As a bonus this week, I have used my bracket formation program to show the program's currently projected NCAA Tournament bracket using the NCAA RPI as compared to what it would be if the Women's Soccer Committee were using the Balanced RPI. I won't go into a detailed explanation here of how the program works, except to say it is based on the Committee's decision patterns from 2007 to the present and by the end of the season its predictions have been on average within 1 position of the Committee's at large selections. At this stage of the season, the projections are crude, but I believe the a current comparison paints a good general picture of the difference between the NCAA RPI and the Balanced RPI. Remember, the NCAA RPI discriminates against some conferences and regions and in favor of others. The Balanced RPI eliminates most of the discrimination.
The following table shows how the systems' NCAA Tournament brackets compare. It has teams arranged by region and then by conference, as I believe this gives the best picture of what happens when the Balanced RPI removes the NCAA RPI's discrimination. To the right of the table is a key to the entries in the Status columns.
Peruse the table and draw your own conclusions. I recommend that rather than focusing on specific teams, you focus on the regions and conferences with teams moving up or down in the seeds, in or out of the at large candidate group, and in and out of the at large selections in the shift from the NCAA RPI to the Balanced RPI.
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