Gotta Love the RPI

[ssckelley]

I've got the W-L changing by .0039, which would be enough to lift them to 69 by itself. NW poor record will likely wipe out most of that however. Probably only a couple spots up.

SSC, you have to weight Iowa's W-L to figure it correctly

Home wins = 0.6 wins
Home losses = 1.4 losses
Neutral wins = 1 win
Neutral loss = 1 loss
Road win = 1.4 wins
Road loss equals = 0.6 losses

As far as RPI is concerned, Iowa is 14.4-8.6 right now.

ok, I get it. That is amazing! But at a glance it appears Iowa winning tonight on a neutral court should carry much more weight than Northwestern losing. Even though opponents % is half the score it goes into a much bigger pool.

Thanks for the education.

 

[LG210]

I getting the feeling that some of you wish that the RPI would just RIP....

 

[okeefe4prez]

I getting the feeling that some of you wish that the RPI would just RIP....

Zip it, pal, I'm not in the mood for jokes. Game face.

SEASON STARTS TODAY!

 

[hawkeyeguy85]

ok, I get it. That is amazing! But at a glance it appears Iowa winning tonight on a neutral court should carry much more weight than Northwestern losing. Even though opponents % is half the score it goes into a much bigger pool.

Thanks for the education.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Iowa's score isn't going to go "down" with a win against NW.

 

[ssckelley]

I getting the feeling that some of you wish that the RPI would just RIP....

I can see some value in it, it keeps you playing teams that win a bunch of games but it is also very easy to manipulate. I think RPI needs to be part of a formula not on its own (I think one of the other ratings uses it).

 

[hawkfan340]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Iowa's score isn't going to go "down" with a win.

It won't with NW, but in theory it could. One of the reasons RPI is terrible.

 

[hawkfan340]

I can see some value in it, it keeps you playing teams that win a bunch of games but it is also very easy to manipulate. I think RPI needs to be part of a formula not on its own (I think one of the other ratings uses it).

I would scrap it. It's terrible. This is coming from an actuary that lives and dies with statistics.

At minimum it must be adjusted so that your own WP is at least as important as opponent WP. Without that in place it will always be predominately measuring the wrong thing if you want to estimate how good a team is.

 

[hawkfan33]

Arizona St going down to UCLA, good for the Hawks!

 

[Rlesterfan]

Back when the Hawks were number 1 in various computer models in football no one complained about the computers. Win those games against Nebraska and Virginia Tech and close out one of the other countless close losses and the relevance of those computers would have been nil. We still control our destiny. GO HAWKS.

The fact is though, all the computer models love this Iowa team except one. In my opinion, the one that is heavily used, and the only one that does not like Iowa, is very flawed (and not just because it does not like Iowa).

 

[ssckelley]

Right now Iowa is taking a beating, they are down to 77. Penn State lost (who Iowa played twice) and Virginia Tech lost. Iowa needs to win tonight just to make up the RPI ground they lost from the last time they played.

 

[Rlesterfan]

ok, I get it. That is amazing! But at a glance it appears Iowa winning tonight on a neutral court should carry much more weight than Northwestern losing. Even though opponents % is half the score it goes into a much bigger pool.

Thanks for the education.

Iowa will be slightly helped by winning tonight. Not a large move but it will be positive. If we were at home, it probably would be no gain at all, given how far Northwestern has fallen.

An MSU win would be a very large gain. I estimated the other day we would land in the 57 to 63 range with the neutral count MSU win.

 

[PCHawk]

Well I don't know why you think that when the committee has said over and over again that the number of selections from a certain conference has no impact.

I believe that the committee sees Iowa as the 8th best team in the conference. I also believe its human nature to subconsciously view a team that is the 8th best differently then a team that is 6th best.

The truth is that the big 10 doesn't need any bubble teams this year because they have 7 locks. Iowa would be getting a lot more bubble consideration right now if there were 5 locks and everyone else was for sure out.

I get that they say they don't consider this and they might even believe they don't. But in this exact situation where the team in question would set a conference record for number of invites, their resume has to be better then it would if they were simply trying to pick up the 6th spot.

 

[kicker22]

You, sir, are not a "general" basketball fan. You are a 1%er. You have watched this horrific Iowa program through thick and thin. What it all comes down to is ratings to justify the ginormous contract CBS has to air these games. People (and when I say people I mean idiots) want to see little old VCU go toe to toe with big bad UCLA and catch them on a bad shooting day and knock them out of the tournament on some fluke shot. So the selection committee has responded by letting more and more crap teams into the tournament to generate more Cinderella stories. No one wants to see Iowa knock out UCLA or vice versa, it doesn't sell, so we are moving toward a tournament flooded with so called "mid majors" in the hopes of generating more upsets and more buzz. You, sir, want a decent tournament where Duke or Kentucky or whoever really has to go toe to toe with pretty good teams to win it all, but Joe Prole is too dumb to want that. Joe Prole wants to puff his chest up because he "called" the 12-5 mid-major no one has ever heard of upset. Ain't as exciting if that 12 seed is a traditionally decent program like Iowa or Purdue.

So you want it more like the BCS? IMO I think the way it's set up makes it special. The fact that midmajors, who aren't the big name schools make those runs makes it special. Lets be honest, you'd never see programs like Butler or VCU make runs if the mid majors weren't given the opportunities that they are given. We're not seeing the top 4 teams taken in a lot of the weaker conferences, it just happens that a team heats up and wins their conference tourny and gets the invite they deserve, regardless of who they are or what seed they get. I'm a firm believer that programs should be rewarded for winning conference tournaments and if we start playing the game in which we deny the Cinderella's the opportunity they deserve (as conference champions not necessarily at-large bids) then whats the point. The fact is as much as America loves the thought of who the next Cinderella team is, once that Cinderella team pulls the upset then they rightfully prove they along with the other potential Cinderella's belong there.

 

[Rlesterfan]

Right now Iowa is taking a beating, they are down to 77. Penn State lost (who Iowa played twice) and Virginia Tech lost. Iowa needs to win tonight just to make up the RPI ground they lost from the last time they played.

Today was slightly bad (V Tech is the gift that keeps on giving), but is is razor close between 69 and 77. Don't be surprised if Iowa ends the day around 71-72.

 

[kicker22]

As much as most of us hate the RPI factor, IMO the blame is more on Fran and the scheduling then with the RPI itself. The effect the RPI has and its influence on the committee has changed very little, but we still scheduled the games. I think deep down it came to our team coming up to speed quicker than Fran expected and rather than building wins and the confidence needed to make a strong push next season, we wound up having a better season then expected and potentially on the outside looking in due to that weak schedule.

 

[PCHawk]

So you want it more like the BCS? IMO I think the way it's set up makes it special. The fact that midmajors, who aren't the big name schools make those runs makes it special. Lets be honest, you'd never see programs like Butler or VCU make runs if the mid majors weren't given the opportunities that they are given. We're not seeing the top 4 teams taken in a lot of the weaker conferences, it just happens that a team heats up and wins their conference tourny and gets the invite they deserve, regardless of who they are or what seed they get. I'm a firm believer that programs should be rewarded for winning conference tournaments and if we start playing the game in which we deny the Cinderella's the opportunity they deserve (as conference champions not necessarily at-large bids) then whats the point. The fact is as much as America loves the thought of who the next Cinderella team is, once that Cinderella team pulls the upset then they rightfully prove they along with the other potential Cinderella's belong there.

You are confusing Cinderella teams with the absolutely horrible teams that have zero chance to get out of the 1st round.

 

[PCHawk]

As much as most of us hate the RPI factor, IMO the blame is more on Fran and the scheduling then with the RPI itself. The effect the RPI has and its influence on the committee has changed very little, but we still scheduled the games. I think deep down it came to our team coming up to speed quicker than Fran expected and rather than building wins and the confidence needed to make a strong push next season, we wound up having a better season then expected and potentially on the outside looking in due to that weak schedule.

This is true. Everyone says we need to blame Fran for scheduling those games. The truth is it wouldn'teven matter if we got killed in a few more games like we were supposed to.

 

[kicker22]

You are confusing Cinderella teams with the absolutely horrible teams that have zero chance to get out of the 1st round.

Agreed, and I may have taken it to an extreme, but the fact is Cinderellas had to get their start somewhere and what better way to start making a name for yourself then getting invited to dance. It has to start somewhere and just getting there seems to have an impact on any program lucky enough to be invited.

 

[meaning]

So you want it more like the BCS? IMO I think the way it's set up makes it special. The fact that midmajors, who aren't the big name schools make those runs makes it special. Lets be honest, you'd never see programs like Butler or VCU make runs if the mid majors weren't given the opportunities that they are given. We're not seeing the top 4 teams taken in a lot of the weaker conferences, it just happens that a team heats up and wins their conference tourny and gets the invite they deserve, regardless of who they are or what seed they get. I'm a firm believer that programs should be rewarded for winning conference tournaments and if we start playing the game in which we deny the Cinderella's the opportunity they deserve (as conference champions not necessarily at-large bids) then whats the point. The fact is as much as America loves the thought of who the next Cinderella team is, once that Cinderella team pulls the upset then they rightfully prove they along with the other potential Cinderella's belong there.

I am DEFINITELY for a certain number of cinderllas getting in. Even the crumbiest conference gets a team in, as they should.

The issue is when the best team from a one-bid conference DOESN'T win the conference tournament. That alone should not turn a one-bid conference into a two-bid conference (different story if the best team in a conference is IN based on big non-conference wins, etc, but loses the conference tourney).

So, general teams within a small conference compete against each other for their conference's single bid. That competition takes place in the conference tournament (or however the particular conference decides to do it).

Stick with that, everything else is cream cheese.

 

[PCHawk]

Agreed, and I may have taken it to an extreme, but the fact is Cinderellas had to get their start somewhere and what better way to start making a name for yourself then getting invited to dance. It has to start somewhere and just getting there seems to have an impact on any program lucky enough to be invited.

Hell look at ganzaga. They went from Cinderella to #1.