Home-Court Advanctage, Part Two
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Here's the 3-year average conference home-court advantage numbers. The Big Ten has the third highest home-court advantage for in-conference games over the last 3 years, the highest over the last two years. It's interesting that the numbers are not very correlated year-over-year.
| Conference | 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 3-Yr Exp Win | 3-Yr Act Win | 3-Yr Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mountain West | +12.70% | -0.10% | +1.30% | 63.09% | 67.72% | +4.64% |
| Big 12 | +7.34% | +0.23% | +3.84% | 62.52% | 66.32% | +3.80% |
| Big Ten | -2.30% | +5.55% | +8.09% | 62.13% | 65.91% | +3.78% |
| Mid-American | +4.74% | +5.93% | +0.13% | 64.23% | 67.83% | +3.60% |
| Colonial | +6.84% | -0.21% | +4.01% | 60.70% | 64.25% | +3.54% |
| Missouri Valley | -0.46% | +3.04% | +3.07% | 62.93% | 64.81% | +1.88% |
| SEC | +3.29% | +4.79% | -2.49% | 63.00% | 64.86% | +1.86% |
| WAC | -1.03% | +1.22% | +4.11% | 62.47% | 63.90% | +1.43% |
| Conference USA | +0.43% | -0.19% | +4.03% | 62.16% | 63.58% | +1.42% |
| Patriot | +1.08% | +5.55% | -3.68% | 61.60% | 62.58% | +0.98% |
| Ohio Valley | +1.61% | +1.64% | -0.85% | 63.22% | 64.02% | +0.80% |
| ACC | +0.13% | -0.73% | +0.20% | 63.56% | 63.43% | -0.13% |
| Southern | -3.98% | +1.09% | +2.31% | 63.21% | 63.02% | -0.19% |
| Horizon | -3.84% | -2.54% | +2.19% | 63.91% | 62.52% | -1.40% |
| Mid-Continent | -1.94% | -5.58% | +2.78% | 63.75% | 62.17% | -1.58% |
| Big Sky | -9.12% | +5.89% | -1.71% | 66.51% | 64.87% | -1.64% |
| Big South | -0.43% | -3.97% | -1.02% | 64.51% | 62.71% | -1.81% |
| Southland | +3.24% | -6.14% | -3.07% | 64.10% | 62.11% | -1.99% |
| Atlantic 10 | -2.62% | -3.95% | +0.28% | 61.37% | 59.27% | -2.10% |
| Big East | -3.06% | -4.79% | +1.23% | 62.54% | 60.33% | -2.21% |
| West Coast | -1.62% | -0.81% | -4.70% | 62.38% | 60.00% | -2.37% |
| Northeast | -1.78% | -4.29% | -1.36% | 65.44% | 62.96% | -2.48% |
| Ivy | -6.31% | +2.46% | -3.90% | 62.70% | 60.12% | -2.58% |
| Metro Atlantic | -0.18% | +0.95% | -9.25% | 62.33% | 59.50% | -2.83% |
| Pac-10 | -1.51% | -1.61% | -5.45% | 63.56% | 60.70% | -2.85% |
| Sun Belt | -6.49% | -3.45% | +0.06% | 64.20% | 60.91% | -3.29% |
| Big West | +0.43% | +4.79% | -15.69% | 61.93% | 58.44% | -3.49% |
| SWAC | -3.40% | -6.54% | -2.70% | 63.84% | 59.63% | -4.21% |
| Mid-Eastern | -0.91% | -6.87% | -5.04% | 62.38% | 58.10% | -4.27% |
| America East | -10.73% | +1.97% | -4.47% | 62.95% | 58.53% | -4.41% |
| Atlantic Sun | -1.28% | -8.81% | -5.01% | 61.44% | 56.41% | -5.03% |
posted by Jim Colton @ 10:07 AM,
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The Big Ten and Home Court Advantage
Monday, March 20, 2006
Using the game-by-game data of the 5,000 college basketball games per season, you can easily quantify the home-court advantage. In 2005-06, take two otherwise identical teams (expected winning percentage of 50/50 on a neutral court) and the home team would be expected to win 67.26% of the time. However, the benefit of the home court diminishes as the difference in the quality of the teams increases. For example, Illinois would be expected to beat #161 ranked Wyoming 97.8% of the time on a neutral court and approximately 98.9% of the time at home.
So if we can quantify the 'typical' home-court advantage, we can see how the home-court advantage varies by conference in conference play. If you've paid any attention to the Big Ten this year, you know that it was extremely tough to win on the road. And the numbers this year bear this out.
'EXP WIN' is the average expected winning percentage for the home team adjusting for the quality of the teams in question and factoring in a 'typical' home-court advantage. 'ACT WIN' is the actual winning percentage of the home team. The +/- can be attributed at least partially to conference-specific home-court advantage. The numbers prove what we've known all along...it's tough to win on the road in the Big Ten. However, it's surprising just how far ahead we are compared to other conferences (hey, we may not have any teams in the Sweet 16, but at least we're first in something!).
Because the numbers can be skewed from upsets, etc., I need to look at 3+ years of history to see if these differences are anamolies or true trends. I suspect we'll still see a positive number in the Big Ten, but maybe not quite as big. (Sneak preview: in 2005, the Big Ten was third overall at +5.55%)
| Conference | Exp Win | Act Win | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| B10 | 62.37% | 70.45% | +8.09% |
| WAC | 61.23% | 65.33% | +4.11% |
| CUSA | 61.49% | 65.52% | +4.03% |
| Col | 59.63% | 63.64% | +4.01% |
| B12 | 62.83% | 66.67% | +3.84% |
| MVC | 61.37% | 64.44% | +3.07% |
| MidCn | 62.55% | 65.33% | +2.78% |
| Sthrn | 62.75% | 65.06% | +2.31% |
| Hor | 64.04% | 66.23% | +2.19% |
| MtnW | 62.58% | 63.89% | +1.30% |
| BEast | 62.05% | 63.28% | +1.23% |
| A10 | 61.79% | 62.07% | +0.28% |
| ACC | 62.30% | 62.50% | +0.20% |
| MAC | 62.37% | 62.50% | +0.13% |
| SunB | 62.91% | 62.96% | +0.06% |
| OVC | 61.38% | 60.53% | -0.85% |
| BigS | 62.56% | 61.54% | -1.02% |
| NE | 64.56% | 63.21% | -1.36% |
| BSky | 64.42% | 62.71% | -1.71% |
| SEC | 62.69% | 60.20% | -2.49% |
| SWAC | 62.70% | 60.00% | -2.70% |
| Sland | 63.07% | 60.00% | -3.07% |
| Pat | 61.05% | 57.38% | -3.68% |
| Ivy | 62.83% | 58.93% | -3.90% |
| AmE | 64.47% | 60.00% | -4.47% |
| WCC | 63.32% | 58.62% | -4.70% |
| ASun | 59.96% | 54.95% | -5.01% |
| MEAC | 62.18% | 57.14% | -5.04% |
| P10 | 63.52% | 58.06% | -5.45% |
| MAAC | 63.10% | 53.85% | -9.25% |
| BigW | 62.12% | 46.43% | -15.69% |
posted by Jim Colton @ 10:06 AM,
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RPI: The Power of Misinformation
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Now that the NCAA tournament has started, most of the backlash and criticism surrounding the brackets this year has been drowned out by the excitement of what is still the greatest thing going in sports. How can anyone complain when there's basketball on from 11:00 am to 11:00 pm? Still, the NCAA needs to take a hard look at some of the issues w/ the job of the Selection Committee, such as the lack of consistency in assessing teams and more importantly the role of committee member influence in the selection process.
The other thing the NCAA needs to look at is the quality of the data that it is providing to the Committee members to make these key decisions. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you give the Committee poor information, it's going to lead to poor decision making. You can really see this if you look at the last 3 years, which I did in a recent posting. To summarize:
2004: Old RPI (Bad Information) --> Bad Seedings2005: Old RPI (Bad Information), New RPI (Worse Information) and Sagarin Ratings (Good Information) --> Good Seedings
2006: New RPI (Worse Information) --> Disastrous Seedings
I predicted this level of disaster would actually happen last year when the NCAA made the home/road adjustments for the first time. The crude adjustments make the ratings even more misleading and inaccurate than the old ratings, which is really saying something. However, Bowlsby & Co. were bailed out by relying on the Sagarin ratings, which is a very good body-of-work index. After using just the New RPI this year, Littlepage made Bowlsby look like a genious by comparison.
But Littlepage can't really be blamed for relying on the information that is put in front of him. He can't do anything other than take the numbers at face value and assume that they provide useful and accurate information on the thing they were designed to measure.
Of course, the Committee says every year that the RPI plays a very small role in the selection process, however it's clear that this year that the 'numbers' did play a large role in most of the decisions where the committee deviated from the general consensus. The issue isn't the fact that the Committee relied on the numbers. The issues is the numbers that the Committee relied on were misleading. If the numbers were better, the Committee would've made far better decisions.
To demonstrate what I'm talking about, take a look at the various examples below. The RPI numbers are shown in comparison with their JCI counterparts. The JCI information is a far more accurate assessment of what the RPI factors are trying to represent. In each case, ask yourself: 'Do you think the Selection Committee would've reached the same conclusion if they had the second line of information instead of the first?' If the answer is yes, then you know the numbers played a large role.
THE OVERSEEDSTennessee
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | RPI Based | 21 - 7 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 10 | 6-4 | 3-2 | 1-2 | 6-3 |
| 5 | JCI Based | 21 - 7 | 16 | 36 | 31 | 105 | -0.103 | 3-2 | 1-3 | 9-2 |
Note: My last 10 figure looks at how the team performed relative to the rankings over the last 10 games, so captures who you are playing (and where it's at). A +.1 or -.1 would mean that the team won one more/one less game than would be expected for a team with that ranking.
Comment: Get used to the wide differences in NC RPI and NC SOS -- you'll start to notice a lot of it.
UCLA
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | RPI Based | 27 - 6 | 10 | 29 | 9 | 14 | 8-2 | 4-1 | 1-3 | 6-1 |
| 5 | JCI Based | 27 - 6 | 21 | 85 | 59 | 79 | 0.004 | 0-2 | 2-2 | 9-2 |
Comment: UCLA probably gets most of its lift simply by playing Arizona, the most overinflated team on the list, 3 times. UCLA gets 3 Top 25 wins when Arizona shouldn't even be considered Top 50. You can see how this can have a major impact on a team's resume. Even if the RPI is used simply as an organizational tool, as the NCAA hs suggested, it can create misleading results due to misclassifying teams.
Oklahoma
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | RPI Based | 20 - 8 | 16 | 27 | 12 | 24 | 6-4 | 1-3 | 2-1 | 4-3 |
| 9 | JCI Based | 20 - 8 | 28 | 57 | 46 | 160 | -0.042 | 1-4 | 3-0 | 3-3 |
Comment: Oklahoma is simply not a very good basketball team. UW-Milwaukee had to be licking their chops when they saw Oklahoma as a #6 seed. Their RPI numbers are inflated across the board.
Nevada
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | RPI Based | 26 - 5 | 19 | 98 | 11 | 44 | 10-0 | 1-1 | 2-1 | 9-1 |
| 8 | JCI Based | 26 - 5 | 31 | 147 | 75 | 114 | 0.108 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 7-1 |
Wichita St
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | RPI Based | 23 - 8 | 27 | 58 | 67 | 83 | 7-3 | 2-4 | 4-4 | 2-0 |
| 9 | JCI Based | 23 - 8 | 32 | 75 | 77 | 128 | -0.063 | 0-2 | 6-6 | 3-0 |
Washington
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | RPI Based | 24 - 6 | 35 | 92 | 14 | 158 | 8-2 | 4-1 | 1-0 | 2-2 |
| 8 | JCI Based | 24 - 6 | 34 | 109 | 18 | 301 | 0.037 | 3-0 | 0-0 | 6-3 |
Comment: Hard to rip on Washington's seed after they knocked off my Illini, but it's amazing just how far off that NC SOS can be.
UAB
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | RPI Based | 23 - 6 | 32 | 115 | 75 | 150 | 8-2 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 6-4 |
| 11 | JCI Based | 23 - 6 | 39 | 108 | 86 | 181 | 0.037 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 5-4 |
UNC-Wilmington
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | RPI Based | 25 - 7 | 28 | 103 | 94 | 141 | 9-1 | 0-1 | 3-2 | 5-2 |
| 11 | JCI Based | 25 - 7 | 44 | 124 | 118 | 165 | 0.138 | 0-0 | 3-3 | 1-2 |
Seton Hall
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | RPI Based | 18 - 11 | 58 | 36 | 34 | 36 | 5-5 | 2-3 | 2-1 | 4-4 |
| 12 | JCI Based | 18 - 11 | 46 | 40 | 50 | 138 | -0.034 | 4-3 | 1-1 | 3-5 |
George Mason
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | RPI Based | 23 - 7 | 26 | 89 | 30 | 32 | 8-2 | 0-0 | 2-4 | 6-2 |
| Out | JCI Based | 23 - 7 | 45 | 111 | 99 | 115 | 0.089 | 0-0 | 2-4 | 1-3 |
Comment: Having the George Mason AD on the Selection Committee probably did more for their cause then the numbers, but the numbers are inflated across the board. Look at the difference in NC SOS (a reoccuring theme)...32 vs. 115! Every year you have some controversial pick end up going deep in the tourney, making the Committee look like they knew what they were doing. This year it's George Mason. Kudos for knocking off Michigan State and North Carolina, but George Mason didn't earn the opportunity to play those teams.
Alabama
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | RPI Based | 17 - 12 | 57 | 12 | 103 | 18 | 6-4 | 3-3 | 2-2 | 4-4 |
| Out | JCI Based | 17 - 12 | 50 | 38 | 87 | 85 | 0.116 | 3-3 | 2-3 | 5-5 |
Arizona
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | RPI Based | 19 - 12 | 23 | 7 | 8 | 1 | 6-4 | 1-6 | 1-1 | 6-2 |
| Out | JCI Based | 19 - 12 | 51 | 50 | 80 | 18 | -0.017 | 1-6 | 1-1 | 7-3 |
Comment: Congrats to Lute Olsen and the Arizona staff for beating the system. I guess this how you guarantee that you'll keep that 25-year tourney streak going.
California
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | RPI Based | 20 - 10 | 52 | 61 | 126 | 153 | 6-4 | 2-4 | 1-1 | 4-2 |
| Out | JCI Based | 20 - 10 | 54 | 78 | 89 | 238 | -0.006 | 1-3 | 1-1 | 7-3 |
Comment: Cal barely fits the profile of a tournament-worthy team, much less a 7 seed.
Air Force
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | RPI Based | 22 - 6 | 50 | 158 | 57 | 273 | 7-3 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 5-2 |
| Out | JCI Based | 22 - 6 | 58 | 215 | 66 | 281 | -0.060 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 3-2 |
Comment: Littlepage called Air Force a 'tough out', but does being a tough out mean losing to #161 Wyoming in the first round of the conference tournament (they also lost to Wyoming in the regular season)? Air Force simply was not a tournament-caliber team.
Utah State
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | RPI Based | 22 - 8 | 46 | 102 | 16 | 75 | 7-3 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 6-3 |
| Out | JCI Based | 22 - 8 | 73 | 177 | 78 | 315 | -0.014 | 0-0 | 1-2 | 5-0 |
Comment: There's not much more I can say about Utah State, other than directing you to click here and here. This statement just about sums it up: Utah State was slightly more deserving of a tournament bid than Northwestern (13-15) and DePaul (12-15).
Average for 15 'Overseeds':
Average RPI Difference: -9.1
Average SOS Difference: -30.5
Average NC RPI Difference: -26.4
Average NC SOS Difference: -80.7
THE UNDERSEEDS
Illinois
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | RPI Based | 25 - 6 | 14 | 54 | 15 | 192 | 6-4 | 5-3 | 4-2 | 4-0 |
| 2 | JCI Based | 25 - 6 | 7 | 26 | 3 | 154 | -0.099 | 6-4 | 3-1 | 6-1 |
Comment: It sure would've been nice to see Illinois get a better draw than they did. It's clear that their deflated RPI and SOS played a role, because there's no other way to justify them as a '4' seed. I just hope they learn to schedule a little better in the future.
George Washington
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | RPI Based | 26 - 2 | 37 | 207 | 107 | 323 | 9-1 | 0-0 | 3-0 | 2-2 |
| 4 | JCI Based | 26 - 2 | 9 | 159 | 45 | 282 | -0.034 | 0-1 | 1-0 | 8-1 |
Comment: GW definitely got dinged for their weak schedule, especially in non-conference play. I'm not going to defend their schedule, but the numbers aren't as bad as the RPI would've led the Committee to believe. Even with the injury to Pops, GW deserved a better draw.
Pittsburgh
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | RPI Based | 24 - 7 | 11 | 30 | 20 | 227 | 6-4 | 3-2 | 4-3 | 6-1 |
| 3 | JCI Based | 24 - 7 | 10 | 28 | 2 | 285 | -0.072 | 4-4 | 5-2 | 7-0 |
Comment: The Anti-UCLA. Misclassification of teams hurt Pitt, where instead of having 4 Top 25 wins and 9 top 50 wins, the RPI shows them with 3 and 7, respectively.
Bucknell
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | RPI Based | 25 - 4 | 42 | 181 | 29 | 37 | 9-1 | 1-3 | 1-0 | 1-0 |
| 7 | JCI Based | 25 - 4 | 22 | 153 | 111 | 21 | -0.020 | 1-2 | 0-1 | 2-0 |
North Carolina St
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | RPI Based | 21 - 9 | 51 | 64 | 74 | 206 | 5-5 | 1-5 | 2-0 | 8-3 |
| 8 | JCI Based | 21 - 9 | 25 | 43 | 25 | 133 | -0.175 | 2-5 | 3-1 | 6-2 |
Comment: NC St's number are deflated across the board. I guess taking down Cal in the first round can't be considered too much of an upset. Maybe their seeds should've been flipped.
Arkansas
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | RPI Based | 22 - 9 | 45 | 68 | 82 | 215 | 7-3 | 4-4 | 0-2 | 3-1 |
| 6 | JCI Based | 22 - 9 | 26 | 49 | 29 | 144 | 0.097 | 3-4 | 2-3 | 5-1 |
Texas A&M
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | RPI Based | 21 - 8 | 44 | 67 | 48 | 240 | 8-2 | 1-5 | 0-0 | 6-2 |
| 8 | JCI Based | 21 - 8 | 38 | 74 | 22 | 323 | 0.213 | 1-3 | 0-2 | 7-2 |
Comment: If the Committee values performance over the last 10 games, then Texas A&M is one team that deserved even more credit than they received. A 8-2 record given their schedule is over 2 games better than expected for a typical 38th-ranked team.
Cincinnati
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out | RPI Based | 18 - 12 | 40 | 5 | 28 | 22 | 5-5 | 2-6 | 2-2 | 7-3 |
| 7 | JCI Based | 18 - 12 | 30 | 6 | 21 | 96 | 0.018 | 3-8 | 2-2 | 7-1 |
Comment: Cincinnati should've been a tournament team either way you look at it. Maybe they got dinged for their 5-5 finish, but my Last 10 measure shows that going 5-5 given their last 10 games is roughly consistent with expectations for a 30th-ranked team.
Michigan
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out | RPI Based | 18 - 10 | 47 | 37 | 36 | 147 | 3-7 | 3-6 | 0-2 | 6-1 |
| 10 | JCI Based | 18 - 10 | 33 | 33 | 9 | 254 | -0.167 | 2-8 | 1-0 | 7-1 |
Comment: Michigan definitely got dinged for their lackluster finish, but you'd have to overweight their last 10 games to a unfair degree before they would look inferior to Air Force or Utah State. Is it body-of-work or not? Body-of-work says Michigan is in.
Florida St
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out | RPI Based | 19 - 9 | 63 | 94 | 97 | 316 | 6-4 | 1-4 | 1-0 | 6-4 |
| 9 | JCI Based | 19 - 9 | 37 | 53 | 15 | 278 | 0.036 | 1-5 | 1-0 | 6-3 |
Comment: If the Committee had the JCI numbers, there's no question that Florida St is in. If Utah State gets credit for coming close to beating #31 Nevada, shouldn't Florida St get credit for beating one-seeded Duke?
Missouri St
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out | RPI Based | 20 - 8 | 21 | 46 | 5 | 41 | 8-2 | 1-2 | 3-6 | 1-0 |
| 10 | JCI Based | 20 - 8 | 40 | 73 | 28 | 188 | 0.131 | 0-0 | 4-8 | 1-0 |
Comment: Missouri St is the scapegoat so the Committee can say they don't rely on the RPI. It's clear from Littlepage's comments that they had a number in mind for MVC bids: 4. Missouri St lost out when compared to the other MVC teams.
The Missouri St debacle might be an example of where the Committee had some sense that the RPI numbers were inaccurate in the case of the MVC teams, since it did get a lot of press, but they didn't have any sense on just how far they were off. This forced them down the alternate path of comparing the MVC teams head-to-head and setting the cut-off at four. While it's true that Missouri State's RPI numbers were inflated, their true numbers would've still been enough to get them in.
Hofstra
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out | RPI Based | 24 - 6 | 30 | 129 | 62 | 281 | 8-2 | 0-0 | 3-2 | 4-3 |
| 10 | JCI Based | 24 - 6 | 41 | 128 | 56 | 244 | 0.056 | 0-0 | 3-2 | 3-1 |
Maryland
| Seed | Team | W-L | RPI | SOS | NC RPI | NC SOS | Last 10 | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out | RPI Based | 18 - 12 | 49 | 14 | 45 | 64 | 5-5 | 1-6 | 1-1 | 5-5 |
| 11 | JCI Based | 18 - 12 | 42 | 16 | 39 | 82 | -0.011 | 1-8 | 1-1 | 5-3 |
Average for 13 'Underseeds':
Average RPI Difference: +10.3 (+12.8 excluding Missouri St)
Average SOS Difference: +15.2 (+12.8 excluding Missouri St)
Average NC RPI Difference: +18.7 (+22.2 excluding Missouri St)
Average NC SOS Difference: -13.3 (-2.2 excluding Missouri St)
posted by Jim Colton @ 10:05 AM,
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Some JCI Fun Facts for My Friends at GW
Friday, March 17, 2006
Draw your own conclusions.
Expected # of wins for an avg 8 seed (GW excluded) on GW's schedule: 23.11Probability of an avg 8 seed winning 26 or more games given GW's schedule: 7.16%
Expected # of wins for an avg 7 seed on GW's schedule: 23.48
Probability of an avg 7 seed winning 26 or more games given GW's schedule: 10.76%
Expected # of wins for an avg 6 seed on GW's schedule: 24.26
Probability of an avg 6 seed winning 26 or more games given GW's schedule: 22.08%
Expected # of wins for an avg 5 seed on GW's schedule: 24.41
Probability of an avg 5 seed winning 26 or more games given GW's schedule: 24.81%
Expected # of wins for an avg 4 seed on GW's schedule: 25.25
Probability of an avg 4 seed winning 26 or more games given GW's schedule: 45.48%
Expected # of wins for an avg 3 seed on GW's schedule: 25.71
Probability of an avg 3 seed winning 26 or more games given GW's schedule: 59.41%
Expected # of wins for an avg 2 seed on GW's schedule: 25.50
Probability of an avg 2 seed winning 26 or more games given GW's schedule: 52.73%
Expected # of wins for an avg 1 seed on GW's schedule: 27.03
Probability of an avg 1 seed winning 26 or more games given GW's schedule: 93.62%
posted by Jim Colton @ 10:03 AM,
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A Closer Look at Littlepage's Comments
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Check out this post-Selection Sunday interview w/ Craig Littlepage:
http://www.ncaasports.com/basketball/mens/story/9303376Let's look at some of Craig's responses to see if they shed any light on some of the strange decisions that were made in this year's brackets.
CRAIG LITTLEPAGE: "First of all, I think it would be worthwhile congratulating each of the 65 teams that have earned their way into..."Sorry Craig, but I think the RPI needs to be fixed. (Since it's perfectly okay for Nantz and Packer to interrupt Craig, I thought I start off by doing it here.)
MISSOURI ST AND CONFERENCE AFFILIATION
Q. It looks like with the exclusion of Missouri State or Cincinnati, the RPI isn't everything in your eyes. Can you talk about how you use the RPI and about Missouri State being the highest RPI team ever to be excluded?CRAIG LITTLEPAGE: "Well, again, the RPI is one of those tools that we have at our disposal. It gets probably far too much attention in terms of it being a determinant.
I think the fact that we made the decisions that we made, again, will dispel some of the feeling that this is what teams are evaluated on, and this is what is going to get a team in or not.
What gets a team in the tournament is a team that performs well in its conference, a team that attempts to schedule solidly outside the conference, and does its share of business in terms of success in those games season long.
In the case of Missouri State, when we looked at the head to head competition with them and the other five schools that we evaluated in the Missouri Valley Conference, we took that into consideration."
Q. Can you elaborate a little bit on Missouri State in terms of what is the message to them? They got a high RPI. Non conference was not what you were looking for?
CRAIG LITTLEPAGE: "Well, again, decisions are not are RPI driven. RPIs are just a relative reflection of team's strength. But decisions are not RPI driven. Maybe this is just one example of how the committee is very deliberative in its approaching to selecting teams.
When we looked at Missouri State as it compared to the other five schools in the Missouri Valley Conference, their record against those other five schools was not as solid as the schools that we put into the bracket."
It looks like they used Missouri State as the scapegoat so they can say RPI doesn't matter. CL even said so in a recent e-mail to me: "Generally we don't rely on the RPI as was evidenced by the Missouri St situation." I agree the RPI shouldn't be the end all, be all (especially given its flaws), but I think I've shown that the RPI and all of it subcomponents were the primary thing driving many of their decisions (committee influence being the other key driver). The simply chose not to use it in the case of Missouri St.
If you read between the lines in his Missouri Stare example, you can see that despite what they say about conference affiliation not playing a role, it certainly did in this instance. The fact that they compared Missouri State to the other worthy teams in the MVC tells you that they had a mindset to include no more than 4 teams from that conference in. Otherwise, why do the comparison? It's not like the 5 MVC teams were competing for the last 4 at-large spots. So maybe Nantz and Packer did have a legitimate beef, although they went about it completely the wrong way and asked the wrong questions (imagine what the veins in Packer's head would've looked like if MVC had gotten 5 teams in).
The Value of One Game
Q. Follow up on Cincinnati. Can you talk about the impact their loss had? Is it accurate or fair to say that's one of the situations where a team's fate was decided by one last second shot?CRAIG LITTLEPAGE: "No, no. Again, we looked at every possible aspect of the Cincinnati resume. I talked about the record in the last 16 games or so of the regular season. We talked about the other factors in terms of, yes, the Big East, et cetera, et cetera. But to try to pin it on one particular game, we don't put that much importance on one game."
Well, I would believe this comment if it weren't for Utah State, which got in based on the strength of one game...an overtime loss to Nevada in the conference tournament finals. Check out my analysis of the Utah State situation.
BODY OF WORK AND TENNESSEE
CRAIG LITTLEPAGE: "because we're looking at a full resume of work, a full body of work, if you will.""I think also, again, if you look at the full body of work..."
Q. A fair amount of discussion on Gonzaga's seeding, they could have been a No. 2, and also some surprise that Tennessee was a No. 2. What was the reckoning there?
CRAIG LITTLEPAGE: "We looked at the success that the University of Tennessee had season long in the Southeast Conference. We looked at, again, the body of work that they presented us. We looked at the overall relative strength of the schedule that they played, both in the conference and out of the conference, the number of games that they won. We just felt as though in this case that they were deserving of that position."
You can look at this a million different ways, and you'll never be able to justify the Tennessee decision based on any kind of body-of-work criteria. The only answers are RPI inaccuracies (Tennessee RPI = 6; SOS = 6) and committee member influence. Sadly, that's the only answer.
THE RIGHT QUESTIONSLittlepage and the Selection Committee are definitely worthy of criticism this year, but nobody's asking the right questions. Nantz and Packer blew it. The guys in this press conference blew it. A couple of questions that I'd like somebody to ask include:
- How does Utah State get in on the strength of a close loss to a 5 seed? Is the Committee going to start to give teams credit for losing games to quality teams?
- Are you concerned about the increased risk of programs gaming the system in order to make their RPI and SOS look better than they actually are? Is the NCAA going to look to adjust the RPI formulas to combat this?
- Is the NCAA concerned at all that the numbers that play a role in the selection process, such as RPI, SOS, NC RPI and NC SOS might not be accurate representations of a team's performance or the true difficulty of a given team's schedule? Is there any concern that misleading or inaccurate information could lead to less deserving teams getting into the tournament at the expense of more deserving teams? Is the NCAA looking at ways to improve the data that it provides the Committee to make these tough decisions?
- Why do injuries/suspensions factor into the decision to drop/exclude some teams such as George Washington, Cincinnati and perhaps Maryland while a suspension to a key player on George Mason didn't factor in their decision.
- Why does performance over the last 10 games make a difference for teams like Michigan and others while it didn't count against Tennessee?
- Did the role of committee influence play a role in the inclusion of teams like Air Force and Utah State? Do you think they've would have made the tournament if they had no conference respresentation on the committee?
Unfortunately, these questions will go unanswered.
Up next: A even closer look at the role of the RPI and all of its cousins in the selection process. Stay tuned.
posted by Jim Colton @ 10:03 AM,
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JCI Gets Mad Love from G-Dub
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
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WOW.. JCI IS MY NEW HERO.3/11/2006 2:55:41 PMBY: Free Quebec
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I don't know where this guy came from, but JCI's blog is awesome if you value statsitical anylsis in basketball (and since virtually everyone know talks RPI, everyone should be interested).
If you scroll to the second blog entry here, he has a post about scheduling to maximize RPI. Basically he says that there is an RPI sweet spot for the 50th ranked program to try to schedule -- try to get roughly the 98th ranked team on your home court because statistically, you have the best chance to win and boost your RPI at the same time.
He's even broken the thing down in graph form.
Should be mandatory reading for the GW athletic department.
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"That's a really good article. I especially agree with him about a win should never hurt you and a loss should never help you. Something like the weighted winning percentage of the RPI depending where the game is played. So a loss at UConn would only be like 0.1 losses, a win at UConn would be like 3 wins, a win at home against Jacksonville would be worth 0.1 wins, and a loss at home to Jacksonville would be like 3 losses. Something like that."
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JCI COMES TO OUR DEFENSE AGAIN3/8/2006 4:01:04 PMBY: Free Quebec
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I have no idea what Jim Colton's background is, but this year he's my kind of statistician.
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"i found that blog to be highly informative and thought provoking. everyone should read it. great link. i also checked out the comparison page where it tracks all bracket projections and gives average seeds for each team. The 1 seed he gives us pulls us up to a 3 seed overall, the last one I believe."
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"I have been reading your blog and love it and have linked to it on this board a couple of times -- not just becuse you are a defender of GW, but because you ask the right questions. "
posted by Jim Colton @ 10:02 AM,
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21 Teams More Deserving than Utah St
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
A lot of the focus on the weak brackets this year has been centered around the inclusion of Air Force. Jerry Palm of collegerpi.com called Air Force the 'worst at-large selection ever'. Although I agree with Jerry that Air Force shouldn't have made the tournament, the Air Force debacle absolutely pales in comparison to the travesty that is Utah State. Look at this 'tournament worthy' schedule:
WINS (22)@ 31 Nevada
@ 91 Louisiana Tech
vs 91 Louisiana Tech
@ 146 Oral Roberts
70 Northwestern St
@ 167 Boise St
87 BYU
91 Louisiana Tech
106 Hawaii
130 Fresno St
146 Oral Roberts
149 Middle Tenn St
@ 249 Weber St
@ 261 San Jose St
167 Boise St
204 Ark-Little Rock
vs 261 San Jose St
@ 304 Idaho
232 Binghamton
261 San Jose St
285 South Dakota St
304 Idaho
LOSSES (8)
@ 31 Nevada
31 Nevada
@ 106 Hawaii
@ 117 New Mexico St
@ 130 Fresno St
@ 149 Middle Tenn St
@ 151 Utah
117 New Mexico St
If you're looking at 'body-of-work', then there's absolutely no way to justify Utah State getting into the field. Assuming that the last at-large spot is roughly the 52nd ranked team, the estimated probability of the typical 52nd-ranked team winning 22 or more games given Utah State's schedule above is 87.96%. If you assume that deservedness is a function of achievement...or the impressiveness or difficulty of a team reaching a certain level of achievement, we can compare Utah State's probability to other team's and their level of achievement (lower probability = more difficult = more deserving).
The estimated probability of the 52nd-ranked team...Winning 18+ games given Cincinnati's (18-12) schedule: 20.25%
Winning 18+ games given Michigan's (18-10) schedule: 24.53%
Winning 19+ games given Florida St's (19-9) schedule: 31.25%
Winning 20+ games given Missouri St's (20-8) schedule: 35.22%
Winning 18+ games given Maryland's (18-12) schedule: 36.63%
Winning 24+ games given Hofstra's (24-6) schedule: 37.60%
Winning 18+ games given Louisville's (18-12) schedule: 50.97%
Winning 19+ games given Creighton's (19-9) schedule: 51.77%
Winning 20+ games given Colorado's (20-9) schedule: 59.28%
Winning 17+ games given Vanderbilt's (17-12) schedule: 66.18%
Winning 17+ games given South Carolina's (17-15) schedule: 72.22%
Winning 15+ games given Notre Dame's (15-13) schedule: 71.95%
Winning 18+ games given Saint Joseph's (18-13) schedule: 72.20%
Winning 17+ games given Rutgers's (17-13) schedule: 76.52%
Winning 16+ games given Miami-Florida's (16-15) schedule: 78.33%
Winning 17+ games given Clemson's (17-12) schedule: 81.02%
Winning 15+ games given Minnesota's (15-14) schedule: 82.13%
Winning 15+ games given Penn State's (15-14) schedule: 82.61%
Winning 15+ games given Virginia's (15-14) schedule: 83.79%
Winning 17+ games given Wake Forest's (17-16) schedule: 85.47%
Winning 19+ games given Nebraska's (19-13) schedule: 86.97%
Winning 22+ games given Utah St's (22-8) schedule: 87.96%
That's TWENTY-ONE teams that would have a strong argument that their body-of-work is superior to Utah State's. Absolutely astonishing. What's even more remarkable is the right behind Utah State is Depaul (12-15) and Northwestern (13-15). Ask yourself how up-in-arms would you be if DePaul or Northwestern got an at-large bid? Dial that down 1/10th of a notch and that's how you should feel about Utah State getting in.
According to Andy Katz, Utah State got in based on the fact that they took Nevada to the edge in the conference tournament finals before losing in overtime. I don't know if I'm more upset about Utah State getting in or for the fact that they got rewarded for losing. Since when are we rewarding losses? Of course, with the backwards logic of the RPI, where losing road games to quality opponents will help your RPI, maybe this shouldn't come as a surprise. Still, an overtime loss to Nevada? That gets you in? How many wins that a loss to Nevada equate to? Let's see...
The estimated probability of the 52nd-ranked team...Winning 23+ given Utah St's (22-8) schedule: 75.10%
Winning 24+ games given Utah St's (22-8) schedule: 56.63%
Winning 25+ games given Utah St's (22-8) schedule: 36.02%
Winning 26+ games given Utah St's (22-8) schedule: 18.40%
Utah State would've had to have won 26 games instead of 22 for their season to be considered more impressive than Cincinnati's, therefore a loss to Nevada in overtime must be worth about 4 wins.
If we start rewarding teams for close losses, what kind of monster are we creating? Certainly each one of the 21 teams above probably had games that came down to the wire, at least some to teams tougher than Nevada. Should we start counting all of the following games as psuedo-wins? Maybe Notre Dame should be in then!
2/23 - Villanova 74, Cincinnati 723/8 - Syracuse 74, Cincinnati 73
3/4 - Indiana 69, Michigan 67
1/14 - Boston College 90, Florida St 87
1/22 - North Carolina 81, Florida St 80
2/4 - Duke 97, Florida St 96 OT
2/7 - Southern Illinois 66, Missouri St 64
2/14 - Wichita St 62, Creighton 61 OT
2/8 - Texas A&M 61, Colorado 58
2/8 - Alabama 77, Vanderbilt 74 OT
11/26 - Marquette 92, South Carolina 89 OT
3/12 - Florida 49, South Carolina 47
2/1 - West Virginia 71, Notre Dame 70
1/20 - Marquette 67, Notre Dame 65
2/21 - Connecticut 75, Notre Dame 74 OT
1/4 - Pittsburgh 100, Notre Dame 97 OT
2/4 - Louisville 89, Notre Dame 86 OT
1/24 - Georgetown 85, Notre Dame 82 OT
1/28 - Villanova 72, Notre Dame 70
2/11 - George Washington 64, Saint Joseph's 62
1/11 - Villanova 84, Rutgers 78 OT
2/1 - Syracuse 86, Rutgers 84 OT
2/8 - North Carolina St 86, Miami-Florida 77 OT
1/29 - North Carolina St 94, Clemson 85 OT
1/10 - Wisconsin 64, Minnesota 62
2/1 - North Carolina St 66, Virginia 64
12/3 - UAB 73, Nebraska 72
Note: By the way, if you believe Katz that Western Kentucky was the last team out, that's an ever bigger joke. Western Kentucky is 3 spots further behind Utah State, behind Depaul (12-15), Northwestern (13-15) and Old Dominion (21-9).
posted by Jim Colton @ 10:00 AM,
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Non-Conference Strength of Schedule
Monday, March 13, 2006
If the Committee is using the RPI Non-Conf SOS measure to make any of its seeding decisions, somebody needs to be shot. I started looking at this in more detail, and Utah State has a non-conference SOS of 75. Not bad, you say...just check out this backbreaking non-conference schedule:
@ Oral Roberts@ Middle Tenn St
@ Utah
Middle Tenn St
@ Weber St
Oral Roberts
BYU
Ark-Little Rock
Binghamton
South Dakota St
Northwestern St
The fact that they went 9-2 in non-conference gives them an overall non-conference RPI of 16! SIXTEEN!!!
On the other hand, Georgetown's Non-Conf RPI SOS is 214.
@ Navy@ James Madison
Vanderbilt
@ Oregon
@ Illinois
Fairfield
Stetson
Savannah St
vs. Colgate
@UTEP
Duke
Georgetown going 9-2 against that schedule gives them a Non-Conf RPI of 71.
Which 9-2 record do you feel is more impressive?
I calculate SOS by converting the games into probabilities then averaging the probabilities, rather than simply averaging the rankings which is pretty much what the RPI does. This method gives Utah St an NC SOS of 315 and Georgetown a NC SOS of 90. Seems a lot more accurate to me.
It boggles my mind that the Committee might rely on a piece of information that could be wrong by 140 or even 240 slots to make key decisions with regards to who's in/who's out and what seed to give them.
BTW, illinois NC RPI SOS is 192. I have it at 154. We have to get rid of those cupcakes!
Other teams that may have been helped by inflated non-conf SOS's: Oklahoma (24 RPI vs 160 JCI), Washington (158 vs 301), Tennessee (10 vs 105), Nevada (44 vs 114), UCLA (14 vs 79), Alabama (18 vs 85) and Arizona (1 vs 18).
Other teams that may have been hurt by underinflated non-conf SOS's: West Virginia (154 RPI vs 65 JCI), NC St (206 vs 133) and Arkansas (215 vs 144)
posted by Jim Colton @ 9:59 AM,
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I Got So Much Trouble on My Mind...
It's the day after and I'm still irked about the NCAA seedings last night. To quote Bill Walton, the Selection Committee did 'a horrrrible' job with its selections and seedings. Here's a few more random thoughts and more detailed analysis as a follow-up to last night's post.
JCI vs. RPINeedless to say, my bracket projections based primarily on the JCI, a formula firmly rooted in facts, logic and objectivity, did an extremely poor job when compared to the actual brackets. This isn't unexpected, since I was basing my decisions on who was most deserving, not necessarily who I thought would get in. I'll leave the job of trying to predict the irrational decision making of the Committee and use of misinformation to Lunardi and others. Kudos to them for doing a better job this year, however.
But let's take a look at the teams the deviated greatly from my projections:
2+ SEEDS BETTER THAN EXPECTED
| +2 BETTER | ACT SD | JCI SD | _RPI RK_ | _JCI RK_ | RPI SOS | JCI SOS |
| Tennessee | 2 | 5 | 6 | 16 | 6 | 36 |
| UCLA | 2 | 5 | 10 | 21 | 29 | 85 |
| Oklahoma | 6 | 9 | 16 | 28 | 27 | 57 |
| Nevada | 5 | 8 | 19 | 31 | 98 | 147 |
| Washington | 5 | 8 | 35 | 34 | 92 | 109 |
| Wis-Milwaukee | 11 | 14 | 53 | 79 | 104 | 172 |
| Montana | 12 | 15 | 61 | 99 | 186 | 315 |
| Wichita St | 7 | 9 | 27 | 32 | 58 | 75 |
| UAB | 9 | 11 | 32 | 39 | 115 | 108 |
| UNC Wilmington | 9 | 11 | 28 | 44 | 103 | 124 |
| Seton Hall | 10 | 12 | 58 | 46 | 36 | 40 |
| San Diego St | 11 | 13 | 56 | 76 | 111 | 200 |
Avg RPI Diff: -12.0; Avg RPI SOS Diff:-41.9
2+ SEEDS WORSE THAN EXPECTED
| +2 BETTER | ACT SD | JCI SD | _RPI RK_ | _JCI RK_ | RPI SOS | JCI SOS |
| Illinois | 4 | 2 | 14 | 7 | 54 | 26 |
| Pittsburgh | 5 | 3 | 11 | 10 | 30 | 28 |
| Bucknell | 9 | 7 | 42 | 22 | 181 | 153 |
| North Carolina St | 10 | 8 | 51 | 25 | 64 | 43 |
| Arkansas | 8 | 6 | 45 | 26 | 68 | 49 |
| George Washington | 8 | 4 | 37 | 9 | 207 | 159 |
| Texas A&M | 12 | 8 | 44 | 38 | 67 | 74 |
Avg RPI Diff: +15.3; Avg RPI SOS Diff: +19.9
UNEXPECTED TEAMS IN THE TOURNAMENT
| +2 BETTER | ACT SD | JCI SD | _RPI RK_ | _JCI RK_ | RPI SOS | JCI SOS |
| George Mason | 11 | OUT | 26 | 45 | 89 | 111 |
| Alabama | 10 | OUT | 57 | 50 | 12 | 38 |
| Arizona | 8 | OUT | 23 | 51 | 7 | 50 |
| California | 7 | OUT | 52 | 54 | 61 | 78 |
| Air Force | 13 | OUT | 50 | 58 | 158 | 215 |
| Utah State | 13 | OUT | 46 | 73 | 102 | 177 |
Avg RPI Diff: -12.8; Avg RPI SOS Diff: -40.0
UNEXPECTED TEAMS OUT OF THE TOURNAMENT
| +2 BETTER | ACT SD | JCI SD | _RPI RK_ | _JCI RK_ | RPI SOS | JCI SOS |
| Cincinnati | OUT | 7 | 40 | 30 | 5 | 6 |
| Florida St | OUT | 9 | 63 | 37 | 94 | 53 |
| Michigan | OUT | 10 | 47 | 33 | 37 | 33 |
| Missouri St | OUT | 10 | 21 | 40 | 46 | 73 |
| Hofstra | OUT | 10 | 30 | 41 | 129 | 128 |
| Maryland | OUT | 11 | 49 | 42 | 14 | 16 |
Avg RPI Diff: +4.5; Avg RPI SOS Diff: +2.7
I think it's pretty clear that the RPI is playing a huge role in the seeding and selection process, despite what the Committee is saying. You have to realize that these differences are completely artificial, a consequence of the flawed nature of the RPI formula. A team with a better RPI and SOS does not mean that they are more deserving or played a better schedule, yet the Committee is making key decisions based on this information. When a team with an overinflated RPI and SOS gets in above a more deserving team that happens to have a underinflated RPI and SOS, how can this be considered fair? And in the case of the Illini, it's having a direct impact on the team's chance to reach the Final Four. Why should other less deserving teams get a better shot at the championship?
INCONSISTENCYThe RPI explains a lot of the differences, but how do you explain Missouri State and Hofsta? The thing the bugs me even more than using a flawed tool such as the RPI is the inconsistent application of these key factors when it comes to their decision making. Basically after years of trying to figure out what the NCAA is up to, I've only been able to make one clear conclusion. Having lots of varied information, even if it's incorrect, gives the Committee the ability to justify any decision that they make. In other words, they can use certain factors only when it's convenient for them to do so. That's the only reason I can come up for continued reliance on the RPI. Again...doesn't sound very fair, does it? There should be more integrity behind the process.
So what other factors is the Committee looking at?
Last 10 Games? Maybe it explains Nevada, Washington, NC State, Michigan, Maryland and possibly Illinois, but how do you explain Tennessee, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Missouri St or Hofstra?
Extra weight for quality wins? How do you explain Illinois, Pitt, UCLA or Tennessee?
Conference Tourney Matters? Might explain UCLA, Illinois, NC State and Cincinnati but how do you explain Tennessee and Pitt?
Injuries/Suspension Considered? Might explain George Washington, but how do you explain George Mason?
As much as you try, you just can't make any sense of the Committee's logic, unless you consider the following factor...
ROLE AND INFLUENCE OF SELECTION COMMITTEE MEMBERS
One thing that I never even thought about before until last night was the role of the Selection Committee in the process. I remember seeing the list of Committee members back in November and thinking to myself, 'That sucks...no Big Ten representation'. That was the extent of it, it was just a fleeting thought. I never would've imagined that it could have a dramatic impact on the seeding process. I guess with all of the money going around, I shouldn't be so surprised. The Committee members definitely have their own agendas - to support and make sure they're conferences are represented (or overrepresented). It's definitely a conflict of interest, but the process doesn't look like it will change anytime soon.
Here's the committee:
- Craig Littlepage, Virginia (chair)
- Karl Benson, WAC
- Dan Guererro, UCLA
- Chris Hill, Utah
- Laing Kennedy, Kent State
- Jon LeCrone, Horizon
- Tom O'Connor, George Mason
- Mike Slive, SEC
- Robert Vowels, SWAC
- Gary Walters, Princeton
After looking at the committee, some of the 'head scratchers' become a little more clear. Generally, you see a lot of mid-major and West Coast representation. Both did very well in the seedings this year. Do you think the UCLA AD had an influence on the fact that UCLA, Washington were both overseeded and Arizona and California made the tournament at all (California as a '7' may be an even bigger joke than Utah State as a '12'). Should we believe that having WAC and MWC representation had nothing to do with Air Force and Utah State getting in at the expense of other more deserving teams? How about George Mason getting in despite suspension issues from one of it best players? Do you think Slive had any role in getting Tennessee a '2' seed when most had them pegged for a '4' or '5'? Do you think Cincinnati and Michigan might've had a better shot if there was somebody from the Big East or Big Ten on the Committee?
These are all perfectly valid questions that will probably never get answered. In some cases, it's the only way we can make any sense of the Selection Committee's decisions. If any of the questions above are true...how can they justify making those decisions to feed their own interests over the overarching objective to reward the most deserving teams with bids and appropriate seeds? This is something that needs to be addressed.
THE 'NEW' RPISomething I alluded to last night was the role of the new RPI in the Selection Process. As I've been saying ever since the 40% home/road adjustments implemented in the RPI formula last year make the formula far worse than the old RPI, which is really saying something. Hard to believe because giving extra credit for road wins makes logical sense, but it's the crude nature of the adjustment which causes it to do more harm than good. However, my protests to Bowlsby last year fell on deaf ears and the new RPI went forward as planned. But a funny thing happened on the way to Selection Sunday. I was expecting the same level of disaster that we saw this year to occur last year. But it didn't...the final bracket projections were in-line with most peoples' projections, inlcuding mine. So what happened?
Well, I believe last year the Committee relied on the Sagarin Elo ratings (very similar to the JCI) after the new RPI was leading to some unintended strange results (plus they implemented the formula incorrectly). The Committee had both the Old and New RPI in the room and after they couldn't logically reconcile what was causing the difference, they went to an outside source. Because the Sagarin Elo rating is based on wins and losses and is a strong 'body-of-work' rating system, you ended up with seedings that looked pretty reasonable and fair.
Fast forward to this year. The new RPI is still in place in all its glory, warts and all. It's still got the same flaws at it had a year ago (although they did fix the miscalculation). However, it was the only number that was 'in the room' this year -- they stopped calculating the old RPI. Without the old RPI for comparison, there wasn't the motivation or need to go to an outside source. They simply took the RPI at face value. UCLA with a RPI of 10 and SOS of 29? Looks like the profile of a solid '2' seed to me. Who cares if it's wrong. How would they know unless they got really deep into the numbers?
Check out how my JCI-based seed projections did the last 3 years. 2004 was purely the old RPI formula. 2005 was some combination of old, new and the Sagarin ratings. And 2006 was purely the new RPI formula.
| 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | |
| Teams Correct | 60 | 64 | 59 |
| Seed Correct | 31 | 25 | 23 |
| <2 Seeds Off | 48 | 53 | 40 |
| 2+ Seeds Low | 6 | 5 | 7 |
| 1 Seed Low | 6 | 14 | 13 |
| 1 Seed High | 11 | 14 | 4 |
| 2+ Seeds High | 6 | 6 | 12 |
posted by Jim Colton @ 9:58 AM,
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RPI Matters
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Wow, I'm still in shock over the seedings. To say the Illinois got hosed is the understatement of the year. To get a '4' and end up possibly playing the one team that we match-up worst against in the S16 is a double whammy.
After my e-mail conversations with Craig Littlepage, I came away confident that the Committee was going to start heading in the right direction. The Illini aside, these brackets don't make a whole lot of sense at all. It's hard to determine what the Committee is trying to reward, is it 'body of work'? RPI? last 10 games? regular season or conference tourney? There's no clear cut answer because the factors weren't applied consistently across the board.
Even though Littlepage (and others before him) said during the telecast that RPI doesn't matter, it is clear that it definitely matters at least this year. I didn't hear Littlepage utter the term 'body-of-work' at all. Which is probably understandable because there is absolutely no way that you can justify teams like Tennessee or UCLA ahead of Illinois if you are compare a season's worth of wins and losses. No possible way. But...
RPITennessee 6, SOS 6
UCLA 10, SOS 29
Illinois 14, SOS 54
Even if these numbers aren't anywhere close to true representation of a team's quality of season or its strength of schedule, they paint a much different picture in favor for Tennessee and UCLA. If you looked how a team actually performed relative to its RPI, most of the teams that outperformed their RPI (ie their RPI was underrated) were seeded lower than expected or left out completely, and many teams that underperformed their RPI were seeded much higher or got in at the expense of others.
(I'll compare RPI to my JCI rankings that was built to compare one team's W-L's versus another, and the Sagarin-Elo ranking, which is very similar. Both are very good body-of-work rankings)
Performance Exceeded RPI1. George Washington, RPI: 37; JCI: 9, Sag: 9 (8 Seed)
2. Notre Dame, RPI: 95; JCI: 55; Sag: 59
3. Connecticut, RPI: 3; JCI: 1; Sag: 1 (1 Seed)
4. Penn State, RPI: 106; JCI: 67; Sag: 69
5. Florida St, RPI: 63; JCI: 37; Sag: 40 (Out)
6. Bucknell, RPI: 42; JCI: 22; Sag: 23 (9 Seed)
7. Louisville, RPI: 71; JCI: 47; Sag: 47 (Out)
8. Northwestern, RPI: 102; JCI: 74, Sag: 78
9. Nebraska, RPI: 96; JCI: 70; Sag: 69
10. North Carolina St, RPI: 51; JCI: 25; Sag: 25 (10 Seed)
11. Georgetown, RPI: 36; JCI: 18; Sag: 17 (7 Seed)
12. Georgia, RPI: 109; JCI: 81; Sag: 82
13. West Virginia, RPI: 38; JCI: 19; Sag: 20 (6 Seed)
14. Gonzaga, RPI: 9; JCI: 5; Sag: 5 (3 Seed)
15. Boston College, RPI: 22; JCI: 14; Sag: 14 (4 Seed)
16. Illinois, RPI: 14; JCI: 7; Sag: 7 (4 Seed)
17. DePaul, RPI: 91; JCI: 72; Sag: 72
18. Arkansas, RPI: 45; JCI: 26; Sag: 27 (8 Seed)
Performance Underexceeded RPI
1. Houston, RPI: 54; JCI: 88; Sag: 90
2. Montana, RPI: 61; JCI: 99; Sag: 91
3. Arizona, RPI: 23; JCI: 51; Sag: 50 (8 Seed)
4. Wis-Milwaukee, RPI: 53; JCI: 79; Sag: 76 (11 Seed)
5. Utah St, RPI: 46; JCI: 73; Sag: 65 (12 Seed)
6. Davidson, RPI: 94; JCI: 126; Sag: 131
7. Western Kentucky, RPI: 55; JCI: 77; Sag: 74
8. San Diego St, RPI: 56; JCI: 76; Sag: 73 (11 Seed)
9. Oklahoma, RPI: 16; JCI: 28; Sag: 30 (6 Seed)
10. George Mason, RPI: 26; JCI: 45; Sag: 45 (Out)
11. Saint Joseph's, RPI: 43; JCI: 57; Sag: 55
12. UNC Wilmington, RPI: 28; JCI: 44; Sag: 44
13. UCLA, RPI: 10; JCI: 21; Sag: 19 (2 Seed)
14. Butler, RPI: 82; JCI: 111; Sag: 106
15. Louisiana Tech, RPI: 68; JCI: 91; Sag: 87
16. Murray St, RPI: 65; JCI: 86; Sag: 81
17. Bradley, RPI: 33; JCI: 49; Sag: 49 (13 Seed)
18. Missouri St, RPI: 21; JCI: 40; Sag: 39 (Out)
19. Southern Illinois, RPI: 29; JCI: 43; Sag: 43 (11 Seed)
20. BYU, RPI: 67; JCI: 87; Sag: 86
21. Tennessee, RPI: 6; JCI: 16; Sag: 15 (2 Seed)
22. South Alabama, RPI: 66; JCI: 85; Sag: 85
23. Kent St, RPI: 48; JCI: 61; Sag: 57 (12 Seed)
24. Pennsylvania, RPI: 98; JCI: 119; Sag: 113 (15 Seed)
25. New Mexico St, RPI: 97; JCI: 117; Sag: 115
26. VCU, RPI: 81; JCI: 104; Sag: 105
27. Nevada, RPI: 19; JCI: 31; Sag: 26 (5 Seed)
28. UTEP, RPI: 76; JCI: 98; Sag: 97
29. Air Force, RPI: 50; JCI: 58; Sag: 58 (13 Seed)
Last year, I believe that the Committee relied on the Sagarin Elo ratings during the selection process because the home/road adjustments they implemented for the first time were causing some unintended results. Thus there were far fewer 'head scratchers' in the seedings. This year, even though the same unintended results could occur in the formula, I think they only had the new RPI in the room. Without the old RPI for context, there probably wasn't any motivation to go to the Sagarin or any other source. They probably just took the RPI at face value.
So if the RPI is here to stay, why do we continue to schedule the way we do? It's pretty clear that other teams have figured it out and have schedule to maximize their RPI. And they reaping the benefits from it. If our goal is to win national championships, then maximizing our RPI has to be at least one of the priorities when it comes to scheduling. A higher RPI can only help you. It can only lead to better seeds and thus better match-ups. If playing Wis-Green Bay, Tennessee Tech, Robert Morris, and Siena instead of S Dakota State, Coppin St, SE Miss St, and Tenn-Martin (a simple change that would little or no impact on our W-L record but boost our RPI from 14 to 7 and SOS from 54 to 29) is the difference between getting a '4' seed and getting a '2' or '3' seed, then I think we have to make that trade-off.
posted by Jim Colton @ 9:58 AM,
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Final Seed Projections
Here are my final seed projections. I didn't factor in the outcome of the last 2 games (Kansas/Texas and Iowa/Ohio State).
1: Connecticut, Duke, Villanova, Ohio State2: Memphis, Texas, Illinois, Gonzaga
3: Florida, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Iowa
4: George Washington, Boston College, LSU, Syracuse
5: Tennessee, Kansas, West Virginia, UCLA
6: Michigan St, Georgetown, Indiana, Arkansas
7: Bucknell, Marquette, Kentucky, Cincinnati
8: North Carolina St, Nevada, Texas A&M, Washington
9: Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Wichita St, Florida St
10: Missouri St, Michigan, Northern Iowa, Hofstra
11: UAB, Southern Illinois, UNC Wilmington, Maryland
12: Seton Hall, Bradley, Kent St, Iona
13: Xavier, San Diego St, Northwestern St, South Alabama
14: Wis-Milwaukee, Murray St, Winthrop, Pacific
15: Montana, Pennsylvania, Davidson, Oral Roberts
16: Albany, Monmouth, Belmont, Southern U, Hampton
Last 4 In: UAB, Maryland, Seton Hall, Bradley
First 4 Out: Alabama, George Mason, Creighton, Louisville
Next 4 Out: Vanderbilt, Arizona, South Carolina, Saint Joseph's
posted by Jim Colton @ 9:57 AM,
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Least Deserving: The Case Against Arizona
Sunday morning of Selection Sunday, and it appears that if you take a very liberal view, there are still 22 teams 'on the bubble' competing for 14 spots. Using the same 'most deserving' analysis that I did two days ago, a true 'body-of-work' analysis would rank the bubble teams as follows:
IN1. Cincinnati (18-12)
2. Wichita St (23-8)
3. Kentucky (21-12)
4. Michigan (18-10)
5. Northern Iowa (21-9)
6. Washington (24-6)
7. Florida St (19-9)
8. Texas A&M (21-8)
9. Missouri St (20-8)
10. Maryland (18-12)
11. UAB (23-6)
12. Hofstra (24-6)
13. George Mason (23-7)
14. Louisville (18-12)
OUT
15. Seton Hall (18-11)
16. Creighton (19-9)
17. Bradley (20-10)
18. Alabama (17-12)
19. Arizona (19-12)
20. Colorado (20-9)
21. Vanderbilt (17-12)
22. California (20-10)
Recall, I define Cincinnati as more deserving than Wichita State if it's estimate as more difficult for a team to go 18-12 under Cincinnati's schedule than it would be to go 23-8 under Wichita State's schedule.
Amazing what an overinflated RPI and SOS can do for a team. If Arizona had an RPI of 51 and SOS of 52, they would have a hard time making the tournament. But armed with a RPI of 22 and SOS of 7, they look a lot safer. Kudos to the Arizona schedule-makers for understanding the nuances of the RPI formula and taking advantage of it in order to make their team look a lot better than it actually is. If Arizona gets in, it will be primarily because they're RPI numbers are artificially high (and because they're Arizona and have made the tourney 22 years in a row. I think they'll get the benefit of the doubt), not necessarily because they deserve it. The fact they are behind a team like Louisville, who isn't really even in the discussion for an at-large bid, shows you just how poorly Arizona's resume is this year.
Here's a closer look at Arizona, relative to the other bubble teams. A -41.6% next to Cincinnati means it's 41.6% less likely for a hypothetical xth-ranked team (take the midpoint of the two teams in question) to go 19-12 under Arizona's schedule than it would be to go 18-12 under Cincinnati's schedule.
Cincinnati -41.6%Wichita St -38.9%
Kentucky -38.8%
Michigan -38.1%
Northern Iowa -33.2%
Washington -33.2%
Florida St -30.7%
Texas A&M -29.3%
Missouri St -24.9%
Maryland -23.8%
UAB -23.8%
Hofstra -23.4%
George Mason -12.6%
Louisville -10.0%
Seton Hall -9.4%
Creighton -8.2%
Bradley -5.1%
Alabama -3.2%
ARIZONA 0.0%
Colorado +0.8%
Vanderbilt +6.0%
California +8.7%
All teams Hofstra and above are '>1 game favorable' to Arizona, meaning that even if Hofstra was 23-7 instead of 24-6, their body-of-work would still be considered favorable to Arizona's. Although I didn't do the analysis, given the percentages it's safe to assume that Cincinnati, Wichita State, Kentucky and Michigan could be considered +2 games favorable to Arizona.
It's pretty remarkable that Michigan is probably considered less likely to get in than Arizona at this point. I know the Committee likes to focus on last 10 games, but leaving Michigan out simply because they lost 7 of their last 9 would be over-weighting that aspect too heavily. The fact is Michigan played a pretty tough scehdule during that stretch: @ Iowa, Ohio St, @ Purdue, Minnesota, @ Mich St, Illinois, @ Ohio State, Indiana, vs Minnesota. 2-7 during that stretch is far from great, but a typical bubble team would have a hard time doing significantly better than that. Plus, Michigan had won 5 in a row previous to that, including wins over Michigan State, Wisconsin and at Minnesota. Suddenly 7-7 out of the last 14 doesn't look so bad given that schedule.
posted by Jim Colton @ 9:56 AM,
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Sunday Morning Bracketologist
Selection Sunday and here's my current bracket projection, before the 5 conference finals later today.
1: Connecticut, Duke, Villanova, Ohio State2: Memphis, Texas, Illinois, Gonzaga
3: North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Iowa, Florida
4: Boston College, George Washington, LSU, Syracuse
5: Tennessee, West Virginia, Kansas, Michigan St
6: UCLA, Georgetown, Indiana, Arkansas
7: Marquette, Bucknell, Kentucky, North Carolina St
8: Cincinnati, Nevada, Texas A&M, Washington
9: Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Wichita St, Florida St
10: Missouri St, Michigan, Northern Iowa, Hofstra
11: UAB, Southern Illinois, UNC Wilmington, Maryland
12: Seton Hall, Bradley, Kent St, Xavier
13: Iona, San Diego St, Northwestern St, South Alabama
14: Wis-Milwaukee, Murray St, Winthrop, Pacific
15: Montana, Pennsylvania, Davidson, Oral Roberts
16: Albany, Monmouth, Belmont, Southern U, Hampton
Last 4 In: UAB, Maryland, Seton Hall, Bradley
First 4 Out: Alabama, George Mason, Creighton, South Carolina
Next 4 Out: Louisville, Vanderbilt, Arizona, Saint Joseph's
posted by Jim Colton @ 9:55 AM,
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Most Deserving: Rating the Bubble Teams
Friday, March 10, 2006
Time to run my 'most deserving' analysis on the bubble teams. By my count, as of Friday morning there are 19 bubble teams currently competing for 14 spots.
Bubble Teams: Cincinnati, Wichita St, Michigan, Washington, Nevada, Northern Iowa, Florida St, Maryland, Texas A&M, UAB, Missouri St, Hofstra, George Mason, Seton Hall, Alabama, Creighton, Bradley, Arizona and California.
Note: Louisville and Vanderbilt can hardly be considered bubble teams but I included them in the analysis for context, since both have similar profiles to teams like Arizona and California, two teams that many have already in the tournament. Also, the analysis is through Thursday's games, so doesn't include Texas A&M's win over Colorado or Alabama's loss to Kentucky.
Take Cincinnati and Wichita St as an example. I define Cincinnati as being 'more deserving' if it's less likely (i.e. more difficult) for a hypothetical xth-ranked team (take the midpoint of the two teams in question) to go 18-12 given Cincinnati's schedule than it is to go 23-8 given Wichita State. We can do this for each pair on the list and create a matrix. In this example, the probability of the team going 18-12 under Cincinnati's schedule is 54.5% and the probability of going 23-8 under Wichita State's schedule is 65.5%, so I show Cincinnati's advantage over Wichita State as +11.0%.
For each bubble team, I can categorized each of its 'competitors' as favorable or unfavorable. Also, for teams that have a sizable advantage, I created a cut-off that says even if the team in question had one less win and more loss, you'd still consider them favorable. I'd consider this to be a significant difference.
Essentially, this is what the Committee is trying to decide -- whether one team with one record and a given set of wins and losses is more or less deserving than a team with another record and a different set of wins and losses. If you truly believe that they're looking at a team's 'body of work', then their list would have to look very similar to this. To the extent that it doesn't means they are overvaluing other aspects, such as last 10 games, quality wins, differences in the RPI, etc.
The results are surprising, especially for teams like Arizona and California. A lot can change between now and Selection Sunday. I'll try to update this on Sunday when chances most of these teams will be done playing.
1. Cincinnati (18-12)Unfavorable: None
Favorable: Wichita St +0.2%; Michigan +0.3%; Nevada +4.5%; Washington +4.9%; Northern Iowa +8.2%; Florida St +8.5%; Maryland +8.6%; Texas A&M +12.2%; Missouri St +14.8%; Hofstra +15.6%; UAB +15.8%
>1 Game Favorable: George Mason +26.7%; Louisville +27.7%; Alabama +28.3%; Seton Hall +29.5%; Creighton +31.7%; Bradley +34.6%; Arizona +36.4%; Vanderbilt +37.9%; California +46.9%
2. Wichita State (23-8)
Unfavorable: Cincinnati -0.2%
Favorable: Michigan +0.3%; Washington +4.5%; Nevada +4.7%; Northern Iowa +7.6%; Maryland +8.2%; Florida St +8.3%; Texas A&M +11.7%; Missouri St +14.3%; Hofstra +14.8%; UAB +15.1%
>1 Game Favorable: George Mason +26.6%; Louisville +27.8%; Alabama +28.1%; Seton Hall +29.2%; Creighton +31.5%; Bradley +35.0%; Arizona +36.2%; Vanderbilt +37.4%; California +46.9%;
3. Michigan (18-10)
Unfavorable: Wichita St -0.3%; Cincinnati -0.3%
Favorable: Nevada +4.0%; Washington +4.5%; Northern Iowa +7.5%; Florida St +7.6%; Maryland +8.0%; Texas A&M +11.1%; Hofstra +14.2%; Missouri St +14.2%; UAB +15.1%
>1 Game Favorable: George Mason +25.9%; Louisville +26.7%; Alabama +27.6%; Seton Hall +28.5%; Creighton +31.0%; Bradley +33.9%; Arizona +35.7%; Vanderbilt +36.7%; California +46.0%
4. Nevada (24-5)
Unfavorable: Wichita St -4.7%; Cincinnati -4.5%; Michigan -4.0%
Favorable: Washington +0.2%; Northern Iowa +2.9%; Florida St +2.9%; Maryland +3.6%; Texas A&M +6.6%; Missouri St +9.1%; Hofstra +9.9%; UAB +11.2%
>1 Game Favorable: George Mason +20.5%; Louisville +21.4%; Alabama +21.8%; Seton Hall +23.1%; Creighton +25.3%; Bradley +27.9%; Arizona +30.4%; Vanderbilt +31.4%; California +40.1%
5. Washington (24-6)
Unfavorable: Cincinnati -4.9%; Wichita St -4.5%; Michigan -4.5%; Nevada -0.2%;
Favorable: Northern Iowa +2.5%; Florida St +3.1%; Maryland +3.8%; Texas A&M +6.7%; Missouri St +9.1%; Hofstra +9.7%; UAB +10.7%
>1 Game Favorable: George Mason +20.9%; Louisville +22.0%; Alabama +22.5%; Seton Hall +23.4%; Creighton +25.5%; Bradley +29.1%; Arizona +30.3%; Vanderbilt +31.9%; California +41.1%
6. Northern Iowa (21-9)
Unfavorable: Cincinnati -8.2%; Wichita St -7.6%; Michigan -7.5%; Nevada -2.9%; Washington -2.5%
Favorable: Maryland +0.6%; Florida St +0.8%; Texas A&M +4.4%; Missouri St +7.3%; Hofstra +8.0%; UAB +8.8%
>1 Game Favorable: George Mason +19.7%; Alabama +20.6%; Louisville +20.6%; Seton Hall +22.0%; Creighton +24.8%; Bradley +27.9%; Arizona +29.6%; Vanderbilt +31.4%; California +41.1%
7. Florida St (19-9)
Unfavorable: Cincinnati -8.5%; Wichita St -8.3%; Michigan -7.6%; Washington -3.1%; Nevada -2.9%; Northern Iowa -0.8%;
Favorable: Maryland +0.0%; Texas A&M +4.0%; Missouri St +5.8%; Hofstra +6.9%; UAB +8.1%; George Mason +17.8%; Louisville +18.7%; Alabama +18.9%;
>1 Game Favorable: Seton Hall +20.2%; Creighton +22.4%; Bradley +25.3%; Arizona +27.2%; Vanderbilt +28.7%; California +37.8%;
8. Maryland (18-11)
Unfavorable: Cincinnati -8.6%; Wichita St -8.2%; Michigan -8.0%; Washington -3.8%; Nevada -3.6%; Northern Iowa -0.6%; Florida St -0.0%
Favorable: Texas A&M +3.6%; Missouri St +5.6%; Hofstra +6.7%; UAB +7.9%; George Mason +18.4%;
>1 Game Favorable: Alabama +19.1%; Louisville +19.1%; Seton Hall +20.7%; Creighton +22.7%; Bradley +25.6%; Arizona +27.6%; Vanderbilt +29.1%; California +38.5%;
9. Texas A&M (20-7)
Unfavorable: Cincinnati -12.2%; Wichita St -11.7%; Michigan -11.1%; Washington -6.7%; Nevada -6.6%; Northern Iowa -4.4%; Florida St -4.0%; Maryland -3.6%
Favorable: Missouri St +1.8%; Hofstra +2.8%; UAB +4.2%; George Mason +14.2%; Louisville +15.0%; Alabama +15.4%; Seton Hall +16.5%; Creighton +18.9%
>1 Game Favorable: Bradley +21.8%; Arizona +23.7%; Vanderbilt +24.8%; California +34.3%
10. Missouri State (20-8)
Unfavorable: Cincinnati -14.8%; Wichita St -14.3%; Michigan -14.2%; Washington -9.1%; Nevada -9.1%; Northern Iowa -7.3%; Florida St -5.8%; Maryland -5.6%; Texas A&M -1.8%
Favorable: Hofstra +1.3%; UAB +2.8%; George Mason +12.6%; Louisville +13.5%; Alabama +13.6%; Seton Hall +14.8%; Creighton +17.1%;
>1 Game Favorable: Bradley +20.1%; Arizona +22.1%; Vanderbilt +23.6%; California +33.1%
11. Hofstra (24-6)
Unfavorable: Cincinnati -15.6%; Wichita St -14.8%; Michigan -14.2%; Nevada -9.9%; Washington -9.7%; Northern Iowa -8.0%; Florida St -6.9%; Maryland -6.7%; Texas A&M -2.8%; Missouri St -1.3%;
Favorable: UAB +1.8%; George Mason +11.5%; Alabama +12.1%; Louisville +12.2%; Seton Hall +13.6%; Creighton +15.8%; Bradley +19.0%;
>1 Game Favorable: Arizona +20.7%; Vanderbilt +22.2%; California +31.5%;
12. UAB (22-5)
Unfavorable: Cincinnati -15.8%; Michigan -15.1%; Wichita St -15.1%; Nevada -11.2%; Washington -10.7%; Northern Iowa -8.8%; Florida St -8.1%; Maryland -7.9%; Texas A&M -4.2%; Missouri St -2.8%; Hofstra -1.8%
Favorable: George Mason +8.6%; Louisville +8.7%; Alabama +9.5%; Seton Hall +11.0%; Creighton +12.4%; Bradley +15.4%; Arizona +17.1%; Vanderbilt +18.2%
>1 Game Favorable: California +26.9%;
13. Alabama (17-11)
>1 Game Unfavorable: Cincinnati -28.3%; Wichita St -28.1%; Michigan -27.6%; Washington -22.5%; Nevada -21.8%; Northern Iowa -20.6%; Maryland -19.1%
Unfavorable: Florida St -18.9%; Texas A&M -15.4%; Missouri St -13.6%; Hofstra -12.1%; UAB -9.5%
Favorable: George Mason +0.1%; Louisville +1.1%; Seton Hall +2.1%; Creighton +4.4%; Bradley +6.9%; Arizona +9.1%; Vanderbilt +10.9%
>1 Game Favorable: California +21.7%
14. George Mason (23-7)
>1 Game Unfavorable: Cincinnati -26.7%; Wichita St -26.6%; Michigan -25.9%; Washington -20.9%; Nevada -20.5%; Northern Iowa -19.7%
Unfavorable: Maryland -18.4%; Florida St -17.8%; Texas A&M -14.2%; Missouri St -12.6%; Hofstra -11.5%; UAB -8.6%; Alabama -0.1%;
Favorable: Louisville +0.9%; Seton Hall +2.4%; Creighton +4.5%; Bradley +6.8%; Arizona +8.6%; Vanderbilt +10.2%;
>1 Game Favorable: California +20.7%;
15. Louisville (18-12)
>1 Game Unfavorable: Wichita St -27.8%; Cincinnati -27.7%; Michigan -26.7%; Washington -22.0%; Nevada -21.4%; Northern Iowa -20.6%; Maryland -19.1%
Unfavorable: Florida St -18.7%; Texas A&M -15.0%; Missouri St -13.5%; Hofstra -12.2%; UAB -8.7%; Alabama -1.1%; George Mason -0.9%;
Favorable: Seton Hall +1.4%; Creighton +2.8%; Bradley +5.4%; Arizona +7.7%; Vanderbilt +10.1%; California +19.7%;
16. Seton Hall (18-11)
>1 Game Unfavorable: Cincinnati -29.5%; Wichita St -29.2%; Michigan -28.5%; Washington -23.4%; Nevada -23.1%; Northern Iowa -22.0%; Maryland -20.7%; Florida St -20.2%
Unfavorable: Texas A&M -16.5%; Missouri St -14.8%; Hofstra -13.6%; UAB -11.0%; George Mason -2.4%; Alabama -2.1%; Louisville -1.4%
Favorable: Creighton +2.0%; Bradley +4.5%; Arizona +6.4%; Vanderbilt +8.4%; California +18.7%
17. Creighton (19-9)
>1 Game Unfavorable: Cincinnati -31.7%; Wichita St -31.5%; Michigan -31.0%; Washington -25.5%; Nevada -25.3%; Northern Iowa -24.8%; Maryland -22.7%; Florida St -22.4%
Unfavorable: Texas A&M -18.9%; Missouri St -17.1%; Hofstra -15.8%; UAB -12.4%; George Mason -4.5%; Alabama -4.4%; Louisville -2.8%; Seton Hall -2.0%
Favorable: Bradley +2.6%; Arizona +4.8%; Vanderbilt +6.9%; California +17.0%;
18. Bradley (20-10)
>1 Game Unfavorable: Wichita St -35.0%; Cincinnati -34.6%; Michigan -33.9%; Washington -29.1%; Nevada -27.9%; Northern Iowa -27.9%; Maryland -25.6%; Florida St -25.3%; Texas A&M -21.8%; Missouri St -20.1%;
Unfavorable: Hofstra -19.0%; UAB -15.4%; Alabama -6.9%; George Mason -6.8%; Louisville -5.4%; Seton Hall -4.5%; Creighton -2.6%;
Favorable: Arizona +2.1%; Vanderbilt +3.9%; California +14.7%;
19. Arizona (19-11)
>1 Game Unfavorable: Cincinnati -36.4%; Wichita St -36.2%; Michigan -35.7%; Nevada -30.4%; Washington -30.3%; Northern Iowa -29.6%; Maryland -27.6%; Florida St -27.2%; Texas A&M -23.7%; Missouri St -22.1%; Hofstra -20.7%
Unfavorable: UAB -17.1%; Alabama -9.1%; George Mason -8.6%; Louisville -7.7%; Seton Hall -6.4%; Creighton -4.8%; Bradley -2.1%
Favorable: Vanderbilt +2.8%; California +13.0%
20. Vanderbilt (17-11)
>1 Game Unfavorable: Cincinnati -37.9%; Wichita St -37.4%; Michigan -36.7%; Washington -31.9%; Northern Iowa -31.4%; Nevada -31.4%; Maryland -29.1%; Florida St -28.7%; Texas A&M -24.8%; Missouri St -23.6%; Hofstra -22.2%;
Unfavorable: UAB -18.2%; Alabama -10.9%; George Mason -10.2%; Louisville -10.1%; Seton Hall -8.4%; Creighton -6.9%; Bradley -3.9%; Arizona -2.8%;
Favorable: California +10.2%;
21. California (19-9)
>1 Game Unfavorable: Wichita St -46.9%; Cincinnati -46.9%; Michigan -46.0%; Northern Iowa -41.1%; Washington -41.1%; Nevada -40.1%; Maryland -38.5%; Florida St -37.8%; Texas A&M -34.3%; Missouri St -33.1%; Hofstra -31.5%; UAB -26.9%; Alabama -21.7%; George Mason -20.7%; Seton Hall -18.7%;
Unfavorable: Louisville -19.7%; Creighton -17.0%; Bradley -14.7%; Arizona -13.0%; Vanderbilt -10.2%;
Favorable: None
posted by Jim Colton @ 9:48 AM,
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The Author:
Jim Colton
Jim lives in Wheaton, IL and when he's not rooting for the Fighting Illini, playing golf, thinking about golf, or masterminding fantasy basketball trades, he has a day job as a banker in Chicago.
About This Blog:
This blog is dedicated to college hoops and the Colton Index college basketball ratings.
Contact Me:
jcolton31@gmail.com
