2/2 Bracket

[sybarite]

http://espn.go.com/ncw/bracketology

#9 in Storrs? I'd rather not be in Connecticut during March. Texas is also a #9. Iowa State is a #10.

They don't think much of the #1 conference.

 

[soonerstar]

I guess I am not alone in thinking SEC and ACC are betterthis year.

 

[tycat947]

http://espn.go.com/ncw/bracketology

#9 in Storrs? I'd rather not be in Connecticut during March. Texas is also a #9. Iowa State is a #10.

They don't think much of the #1 conference.

I'd be shocked if they didn't put us in OKC regional, based on this projection, as Hypocrite U isn't even slotted in OKC.

 

[sybarite]

I guess I am not alone in thinking SEC and ACC are betterthis year.

According to realtimerpi, which the NCAA appears to be using since it is identical or almost identical, the conferences are:

1. Big Twelve (SOS 4)
2. SEC (SOS 5)
3. ACC (SOS 3)
4. Big Ten (SOS 1)
5. Pacific Twelve (SOS 2)

The Big Twelve's worst has an rpi of 99. The SEC has four teams rated lower:
Missouri 109
Alabama 136
Auburn 141
Florida 168

The ACC has five.

 

[SoonerNorm]

I guess I am not alone in thinking SEC and ACC are betterthis year.

Yep, you nailed it last week.

 

[sybarite]

The rpi says you are both wrong.

 

[sybarite]

Now, the NCAA appears to be using a different rpi from realtime. Let's see how the major conferences stack up.

SEC

1. Tennessee
6. South Carolina
11. Kentucky
28. Texas A&M
31. Georgia
35. Mississippi State
44. Vanderbilt
52. Arkansas
78. LSU
98. Mississippi
113. Missouri
141. Auburn
151. Alabama
167. Florida

ACC

2. Notre Dame
8. Louisville
14. Florida State
15. Duke
17. North Carolina
34. Syracuse
39. Pittsburgh
56. Miami, F
74. NC State
76. Georgia Tech
92. Virginia
104. Boston College
137. Clemson
163. Wake Forest
186. Virginia Tech

Big Twelve

3. Baylor
21. Texas
27. Oklahoma
40. Iowa State
61. West Virginia
62. Kansas State
69. Kansas
72. TCU
82. Oklahoma State
111. Texas Tech

Big Ten

4. Maryland
5. Iowa
29. Nebraska
33. Minnesota
37. Ohio State
41. Michigan
49. Rutgers
51. Northwestern
54. Purdue
93. Michigan State
94. Illinois
129. Wisconsin
143. Indiana
199. Penn State

Pacific Twelve

9. Oregon State
10. Arizona State
20. Washington
23. California
25. Stanford
43. Washington State
77. USC
84. UCLA
101. Colorado
151. Oregon
170. Arizona
222. Utah

According to the NCAA's rpi, the worst team in the Big Twelve is Texas Tech at 111. Every other conference has at least three teams worse than that, bottom feeders that mean easy wins. The next worst team in the Big Twelve is Oklahoma State at 82. Every other conference has five teams worse than that. The "top" teams of some of these conferences have no challenges except for a few at the top of the conference. How many could go through the Big Twelve unscathed? Duke couldn't even make it out of Boston College.

 

[Sweetest OU Girl]

However, it does indicate these listings think the Big-12 is pretty weak at the top.

Our non-conference record is still hurting us very badly. had we played a reasonable schedule we would be something like 7-2 in conference and 16-4 overall, and be ranked in the top 12 or so and have a much better RPI. A computer will not rank a team high simply because you played a hard schedule. You must win some of the games. We lost too much and spent too much time on the road. Did that help us against Texas or West Virginia (a pretty weak team).

The girls better improve and win some additional games soon. No matter what some think we better not have certain officials assigned to our games or we will struggle to win. All you need to do is look at the past and calculate our record with various officials. The results are a bit shocking.

 

[sybarite]

However, it does indicate these listings think the Big-12 is pretty weak at the top.

Our non-conference record is still hurting us very badly. had we played a reasonable schedule we would be something like 7-2 in conference and 16-4 overall, and be ranked in the top 12 or so and have a much better RPI. A computer will not rank a team high simply because you played a hard schedule. You must win some of the games. We lost too much and spent too much time on the road. Did that help us against Texas or West Virginia (a pretty weak team).

The girls better improve and win some additional games soon. No matter what some think we better not have certain officials assigned to our games or we will struggle to win. All you need to do is look at the past and calculate our record with various officials. The results are a bit shocking.

Can you identify?

 

[SoonerNorm]

Every coach will tell their team to adjust quickly to the officiating. We have 3 girls who cannot seem to do that as they often get in foul trouble. Thankfully, Peyton and Gioya are not known for excessive fouls.

 

[Sweetest OU Girl]

Can you identify?

You don't get credit for beating high RPI teams. We have beaten exactly one conference team with an RPI below 60 (Texas). That really worries me.

Look at RPI teams below 60:

Big-12 4
SEC 8
ACC 8
Big-10 9
Pac-12 6

Now admittedly part of the problem is we lost too many non-conference games, but it was due to a decision we made about avoiding home games for some reason.

 

[tycat947]

However, it does indicate these listings think the Big-12 is pretty weak at the top.

Our non-conference record is still hurting us very badly. had we played a reasonable schedule we would be something like 7-2 in conference and 16-4 overall, and be ranked in the top 12 or so and have a much better RPI. A computer will not rank a team high simply because you played a hard schedule. You must win some of the games. We lost too much and spent too much time on the road. Did that help us against Texas or West Virginia (a pretty weak team).

The girls better improve and win some additional games soon. No matter what some think we better not have certain officials assigned to our games or we will struggle to win. All you need to do is look at the past and calculate our record with various officials. The results are a bit shocking.

That could be true but I'm not so sure we would have beaten WVU or the whorns in Norman if we hadn't gone thru that road stretch. I'm not sure I would have scheduled being away for 37 days (or whatever it was) but I think, maybe in this instance, it helped this young, inexperienced, but talented team to grow much quicker than they would have. Who knows! WVU was preseason pick for 3rd and they did only lose by 4 to Hypocrite U in Morgantown so they can be tough when they want to be. I'm hopeful, last week was a little blip and we rebound this week an finish the season strong. I'd be ecstatic with a 2nd, or even 3rd, place finish in the Big 12 and strong showings in the conference and NCAA tourneys.

 

[sybarite]

However, it does indicate these listings think the Big-12 is pretty weak at the top.

Our non-conference record is still hurting us very badly. had we played a reasonable schedule we would be something like 7-2 in conference and 16-4 overall, and be ranked in the top 12 or so and have a much better RPI. A computer will not rank a team high simply because you played a hard schedule. You must win some of the games. We lost too much and spent too much time on the road. Did that help us against Texas or West Virginia (a pretty weak team).

The girls better improve and win some additional games soon. No matter what some think we better not have certain officials assigned to our games or we will struggle to win. All you need to do is look at the past and calculate our record with various officials. The results are a bit shocking.

I was asking you to identify the officials.

Now, with regard to your discussion of rpi, the rpi is an ongoing process. At first, all it revealed is how many teams you beat up on, regardless of strength. It still does that this time of year to some extent. If you look at it, how does Washington finish ahead of OU? How does Cal finish ahead of Kansas? We got no credit for being defrauded by the Kentucky game officials. We beat Kentucky, except for an official. A one-point game won by fraud gets no points?

If you look at the schedules of some of the higher ranked teams, it is curious how they are so high. Mississippi State's schedule has made OSU's look tough. They have nothing of merit to add to their record, and they have lucked into the bottom feeders of the SEC. But, the rpi is better than just looking at polls which are usually a relic of memories of recent years.

We have no losses as bad as Duke's at Boston College. For some reason, that doesn't seem to resonate, the fact that Duke is vulnerable on the road. There are little quirks that the committee will have to decide upon.

But, the point is that the Big Twelve doesn't have the bottom feeders that are automatic wins with which you can simply heal and pad your schedule. Alabama and Auburn got into a fight. Neither had won a game in conference play. They have won one of eighteen games in conference play. You can win that game without using your starters. The ACC has four teams like that. Our bottom feeders would be about average in other conferences.

 

[Sweetest OU Girl]

Washington is 16-5, we are 13-7. To human voters (includes Creme's Bracketology) on the surface their record looks a lot better than ours. I have not looked at their schedule to see who they have beaten and lost to.

You certainly have to ignore Creme's bracketing. He apparently does not even consider attendance probabilities and we all know that becomes important to the committee.



I do not believe human polls are worth anything. They are simply space fillers by media. A well programmed computer is much more dependable. That does not suggest they are perfect predictors, but compared statistically, computers regularly outperform human polls once you get enough games played.

 

[sybarite]

I see that according to realtimerpi, the Big Twelve is still #1, but they are now #3 in strength of schedule, up from #4. The ACC has fallen to #4.

 

[MsProudSooner]

The strength of our conference lies in the fact that there are so many evenly matched teams. We probably don't have as many elite teams as we've had in years past, but there are no real obviously easy wins.

 

[MsProudSooner]

However, it does indicate these listings think the Big-12 is pretty weak at the top.

Our non-conference record is still hurting us very badly. had we played a reasonable schedule we would be something like 7-2 in conference and 16-4 overall, and be ranked in the top 12 or so and have a much better RPI. A computer will not rank a team high simply because you played a hard schedule. You must win some of the games. We lost too much and spent too much time on the road. Did that help us against Texas or West Virginia (a pretty weak team).

The girls better improve and win some additional games soon. No matter what some think we better not have certain officials assigned to our games or we will struggle to win. All you need to do is look at the past and calculate our record with various officials. The results are a bit shocking.

Inquiring minds want to know who the various officials are?

 

[YCN]

A team's win-loss record only counts for 25% of the RPI calculation. Playing non-conference games on the road is valuable because every road win counts as 1.4 wins in the calculation, while road losses only count as 0.6 losses.

Looking at OU's home and road records this year, the Sooners' home record is unblemished at 8-0, but the RPI win-loss adjustment gives us 4.8-0.0 for home games.

In road games OU is 4-5, which RPI calculates as 5.6-3.0 for road games.

The 1-2 record in the Paradise Jam calculates as exactly that for the RPI.

So OU's overall record for RPI purposes is 11.4-5.0, not the actual record of 13-7.

That's a .700 winning percentage for 20 games, the equivalent of 14-6. Now, where's that argument against scheduling road games?

Let's compare that against the two third-place teams in the conference, Iowa State and TCU. Both have played 13 home games, with records of 11-2 and 10-3 respectively. So Iowa State's calculated home record is 6.6-2.8, and TCU's is 6.0-4.2. Iowa State won their only neutral court game for 1-0, TCU split 2 for 1-1. On the road ISU is 2-4 and TCU is 2-3, those calculate as 2.8-2.4 and 2.4-1.8 for RPI purposes respectively.

So for the RPI, ISU is 10.4-6.2 and TCU is 9.8-7.0. Those RPI winning percentages are .630 for ISU and .580 for TCU. Both teams played 5 MORE home games than OU.

 

[sybarite]

Conference
Rankings/SOS

Big Twelve 1/2
SEC 2/5
ACC 3/4
Big Ten 4/1
Pac Twelve 5/3

Atlantic 10 6/8