A Very Special Edition of blah blah blah
12.22.04
This will probably be my last post before Christmas. Like many Americans, I find it hard to get motivated on the last day before break. Many other teams find themselves in that predicament tonight, when they will be playing their last game before a holiday vacation. Hopefully, Illinois will be one of those teams tonight in the "Braggin' Rights" game. I'd like to see them look human pretty soon.
Not only have they blown everybody out so far, but four of the teams they beat still have just one loss (Arkansas, Wake Forest, Oregon, and Gonzaga). Of course, with Missouri as the opponent, looking human means being up by five at the half, and winning by 15. But still, it would be reassuring to know they will not be '91 UNLV (whose toughest regular-season game was also at Arkansas. Coincidence? Well, yeah).
-
The place I'd go if I could go anywhere tonight? The Pit in Albuquerque. New Mexico hosts Wake Forest. It would be especially useful to be there since the game isn't on TV.
The Lobos are fourth in the nation in shooting percentage. If there's one officially sanctioned NCAA stat you want to be near the top of, it's that one. Of course, New Mexico hasn't played a particularly difficult schedule. In their only loss, at Oregon, they couldn't break 40% from the field, although they did hoist 29 threes in that one. This is New Mexico's weakness offensively - they rely on the three a lot - 40% of their field goal attempts are threes (national average is 32.6%). This is fine when you're playing Arkansas Pine Bluff, but against opponents with quickness on the perimeter, that shiny field goal percentage has a tendency to nosedive.
New Mexico is ninth nationally in offensive efficiency (points per possession) and Wake is 25th. Wake is also 47th in tempo. So this game figures to be high-scoring, and possibly close.
If you want even more about this game, you could read the short preview I wrote five months ago. It's not often I say something that ends up being partially true five months later, so I encourage you to check it out.
Instead of being in Albuquerque, I may end up at the Washington State/Wyoming game, which could be the lowest scoring game on tonight's schedule.
Have a Merry Christmas everybody. When I return, I plan to post adjusted efficiency and tempo data - numbers that take the basic efficiency stats and account for the level of competition - for all 330 teams in the land.
An Oral Exam
12.21.04
An unlikely matchup between two unbeatens will take place at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu on Wednesday night, involving 8-0 Oral Roberts and 6-0 Hawaii. They each have played one common opponent - St. Louis. In a striking coincidence, both teams played the Billikens on the road, and both won by a single point.
Unless you live west of the Mountain time zone, the game will end sometime Thursday morning. So this is one of those contests that won't really exist in most people's minds. Kind of like the Gonzaga/Georgia Tech game the other night. If it starts after midnight eastern, it doesn't count whether it's televised or not.
Naturally, this isn't close to the best semi-final matchup in Rainbow Classic history. The Classic used to attract the top teams in the game. In 1992, #6 UNC met #5 Michigan with Michgan winning 79-78. UNC would get revenge in the national championship game to conclude that season.
-
Note to self: Next time Louisiana Tech is on TV, tune in. If for no other reason than to see Paul Millsap, who I know next to nothing about. I know he won the national rebounding title last year as a freshman. I know he's leading the nation again this season. Last night Millsap had 19 points, 14 boards, and 5 blocks in a 64-55 win at Memphis. Granted it took him 18 shots and 11 free throw attempts to get there, so it wasn't his most efficient outing. In the same number of attempts, he lit up Auburn for 31 points (plus 18 rebounds!) earlier in the year.
By the way, LTU beat Memphis despite going 4 for 31 from the field in the first half. 4 for 31. Memphis seems to outdo themselves with each successive game.
An RPI with Road-Rage
12.20.04
Some of you may have seen the announcement in your local paper on Saturday. The RPI has been improved, now with 150% of your daily recommended road-game value!
The Division I men's basketball committee has altered the Ratings Percentage Index, used to evaluate teams for selection to the NCAA Tournament, to give more weight to playing and winning road games.
The RPI will continue to consist of 25 percent winning percentage, 50 percent opponents' winning percentage and 25 percent opponents' opponents' winning percentage. The new formula will weight each road win at 1.4 and each road loss at .6, while home wins are .6 and home losses are 1.4. Neutral-site games will have a 1.0 value.
Previously, all games were given the same weight. Committee chairman Bob Bowlsby said home teams have won approximately two-thirds of all games over the last 20 years. [Dallas Morning News, 12/18/04]
Previously, I wrote about the new formula. I've also written about Mr. Bowlsby's conclusion that because the home team has won 67% of the games over the past four years, that doesn't mean that road games are twice as hard to win as home games. By using the factors mentioned above, a home win is worth about 40% as much as a road win. This is not commensurate with the difficulty of winning a road game, especially for an at-large quality team, but they didn't ask me.
Now that the ingredients have been revealed I will be posting this version of the RPI on the main page. There is one possible bit of confusion. Will they do it the way I tested in that earlier post, or will they do it the way that makes sense? The way I talked about before is to only apply these adjustments to Part I of the RPI. The sensible way is to apply the adjustments to all three parts. To review:
Part I (25%) - Winning percentage.
Part II (50%) - Average opponents' winning percentage.
Part III (25%) - Average opponents' opponents' winning percentage.
I showed earlier what happened to last year's RPI when adjustments were only applied to Part I. Teams that were helped (or hurt) equally represented the power conferences and the mid-majors.
But when you apply the adjustments to all three parts, the results are what you would expect given the intentions here: teams at the top of mid-major conferences get a bonus. Teams in the middle of power conferences get penalized.
Here's how this formula would have affected last year's RPI
Teams most helped:
Austin Peay (94 in the basic RPI to 61 in the road-rage RPI)
Louisiana Lafayette (71 to 47)
Wisconsin Milwaukee (75 to 53)
George Mason (81 to 60)
East Tennessee State (61 to 42)
Illinois Chicago (87 to 69)
Troy State (66 to 49)
Murray State (58 to 41)
Air Force (70 to 54)
Western Michigan (44 to 28)
Nevada (29 to 14)
Kent State (76 to 63)
Pacific (65 to 52)
Utah State (43 to 31)
Power conference teams get killed by this formula. The biggest jump a team from a top-six conference made was four spots. Would this have changed the behavior of the selection committee? It's hard to say, but knowing that Utah State was the last team left out, you'd have to think they would have made it with a 31 RPI. Now the teams that were hurt...
Teams most hurt:
Virginia (52 to 84)
Georgia (48 to 76)
Rutgers (56 to 75)
Louisiana State (38 to 55)
Notre Dame (49 to 66)
Saint Louis (64 to 80)
Villanova (67 to 83)
Michigan (55 to 70)
Alabama (26 to 40)
Florida State (53 to 67)
DePaul (37 to 48)
Washington (60 to 71)
South Carolina (45 to 56)
At least this list makes sense. Most of the teams on here were considered overrated, they failed miserably on the road or padded their schedule with a ton of early home games. Now South Carolina's bid doesn't look so safe. If the new formula was used last season, it's possible, maybe even probable, that USC would have been replaced with USU in your brackets. With Notre Dame's presence on this list, I am obligated to reprint coach Mike Brey's reaction to hearing about the new formula:
"If we had that formula last year, we're a seven seed." [South Bend Tribune, 10/23/04]
Just saying it doesn't make it true, Coach B.
In 2004 - and I'd like to look at previous seasons when I get time - one mid-major school may have replaced a power conference school. While fans of the Gamecocks would not have been pleased with this development, the rest of America probably wouldn't have minded. Even someone like me, who doesn't buy all of the mid-major claims of discrimination, wouldn't have a problem with a mid-major bubble team getting the benefit of the doubt.
The wierd thing about the road-rage RPI is the mid-major schools get rewarded for road wins in their conference, which are easier to get than for the same caliber of team in a power conference. Utah State was the last team left out last season, and the reason was that their non-conference schedule was weak. So it's a little unusual that the NCAA is behind a formula that would have given the Aggies that last boost needed to get in the field because of their play in conference. Maybe this is an appropriate leveling of the playing field, though. I'm willing to have an open mind.
So, what's the bottom line here? Assuming that the NCAA is using this version of the calculation, this is a step in the right direction. Maybe a step too far, but a step nonetheless. I was never a proponent of tinkering with the RPI. Hopefully we have not just witnessed the beginning of the "BCS-ization" of the formula, where each year a new formula is used based on the apparent weaknesses of the previous season.
Page 142 of 189 pages « First < 140 141 142 143 144 > Last »