Can Winning Matter, Please? Topic

Quote: Originally Posted By sully712 on 5/15/2010What are you doing up at 6:32 anyways
I dont sleep anymore; doesnt matter what time I go to bed, Im up without my alarm clock. This was Saturday morning I believe and I was up at 5:00 after being out til 2:00 got so bored; I jumped onto WIS.
5/17/2010 11:53 AM
Quote: Originally Posted By oldave on 5/15/2010
you kinda lost me there emmty.

i mean its seems like you are kind of stating the obvious. i mean, if a team has a difficult sos and alot of wins, then obviously they are in.



What I was saying is this:

Lets define "bubble team" as a team with rpi in the low 50s. we can quibble about what the exact number is , but lets just say low 50s.

sometimes you will be comparing teams with very similar resumes. i those cases i would guess its either a coinflip a type of deal or else just give the bid to the team witht he better rpi (even if its only a few thousandths better)

BUT, other times the two teams being compared have vastly different resumes. and it usually goes something like this:

Team A - 16-12 rpi51 difficult schedule, tough conference, 4 or 5 wins versus NT teams, but several losses versus PITish teams and lots of loses versus really good teams

Team B - 26-3 rpi54 easy schedule, weak conference, no wins versus NT teams, only played two NT quality teams and lost them both. lost in CT final to a PITish quality team.



obviously that is kind of an extreme example, but it illustrates my point. In these cases, the committe (in HD) will allways allways allways select the 26win team.

Im not commenting here on which team might deserve to win, just stating a fact that the high win , bad sos team will allways be chosen ahead of a team with a simialr rpi, but fewer wins and tougher schedule.

this was in rebuttal to the kernel, who stated that its easy to make the NT if you just put together a murderous schedule and let the difficult sos float your rpi.

the first problem i have with that statement is that against a top10 sos schedule, its not an easy task for a team with bubblish talent to stay above .500.

the second problem is what i have shown above... that the teams with easy schedules will allways be taken ahead of the teams with difficult schedules (if their rpis are similar)

See I think the biggest problem with WIS NT selection comes down to your example which I highlighted. Granted you dont want a team with that resume in the tournament because as you've stated they havent really proven much outside of the fact they won 26 of their 29 games. And I thinks thats really where the separation in our thinking comes in.

See, with the two imaginary teams you've provided, I personally dont think either should get in but once you get to the point that one of them has to. I will always go with the 26 win team as the totality of both teams situations concluded that their RPIs are almost identical at that point I subscribe look at the wins. One team beat 26 of their 29 opponents while the other barely beat 50%. Thats the bottom like; as Bill Parcells has always said, you are what your record is. Would the 2009 Dolphins have beaten the 2008 version? Maybe. But the 08 squad (playing the easies schedule in football that year) went 11-5 and won the division. You are who your record is.

Its to easy to say, well the 16 win team would have won 20+ had their schedule been harder, but how do we know the 26 win team would have won less. We dont and because we dont out of an abundance of caution you go with the team with more wins.
5/17/2010 12:03 PM
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5/17/2010 2:18 PM
well, we dont know anything for sure, but we can make a darn good guess based on what has happened.



We also know that in college hoops, you are definitely not what your record is. teams play vastly different schedules. you cant say that 20 wins= good team and 16 wins = bad team, because the schedules can be so different.

thats my opinion anyway
5/17/2010 2:20 PM
yeah, right on mister Poe
5/17/2010 2:21 PM
" If he has 26 wins he plays in a **** poor conference. Let him win the CT to get in. Otherwise put a more deserving team in "

Yup. That's pretty much the way it works in RL and I have zero problem with it. The mids in RL have figured out the formula and it includes scheduling tough in NC.
5/17/2010 2:26 PM
There are 16 games that a coach has no control over. BUT there are 10 that he has full control over.

If a team has very few or zero games played against Top100 RPI team, that is the coaches fault. Said coach, should be aware of the difficulty of his conference. If its a cakewalk, he needs to schedule some tough teams in OOC play.

The other coach challenged his team. Played a tough schedule and finished above .500.

Wins are not wins. Just because some coach gets quoted doesn't make the statement ring true. . . . Stony Brook was 13-3 in conf. Duke was 13-3 as well. According to Bill Parcells Stony Brook = Duke. No. Duke played in the ACC and Stony Brook played in the American East


In my opinion a coach that has 26 wins and is on the "bubble" should never make the NT. He gave up his NT chances the season before when making his schedule. If he has 26 wins he plays in a **** poor conference. Let him win the CT to get in. Otherwise put a more deserving team i
This misses a HUGE part of the overall point. We are talking strictly about instances where two teams had similar RPIS in which case the benefit of playing the tougher schedule was already taken into account given the totality of the circumstances. Meaning despite only 16 wins by team A their RPI is still the same as Team B who had 26 wins. Why because of their SOS. So if that was already taken into account the next question becomes which one belongs in the NT the one that could barely go .500 or the won that won over 80% of their games? What good is the tough schedule if you can barely go .500.

I would be a pretty sketchy precident to set by telling teams hey have a top 50 SOS and simply go a game or two over .500 and you'll be in the NT. Everyone talks about how RPI can be "gamed" based on smart scheduling. Well, the same can be said about SOS and I'd contend that SOS is dramatically less reflective of how good a team is than RPI. Just take a look at the crappiest of teams in the top conferences each year. Simply by playing those opponents the SOS is higher. Again, because it is already considered and rewarded in RPI calculations, it should not then be looked at a second time where it is basically being used as a tiebreaker for two teams with the same RPI but different win totals.

I think where your example is appropriate would be.

Soney Brook is 20-10 overall with a 54 RPI and 150 SOS; Duke is 18-12 overall with a 50 RPI and 44 SOS. In this example the resumes are almost identical there is no huge difference between the wins OR RPI so Duke should be given the benefit by virtue of playing the tougher schedule. But in the case of a 10 game swing in the win column or even 6-8 where the one team barely finished above .500 the other team is more deserving IMO and its saying more about the 15-12 team than it is about the 20 win team.
5/17/2010 2:31 PM
mids irl can better their SOS in OOC whereas the BCS teams better their SOS within conference play. That's why their OOCs are typically not as strong. That said, I dont believe their is much difference between a 50 RPI team and a 70 RPI team.



The #1 factor the selection committe uses for bubble teams is W/L record versus RPI 1-50 and RPI 1-25. Teams shouldn't be punished for beating a bad team by 30 and should't be rewarded by getting beat by a good team by 30. Results like that don't tell us anything.

One team beating a bad team by 20 on the road and another team beating the same bad team by 30 at home also doesn't tell us anything of substance.
5/17/2010 2:34 PM
Let me ask you guys this...whats the point of looking at wins and RPI as two big parts of the equation of a teams season if you'll then turn around and discound it by virtue of the SOS?

Also, lets not confuse the issue in any manner. This conversation started and was about two teams with the same RPI but dramtically different win totals and which should bubble in. As I've said over and over. I dont think either belongs in BUT my point is related to one having to get in.
5/17/2010 2:35 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By Rails on 5/17/2010
mids irl can better their SOS in OOC whereas the BCS teams better their SOS within conference play. That's why their OOCs are typically not as strong. That said, I dont believe their is much difference between a 50 RPI team and a 70 RPI team.



The #1 factor the selection committe uses for bubble teams is W/L record versus RPI 1-50 and RPI 1-25. Teams shouldn't be punished for beating a bad team by 30 and should't be rewarded by getting beat by a good team by 30. Results like that don't tell us anything.

One team beating a bad team by 20 on the road and another team beating the same bad team by 30 at home also doesn't tell us anything of substance.

Thats the other issue with WIS; the nonconference portion of the schedule is much shorter than in RL.
5/17/2010 2:38 PM
IMHO it's the team that has the better record versus the better teams (vs. RPI 1-25, RPI 1-50 and RPI 1-75)

Neither SOS nor W/L should be looked on as more imortant than one another as both are part of RPI. I don't think you can look at RPI and SOS without looking at records. Just like you can't look at RPI and records. RPI factors both.

What should be factored is record against RPI 1-50, 1-25, 1-75, etc.
5/17/2010 2:41 PM
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Can Winning Matter, Please? Topic

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