Wins against Sagarin 50

[Vowelguy]

Often a good proxy for strength of schedule and quality wins.
(Value in parenthesis = non top 50 losses)
Maryland. 11-1 (1)
UConn..... 9-1 (0)
Iowa ..... 9-3 (1)
Notre dame 8-2 (0)
Tenn ..... 8-3 (0)
Louisville 7-3 (0)
Kentucky.. 7-3 (2)
Arizona st 7-4 (0)
Duke ..... 7-5 (1)
Baylor ... 6-1 (0)
Florida st 6-3 (0)
So car ... 5-1 (0)
USF .. ... 5-3 (1)
Rutgers .. 5-6 (0)
Vandy .... 5-8 (3)

 

[Glenn]

Using this metric, you can see that UConn's schedule is of "average" difficulty amongst this group of teams--10 games. What is striking is how few games USC and Baylor have played against top 50 teams. I would note that Strength of Schedule cannot be defined simply. For example, it depends upon whether your goal is to win half of your games or go undefeated. For the former you would want to examine how many easy games you have and for the latter you would want to know how many hard games. For UConn, a hard game is not defined by the top 50, but rather by top 25 or top 10, as we almost never lose to an unranked team. Based on UConn standards, this season's strength of schedule is lower than usual, in part because of the lack of top 25 teams in our conference, as well as the down year for some of our out of conference teams (even if one of those "down" teams beat us).

 

[UcMiami]

The top 25 wins is equally telling. Traveling in Asia without a real keyboard/mouse so too difficult for me to post, but ...
Of the teams that might get a #1 seed, Baylor and Oregon St are at 3-1, Uconn and SC at 4-1, MD and ND at 5-1, and TN at 7-2.

Baylor and Uconn (if TX drops and USF drops out of the top 25 after their loss) will not add to their totals - the others all have conference mates ranked in the top 25 they will play in conference/conf tournaments.

Just a little shocking that the Big 12 has as many ranked teams (or fewer) as the AAC this year!

These numbers and probably the above top 50 numbers come from Sagarin and not one of the polls.

 

[DobbsRover2]

The flip side of the Top 50 record is that especially for P5 teams, many squads get loaded up with T50 games that they run up a huge number of losses in. From Creme's projections as of his last post, many teams just get rewarded for losing a lot of T50 games. Records by descending number of losses:

UCLA . . . . . . . . . . . . 0-12
Michigan State . . . . 1-12
Purdue . . . . . . . . . . . 1-12
Wisconsin . . . . . . . . 1-11
Penn State . . . . . . . . 1-11
Clemson . . . . . . . . . 0-10
Michigan . . . . . . . . . 2-10 (Creme pick)
SMU . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0-9
Georgia Tech . . . . . . 0-9
Washington St. . . . . 3-9
Virginia Tech . . . . . 0-8
Wake Forest . . . . . . 0-8
North Carolina St. . 0-8
Missouri . . . . . . . . . 0-8
LSU . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-8 (Creme pick)
Mississippi . . . . . . . 2-8
Vanderbilt . . . . . . . 5-8
USCal . . . . . . . . . . . 0-7
Houston . . . . . . . . . 0-7
Central Michigan . . 0-7
Kansas . . . . . . . . . . . 1-7
Auburn . . . . . . . . . . 1-7
Alabama . . . . . . . . . . 1-7
Memphis . . . . . . . . . 1-7
Arizona . . . . . . . . . . 1-7
Miami . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-7 (Creme pick)
Syracuse . . . . . . . . . . 3-7 (Creme pick)
Oklahoma . . . . . . . . . 3-7 (Creme pick)
Pittsburgh . . . . . . . . . 4-7 (Creme pick)
Some other Creme picks: Nebraska (2-6), Georgia (2-6)

Note that USF (5-4 vs. T50) has held steady at #19 despite the loss to ECU, which may now be a better prospect than Tulane for a likely slim shot at a third AAC selection. The Pirates are at 3-5 vs T50, which is somewhat better than a number of the current P5 Creme picks. ECU is at #45 in Sagarin and Tulane (3-6 vs. T50) is at #44.

 

[Vowelguy]

Revised, to account for yesterday's games.
Extra comparison column to show record vs RPI top 50. (calc by hand so I apologize if errors).

Maryland. 11-1 (1) .... 10-1
UConn..... 9-1 (0) ..... 7-1
Tenn ..... 9-3 (0) .... 10-3
Iowa ..... 9-3 (1) ..... 9-3
Notre Dame 8-2 (0) ..... 8-1

Louisville 8-3 (0) ..... 8-3
ArizonaSt. 7-4 (0) ..... 8-4
Kentucky.. 7-4 (2) ..... 8-4
Duke ..... 7-5 (1) ..... 7-5
Baylor ... 6-1 (0) ..... 6-1

Florida st 6-3 (0) ..... 6-3
So car ... 5-1 (0) ..... 5-1
USF .. ... 5-4 (1) ..... 5-3
Rutgers .. 5-6 (0)
Vandy .... 5-9 (3)

OregonSt . 4-2 (0)
MissSt ... 4-2 (2)
Texas .... 4-4 (4)
N'western. 4-5 (1)
Arkansas . 4-5 (4)

UNC .. ... 4-6 (0)
Tx A&M ... 4-6 (0)
Washington 4-6 (1)
OhioSt ... 4-6 (3)
Pitt ..... 4-7 (1)

Illinois . 4-9 (4)