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Thursday, February 02, 2006

More RPI Fun

The oddity of last night was Southern Illinois’ national best 33-game home winning streak being snapped by a team that had the nation’s fourth-longest active losing streak, Indiana State. So we’re back to a four-way tie atop the MVC with six to play.

Now to some e-mails…

Ken,

It is disconcerting to note that the NCAA RPI calculations that were released today by the NCAA are incorrect.  Georgetown is listed as having a record of 0-0 in neutral games.  They beat Colgate in El Paso, TX on 12/27/2005.  It looks as though there may be some other mistakes as well, but since they don’t publish any actual numbers, it is a bit hard to tell.

Maybe they should just use your calculations.  Have you offered?  We would all be better off.

Tom

I have said very little about the RPI this season, because it’s just tedious. I’m more concerned with identifying who’s god/bad/mischaracterized, and the RPI provides me with no value in doing that.

But yesterday was the big day for the RPI. The NCAA released its data to the world, giving the process more “transparency”, as they say. And what some people saw was not pretty. Actually, the NCAA still tried to hide some things. Tremendous kudos go to super-sleuth Dave Rueth, who solved the RPI Rubik’s Cube and figured out exactly which games the NCAA’s site designation differed from mine. This literally saved me hours of tedious work.

Anyway, a few games are messed up. Here are the best ones:

1) Colgate vs Georgetown. Played at El Paso, declared home for Georgetown. Technically, El Paso is closer to Georgetown than Colgate. Maybe, this game was really Colgate against Georgetown - El Paso campus (GUEP).

2) Boston U vs UC Riverside. Played at Santa Clara, CA, declared home for UC Riverside. Santa Clara is about 500 miles from Riverside.

3) Georgia Tech vs Air Force. Played at World Arena in Colorado Springs, CO, about 15 miles away from the Air Force campus, and 2000 miles from Atlanta. Declared neutral by the NCAA.

4) Duke vs UNCG, Wake Forest vs Elon. Both games played at the Greensboro Coliseum, both declared HOME for the SoCon teams. You can’t with any degree of intelligence declare these home games for Elon or UNCG. This provides a great scam for the Tobacco Road ACC teams. Schedule High Point at the Greensboro Coliseum next year, get an automatic win, an automatic road win for the RPI, and you get to play in front of thousands of loyal fans.

5) Bethune Cookman at SC State. Played at SC St., but declared neutral for whatever reason.

6) College of Charleston vs. Charleston Southern. Each season, these teams play at the North Charleston Coliseum, which is neither team’s home court. This year, it was declared a home game for C of C.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about these games in my database. It would be foolish to chase the NCAA on these errors. Presumably they’ll fix the obvious ones, like the top two, eventually. The others they’ll probably stand by, which does shed some new light on the selection process - the data being used is flawed in a few cases.

Ken,

When UCLA needs a big play Farmar makes a big play......  I have this image in my head, of Farmar with the ball in the open court, needing a basket, less then 10 seconds on the clock, and I see Mike Gansey, taking his cookies in the most embarrassing clean steal I have ever seen, sealing the win....  Doesn’t quite mesh with the “clutch player” argument...



And lets make this a two parter.  What do you think of the MD Terrapins tournament chances?  I assume you have seen them play a couple of times.  What do they need?  A real PG?  More minutes for Gist?  Please fix them...

Leland

Not Farmar’s best moment there, for sure. Keep in mind, though, that WVU had a foul to give and there’s no way Gansey is trying for a steal if they’re in the bonus.

Regarding Maryland, Chris McCray’s gone and he ain’t coming back, which hurts. Yes, they could use a point guard, but Sterling Ledbetter is not the answer, even though some Terp fans seem to swear by him. Maryland is in the midst of another bubblicious season. Just hope they can beat Clemson.

This gives me an opportunity to display my personal DC area power ratings: 

1. Georgetown
2. George Mason
3. George Washington
4. Maryland

I don’t think I really believe that GMU is better than GW. But GW is #10 in the AP poll and one of only three one-loss teams, and yet we have little idea how good they are. They have played three games against at-large quality teams. A lopsided loss on the road against NC State, and wins against possible at-larges Temple and Maryland. Tonight’s game at Xavier should tell us something about the quality of the Colonials. I just have no basis to say anything great about them yet.

The Colonials won’t see another decent team until the A-10 Tourney, so take notes tonight.

Line o’ the Night 

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T   A F S TO BLK Pts
Dereke Tipler          27  5-7   0-1  4-4  1-10 13 3 0  2  0   14
Result: Win. Arkansas St. 91, Troy 68.

Posted on 02/02 at 01:00 AM
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