This week's predictions are based on the actual results of games played through Sunday, September 8, and win-loss-tie likelihoods of games not yet played. The predictions assume the change from counting a tie as half a win to one-third of a win will be in effect this year. They do not, however, include any effects of a changed RPI bonus and penalty system, since we do not yet know what the bonus and penalty amounts will be. Assuming a change in the bonus and penalty structure also will go into effect this year, I should be able to determine the bonus and penalty amounts next week, once the NCAA has published teams' actual ratings at the RPI Archive. At that point, I will incorporate the new bonus and penalty amounts into my system.
Team RPI and Balanced RPI Ranks, Plus RPI and Balanced RPI Strength of Schedule Contributor Ranks
Conference NCAA RPI and Balanced RPI Ranks, and Conference NCAA RPI Strength of Schedule Contributor Ranks
This week, for an educational tidbit, take a look at the conferences in the West region: Big Sky, Big West, Mountain West, and West Coast. (The Summit and WAC have some teams from the West but also teams from other regions.) You will see that for every one of those conferences, its Balanced RPI rank is better than its NCAA RPI rank, in some cases a lot better. If you look at those conferences' NCAA RPI Strength of Schedule Contributor ranks and compare them to their NCAA RPI ranks, you will see that for three of those conferences, their Strength of Schedule Contributor ranks are poorer than their RPI ranks. For a good rating system, those two ranks would not be different, but they are different for the NCAA RPI because of its defective method of calculating strength of schedule. The Balanced RPI does not have this problem.
When you consider that the West conferences play the great majority of their games against opponents from the West, you can see why the NCAA RPI ranks them more poorly than the Balanced RPI: The NCAA RPI underrates their strengths of schedule whereas the Balanced RPI does not.
Predicted NCAA Tournament Automatic Qualifiers, Disqualified Teams, and At Large Selection Status, All for the Top 57 TeamsAn interesting question came up this week related to teams disqualified from at large selection due to having a winning percentage below 0.500: In computing winning percentage for at large disqualification purposes, will the NCAA count ties as half a win or a third of a win? The following table assumes it will count them as a third of a win, which makes a big difference.
Where does this leave u of Minnesota
ReplyDeleteWhen the NCAA first RPI report comes out next week, they probably will be around #37. My report has them ending the season around #51. They have performed slightly better than my system predicted, so it currently looks like they could finish in the #35 to #50 range. That would make them a candidate for an at large position in the NCAA Tournament. My system suggests, however, they are not likely to get an at large position, probably mostly because their non-conference schedule is pretty soft and is not leaving them with any truly valuable results. (The Brown result is not as valuable as it would have been over the past few years.)
DeleteThere are, however, a lot of games left to play and things could change. To get an at large positions, they probably will have to pull off an upset or two of the top teams in the conference while beating all of the teams they are expected to beat.
FYI, the Big 10 is one of the conferences most discriminated against by the RPI. Rather than the #51 NCAA RPI rank my system says Minnesota will end up with, the Balanced RPI, which does not discriminate, has them ending up at #31. This is a problem for teams in the middle of the Big 10 table.