Wichita State vs Oklahoma State (Moved to Wednesday)

[ShockTalk]

Dugas hit one hard that was caught on the track, and Boyer hit a hard shot to 3rd. But that was pretty much it.

Did Dugas hit the pitch or did the pitcher hit his bat?

[Shockers5150]

6-3 final

[Cdizzle]

6-3 final

You know how the basketball team's MoV was only 20 this year because the bottom 5 played the last 4 minutes in half the games?

Yeah. This team scores a lot of completely meaningless runs after games are decided, against pitchers that were on the chess team when the day started.

[Shockers5150]

Good times...

[shockfan89_]

Interesting that we lose to a top 50 RPI team and drop 18 spots overnight from RPI 112 to 130, yet Bradley at 6-15 hangs in there at RPI 68. I realize they haven't played a home game all season but still 68 seems about 75 points high for a 6-15 team with their schedule.

[1972Shocker]

Interesting that we lose to a top 50 RPI team and drop 18 spots overnight from RPI 112 to 130, yet Bradley at 6-15 hangs in there at RPI 68. I realize they haven't played a home game all season but still 68 seems about 75 points high for a 6-15 team with their schedule.

At least no home games against D-1 competition. The have the 2 wins over NAIA Robert Morris and 1 win over D-III Eureka. Those, of course, not counting in RPI calculations.

Apparently, the RPI forumula for baseball penalizes home losses much more than road losses. That's warranted to some degree but in baseball I am not convinced that home field advantage is nearly as important as it is in bssketball for example.

I think they may have some Garbage-In, Garbage-Out data issues with Bradley. According to WarrenNolan.com Bradley is 6-15 against a SOS ranked 12th. The Shockers are 14-14 against an SOS ranked 99th. The average RPI of Bradley's opponents is 110.7. The average RPI of Wichita State's opponents is 115.6. While all of Bradley's losses have been on the road 9 of the Shocks losses have been on the road as well. I just don't see how Bradley can have a SOS ranked 12th. Could it be they have an error in Bradley's SOS data.

[shockfan89_]

I believe you are right. Just looking through their schedule I don't see how their SoS is anywhere near 12th. They have played some decent teams and haven't played as many 200+ teams as we have but like you said the average RPI for our opponents is very comparable.

Ncaa.com had Bradely's RPI at 69. We are missing something!

[CharlieHog]

Opponents winning % tells the story (it is, of course, 50% of RPI). Bradley has played lots of games with teams that have 20+ wins. Tenn Tech, Sam Houston, Mercer, UCF, North Florida.

[shockfan89_]

I didn't realize that. Thanks Charlie!!

Why would they use opponents winning %? Wouldn't opponents RPI make much more sense?

[Shocker85]

I didn't realize that. Thanks Charlie!!

Why would they use opponents winning %? Wouldn't opponents RPI make much more sense?

Infinite loop. How would you ever get to the first RPI value if all RPI was based upon other RPI? The OWP component is how a few roadies vs. really good teams does a false boost in bad teams RPI and is a clear flaw in the metric.

[CharlieHog]

RPI is a useful tool if you take it for what it is. It's a calculation. 25% your winning %, 50% opponents winning %, 25% opponents opponents winning %, with a SMALL adjustment to reward teams for going on the road.

It's not a poll, nor something handed down from on high to tell us who the better teams are. Over the course of the whole season it can tell you who has won games against teams that have also won games.

[shockfan89_]

Shocker85 - I agree and I thought about the infinite loop so there would have to be some subjective determination on the first RPI. It made much more sense in my head before I realized RPI was only winning percentages.
CharlieHog - Understood and agree.

I never realized the RPI was only winning percentages, OWP, and OOWP. I always thought there was an adjustment for SoS baked somewhere into RPI. Thanks for the education.

[1972Shocker]

Shocker85 - I agree and I thought about the infinite loop so there would have to be some subjective determination on the first RPI. It made much more sense in my head before I realized RPI was only winning percentages.
CharlieHog - Understood and agree.

I never realized the RPI was only winning percentages, OWP, and OOWP. I always thought there was an adjustment for SoS baked somewhere into RPI. Thanks for the education.

I will often include the Nolan Power Index in my posts when quoting RPI. I don't know much about his system I just know it is an attempt to actually evaluate the true strength of team and very often varies considerably from RPI rankings. I'm sure Boyd's World and others have similar ranking systems.

Wichita States NPI is 175 vs their RPI of 130. Bradley's NPI is 201 vs their RPI of 68. While a bit depressing those rankings seem much more realistic and meaningful than the RPI rankings.

I can understand why the RPI can be skewed since it apparently doesn't consider strength of schedule but I still don't quite understand how Bradley's SOS can be ranked 12th. Is that computed mostly on the basis of opponent's winning % as well? Which kind of makes that metric of little value as well.

[1972Shocker]

Now Collegiate Tennis takes their rankings seriously. In fact, maybe too seriously.

Check out his ranking system.

Once you have that figured out you will understand how they arrived at the current rankings. Or maybe you won't understand it.

I think I kind of actually sort of get it.

[shockfan89_]

Now that is a ranking system!!! Notice it is sponsored by Oracle? Maybe college baseball needs a cloud computing sponsor like AWS that will come up with a much more complex ranking system. Nice find!