Bubble teams

[Plebe]

Explain to me why Purdue is a lock with a 6-13 record against the Top 100, with a sub 100 loss as well is considered a lock for you?

EDIT: or highly probable.

Remember that it's a comparison game. To leave Purdue out, you have to be prepared to show that there are 32 at-large resumes better than theirs.

Raw W-L record per se doesn't tell us a whole lot. Gotta look under the hood to see who all they beat and who all they lost to. In general, losses to good teams (top 50, or at-large caliber teams) don't hurt a resume on their own.

Purdue has 4 top-50 wins. I believe that is more than any of the bubble teams I've listed. Two of those wins are over RPI top-25 teams.

Purdue has only 2 losses outside the top 50, and neither of those is a horrible loss, in the grand scheme of things (#92 Minnesota and #102 Michigan State). Again, almost all of the bubble teams have losses worse than these, with the notable exception of Tennessee and possibly Creighton. (But both of these two teams lack the quality wins that Purdue has.)

Again, comparison game. Which teams should be moved ahead of Purdue, based on body of work?

 

[nwhoopfan]

Thanks @Plebe for the tutorial. USC needs to get better at gaming the RPI, because they are better than most of these bubble teams I firmly believe. Their wins over UCLA and Oregon St. are also a better pair than just about any of the bubble teams. A bad loss in OOC against UCSB, I suppose their losses to Washington and Utah are considered bad as well.

I looked at Purdue's schedule. Something that jumped out at me, other than 1 win against Ohio St. they beat NONE of the good teams from the Big 10. OOC wins over Drake and Arizona St. help (not sure I'm really gonna give them credit for a good win against Western Kentucky).

 

[nwhoopfan]

I seem to recall before Neighbors left UW, he had kind of informally given all the conference coaches helpful hints on maximizing scheduling. I think the conference benefited from that for a season or two, but appears some of those lessons have been forgotten.

 

[Plebe]

Thanks @Plebe for the tutorial. USC needs to get better at gaming the RPI, because they are better than most of these bubble teams I firmly believe. Their wins over UCLA and Oregon St. are also a better pair than just about any of the bubble teams. A bad loss in OOC against UCSB, I suppose their losses to Washington and Utah are considered bad as well.

I looked at Purdue's schedule. Something that jumped out at me, other than 1 win against Ohio St. they beat NONE of the good teams from the Big 10. OOC wins over Drake and Arizona St. help (not sure I'm really gonna give them credit for a good win against Western Kentucky).

Make no mistake -- Purdue is in largely because of their quality OOC wins over Drake and Arizona State. Beating Western Kentucky is a top-50 win as well, albeit over a bubble team. Those wins matter.

I don't think Versyp is an outstanding coach, but I give her credit for scheduling up -- #20 NC SOS -- which is way more than I can say for many of her colleagues. And this year it really saved her bacon, because only a win over Ohio State would've likely been insufficient. Michigan State did better in B10 play against a slightly tougher in-conference schedule, but they had an awful OOC where the beat a bunch of horrible RPI teams and lost to every decent team they played. Those games matter.

The loss to #245 UCSB is indeed awful. So is the fact that 7 of USC's 11 OOC games were against teams outside the top 200.

Having two good wins is nice, but not always enough. Ask Georgia Tech about that -- they have 3 good wins, which altogether are better than USC's wins -- and they don't have any losses as bad as UCSB. Yet they're almost certainly out (although their minuscule chances are higher than USC's).

 

[Plebe]

I seem to recall before Neighbors left UW, he had kind of informally given all the conference coaches helpful hints on maximizing scheduling. I think the conference benefited from that for a season or two, but appears some of those lessons have been forgotten.

Oh yes, the Mike Neighbors-led RPI-boosting campaign openly reported on as a major reason the Pac-12 started getting more teams into the tournament:

2015 Pac-12 Women's Basketball Media Day: Mike Neighbors' RPI advice leads to more NCAA berths for Pac-12

Washington head coach Mike Neighbors is being credited with helping boost the RPI of Pac-12 women's basketball.

pac-12.com

Not all his lessons have been forgotten, not by all of the coaches anyway.