alright, i found the numbers. . . .

here it is. assuming OOWP of .500 and their OOWP of .500

assuming all conference teams finished 8-8 in conference play.

here's the final conference RPI with the only variable being OOC opponent record.



4-22 = 0.5407
5-21 = 0.5481
6-20 = 0.5624
7-19 = 0.5629
8-18 = 0.5703
9-17 = 0.5777
10-16= 0.5851
11-15= 0.5925
12/31/2009 2:48 PM
polo - reread what I said - the part you bolded is in full agreement with what you just posted - emphasis on the words individual strategy and if your conf supports it (i.e. schedules harder than you)
12/31/2009 2:53 PM
i'm totally confused. are you saying 10-0 vs 300 SOS is a good strategy? for an entire conference that is.

12/31/2009 2:55 PM
okay, i think i'm following.

you're looking at it from a team aspect. i'm looking at a conference perspective.

as a team, your NT chances improve. as a conference, your total number of NT teams goes down
12/31/2009 2:57 PM
I worded it poorly i think, but yep, we are on the same page.

that is why coaches get irritated when this gets posted, they are doing what is in their individual team's best interest by going 10-0. If they can pull it off with an 80 OOC SOS, they don't damage their conference either. If it is at the expense of a 300 OOC SOS, still may be no damage, unless the heavy lifters go - this sucks, and start scheduling easy themselves, the CONFERENCE falls like a house of cards.

I would guess near every elite conference I have ever been in goes thru this debate, I have been on both side of it, as I said, I am far from the worlds best scheduler.
12/31/2009 3:03 PM
Quote: Originally posted by a_in_the_b on 12/31/2009Just a note:  Usually - as in almost always - the ones that have an under thirty RPI are going to be qualified in other ways as well.  Just because most of the ones they pick have a low RPI, doesn't mean RPI played a part in picking them.  Correlation is not causation.
Ya so they had to do something to get that low of RPI which signifies that they will end up in the tourney almost always. The RPI shows their strength of Wins and Losses and rates them by so.

Of course they have to win some but its their body of work which makes up the RPI. Its kinda like saying the #1 ranked team doesn't mean they will be in the tournament cause they have done something to make it into the tournament.
12/31/2009 3:41 PM
I'm happy i improved my sos this season for my conference - rpi 131, sos 31- Rhode Island 8-15 in wooden.
12/31/2009 4:14 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By schroedess26 on 12/31/2009
Quote: Originally posted by a_in_the_b on 12/31/200
Just a note: Usually - as in almost always - the ones that have an under thirty RPI are going to be qualified in other ways as well. Just because most of the ones they pick have a low RPI, doesn't mean RPI played a part in picking them. Correlation is not causation.

Ya so they had to do something to get that low of RPI which signifies that they will end up in the tourney almost always. The RPI shows their strength of Wins and Losses and rates them by so.

Of course they have to win some but its their body of work which makes up the RPI. Its kinda like saying the #1 ranked team doesn't mean they will be in the tournament cause they have done something to make it into the tournament.



Put it this way: Its hard for a highly tournament worthy team with allot of wins, wins against top 25 teams, wins on the road et all, to HAVE a low RPI.

12/31/2009 5:13 PM
Quote: Originally posted by mrpolo09 on 12/31/2009alright, i found the numbers. . . .here it is.  assuming OOWP of .500 and their OOWP of .500assuming all conference teams finished 8-8 in conference play.here's the final conference RPI with the only variable being OOC opponent record.   4-22 = 0.5407
5-21 = 0.5481
6-20 = 0.5624
7-19 = 0.5629
8-18 = 0.5703
9-17 = 0.5777
10-16= 0.5851
11-15= 0.5925

Go look at the average record of the worst conferences in worlds in which the conference tournament is completed. They are very close to 11-15, not 6-20. Then compare the .5925 RPI in your example to the RPI of all teams. A .5925 RPI would generally fall between #25-#35, which would be a lock for the NT.
12/31/2009 6:53 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By oldresorter on 12/31/2009
I see more elite conf action than tiger woods, well you know ....

OR with the zinger! I like it ...

It goes like clockwork, conferences get near 6 teams with the top 6 SOS, guys go crap, this was way too hard, and let up, then all of a sudden, they are lucky to get 6 in the top 50 SOS, and go crap, we're only getting 3 or 4 in the dance, and the big boys hitch their pants up and take on harder schedules

there is no doubt, if your conf supports it, the best way to win indivicually at this is to play a 300 SOS OOC go 10-0, then watch your SOS drop to 50 or 60 something by NT time.

But when 8 or 10 members of the conferences do such, a couple of upsets here and there, all of a sudden, things aren't so good.

Totally agreed, I've noticed the exact same thing.
12/31/2009 6:58 PM
Quote: Originally posted by lostmyth2 on 12/31/2009
Quote: Originally posted by mrpolo09 on 12/31/2009alright, i found the numbers. . . .here it is.  assuming OOWP of .500 and their OOWP of .500assuming all conference teams finished 8-8 in conference play.here's the final conference RPI with the only variable being OOC opponent record.   4-22 = 0.54075-21 = 0.5481
6-20 = 0.5624
7-19 = 0.5629
8-18 = 0.5703
9-17 = 0.5777
10-16= 0.5851
11-15= 0.5925
Go look at the average record of the worst conferences in worlds in which the conference tournament is completed. They are very close to 11-15, not 6-20. Then compare the .5925 RPI in your example to the RPI of all teams. A .5925 RPI would generally fall between #25-#35, which would be a lock for the NT.

yea, but you're not playing the conference, you're playing the worst team in the conference. . . .

the whole point was that your entire conference needs to go 10-0 in OOC play.

to do that you have to play the worst teams in the worst conferences. those are 4 and 5 win teams.

if you are playing 11-15 teams, no matter how good you are, most teams will end up 8-2 or 9-1
12/31/2009 10:37 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By mrpolo09 on 12/31/2009
Quote: Originally posted by lostmyth2 on 12/31/2009
Quote: Originally posted by mrpolo09 on 12/31/200
alright, i found the numbers. . . .

here it is. assuming OOWP of .500 and their OOWP of .500

assuming all conference teams finished 8-8 in conference play.

here's the final conference RPI with the only variable being OOC opponent record.



4-22 = 0.5407
5-21 = 0.5481
6-20 = 0.5624
7-19 = 0.5629
8-18 = 0.5703
9-17 = 0.5777
10-16= 0.5851
11-15= 0.592

Go look at the average record of the worst conferences in worlds in which the conference tournament is completed. They are very close to 11-15, not 6-20. Then compare the .5925 RPI in your example to the RPI of all teams. A .5925 RPI would generally fall between #25-#35, which would be a lock for the NT.

yea, but you're not playing the conference, you're playing the worst team in the conference. . . .

the whole point was that your entire conference needs to go 10-0 in OOC play.

to do that you have to play the worst teams in the worst conferences. those are 4 and 5 win teams.

if you are playing 11-15 teams, no matter how good you are, most teams will end up 8-2 or 9-
I crunched the numbers myself, and you are definitely missing something in your assumptions.

As far as theory vs. reality, this is one of the theories that I am more certain is true. We used this strategy as a conference in the CAA in Naismith and were able to put six teams in to the postseason 5 seasons straight.

If you frequently track conference RPIs after the end of OOC play, you'll see in a large majority of cases that a conference with even 2 or 3 more wins than the conference above them will pass them by the 1st round of the CT, regardless of the SOS gap at that time.
1/1/2010 9:16 AM
hey fellas, I have tried for a long time to understand ORs theories on this topic. Nearly everyone else, it seems, *gets it*.

let me throw this question out there to see if I can better understand ..

we talk alot about "heavy lifters" and I think OR and others mean "the folks who schedule a tough SOS".

here's a question, which of these teams is more of a "heavy-lifter"?
A- 10-0 200-SOS
B- 5-5 3-SOS


my opinion is that the "heavy lifters" are the best teams, and most times , those are the teams with the best rpis. i sense that those who are not "heavy lifters" are a bit frowned upon, but, i think it is just a case where those who are not heavylifteing just dont have as good of teams.
1/1/2010 12:06 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By lostmyth2 on 1/01/2010I crunched the numbers myself, and you are definitely missing something in your assumptions.

As far as theory vs. reality, this is one of the theories that I am more certain is true. We used this strategy as a conference in the CAA in Naismith and were able to put six teams in to the postseason 5 seasons straight.

If you frequently track conference RPIs after the end of OOC play, you'll see in a large majority of cases that a conference with even 2 or 3 more wins than the conference above them will pass them by the 1st round of the CT, regardless of the SOS gap at that time


I'm trying to say this in the least arrogant way, but there's nothing missing. i've been tracking conference RPI for 25 seasons now becuase of this conference, trying to figure out ways to maximize end results. i've got tons of data and even started logging our daily conference RPI/SOS the past two seasons. even went as far as graphing it and following trends that result due to outside influences such as OOC team performance.

anyway. as to my example....

the entire conference is 18-8 thats a WP of 0.6923

say the record of the entire conference's OOC opponents is 6-20. so thats 10 games vs 6-20, 16 games vs 18-8.
(60-200)+(288-128)= 348-328 thats an OWP of 0.5148

for OOC i used .500 as the OWP. Your conference opponents each have an OWP of 0.5148 as mentioned above. . .
so OOC OOWP is .500 (3380-3380). Your conference is (5568-5248) for a total of 8948-8628. Thats an OOWP of 0.5091

0.6923/4=0.173075
0.5148/2=0.2574
0.5091/4=0.127275

.173+.2574+.1273=0.5577

the numbers in the initial post were wrong for the 6-20 record. i copied/pasted this from a sitemail that i sent out last month. all other numbers were right.

only thing it does not factor is home/away which has a huge influence.
1/1/2010 2:42 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By lostmyth2 on 1/01/2010
I crunched the numbers myself, and you are definitely missing something in your assumptions.

As far as theory vs. reality, this is one of the theories that I am more certain is true. We used this strategy as a conference in the CAA in Naismith and were able to put six teams in to the postseason 5 seasons straight.

If you frequently track conference RPIs after the end of OOC play, you'll see in a large majority of cases that a conference with even 2 or 3 more wins than the conference above them will pass them by the 1st round of the CT, regardless of the SOS gap at that time.


this is totally wrong. the point where the independent events (namely OOC wins/losses) show their effects and settle in, is between conference games #3-#6.

at this point, your conference RPI has settled in, relative to other conferences and you will see little fluxuation the rest of the season. You will see it in the actual RPI, but not in the differnence between one conference and another.

if you dont believe me on this, give me your email address. i'll send you graphs. last season i charted four conference and their RPI/SOS all season long.
1/1/2010 2:48 PM
◂ Prev 12345 Next ▸

Search Criteria

Terms of Use Customer Support Privacy Statement

© 1999-2026 WhatIfSports.com, Inc. All rights reserved. WhatIfSports is a trademark of WhatIfSports.com, Inc. SimLeague, SimMatchup and iSimNow are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts, Inc. Used under license. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.