In Rupp, my St. Mary's squad has the #1 overall RPI, has lost a single game to a top ten opponent, and is ranked #2 in the polls.

Still, we were just placed as a TWO SEED. And even worse, behind a team that has lost SEVEN games and has an RPI of 6th while being ranked 10th. Wtf?

How does seeding work in this game and how could it allow something so dumb?

Where are you on the Projection report

He's #5 on the PR. He's also 15th in SOS, while the four teams ahead of him on the PR are all top 5 SOS .

i was gonna say its your record vs top 50 (25/50/75/100) but you have a pretty good record there. those other teams must have played (and beaten) a lot of higher RPI teams or something. you have a lot for a team in this situation though. 5-1 vs top 25, 13-1 against top 100, i'm honestly surprised you've played so many and still are only 5th. those other teams ahead of you almost have to have a ton of wins against top teams but one of them having 7 losses sounds pretty strange.

hopefully the 2 seed wasn't a surprise though, projection report is the be-all and end-all of NT seeding. whatever it says there is the equivalent of the S-curve they like to talk about around march madness time. things like splitting up conference teams so they don't play early in the NT will change the actual NT seeding, but you have the raw S-curve right there in the projection report, the ordered ranking that takes everything about performance into account and creates a 1-50 (or however many NT at large bids) that is used to create the NT. any deviations from the S-curve are about the arrangement of conference teams, not about performance (in real life this also includes giving higher seeded teams their preferred region, and perhaps setting up marquee matchups for $$s - but in HD, its purely about conference team alignment).

Posted by mullycj on 12/20/2020 11:16:00 AM (view original):
Where are you on the Projection report

I always forget to look at this. The other teams had better SOS, by a small margin, but my RPI is #1 because I played better vs. my SOS than they did. That's the definition of RPI, yeah?

Posted by gillispie1 on 12/20/2020 12:36:00 PM (view original):
i was gonna say its your record vs top 50 (25/50/75/100) but you have a pretty good record there. those other teams must have played (and beaten) a lot of higher RPI teams or something. you have a lot for a team in this situation though. 5-1 vs top 25, 13-1 against top 100, i'm honestly surprised you've played so many and still are only 5th. those other teams ahead of you almost have to have a ton of wins against top teams but one of them having 7 losses sounds pretty strange.

hopefully the 2 seed wasn't a surprise though, projection report is the be-all and end-all of NT seeding. whatever it says there is the equivalent of the S-curve they like to talk about around march madness time. things like splitting up conference teams so they don't play early in the NT will change the actual NT seeding, but you have the raw S-curve right there in the projection report, the ordered ranking that takes everything about performance into account and creates a 1-50 (or however many NT at large bids) that is used to create the NT. any deviations from the S-curve are about the arrangement of conference teams, not about performance (in real life this also includes giving higher seeded teams their preferred region, and perhaps setting up marquee matchups for $$s - but in HD, its purely about conference team alignment).

I never remember to check projection report but, like...c'mon man. One loss, #1 RPI, and I'm a #2 seed?!

I hear you and I appreciate your analysis - I suppose I am just frustrated with the report's algorithm, given my circumstances.

Yeah that's a little weird. Luckily seeds don't really matter when you're just talking about 1 line.

Posted by cubcub113 on 12/20/2020 6:07:00 PM (view original):
Yeah that's a little weird. Luckily seeds don't really matter when you're just talking about 1 line.

Mostly fair. 1 has a bit easier of a journey but I'm sure the difference is minimal.

Too many home games. Home wins are not as valuable as road wins in the formula. Experienced it several times when my team sucks and everyone wants to play at my place. Even if I win the home games at the end of the season my PR is lower than if I balance home and away against humans.

Although I don't recall if it is factored in, it is interesting to note the total points of your team's roster is less than the four teams ahead of you in the PR.

RPI is just one factor, SOS is also important.

Posted by cubcub113 on 12/20/2020 6:07:00 PM (view original):
Yeah that's a little weird. Luckily seeds don't really matter when you're just talking about 1 line.

This is correct.

I didn't see the experience level of the OP, but I used to ask the same question about seeding. Sometimes in can be funky. Sometimes you also have to look at the teams ahead of you and the conference they come from, as a team might get bumped up or down a line, to make the balance of the bracket accurate (ex, if 4 teams from 1 conference are in the NT, all 4 will be placed in different regions).

But overall, seeding is so meaningless in HD. Due to lots of factors. There's some coaches that don't schedule, will go 29-0 with SOS 200, and get a 5 seed. And they might be the best team. I've had a 10 loss, 10 seed team make the championship game because of all the freshman promises I made. But once post season arrives, I could sit all the freshman and my true starting lineup carried us far. Often times there's teams that are seeded low that are excellent, or teams that are seeded high that aren't very good.

I also realize it's fun and noteworthy to earn a 1 seed just for self gratification. But in the end, none of the seeding matters, and what's really important is the matchups you're faced with along the way. The more you play, the more you will understand this. It took me a while

Posted by ftbeaglesfan on 12/21/2020 2:18:00 AM (view original):
Too many home games. Home wins are not as valuable as road wins in the formula. Experienced it several times when my team sucks and everyone wants to play at my place. Even if I win the home games at the end of the season my PR is lower than if I balance home and away against humans.

Although I don't recall if it is factored in, it is interesting to note the total points of your team's roster is less than the four teams ahead of you in the PR.

Wasn't aware of the fact that away games meant more. Good note.

I would certainly hope that the algorithm doesn't factor in total skill level. That would b utterly broken and unfair.

Posted by hughesjr on 12/21/2020 2:13:00 AM (view original):
RPI is just one factor, SOS is also important.

That's silly. SOS is only a sub-stat that helps calculate RPI. SOS on its own is valueless.

Posted by topdogggbm on 12/21/2020 4:16:00 AM (view original):

Posted by cubcub113 on 12/20/2020 6:07:00 PM (view original):
Yeah that's a little weird. Luckily seeds don't really matter when you're just talking about 1 line.

This is correct.

I didn't see the experience level of the OP, but I used to ask the same question about seeding. Sometimes in can be funky. Sometimes you also have to look at the teams ahead of you and the conference they come from, as a team might get bumped up or down a line, to make the balance of the bracket accurate (ex, if 4 teams from 1 conference are in the NT, all 4 will be placed in different regions).

But overall, seeding is so meaningless in HD. Due to lots of factors. There's some coaches that don't schedule, will go 29-0 with SOS 200, and get a 5 seed. And they might be the best team. I've had a 10 loss, 10 seed team make the championship game because of all the freshman promises I made. But once post season arrives, I could sit all the freshman and my true starting lineup carried us far. Often times there's teams that are seeded low that are excellent, or teams that are seeded high that aren't very good.

I also realize it's fun and noteworthy to earn a 1 seed just for self gratification. But in the end, none of the seeding matters, and what's really important is the matchups you're faced with along the way. The more you play, the more you will understand this. It took me a while

I mean, I get the concept, but on average a 1 seed should have an easier path than a 2, if only by a small margin.

For anyone unfamiliar with the RPI formula:

25 percent of your RPI is your W-L record, and:
- Road wins are worth 1.4 wins actually.
- Home wins are only worth 0.6 wins.
- Road losses are only worth 0.6 losses.
- Home losses are worth 1.4 losses.
So if you schedule 10 home games and go 5-5, RPI will consider your W-L record as 3-7.
10 road games at 5-5 will put your RPI W-L record at 7-3.
This again is 25% of your RPI.

50 percent of your RPI is your opponents' W-L record:
- so you want to avoid scheduling SimAi dregs as your path to 10-0.
- if vs Sims, usually try to schedule teams with a bunch of juniors (who will be seniors the following season when you play them).
Pretty sure this is unweighted home-away. So the 9-1 Long Island Blackbirds with 10 home games will be considered 9-1.

The last 25 percent of your RPI is your opponents' opponents' records...
- scheduling the 23-3 Long Island Blackbirds will be valuable, though probably a little less-so due to them pounding a bunch of 7-17 teams in the NEC.