Has anyone ever had this happen to them?  I just lost in the CT and my RPI of 68 won't get me into the NT.  Conference was ranked low this year, I played humans in non-con, but not well enough to get an at-large.

I've seen an RPI of 68 make the NT before but I'd say, with 8 losses, your chances are slim.  I've never seen a 16-0 team miss the NT but I'm sure it's happened

No offense, dave, but your resume doesn't warrant a NT bid -- you went 1-6 vs. NT-caliber teams. If you're in a crappy conference, you have to schedule your non-con very carefully.

Posted by girt25 on 10/9/2010 10:53:00 AM (view original):
No offense, dave, but your resume doesn't warrant a NT bid -- you went 1-6 vs. NT-caliber teams. If you're in a crappy conference, you have to schedule your non-con very carefully.

So expand on "very-carefully".  I generally schedule tough in non-con, knowing conference play won't help my RPI.  I've made the NT 5 of the past 6 years doing so.  Am I better off scheduling low quality non-con opponents and racking up wins?  I always thought that would probably drag my RPI down too much.

you need to schedule tougher nonconference to avoid what happened this season - the weakness of the conference and what I assume was a mediocre nonconf schedule led to an rpi that just cant get you there

Dave, another coach once said it best - "Schedule the toughest teams that you can beat." That means don't schedule 10 cupcakes and don't schedule 10 Top 25 teams. I try to schedule teams that I think will win 15+ games. I try to balance them out between home and road to gain the best atvantage. If you look at how the RPI formula works you will see why this is so critical.

To conclude:  20-8 with an RPI of 71 and going 3-5 versus NT qualifers gets you a #2 seed in the PT.

Conclusion:  About the only thing I scheduled different this year was spliting my non-con games evenly between home and away.  3 wins vs NT teams is on par with most years.  Normally I schedule most away for the RPI benefit, RPI this year about 20-25 spots lower than usual. 

Thanks for your input.

you had a couple close loses in OOC, but the core lesson is that with a weak conference you need to do more in OOC to get to the Dance