Conference RPI

vaporboy

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I know RPI still doesn't mean much but with a majority of non con games played it is an indicator of how teams' records will be viewed come Selection Sunday.

The Big Ten now leads the conference RPI per PRIRatings.com:

1. Big Ten 78 19 .5480 4 .6042
2. Atlantic Coast 84 18 .5453 5 .6041
3. Big East 109 26 .5247 8 .5850
4. Big 12 81 22 .4949 17 .5681
5. Pacific 10 57 26 .5100 10 .5517
6. Mountain West 54 25 .4947 18 .5370
7. Atlantic 10 66 51 .5435 7 .5359
8. Southeastern 71 28 .4709 25 .5350
9. Southern 30 45 .5759 2 .5270
10. West Coast 29 36 .5579 3 .5235
11. Missouri Valley 49 36 .5168 9 .5231
12. Conference USA 49 38 .5010 15 .5100
13. Colonial 51 50 .5068 11 .5031
14. America East 37 39 .4881 21 .4979
15. Western Athletic 35 30 .4737 24 .4964
16. Horizon 39 43 .4930 19 .4948
17. Mid-American 35 60 .5436 6 .4923
18. Metro Atlantic 46 43 .4820 22 .4902
19. Atlantic Sun 19 26 .5049 12 .4834
20. Big West 27 42 .5003 16 .4768
21. Big Sky 25 42 .5046 13 .4709
22. Sun Belt 47 53 .4535 28 .4645
23. Southland 25 41 .4575 27 .4594
24. Ohio Valley 30 42 .4425 32 .4543
25. Patriot 31 41 .4435 31 .4515
26. Northeast 36 61 .4483 30 .4445
27. Summit 28 58 .4601 26 .4437
28. Ivy League 20 42 .4899 20 .4426
29. Big South 17 43 .4811 23 .4415
30. Mid-Eastern 20 64 .5025 14 .4358
31. Southwestern 4 65 .5826 1 .4239
32. Independents 32 91 .4488 29 .4125

And the Big Ten also leads in Ken Pomroy's rating system:

1 Big Ten Conference .9147 17 Big West Conference .4156
2 Atlantic Coast Conference .9108 18 Big Sky Conference .4083
3 Big East Conference .9076 19 Ohio Valley Conference .3851
4 Big 12 Conference .9068 20 America East Conference .3760
5 Pac 10 Conference .8856 21 Summit League .3249
6 Southeastern Conference .8152 22 Atlantic Sun Conference .3061
7 Mountain West Conference .7731 23 Sun Belt Conference .3008
8 Atlantic 10 Conference .6652 24 Patriot League .2560
9 Missouri Valley Conference .6511 25 Southland Conference .2535
10 Conference USA .6283 26 Ivy League .2500
11 West Coast Conference .5986 27 Southern Conference .2385
12 Western Athletic Conference .5762 28 Big South Conference .2132
13 Horizon League .5024 29 Northeast Conference .1964
14 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference .4908 30 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference .1002
15 Mid American Conference .4865 31 Independents .0792
16 Colonial Athletic Association .4737 32 Southwestern Athletic Conference .0693

Thoughs?
 



He may have us at 18-12, 7-11... but I GUARANTEE we win more than 1 Big Ten game on the road this year. (he only has us winning 1, at Indiana)

Also, the number inside the parentheses next to the predicted score is percent chance to win the game. I have to question a couple of these.
1. at Northwestern (only an 11% chance??)
2. at Illinois (only a 14% chance, I know we have had our problems there, but c'mon)

I don't see this prediction tool as being very accurate.
 

He may have us at 18-12, 7-11... but I GUARANTEE we win more than 1 Big Ten game on the road this year. (he only has us winning 1, at Indiana)

And dropping both to Iowa ?

Allllrightythen.
 



We only play Iowa on the road this season, so there's where that loss comes into play.

I don't think it's a stretch that the Gophers lose all their road games in the Big 10 this season, save for Indiana, but I feel pretty good about their chances at home against Northwestern and Illinois, which this statistical analysis projects us to lose to both.

If these projections were to play out, Northwestern's the story of college basketball this season, as they are projected to finish 22-7, 13-5 in the Big Ten, and finish second to Ohio State in conference. Meanwhile, Iowa's projected to finish above Minnesota and Wisconsin in conference play. I guess we'll see how it all plays out, but I would guess this would fall into Twain's category of "damned lies" by the end of the season, if not by the first week of conference play.
 

My bad lol. I should have said NW. What I also find a bit confusing is he also gives us a few pretty good wins against Wisconsin and Michigan St.
 

He is just plugging numbers into a formula, no more, no less.

I'd also think that the conference RPIs will be pretty much set in stone once the non-conference seasons are wrapped up. I am clearly no math expert, but conference teams playing eachother wouldn't move the conference RPI, regardless of outcome, right?
 




I think the Gophers will be 11-7 in B10 play and 11-1 OOC for 22-8 headed into B10 tourney.

Someone keeping track of these predictions?

I'll be happy if you're right. But I think we'll have 1 or 2 more losses than that.
 

FWIW

I was just thinking that with the Big Ten maintaining the top RPI spot through the non-conference schedule, it will come up when selecting the field of 65. The Big Ten should then get at least the same amount of quality teams into the dance as the ACC.
 

The Big Ten has done well for itself so far, no question, but there are a lot of opportunities left to give the league a boost, both in RPI and perception (or, on the other hand, the remaining nonconference games could provide the league with losses that lower their collective RPI and damage the conference perception). Consider all the quality games still remaining: Minnesota plays Louisville, MSU plays Kansas and @ Texas, Wisconsin hosts Texas, OSU hosts West Virginia, Iowa plays @ Drake, Michigan plays @ UConn, Illinois plays Missouri, Northwestern plays @ Stanford and Purdue plays Davidson. Those are all games that are against good teams & they can help shape the perception and RPI of the conference one way or another. PSU and Indiana are the only Big 10 teams that don't have any remaining nonconference games of note (i.e., they're not noteworthy unless they lose).

The league has done a good job of getting some good wins as well as avoiding bad losses. When your "bad losses" as a conference are to St. Joseph's, Boston College, Butler, Maryland, Rhode Island and Temple (all top-100 RPI teams) you're in pretty good shape. There are still games that Big Ten teams could lose that would be bad losses (e.g., Indiana-Northeastern), but as long as the Big Ten avoids those bad losses and wins half of the "marquee" games then the conference will be in pretty good shape.

As far as Pomeroy's ratings go, you have to keep in mind that they don't account for things like injuries or guys becoming eligible mid-season. Thus, Minnesota's injury issues are ignored and the team's stats are taken as is and the team is projected as if they are at full strength in every game. But Illinois' lack of Alex Legion, Michigan's lack of Laval Lucas-Perry, and Michigan State's lack of Goran Suton all are ignored as well, so it's not like the other Big Ten teams were all at full strength, either.

The key question is how much the conference's strength (assuming the Big 10 holds one of the top-2 spots in RPI) translate into NCAA tourney bids. Big Ten play figures to be very interesting because there are literally 10 teams that theoretically could earn an NCAA bid through their performance in conference play. Every team (excluding Indiana) has a very good W/L record so far, so conference play will separate the contenders from the pretenders and I believe that any team that goes 9-9 or better in the Big Ten this year will make the NCAA tournament.
 



9-9 in the Big 10 not enough?

Excellent stuff OSUfan. You make great points. The only thing I would quibble with is saying that 9-9 in the Big 10 will make the NCAA Tournament. To me, it depends on which team you're talking about.

If it's Michigan or your Buckeyes, then yes, based on who they've already beaten and the schedule they've played, those teams have put themselves in a good position even at 9-9.

The rest (namely Illinois, MSU, Minnesota, Penn State, Purdue & Wisconsin) don't really have any top-shelf wins on their resume to this point. I certainly don't expect MSU, Purdue or Wisconsin to finish anywhere near 9-9 so that'll be a moot point, but absent any knock-out nonconference wins the Illini, Gophers and Penn State better finish north of 9-9 if they want to feel secure about an at-large bid, especially the Gophers and Nittany Lions. Beat Louisville & the Gophers will give themselves a little breathing room, but absent that. ...
 

I've got some pre-season predictions

Someone keeping track of these predictions?
There were 15 who predicted non-conference, conference and conference tournament won-loss totals. Here's the break-out for the season predictions through and including the B10 tournament:
SelectionSunday : (20 - 10)
WadeHokenson : (20 - 11)
MNSnowman : (20 - 12)
GopherInQatar : (21 - 10)
The Big L : (21 - 10)
WhoGoofed : (21 - 11)
PeteSchweddy : (22 - 8)
Kind of Green : (22 - 9)
Rouser : (22 - 9)
TheHofferette : (22 - 9)
Sec 105 : (22 - 10)
GopherHoleFan : (23 - 8)
MikieS : (23 - 9)
CollegeBBallFan : (24 - 8)
ChemEGopher : (25 - 7)
These were regular season (pre-conference and conference) predictions:
MNSnowman : (18 - 11)
WhoGoofed : (19 - 10)
WadeHokenson : (19 - 10)
The Big L : (20 - 9)
GopherInQatar : (20 - 9)
Sec 105 : (20 - 9)
SelectionSunday : (20 - 9)
MikieS : (21 - 8)
Rouser : (21 - 8)
TheHofferette : (21 - 8)
Kind of Green : (21 - 8)
GopherHoleFan : (22 - 7)
CollegeBBallFan : (22 - 7)
PeteSchweddy : (22 - 7)
ChemEGopher : (23 - 6)
 

Nice work Snowman!! This will be interesting to track through the BT season.

Also, from above...Blizzard, I was trying (but not doing very well) to say that I think this guy is off in his predictions. I was trying to ridicule his 18-12 prediction for us. I definitely think we get 20 wins this year.
 

Well, SS, we'll have to agree to disagree because I think 9-9 will get any team (sans Indiana) from the Big Ten in the NCAA tournament this year because there are so many Big Ten teams that either are in the top-100 of the RPI (8 in the top-60 right now) or will be in the top-100 (Purdue is one of the 3 that isn't in the top-100), which means that any team with 9 wins in the Big Ten will have at least five wins (and probably more than 5) over RPI top-100 type competition and each team with that conference record will have a good enough overall record (teams like Iowa and PSU are likely to be 11-2 in nonconference games and NU will be either 10-1 or 9-2) to make the NCAA tourney. I guess I'll change my position slightly and say that any Big Ten team (sans Indiana) will make the NCAA tournament if they go 9-9 in conference play and have at least three wins over RPI top-50 teams.

It will be interesting to see how things play out. I'm expecting some teams (like Wisconsin) to have more middle-of-the-road records than they're used to.
 

Fair enough. The middle and bottom of the Big 10 definitely appear stronger this season. The top of the league. ... not so much.
 




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