At Large Discussion

[WuDrWu]

Sean Miller's shirts are steaming mad about this.

FIFY

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Thanks to any and all who helped remind me of those shirts. That game would have been a blast regardless, but the internet memes in real time poking fun at Miller's insane sweating were just so much fun as icing on the cake in the middle of that sweet beat down.

Good times!

[Slalomshocker]

Is it still too early to take RPI seriously? Because I have a huge question. Hopefully one @Jamar can help answer.

ISUr RPI 46
WSU 95

ISUr has losses to: @225 Murray St, @165 Tulsa, N-159 San Francisco, @ 36 TCU. Basically they lost all 3 of their road games they played. Average opponent RPI 157. Best Win- 58 St Joe's
WSU losses: N-9 UL, N-34 MSU, H-54 Ok St. Average opponent RPI 155 Best Win- 96 LSU

How is ISUr 49 spots higher in the RPI with 1 more loss, and a loss to a 200+RPI team? I just don't get it. I mean, maybe I'll understand better after Saturday, but.... I fully expected the schedule to be the difference.... only difference is the game @TCU to me.

[ShockerPhi]

Is it still too early to take RPI seriously? Because I have a huge question. Hopefully one @Jamar can help answer.

ISUr RPI 46
WSU 95

ISUr has losses to: @225 Murray St, @165 Tulsa, N-159 San Francisco, @ 36 TCU. Basically they lost all 3 of their road games they played. Average opponent RPI 157. Best Win- 58 St Joe's
WSU losses: N-9 UL, N-34 MSU, H-54 Ok St. Average opponent RPI 155 Best Win- 96 LSU

How is ISUr 49 spots higher in the RPI with 1 more loss, and a loss to a 200+RPI team? I just don't get it. I mean, maybe I'll understand better after Saturday, but.... I fully expected the schedule to be the difference.... only difference is the game @TCU to me.

We have played Drake and they haven't. That's definitely part of it. There's a lot more games than the ones you mentioned, so you need to take them all into account.

[shocks02]

Is it still too early to take RPI seriously? Because I have a huge question. Hopefully one @Jamar can help answer.

ISUr RPI 46
WSU 95

ISUr has losses to: @225 Murray St, @165 Tulsa, N-159 San Francisco, @ 36 TCU. Basically they lost all 3 of their road games they played. Average opponent RPI 157. Best Win- 58 St Joe's
WSU losses: N-9 UL, N-34 MSU, H-54 Ok St. Average opponent RPI 155 Best Win- 96 LSU

How is ISUr 49 spots higher in the RPI with 1 more loss, and a loss to a 200+RPI team? I just don't get it. I mean, maybe I'll understand better after Saturday, but.... I fully expected the schedule to be the difference.... only difference is the game @TCU to me.

RPI is a very basic metric. It's calculated by 1/4*AWP (Adjusted Winning Percentage) and 3/4*SOS (Strength of Schedule).

Strength of schedule is the RPI's of the teams you have faced. Illinois State's SOS right now is quite a bit better than WSU's, but the Shockers have a slight advantage in AWP.

ISUr SOS: 0.5367 (#79)
WSU SOS: 0.4707 (#251)

[Slalomshocker]

Well, looking at the 2 schedules.... ISUr played 2 more road games, lost all 3 road games they played, and only one of those was a quality road game (@TCU). Our Neutral site games were LIGHT YEARS better than theirs. I just don't get it. they lost to 225 Murray State. I completely acknowledge WSU schedule has been horrible, but the average opponent RPI says the schedules aren't that different.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

There are 351 D1 teams.

Games against the bottom half of D1 (teams outside the top 175):
WSU - 8
ISUr - 3

Illinois State doesn't have a Louisville to help their SOS, but they've mostly played decend teams night-in-night-out. WSU's 8 games vs the bottom half of D1 really hurts.

Also, WSU has played ISUb, Bradley, Drake, and UNI to start MVC play. It is possible those are the 4 Thursday night teams. ISUr has only faced one of those 4 in their first 4 games.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

ISUr Average opponent RPI 157.
WSU Average opponent RPI 155

Are these correct? Where did you get this data?

EDIT: Just checked the official NCAA website. Through Saturday's games:
Average RPI of opponents
ISUr 113
WSU 167

[Slalomshocker]

Are these correct? Where did you get this data?

EDIT: Just checked the official NCAA website. Through Saturday's games:
Average RPI of opponents
ISUr 113
WSU 167

I was going from Warren Nolan. I pretty much assumed RPI was RPI was RPI.... And that was first thing this morning. And I just re-ran the numbers and still got 157 for ISUr. They have a D2 game, dropping their total non-con games to 11. NCAA website for RPI shows 'through games as of Jan 5', maybe that is the disconnect?

I know road games matter. ISU has 2 more such games.

[Dan]

ISUr RPI will drop once they play the bottom tier teams

[ShockerFever]

ISUr RPI will drop once they play the bottom tier teams

Yep and that assumes they actually beat them too.

[SB Shock]

How is ISUr 49 spots higher in the RPI with 1 more loss, and a loss to a 200+RPI team? I just don't get it. I mean, maybe I'll understand better after Saturday, but.... I fully expected the schedule to be the difference.... only difference is the game @TCU to me.

WSU 13-3, SOS 251, expected SOS 170, expected OOC SOS 224
ISUR 11-4, SOS 79, expected SOS 137, expected OOC SOS 110

WSU OOC Sos is being gutted by OSU, OU both just being turds in the B12 and starting 0-3. LBS has just sucked. Just have to hope it turns around.

[WSUwatcher]

RPI is a very basic metric. It's calculated by 1/4*AWP (Adjusted Winning Percentage) and 3/4*SOS (Strength of Schedule).

Strength of schedule is the RPI's of the teams you have faced. Illinois State's SOS right now is quite a bit better than WSU's, but the Shockers have a slight advantage in AWP.

ISUr SOS: 0.5367 (#79)
WSU SOS: 0.4707 (#251)

The key is that the biggest piece of RPI is the opposition component, which in turn is based on opponents' (and their opponents') adjusted winning percentage. As a result, it can be more helpful from an RPI standpoint to play mediocre teams with good records (e.g., LUC) than to play somewhat better teams with bad records (UNI? -- I guess we'll see how much better, if at all, they really are as the season plays out).

The crudeness of RPI as a metric is also why the selection committee supposedly uses it in a fairly limited way, as one of many tools and one that isn't terribly important. Its importance is probably way overemphasized simply because it's quantitative and thus easily and widely disseminated.

[SB Shock]

The crudeness of RPI as a metric is also why the selection committee supposedly uses it in a fairly limited way, as one of many tools and one that isn't terribly important. Its importance is probably way overemphasized simply because it's quantitative and thus easily and widely disseminated.

I do t believe that. Everything the committee sees on a team (look at team sheets) is RPI centric. With the revelation pre-game of the UNI game that the committee wanted to leave WSU out except for the (evidently persuasive) arguments of a former WSU AD shows they are not discarding RPI for other metrics. Because if u are using advance metrics then there is no argument that WSU should have been in the tournament.

[MadaboutWu]

I do t believe that. Everything the committee sees on a team (look at team sheets) is RPI centric.

Good point.