KeaneyBlue - The URI Basketball Forum

Syracuse is overrated this year in my opinion. They haven't exactly played well against tough teams. I don't feel Bonnies should be getting more votes than URI in any poll. They're out of conference schedule isn't that good. I definitely don't think URI is getting the respect they deserve. They've been winning games without E.C. for part of the season and even Langevine was out for at least a game. Terrell has been in a bit of a slump lately vs. what he's capable of. I definitely think URI is a top 30 team. I'm not certain I would say top 25 "yet", since I feel they're probably a little behind teams like Arkansas, Texas, & Notre Dame. If E.C. begins to step up his overall game (not just points, but with assists & defense), I think URI could definitely be a top 25 team.

Yes I would agree with that plus our best win is way better than Bonnie's best win too

Jon R put us at 24.

Bona got Seth DAVIS #25 and John Feinstein and Mark Cooper to place them 24.

Don’t use RealTimeRPI. Move to RPIForecast.com and their Live-RPI.com

We should be happy for St Bona getting love and root for them throughout conference play! Gives us another 2 (maybe 3) games against a fringe top 35 team.

I would like for the Bonnies to maintain their lofty position as #2, but I would like to see an A10 team come out of the wood work with a OOC resume that has something good and a very strong A10 record. So then we could have 2 with a potential #3. The more A10 teams the better.

Big jump tonight in RPI for Rhody on the back of Seton Hall and PC wins against top sixty RPI Big East teams.

A good example of why we want PC to win as much as possible in the BE.

Yes good night for our RPI . I didn't pull hard for PC to win but I can live with that result

— Rhode Island’s six perimeter guys — E.C. Matthews, Jeff Dowtin, Jared Terrell, Daron “Fatts” Russell, Jarvis Garrett, and Stan Robinson — combined for 68 of this team’s 80 points in Wednesday’s win over Florida Gulf Coast. I’ll say it again: the deepest back court in college basketball resides in Kingston.

https://www.fanragsports.com/rothstein- ... her-level/

Along with the shallowest frontcourt.....(channeling RodfromCranston)

Looks like Rothstein is the only one keeping us getting votes. We are going to need a sustained run of victories to change some minds.

Bonnie's getting more votes than us is starting to piss me the heck off

reef wrote:Bonnie's getting more votes than us is starting to piss me the heck off

Reef I thought the same but the Bonnies have a pretty good resume themselves. It's all good. Jan 13 at 11 AM is gonna be one heck of a game.

theblueram wrote:

reef wrote:Bonnie's getting more votes than us is starting to piss me the heck off

Reef I thought the same but the Bonnies have a pretty good resume themselves. It's all good. Jan 13 at 11 AM is gonna be one heck of a game.

A10 game of the year.

Rhody plays Bona twice this season.

Both of the URI-Bona games are key to achieving the goals that the team has established for itself.

Bonnies game will be a great one but LaSalle is not an easy win either
- BJ Johnson leads the A10 in scoring at 21.8 ppg and he is 3rd in rebounding with 9.1 rebounds per game.
- Pookie Powell is also having a good year averaging 17.9 ppg for 6th in the A10

RPI Forecasting has URI by 11.7 points over LaSalle

RPI Forecasting has LaSalle with the 4th toughest SOS in the A10 at 32. URI is at 6 Dayton 2nd at 10 and Richmond is 3rd at 30.

Johnson hasn’t played since 12/17. Rhode Island would catch a break if his ankle injury keeps him out Wednesday.

Interesting to see what the line is in this LaSalle game , I think we may win but not cover

There should be no letdown for LaSalle....I'm sure the guys remember what happened at home against them last year.

If not, I think Dan will remind them.

Also if Johnson doesn't play, this shouldn't be close.

Color me confused as to why the Bonnies have 5 more votes than us.

We have played a much tougher schedule.

We have 2 top 50 wins (SHU and PC) which matches their 2 top 50 wins (Cuse and Buffalo), but they have an AWFUL loss to Niagara. At home.

We have 3 losses, 2 in the top 25, all 3 in the top 50, away from our building. It's actually kind of pissing me off.

I'm not saying we deserve top 25 billing at this point, but I am saying we should be getting more votes than the Bonnies.

A lot of the posters have the what have you done for me lately mindset when filling out their votes.
So Bonnies win AWAY to Syracuse is fresher than our SHU or PC wins.
To any objective viewer Seton Hall (Neutral) and PC (Home) are better than Syracuse (Away) and Buffalo (Home).

Bona also beat Maryland.

My unscientific estimate is that three quarters of the AP voters went to Syracuse, so a win against them on their floor resonates a little bit.

I cannot tell you how little I care where URI is ranked compared to St. Bonaventure the first week of January. In the end, it won't matter - the teams will play 20 games against the same teams and at least two and maybe three times head to head.

Blue Man wrote:Color me confused as to why the Bonnies have 5 more votes than us.

We have played a much tougher schedule.

We have 2 top 50 wins (SHU and PC) which matches their 2 top 50 wins (Cuse and Buffalo), but they have an AWFUL loss to Niagara. At home.

We have 3 losses, 2 in the top 25, all 3 in the top 50, away from our building. It's actually kind of pissing me off.

I'm not saying we deserve top 25 billing at this point, but I am saying we should be getting more votes than the Bonnies.

lazy voters + Bonaventure has the more recent big win

good proof as to how much effort some put into their rankings

ace wrote:Bona also beat Maryland.

True, but they're not top 50 right now. I'm sure they will be but was just comparing selection sheets to each other at the moment.

I guess the whole "name recognition" thing helps, but you're really splitting hairs comparing us and them. Idk, just odd to me that they have almost 4x the votes we do with a similar profile.

FWIW, Bonnies avg W: 148 L: 111 SOS: 72 RPI: 30
Rhody avg W: 159 L: 20 SOS: 12 RPI: 23

None of this matters now and there's a lot of basketball to play, just something to look at on a Tuesday.

KenPom has Maryland at 30. I agree it doesn’t matter, but it does make sense to me depending on what voters look at (and some don’t look at much at all).

Voters like to do something outside the box with their votes at the end. Bona’s that this year. Rhody’s become too mainstream , which is good. I also think they’ll get more leeway for that loss without Adams than Rhody will for anything without EC. That I find very frustrating.

ace wrote:KenPom has Maryland at 30. I agree it doesn’t matter, but it does make sense to me depending on what voters look at (and some don’t look at much at all).

Voters like to do something outside the box with their votes at the end. Bona’s that this year. Rhody’s become too mainstream , which is good. I also think they’ll get more leeway for that loss without Adams than Rhody will for anything without EC. That I find very frustrating.

Im ok with that. It means we are fighting for seeding, not fighting to be in.

If you're fighting to be in at all, thats when points like accounting for injuries get talked about. If you're already considered in, then the same effort for explaining/excuse making isnt there.

We will have more votes than them after we beat them next Saturday.

Took one look at Bonnies forum, that Syracuse win literally made them A10 champs in their minds, then again, its nice to feel that inner conference hatred again.

We will be super amped up to beat those Bonnie's on 1/13

An opening for URI?

The A10 is so weak this year that no matter how many games URI wins, they will not crack the top 25.

I think if they win both games next week then we will be very close to #25

If we go 18-0 and 26-3, I'm pretty sure we'll be in the top 25.

RhodyKyle wrote:The A10 is so weak this year that no matter how many games URI wins, they will not crack the top 25.

How many years have Gonzaga and Wichita and others been in the top-25 playing in considerably worse conferences than what the A-10 is this year (and in some cases playing considerably weaker OOC schedules than what we've played, although obviously that's not as true recently as it was a decade ago or so)? The A-10 is down, but it isn't the SWAC or something all of a sudden. It's about the 10th best or so conference out of 30+ conferences.

TruePoint wrote:

RhodyKyle wrote:The A10 is so weak this year that no matter how many games URI wins, they will not crack the top 25.

How many years have Gonzaga and Wichita and others been in the top-25 playing in considerably worse conferences than what the A-10 is this year (and in some cases playing considerably weaker OOC schedules than what we've played, although obviously that's not as true recently as it was a decade ago or so)? The A-10 is down, but it isn't the SWAC or something all of a sudden. It's about the 10th best or so conference out of 30+ conferences.

They started off the season ranked or had huge early season wins to ranked. They didnt work their way into the rankings during conference play. I appreciate your hope but it's apples and oranges here.

We are sitting in that Top 30-40 range with most pollsters. If we continue to win out, and teams above us take their lumps undoubtedly we will start moving up. But we could not afford one slip up, and my guess would be until we win out through St Bonaventure we aren't even close. Get to 5-0 including them and we are probably hovering right around 25-30.

I wouldn't describe it as hope. I don't really care either way and I certainly don't expect to be ranked again this regular season. But it's wrong to suggest that if this team gets to 20-3, 21-3, or whatever, that they won't jump the half dozen or so teams currently between URI and the top-25.

We will see with tomorrow's poll if writers believe us that Rhody is a very good team. My fear is that the A10 perception coupled with the voters' laziness in researching will have them view a blowout win as confirmation that the conference stinks and not as confirmation that URI is a good team worthy of being ranked.

If we keep blowing teams out we'll be ranked relatively soon.

Probably 4 more wins in a row will get us there.
I think we should be ranked after next week if we are undefeated.

Also remember that when it comes to the Top 25, a big part of it is how the teams in the rankings perform. If you're in the 20 to 25 range, you basically can't lose to anyone except maybe a top five team and expect to stay in there. If Rhody keeps winning, they'll just keep acquiring support without really losing it.

SGreenwell wrote:Also remember that when it comes to the Top 25, a big part of it is how the teams in the rankings perform. If you're in the 20 to 25 range, you basically can't lose to anyone except maybe a top five team and expect to stay in there. If Rhody keeps winning, they'll just keep acquiring support without really losing it.

likewise, teams in the 25-40 range that beat top 25 teams will jump right over us. we don't have a chance at any such wins.

As long as we keep winning we will start to creep closer and closer to the Top 25
Probably take a few weeks

13 teams in the top 25 lost this week.

edit: 15 teams lost

I bet Rothstein moves us up to #22.

Yeah Rothstein always shows us some love . Be interesting to see how many AP votes we get though

RhodyKyle wrote:The A10 is so weak this year that no matter how many games URI wins, they will not crack the top 25.

Have to disagree.
If you assume all the other teams in tha Top 25 continue to win while URI continues to win then you are right, URI would not crack the Top 25, but that will not be the case. URI is not that far outside the Top 25 even now.

But it will be difficult for URU to continue winnning also, especially with 8 conference road games in the next 8 weeks.

ramster wrote:

RhodyKyle wrote:The A10 is so weak this year that no matter how many games URI wins, they will not crack the top 25.

Have to disagree.
If you assume all the other teams in tha Top 25 continue to win while URI continues to win then you are right, URI would not crack the Top 25, but that will not be the case. URI is not that far outside the Top 25 even now.

But it will be difficult for URU to continue winnning also, especially with 8 conference road games in the next 8 weeks.

Not directed at you, ramster, but to the general masses. URI has to leap about 10 teams to be ranked as of last week's poll. URI received 2 points via Rothstein's poll. The 25th ranked team received 104 points. The week before that, #25 received 143 points. Three polls ago? 144 points. That is just a large gap to close when you're starting with 2 points and not playing any top team while the teams ahead of URI are winning against good teams (such as Auburn, Butler and Creighton); meanwhile the teams at the bottom of the ranked teams (FSU, Tennessee, and Clemson) have also beaten some good teams this past week too.

I want nothing more than to earn the respect of the AP voters but almost every one of them has the P5 bias when submitting their ballots and will always be grading those programs on a curve while URI gets no love.

We might eventually get ranked if we keep beating the teams we're supposed to beat, which in the A10 this year, is everybody.....

One slip up and as reef would say....bye bye Rhody bye bye!

RhodyKyle wrote:

ramster wrote:

RhodyKyle wrote:The A10 is so weak this year that no matter how many games URI wins, they will not crack the top 25.

Have to disagree.
If you assume all the other teams in tha Top 25 continue to win while URI continues to win then you are right, URI would not crack the Top 25, but that will not be the case. URI is not that far outside the Top 25 even now.

But it will be difficult for URU to continue winnning also, especially with 8 conference road games in the next 8 weeks.

Not directed at you, ramster, but to the general masses. URI has to leap about 10 teams to be ranked as of last week's poll. URI received 2 points via Rothstein's poll. The 25th ranked team received 104 points. The week before that, #25 received 143 points. Three polls ago? 144 points. That is just a large gap to close when you're starting with 2 points and not playing any top team while the teams ahead of URI are winning against good teams (such as Auburn, Butler and Creighton); meanwhile the teams at the bottom of the ranked teams (FSU, Tennessee, and Clemson) have also beaten some good teams this past week too.

I want nothing more than to earn the respect of the AP voters but almost every one of them has the P5 bias when submitting their ballots and will always be grading those programs on a curve while URI gets no love.

RhodyKyle,
I think it all comes down to performance in A10 Conference Play
If URI loses no conference games and goes 18-0 then RPI will be 6.9
17-1 URI RPI will be 10.1
16-2 URI RPI will be 14.4
15-3 URI RPI will be 19.4

I would say records of 26-3 (18-0), 25-4 (17-1) or 24-5 (16-2) all put URI in the Top 25.

23-6 (15-3) give a RPI of 19.4 which might not be enough to get into the AP or Coaches Poll Top 25 - would be borderline but likely at the edge

Final Record/Expected RPI/ Probability
26-3 (6.9) 1.77%
25-4 (10.1) 7.90%
24-5 (14.4) 17.81%
23-6 (19.4) 25.35%
22-7 (26.2) 22.54%
21-8 (34.2) 14.62%
20-9 (43.6) 7.03%


http://www.rpiforecast.com/teams/Rhode%20Island.html

Another good step this weekend was our improvement in KenPom. Some of the AP voters who actually put some effort into their ballots check various ranking systems to see where each team stacks up. We're at 39 now in both KenPom (8 better than last week) and Sagarin.