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That's a great read, fastbow. Thanks for posting it.
I found the following section most interesting:
Some conclusions:
1. A team's RPI is not important to their selection chances.
2. It will always be unclear just how important opponent RPI is from year-to-year, since we can't determine each committee member's preferences. But we can probably be assured it carries some weight due to the next conclusion.
3. That they include average RPI win and average RPI loss, and it's at the top, tells me they are at least somewhat important and helpful to the committee, and a number we ought to be looking at as the season progresses.
4. Given #3, having a strong OOC is vitally important for conferences like the MVC, whether or not you win or lose those games. It also underscores why we should pull for our conference brethren, because their RPI will factor into our RPI averages.
If I'm not mistaken, a majority of the committee is usually made up of representatives from the non-power conferences. I've never bought the argument there was any fix in. The drop in non-power conference at-large selections is likely just a result of changing scheduling trends and weaker performances overall by non-power teams in the OOC.
For several years in the mid 2000s it seemed like the OOC provided a lot of top "mid" teams beating the good-to-great power teams, combined with the mid-to-lower "mids" beating the mediocre power teams. This helped the top mids build impressive at-large resumes. I don't think that's been the case the past 2-3 seasons.
I found the following section most interesting:
One thing that really struck me was up in the top left corner, the first thing a committee member sees when scanning one of these. There's average RPI win and average RPI loss. That's not something that you can find on any website, is it? (Don't worry, we're on it this weekend.) SJU's average win of 170 makes its profile look a whole lot less impressive.
Wins and losses are broken down by opponent's RPI: 1-50, 51-100, etc. The lower two blocks are a graphical breakdown of all games by opponent RPI (red equals a loss, orange indicates an away game, green is home), and teal shading indicates nonconference. Games within a team's last 12 played are repeated at the bottom. Did I mention that opponent RPI is important?
2:13 PM -- General discussion ensued, everybody had a lot of questions. A few were about the emphasis on L12, or RPI, or strength of schedule. Slive said that it's a personal preference from one committee member to the next. Given that each of the 10 is human, each has spent individual basketball lifetimes building a different set of personal preferences as to what's important. This process a collective and subjective decision, he said, based on consensus. "No single category qualifies or disqualifies a team."
Wins and losses are broken down by opponent's RPI: 1-50, 51-100, etc. The lower two blocks are a graphical breakdown of all games by opponent RPI (red equals a loss, orange indicates an away game, green is home), and teal shading indicates nonconference. Games within a team's last 12 played are repeated at the bottom. Did I mention that opponent RPI is important?
2:13 PM -- General discussion ensued, everybody had a lot of questions. A few were about the emphasis on L12, or RPI, or strength of schedule. Slive said that it's a personal preference from one committee member to the next. Given that each of the 10 is human, each has spent individual basketball lifetimes building a different set of personal preferences as to what's important. This process a collective and subjective decision, he said, based on consensus. "No single category qualifies or disqualifies a team."
1. A team's RPI is not important to their selection chances.
2. It will always be unclear just how important opponent RPI is from year-to-year, since we can't determine each committee member's preferences. But we can probably be assured it carries some weight due to the next conclusion.
3. That they include average RPI win and average RPI loss, and it's at the top, tells me they are at least somewhat important and helpful to the committee, and a number we ought to be looking at as the season progresses.
4. Given #3, having a strong OOC is vitally important for conferences like the MVC, whether or not you win or lose those games. It also underscores why we should pull for our conference brethren, because their RPI will factor into our RPI averages.
If I'm not mistaken, a majority of the committee is usually made up of representatives from the non-power conferences. I've never bought the argument there was any fix in. The drop in non-power conference at-large selections is likely just a result of changing scheduling trends and weaker performances overall by non-power teams in the OOC.
For several years in the mid 2000s it seemed like the OOC provided a lot of top "mid" teams beating the good-to-great power teams, combined with the mid-to-lower "mids" beating the mediocre power teams. This helped the top mids build impressive at-large resumes. I don't think that's been the case the past 2-3 seasons.
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