error is as thin as it was, a team can't afford to drop games like that and expect to be playing in the postseason.

I agree. You can argue the cupcake diet all day. We win the two you mentioned and there would be no discussion, the complaining would be about getting a home game or not.

[mu_hilltopper]

mu03eng -

Just an FYI .. I was very curious about your chart with teams / Projected RPI / Actual.

But the first two I looked up for Actual were wrong .. SJU wasn't 324, it's 246.  GTown's actual isn't 202 .. it's 106.

I like the concept of the data, but I think your actuals are wacky. 

Where did you get "projected" for the beginning of the season?

[ChicosBailBonds]

The exhausted claim is stupid.  Wojo and the administration has to be smarter than that.

[mu03eng]

mu03eng -

Just an FYI .. I was very curious about your chart with teams / Projected RPI / Actual.

But the first two I looked up for Actual were wrong .. SJU wasn't 324, it's 246.  GTown's actual isn't 202 .. it's 106.

I like the concept of the data, but I think your actuals are wacky. 

Where did you get "projected" for the beginning of the season?

Grabbed the data from here: http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2016/rpi

"Projected" was what their RPI was in 13-14 season, which is what we'd have to look at when building the schedule for this past season and making decisions.

If the data I have is wrong, if you've got a better link, I'll re-run the analysis.

[ChicosBailBonds]

To be fair we only ended up with 3 teams that were 300+ in our control(St John's was also 300+ so we had 5 total). Two were just barely clear, but clear nonetheless. I think you have to have no more than 1 300+ OOC game, just in case you have a St Johns in your conference schedule.

St. John's wasn't in the 300's...they are at 246

http://www.rpiforecast.com/confs/BE.html

[Shark]

St. John's wasn't in the 300's...they are at 246

http://www.rpiforecast.com/confs/BE.html

Could be their OOC RPI, no?

[Litehouse]

Grabbed the data from here: http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2016/rpi

"Projected" was what their RPI was in 13-14 season, which is what we'd have to look at when building the schedule for this past season and making decisions.

If the data I have is wrong, if you've got a better link, I'll re-run the analysis.

The middle column in that link is RPI.  It looks like you may have used the first column, which is the winning percentage component that goes into RPI.  I'm still not sure where you got the predicted numbers though, since the 2014 numbers are very different from what you used.

[mu03eng]

The middle column in that link is RPI.  It looks like you may have used the first column, which is the winning percentage component that goes into RPI.  I'm still not sure where you got the predicted numbers though, since the 2014 numbers are very different from what you used.

I'll re run my numbers again tonight with the new source and update everything and see where it gets us.

[mu_hilltopper]

I'll re run my numbers again tonight with the new source and update everything and see where it gets us.

Tonight?  Poncho, I want those numbers on my desk before 2pm or you can find a new job.

[Litehouse]

                     2014        2015         2016
Belmont            48          100            95
IUPUI              322          258          188
Iowa                 60            40            29
LSU                  68            65            94
NC St               55            32           123
Jackson St       297          302           221
Grambling       348          351           350
Maine             333          338           317
San Jose St     278          336           301
Wisconsin           3             2             43
Chicago St       260          333          348
Presbyterian    349          314           319
Stetson           334          335           303
Butler             154            30            56
Georgetown      75            24           106
DePaul           157           197           200
St John's          82            52           245
Villanova           8              6               4
Xavier             56             28              7
Creighton        17           156            101
Seton Hall      136           103             19
Providence       46             25             40

[brewcity77]

While they did impact our schedule, I feel it's worth mentioning that we didn't actually play NC State, we played Arizona State.

[Archies Bat]

I thought we played AZ St, not NC St.

[Litehouse]

These 7 are the most relevant because they're the only ones we had control over and scheduled ourselves.  All the other games were pre-arranged (Gavitt Games, Legends Classic, and UW).

                    2014         2015         2016
Jackson St       297          302           221
Grambling       348          351           350
Maine             333          338           317
San Jose St     278          336           301
Chicago St       260          333          348
Presbyterian    349          314           319
Stetson           334          335           303

Average          314          330           308

If you use the 2014 or 2015 RPIs as a predictor, then the schedule actually turned out slightly better than expected (primarily due to Jacksonville St), and it still really sucked.