RPI scheduling

[UcMiami]

So ... seeing as everyone seems so high on the importance of RPI and 50% of a schools RPI is the winning percentage of their opponent I think the American Athletic Conference needs to follow in the footsteps of the RPI warrior SEC and get their scheduling down - here are the recommendations to improve your schedule strength and RPI:
Albany - 27-4
Stonybrook - 24-7
Stetson 24-6
Southern Miss 24-5
UTEP 23-6
Wichita State 23-6
Colorado St 23-6
Navy 24-6
Army 23-7
Chattanooga 28-3
N Car A&T 23-5
Hampton 25-4
Amercian U 22-8
Idaho 22-8
Play that line up of monsters and you are likely to go 14-0 heading into conference and if the rest of your league has followed suit with a similar type line-up, they also will be 14-0 or maybe 12-2 meaning that when you start beating up on each other, your win percentage and theirs will remain high guaranteeing a killer RPI - you get the added benefit for that last 25% (opponents opponents win percentage) since you have been playing the top dogs in Div1.B (the door mat conferences) and their winning percentages are as above. Of course you throw in a game against say ND or Uconn at 29/30 - 0 so that no one can claim you didn't play any top teams in OOC and who cares if you scored only 15 points - your RPI just got another huge boost.

If you think I am joking about this - look at the records of SEC teams heading into conference play and the teams they played - SC, Ark, MissSt, Missouri, Auburn, Vanderbilt, and Georgia all had glorified records coming in and only SC was able to carry through reasonably. Even lowly OleMiss came in with a nice winning record.

 

[Icebear]

I'm not sure everyone in enamored with RPI, I know I'm not. Your dissection is spot on.

 

[UcMiami]

And I forgot to mention ... your playing these teams and thus raising your RPI has the bonus of raising their RPI at the same time since with your killer won loss percentage now counting toward 50% of their RPI you both win BIG!

 

[UConnCat]

Hopefully the RPI will soon RIP.

 

[triaddukefan]

Duke gave Albany one of their 4 losses. It was the sandwich game between the UCONN and UK matchups. #25 for them is a very very good player on the Mid-major level.

 

[DobbsRover2]

The SEC has always been the master of the gaming game, but there a few other teams in other P5 conferences that are either ardent practitioners or sneaky ones in the B12 and B10, such as Indiana, Iowa State, and Nebraska. The ACC teams usually seem to get at least some moderate grit in the diet, and the PAC teams can be excused because there's not a lot to work with out west.

 

[stamfordhusky]

And I forgot to mention ... your playing these teams and thus raising your RPI has the bonus of raising their RPI at the same time since with your killer won loss percentage now counting toward 50% of their RPI you both win BIG!

No. The RPI excludes your own W-L pct as it applies to your opponents.

 

[UcMiami]

No. The RPI excludes your own W-L pct as it applies to your opponents.

If I am understanding your quibble correctly the RPI includes your own W/L (25%/59%/25%) the SOS does not as it is purely the opponents win percentage and their opponents win percentage - but what I was implying is because you now have 14-0 record the team that lost to you now has a better RPI because you have a 100% win percentage as their opponent.

 

[UcMiami]

The SEC has always been the master of the gaming game, but there a few other teams in other P5 conferences that are either ardent practitioners or sneaky ones in the B12 and B10, such as Indiana, Iowa State, and Nebraska. The ACC teams usually seem to get at least some moderate grit in the diet, and the PAC teams can be excused because there's not a lot to work with out west.

Yes - but they tend to choose the mid major teams with losing records for some reason! There are a bunch of big schools who play dreadful OOCs - Baylor and WVU this year are prime examples, Syracuse and UNC were usual culprits, and the Big10 has a number, but who really cares about the Big10 in women's basketball? eek

 

[easttexastrash]

Look not farther than Baylor for RPI advice...

However, Baylor does have 12 top-50 RPI games. You don't need as many tough OOC games on your schedule when your conference RPI is high. Who wants to wear your players out early in the year to the point where they have nothing left to give during conference and the NCAA tourney?

 

[easttexastrash]

OOC is not too important if you are going to get to play a bunch of quality teams in conference. If you play in the toughest conference in the county you should ease into that with two or three good challenges OOC.

 

[stamfordhusky]

If I am understanding your quibble correctly the RPI includes your own W/L (25%/59%/25%) the SOS does not as it is purely the opponents win percentage and their opponents win percentage - but what I was implying is because you now have 14-0 record the team that lost to you now has a better RPI because you have a 100% win percentage as their opponent.

The team that lost to you may have a better RPI than it otherwise would have - but not in terms of how it affects your RPI. So you don't both "gain".

 

[UcMiami]

The team that lost to you may have a better RPI than it otherwise would have - but not in terms of how it affects your RPI. So you don't both "gain".

You gain by playing a team in a weak conference that is going to go 24-5 or something (even with their loss to you) and they gain because you have smartly scheduled a bunch of 'bad' teams in every worse conferences and you are going to have a 14-0 non-conference winning record regardless of how badly you do once you start playing in conference. Doesn't really matter who wins or loses as that only represents 25% of your RPI - half of your RPI is based on the opponents record so losing to team that has a great win percentage regardless of who they played is better than winning against a much better team that played a killer schedule and only has a 60% win percentage.

 

[toadfoot]

So ... seeing as everyone seems so high on the importance of RPI and 50% of a schools RPI is the winning percentage of their opponent I think the American Athletic Conference needs to follow in the footsteps of the RPI warrior SEC and get their scheduling down - here are the recommendations to improve your schedule strength and RPI:
Albany - 27-4
Stonybrook - 24-7
Stetson 24-6
Southern Miss 24-5
UTEP 23-6
Wichita State 23-6
Colorado St 23-6
Navy 24-6
Army 23-7
Chattanooga 28-3
N Car A&T 23-5
Hampton 25-4
Amercian U 22-8
Idaho 22-8
Play that line up of monsters and you are likely to go 14-0 heading into conference and if the rest of your league has followed suit with a similar type line-up, they also will be 14-0 or maybe 12-2 meaning that when you start beating up on each other, your win percentage and theirs will remain high guaranteeing a killer RPI - you get the added benefit for that last 25% (opponents opponents win percentage) since you have been playing the top dogs in Div1.B (the door mat conferences) and their winning percentages are as above. Of course you throw in a game against say ND or Uconn at 29/30 - 0 so that no one can claim you didn't play any top teams in OOC and who cares if you scored only 15 points - your RPI just got another huge boost.

If you think I am joking about this - look at the records of SEC teams heading into conference play and the teams they played - SC, Ark, MissSt, Missouri, Auburn, Vanderbilt, and Georgia all had glorified records coming in and only SC was able to carry through reasonably. Even lowly OleMiss came in with a nice winning record.

This is PRECISELY what I described in another thread as "designer schedules", i.e., schedules intended to create reasonably decent RPI's for OOC games, then, if your conference members have followed suit, when conference play begins virtually every game further aids the overall RPI. In other words, some teams/conferences have learned to game the system.