2019-20 RPI

[KevanBoyles]

The Maryland game got us to #11 RPI. #12 SOS. Can’t find a current year NET.

[KevanBoyles]

68 BPI

[ATPTourFan]

Dropped from 81 to 89 in Kenpom

[Rhody83]

68 BPI

The BPI shouldn’t be published early in the season. After this weekend’s action:
8. Florida
17. Maryland
23. Ohio State
38. Davidson
40. LSU
41. PC
42. Utah St
43. Seton Hall
46. VCU

None of those ratings make sense.

[TruePoint]

Dropped from 81 to 89 in Kenpom

ATP - you’d know better than me, but I’m curious if you or anyone else here could tell me what else the Kenpom and Sagarin metrics are taking into account beyond just the games played this season, because to me looking at those metrics it seems obvious that more is involved and I couldn’t find a good explanation of it in a cursory search of their sites. I know the specifics of their formulas are proprietary, but it seems like there has to be some information on it somewhere.

[KevanBoyles]

Where can I find the current NET? Has it begun yet for the season?

[SmartyBarrett]

Where can I find the current NET? Has it begun yet for the season?

No, they're actually releasing it later this season then they did last year to build up a larger sample size. Not sure when the first iteration drops though.

[RhodyKyle]

Dropped from 81 to 89 in Kenpom

ATP - you’d know better than me, but I’m curious if you or anyone else here could tell me what else the Kenpom and Sagarin metrics are taking into account beyond just the games played this season, because to me looking at those metrics it seems obvious that more is involved and I couldn’t find a good explanation of it in a cursory search of their sites. I know the specifics of their formulas are proprietary, but it seems like there has to be some information on it somewhere.

Probably up until conference play begins, last year's results weigh heavily in Ken's current year rankings.

[TruePoint]

Dropped from 81 to 89 in Kenpom

ATP - you’d know better than me, but I’m curious if you or anyone else here could tell me what else the Kenpom and Sagarin metrics are taking into account beyond just the games played this season, because to me looking at those metrics it seems obvious that more is involved and I couldn’t find a good explanation of it in a cursory search of their sites. I know the specifics of their formulas are proprietary, but it seems like there has to be some information on it somewhere.

Probably up until conference play begins, last year's results weigh heavily in Ken's current year rankings.

Right, I’d assume that too. But wondering what about last year are they using (i.e., there is a lot of roster turnover year to year - do they account for that at all?), how heavily are they weighting it compared to current year, do inputs from last year fall off gradually or is there a cliff, etc.

Bit of an off-topic rant: as some people here may know, even though I love data I am somewhat skeptical of these systems being used for any official purpose. I love them for gambling purposes or making comparisons of teams as a fan. But to rank teams for postseason purposes, I have two major beefs: first, they shouldn’t be allowed to hide elements of the formula. If they are going to make real decisions based on this stuff, the public should be able to verify it. Second, I think that what they weight in terms of efficiency and stuff is good for some sort of analysis, but I don’t think it’s right to rank teams for official purposes based on that - it is essentially rewriting the rules of the sport. The object of the sport is generally understood to be to score more points than the other team in the allotted amount of time in each game, and to win as many games as you can. By including these metrics as official criteria, you are effectively requiring teams to pursue objectives relating to efficiency that are outside of and different than the widely understood objectives that have been codified in the rules of the game since the sports’ inception.

RPI may have been flawed if you tried to use its rankings to bet a game, but it was fair in ways that kenpom and sagarin cannot be because of their complexity. I could explain RPI to a 4th grader in a few sentences, and it only valued things that are basic to the game: did you win or lose, who did you play, where did you play? That’s it. No valuing different styles of play differently, no perverse incentives to play the game differently, no incentive to keep your starters in during a game that is safely in hand. Idk, as much as love data and it adds to my enjoyment of sports overall, I am a little suspicious of being overly reliant on it. I don’t want them to start awarding playoff spots to teams with the highest WAR in baseball, or DVOA in football or PER in basketball. The point of sports is to win the games, so using any performance metric outside of wins and losses for officially ranking teams seems unwise to me.

[luke]

TP I wholly agree with your last paragraph . In reality, all that matters is did you win or lose aside from where the game was played which in CBB is
all important . If the NCAA could force teams to play more equivalent schedules it would be much easier to properly rank teams. As it is now ,
just about any system is going to be far too subjective to be fair to most of the D 1 teams competing . There are too many assumptions being made in favor of the perennial big name schools while lesser known programs are dismissed because evaluators have little knowledge of them . They aren't on
TV every other night , so all they know is the box scores. Additionally the big schools are given a much easier path to the title. I would like to see a
random seeding to eliminate that advantage .

[NYGFan_Section208]

Making up the NCAA field is a whole lot like making sausage. No one could bear to watch the whole process. In this particular process, there's the numbers part, which might be ugly and gross, but it's still just math, and..."the rest." I don't think it's so much the math info that they're looking to guard/protect...it's "the rest" of the deal that would be too obscenely gross. The numbers would open the dam...and point the folks at 'the rest of the process.' So, rather than show that, they don't show anything...for as long as they can get away with it.

[RhodyKyle]

ATP - you’d know better than me, but I’m curious if you or anyone else here could tell me what else the Kenpom and Sagarin metrics are taking into account beyond just the games played this season, because to me looking at those metrics it seems obvious that more is involved and I couldn’t find a good explanation of it in a cursory search of their sites. I know the specifics of their formulas are proprietary, but it seems like there has to be some information on it somewhere.

Probably up until conference play begins, last year's results weigh heavily in Ken's current year rankings.

Right, I’d assume that too. But wondering what about last year are they using (i.e., there is a lot of roster turnover year to year - do they account for that at all?), how heavily are they weighting it compared to current year, do inputs from last year fall off gradually or is there a cliff, etc.

It's a cliff. He usually tweets or posts on his site that after whatever date, last year will no longer be included in his algorithm.

He also has said that he factors in incoming recruits to a small extent and also weighs programs' historical success (which is why Duke and UK are always so high even though they turn their rosters over seemingly every year). This is weighted more towards recent past than true historical past but both are factored in.

Other than this high level info, he doesn't share much else about his algorithm.

[TruePoint]

Kenpom dropped after the win last night. Kenpom is not respecting Nicholls at this point (they moved up based on last night to #230). I assume this mostly has to do with the discussion above of these advanced rankings systems using info from the prior season. I don’t have words to express how dumb I think that is, but at the same time I guess I understand why they do it. Once last year stops being a factor, I’d expect to see Nicholls’ computer rankings climb.

[ramster]

Where can I find the current NET? Has it begun yet for the season?

No, they're actually releasing it later this season then they did last year to build up a larger sample size. Not sure when the first iteration drops though.

NET seems to be quiet and seems to have lost some of its luster from when the NCAA initially announced it.
Reminds me of the government thinking it can do things better than the private sector. NCAA has enough problems with making rulings on transfer waivers.
Should leave Team Ratings to the private sector. But not the NCAA.

[TruePoint]

I think, as explained above, that they are just waiting to release current year NET ratings until they have sufficient current year data for it to be relevant. Kind of like how they wait to release the official CFP rankings for football until a certain point in the season. Doing this has the advantage of not having to rely on prior year data in order to have remotely meaningful current year rankings. Kenpom and Sagarin were designed as gambling resources and for that purpose prior year data can be somewhat relevant, if imperfect. NET rankings are designed for an entirely different purpose, for which prior year data should be expressly excluded. Silence with respect to NET at this point is by design and not a signal it is being deemphasized.

[ramster]

I think, as explained above, that they are just waiting to release current year NET ratings until they have sufficient current year data for it to be relevant. Kind of like how they wait to release the official CFP rankings for football until a certain point in the season. Doing this has the advantage of not having to rely on prior year data in order to have remotely meaningful current year rankings. Kenpom and Sagarin were designed as gambling resources and for that purpose prior year data can be somewhat relevant, if imperfect. NET rankings are designed for an entirely different purpose, for which prior year data should be expressly excluded. Silence with respect to NET at this point is by design and not a signal it is being deemphasized.

Not saying NET is being deemphasized by design, just that in the general college basketball public, NET was talked about a lot. The secrecy of the NET is bothersome to me and how they make changes to the calculations. I just don’t like the NCAA doing this type of analysis because quite frankly I don’t trust them. It’s the wolf guarding the hen house.

I prefer Ken Pom, Sagarin, Real-time RPI and others the the NCAA Owned Model.

[TruePoint]

ramster I share your skepticism about the NCAA in general, and I’ve voiced my preference for RPI in order to rank teams for official purposes because of its simplicity and transparency and because it is only looking at wins and losses. I think that’s an important component to ranking teams for official purposes: professional leagues that can play balanced schedules do not use factors beyond straight W-L; I get the need to try to equalize records in college with qualitative data because balanced scheduling is impossible, but incorporating efficiency stats introduces a whole other dynamic that seems outside of what they need the equalization to correct for. All that being said, if the NCAA is going to move away from RPI, I’m not mad that they have their own metric - Kenpom and Sagarin were not setup to be determinative of which teams deserve to play in the postseason. At least NET is actually focused toward that purpose. As far as how much it is talked about, I think once we get to the point in the season where they start releasing the NET rankings, it will re-enter the conversation pretty quickly.

[Rhodymob05]

I would bet Nicholls has the toughest OOC thus far in the entire country. Thats ridiculous.

[ramster]

ramster I share your skepticism about the NCAA in general, and I’ve voiced my preference for RPI in order to rank teams for official purposes because of its simplicity and transparency and because it is only looking at wins and losses. I think that’s an important component to ranking teams for official purposes: professional leagues that can play balanced schedules do not use factors beyond straight W-L; I get the need to try to equalize records in college with qualitative data because balanced scheduling is impossible, but incorporating efficiency stats introduces a whole other dynamic that seems outside of what they need the equalization to correct for. All that being said, if the NCAA is going to move away from RPI, I’m not mad that they have their own metric - Kenpom and Sagarin were not setup to be determinative of which teams deserve to play in the postseason. At least NET is actually focused toward that purpose. As far as how much it is talked about, I think once we get to the point in the season where they start releasing the NET rankings, it will re-enter the conversation pretty quickly.

I think the NCAA could have met with representatives from Sagarin, Ken Pom, Real-time RPI and others to incorporate whatever the NCAA felt was missing. Could have had a meeting of the minds.

It’s telling of the NCAA that they wanted to do it themselves. No surprise because they want total control.

[RhodyKyle]

ramster I share your skepticism about the NCAA in general, and I’ve voiced my preference for RPI in order to rank teams for official purposes because of its simplicity and transparency and because it is only looking at wins and losses. I think that’s an important component to ranking teams for official purposes: professional leagues that can play balanced schedules do not use factors beyond straight W-L; I get the need to try to equalize records in college with qualitative data because balanced scheduling is impossible, but incorporating efficiency stats introduces a whole other dynamic that seems outside of what they need the equalization to correct for. All that being said, if the NCAA is going to move away from RPI, I’m not mad that they have their own metric - Kenpom and Sagarin were not setup to be determinative of which teams deserve to play in the postseason. At least NET is actually focused toward that purpose. As far as how much it is talked about, I think once we get to the point in the season where they start releasing the NET rankings, it will re-enter the conversation pretty quickly.

I think the NCAA could have met with representatives from Sagarin, Ken Pom, Real-time RPI and others to incorporate whatever the NCAA felt was missing. Could have had a meeting of the minds.

It’s telling of the NCAA that they wanted to do it themselves. No surprise because they want total control.

Hate to bring down your hate train but the NCAA did meet with Ken and Jeff when developing the NET.

[ramster]

ramster I share your skepticism about the NCAA in general, and I’ve voiced my preference for RPI in order to rank teams for official purposes because of its simplicity and transparency and because it is only looking at wins and losses. I think that’s an important component to ranking teams for official purposes: professional leagues that can play balanced schedules do not use factors beyond straight W-L; I get the need to try to equalize records in college with qualitative data because balanced scheduling is impossible, but incorporating efficiency stats introduces a whole other dynamic that seems outside of what they need the equalization to correct for. All that being said, if the NCAA is going to move away from RPI, I’m not mad that they have their own metric - Kenpom and Sagarin were not setup to be determinative of which teams deserve to play in the postseason. At least NET is actually focused toward that purpose. As far as how much it is talked about, I think once we get to the point in the season where they start releasing the NET rankings, it will re-enter the conversation pretty quickly.

I think the NCAA could have met with representatives from Sagarin, Ken Pom, Real-time RPI and others to incorporate whatever the NCAA felt was missing. Could have had a meeting of the minds.

It’s telling of the NCAA that they wanted to do it themselves. No surprise because they want total control.

Hate to bring down your hate train but the NCAA did meet with Ken and Jeff when developing the NET.

Look, I know I’m one of the few if only poster that was against the NET. I’ve been consistently against it. I don’t think you need to get snide and spiteful by calling it a hate train.
I’m against the NCAA having the ranking control for many reasons:
1. Dan Gavitt
2. Dan Gavitt
3. Dan Gavitt
4. Conflict of interests potential
5. Power of the Power 5 Conferences on the selection board
6. History of some extremely bad selections to the NCAA Tournament
7. There are very capable ranking services who have done this ranking business for many years. There continually improve their product. They do not have conflict of interest with P5 Conferences
8. NCAA does a terrible job ranking the Soccer Teams especially the Mid Majors
9. Dan Gavitt
10. Dan Gavitt

[ramster]

• 7 A10 Teams Undefeated

• 4 A10 Teams RPI Ranked 36 or better

• A10 Conference Currently Ranked #7

• A10 Conference SOS Ranked a Player #24 right now

45ABE7B7-9EC8-4BBD-BB85-E02613987AC6.png

[RhodyKyle]

I think the NCAA could have met with representatives from Sagarin, Ken Pom, Real-time RPI and others to incorporate whatever the NCAA felt was missing. Could have had a meeting of the minds.

It’s telling of the NCAA that they wanted to do it themselves. No surprise because they want total control.

Hate to bring down your hate train but the NCAA did meet with Ken and Jeff when developing the NET.

Look, I know I’m one of the few if only poster that was against the NET. I’ve been consistently against it. I don’t think you need to get snide and spiteful by calling it a hate train.
I’m against the NCAA having the ranking control for many reasons:
1. Dan Gavitt
2. Dan Gavitt
3. Dan Gavitt
4. Conflict of interests potential
5. Power of the Power 5 Conferences on the selection board
6. History of some extremely bad selections to the NCAA Tournament
7. There are very capable ranking services who have done this ranking business for many years. There continually improve their product. They do not have conflict of interest with P5 Conferences
8. NCAA does a terrible job ranking the Soccer Teams especially the Mid Majors
9. Dan Gavitt
10. Dan Gavitt

When you throw an incorrect statement out there like it's a fact without doing any research simply because it fits your narrative, it comes across as blind hatred.

FYI


https://www.dailypress.com/sports/colle ... story-link


But when four college basketball analytics gurus convened last week with NCAA staff to suggest changes in the tournament selection process, for as early as next season, Ken Pomeroy was engaged for the entire four-plus hours.

Pushed by the National Association of Basketball Coaches — Old Dominion's Jeff Jones is this year's president — the NCAA invited Pomeroy, Kevin Pauga, Jeff Sagarin and Ben Alamar to the association's Indianapolis offices to discuss how their rankings, or a composite, might replace the Rating Percentage Index, a tournament selection staple since 1981.

[TruePoint]

I don’t totally agree with ramster on NET but do love and agree with his reasons for no trusting the NCAA.

[ramster]

Hate to bring down your hate train but the NCAA did meet with Ken and Jeff when developing the NET.

Look, I know I’m one of the few if only poster that was against the NET. I’ve been consistently against it. I don’t think you need to get snide and spiteful by calling it a hate train.
I’m against the NCAA having the ranking control for many reasons:
1. Dan Gavitt
2. Dan Gavitt
3. Dan Gavitt
4. Conflict of interests potential
5. Power of the Power 5 Conferences on the selection board
6. History of some extremely bad selections to the NCAA Tournament
7. There are very capable ranking services who have done this ranking business for many years. There continually improve their product. They do not have conflict of interest with P5 Conferences
8. NCAA does a terrible job ranking the Soccer Teams especially the Mid Majors
9. Dan Gavitt
10. Dan Gavitt

When you throw an incorrect statement out there like it's a fact without doing any research simply because it fits your narrative, it comes across as blind hatred.

FYI


https://www.dailypress.com/sports/colle ... story-link


But when four college basketball analytics gurus convened last week with NCAA staff to suggest changes in the tournament selection process, for as early as next season, Ken Pomeroy was engaged for the entire four-plus hours.

Pushed by the National Association of Basketball Coaches — Old Dominion's Jeff Jones is this year's president — the NCAA invited Pomeroy, Kevin Pauga, Jeff Sagarin and Ben Alamar to the association's Indianapolis offices to discuss how their rankings, or a composite, might replace the Rating Percentage Index, a tournament selection staple since 1981.

Didn’t realize I was throwing out my statement as if it was fact
My apologies

[The Dude]

After seeing Nichols St play Rhody last night, in addition to seeing how other college games are panning out, it would not surprise me if URI ends up with a much better SOS by the time conference play rolls around and some of these out of conference opponents have a chance to rack up some wins. Personally, I think URI's out of conference schedule could end up looking very strong come tournament time.

[ramster]

Here is later at RPI including Wednesday Night games

A10 with 3 teams in Top 25

And yes I know it’s early as does the entire College BB World

Plus I didn’t create this 2019-2020 RPI Thead. Just playing along

5028005D-E38D-4719-B627-A9937E70B2B5.png

[rjsuperfly66]

Why does this thread even exist?

With the RPI no longer being a tournament metric, that renders it completely useless and irrelevant except for the conspiracy theorists who choose to use it as a comparative resource to compare to the NET, and even then, I would question why that's even necessary as for the last 10 years the RPI was "used," it was completely subjective as no one closely used it anyways. The NET might not be as fair to non-P5+BE teams, but is that much different than a team could have an RPI of 25 or 27 but be completely omitted from the bracket because of lack of quality wins?

I suppose you could say the same thing several years ago with regards to Ken Pom, Sagarin, etc., but at least back 5 years ago, the RPI was considered the "tournament metric" while Ken Pom, Sagarin, etc. were considered "strength metrics." If you are not a tournament metric and you are a not a strength metric, you are a meaningless metric.

IMHO, I like the updates, but maybe do frequent updates on the metrics that matter versus the one's that don't.

[ramster]

But there is no NET RJ.
When is the NET coming out? We are already 5 games into a 10-13 game OOC Season

Why does the RPI still exist?
For that matter why does Ken Pom and Sagarin still exist?

Why are there something like 4-5 Different Ranking Systems for College Soccer including the NCAA’s own??

Humongous disparities in Soccer Rankings. How in all creation can URI win the A-10, PC loses in BE Final, URI beat PC and PC is in some Rankings ahead of URI? And gets an at large bid?

But I like the multiple Systems because the NCAA cannot be allowed to guard the hen-house. That Organization cannot be trusted. Imagine NET owned and operated by the NCAA and Dan Gavitt? With no RPI, Ken Pom, Sagarin, etc?

If you don’t like the RPI Thread go to the person who started it. Or start your own NET Thread. And it’s ok to ignore this RPI thread

[rjsuperfly66]

I understand the NET is not out yet, but I don’t know why that matters with regards to studying the RPI.

I can’t help that people still produce the RPI, it doesn’t make it any more relevant.

The difference between the RPI and KenPom is purpose. KenPom has always said he is not a tournament metric but a strength metric. KenPom has personally said his metric should not be used as a NCAA evaluation tool, that while aspects of his system are useful, winning and losing are still the most important criteria for judging tournament teams.

That is very different than the RPI that was designed to compare tournament teams. However, if it’s been discontinued as a metric to compare tournament teams, it has no use. There is no purpose. It doesn’t judge strength. It doesn’t judge tournament potential. Even when it was a tournament metric, it really wasn’t.

As for your comment about soccer, I don’t know what metrics you are looking at since the NCAA uses RPI for soccer, which I saw multiple variations that had PC 50 spots higher than URI.

I also don’t understand the PC/URI comparison. So Evansville basketball beats Kentucky, they win their conference tournament while Kentucky loses in theirs, and people are supposed to be outraged that Kentucky gets a better seed? Cmon now.

The beauty of college sports is anyone can win on any night. But to accurately seed teams, you need to judge the full body of work, including playing and beating good teams.

Otherwise URI should leave the A10, go play in the America East, go 31-1, and get the #1 overall seed in the tournament.

[rjsuperfly66]

Also I have no problem with the NET coming out until after Thanksgiving (don’t know if it will but I wouldn’t mind it). Last year, it came out too early and it was a complete farce. Low-major teams who played a lot of road games and had high SOS’s littered the Top 25, only to drop drastically after other teams played stronger opponents in OOC tournaments. I’d rather it come out after December 2nd as a more realistic measure than come out early looking all ridiculous.

[TruePoint]

Not only do I not have a problem with NET not coming out yet, I would have a problem if it was out. I think there is no reasonable way to really rank teams at this point. The data is not close to being at a point where it makes any sense. Kenpom and Sagarin have to rely on data from the previous season to in order to have rankings, and that’s fine for them because they’re predictive metrics primarily for use in line setting - they aren’t intended to rank teams on performance for the current season and really shouldn’t be relied on for that purpose. No system that uses only current season data could spit out meaningful rankings at this point, including RPI.

RJ, I’m curious your opinion on the argument I made above about why I think these efficiency metrics should not be used for tournament selection purposes. Boiled down, the argument is essentially that while efficiency metrics may actually be better at identifying the “best” teams in some sense, they shouldn’t be used to select postseason teams. Professional sports leagues do not award postseason spots to teams that have the best metrics (i.e., WAR in baseball, DVOA in football, etc.), they base it off of W-L records. The reason why some metric beyond W-L records has to be used in college sports is that there are too many teams and they play too unbalanced of a schedule to compare them fairly on that basis alone. RPI, for whatever flaws it has, is a way of correcting for the unbalanced schedules but still comparing teams using W-L by weighting them for SOS and home and away. I’m not saying NET can’t identify the best teams on a subjective basis better than RPI, I just think that’s not a good reason to use it to select tournament teams - any more than DVOA should be used to decide NFL playoff teams rather than the standings.

[rjsuperfly66]

TP, I mostly agree with you.

In January of 2017 as the NCAA was attempting to identify a better tournament metric than the RPI, they brought KenPom and similar type of efficiency/strength metric pioneers into the board room in an attempt to pick their brain about how to make the best metric possibly.

While KenPom (like many of his colleagues) believe that scoring margin is the best way to determine the strength of a team, he issued the following statement in a blog he wrote after that meeting:

"But conference tournaments aren’t seeded based on scoring margin and nobody has ever proposed that. To my knowledge, there is no tournament in any sport that seeds on something other than record. Maryland can win all of the one-point games it wants and the Big Ten is not going to take away its regular-season title if it has the best record. Likewise, Texas A&M’s controversial victory over Georgia on Saturday counts just as much as Kentucky’s 42-point win over A&M earlier in the season.

The reason this is so is that the outcome of the game has to matter. This is why we watch the game. Make the selection process, and thus the games, purely about points scored and allowed and the games become less entertaining. There is no special purpose to having one more point than your opponent. No point in managing foul trouble. No point in hoisting threes in the final minute to catch up. The contest becomes one of points accumulation. There’s a reason televised Scrabble has never hit it big."

But as you stated, teams play unbalanced schedules, and there is great variance between conferences in terms of quality. Teams should not be able to juice their tournament metric simply by playing a higher amount of road games, just like I feel teams should not be able to juice their tournament metric by playing a higher number of quality teams during conference play.

That’s why I like this aspect and KenPom does as well - I think how you perform against teams is just as important as where you play or who you play. If URI is a 15 point underdog at Duke, and loses by 1 point, I don't think that road loss should be treated the same as a 51 point loss or a 30 point loss. That is a good, solid loss. Likewise for Duke, if you are that heavy of a favorite, it's good that you won and you deserve boost for the win, but that's not necessarily a "good" win. I don’t think that win should be treated the same as a 15 point or 30 point win.

And KenPom does state this again in that previously mentioned blog:

"However, the reason margin-of-victory works in identifying the best teams is because the goal is to win the game. Teams are happy with a one-point win after the fact, but they’d rather not have the game come down to the final possession while its occurring. There’s already incentive to run up the score (to an extent) in order to avoid the game coming down to a team’s players not being able to count off 5.6 seconds in their heads so they know when to shoot.

A dominant team from a lesser conference is challenging to evaluate because it has fewer chances late in the season to pick up quality victories that their power-conference brethren. Whether it was Wichita State or Stephen F. Austin last season, both were playing their best basketball when their schedule was a desert for nutrient-rich quality opponents. While Wisconsin turned it around when quality opponents were lined up one of after the other. We can throw our hands up and accept the inequity in that or we can use predictive measures to bridge the information gap and acknowledge that both the Shockers and Lumberjacks were more likely than not to succeed against tougher competition.

It’s worth clarifying what “predictive” means in this sense. It’s not looking into the future for information. It’s determining how a team is playing right now by looking at how it has played in the past. Predictive is shorthand for which teams are best, at this moment. You could call it a power rating except the term power rating has been co-opted by writers who are simply creating a results-based ranking. I suspect writers do that because most people want the results to matter, even though to understand a team’s ability one must know how a team achieved those results.”

That's why I think the NET (and it's fine-tuning to improve it) makes it a better option than the RPI, or purely KenPom, Sagarin, etc. It combines all the best aspects, just needs to tune to get the balance it needs. I think that missed last year with certain teams, and why the committee had to still do a lot of manual processing.

[ramster]

It was screwed up last year because the they were using winning margin too heavily weighted. It was an obvious flaw and some teams were taking advantage trying to beat a team by 50 points when they could have taken their foot off the gas and won by 30 instead.

Maybe the NET is delayed because they are still sifting through the backlog of waivers. Waivers granted or not granted will impact NEC so the delay til Mid February when Waivers are finished?

You will never convince me that the NCAA led by Dan Gavitt and a majority of P5 Admins can do a better job of Ranking 353 College Basketball Teams than the private sector. They can’t even fairly manage Transfer Approvals or Rejections in a Fair and certainly not Timely basis.

And when is NET due out? Any clue? Any advanced clues from the NCAA?

Meanwhile.......

[NYGFan_Section208]

Meanwhile...another awesome episode of SEAL Team last night, and Rhody hoops tomorrow. Wah-hooo...

[rjsuperfly66]

Ramster, a few things...

1) Winning margin caps at 10 points. Net efficiency is uncapped, which I think is stupid. But if the NCAA only tries to de-emphasize it from a percentage basis or by a simple point cap, I think that is the wrong fix. I think net efficiency should be adjusted, and weighted in a similar fashion to how KenPom does it -- "The adjusted version adjusts for the quality of opposing defenses, the site of each game." KenPom does weight recent games more, which I do not agree with for tournament purposes (although it does make sense for his metric). The benefit to adjusted efficiency is it fixes the problem from last season -- NC St pounds cupcakes, racks up incredible efficiency numbers, and gets a high NET because of it. NCAA has to step in and say "Sorry you didn't beat anybody, you are not in the tournament." There is a fundamental difference between beating Duke by 30, and beating North Carolina A&T by 30, and I think that should be recognized in these efficiency metrics. I think that should be a factor. Then you work on the cap of roughly 40 points any time in the 2nd half, 30 points under 10 minutes, and 20 points under 5 minutes, where after that, things simply "dont matter." At that point, you just average out efficiency for the remainder of the game, and adjust for opponent, and teams can let their reserves get some run. I think that is a satisfactory fix for all efficiency concerns.

2) Secondly, last year the first NET was released on November 26th. I happen to think they should wait until December 15th to release it every year. The NET, like the RPI is completely meaningless at this time of year because it is results driven. At least for the NET, I think they should wait until teams have at least 10-11 games in their belt before throwing it out there. It just doesn't mean anything.

3) While I agree that I think they could find several people in the private sector who may be able to deliver a superior product, it's still the NCAA Tournament, run by the NCAA, filled with NCAA teams, selected by the NCAA selection committee, using NCAA approved metrics. You are never going to get the full transparency you desire. I am glad that the NCAA did consult with other experts, and try to emulate the best of various systems. I think we would all agree there are holes in the NET. I hope those will work to be corrected. I hope the NET can become to basketball what pairwise is to hockey (where a committee geographically slots the teams, but the pairwise selects the teams and their seeding), but it's not there yet. But I also think the NET has the makings of something that can be far superior to the RPI with the correct tweaks.

[ramster]

Ramster, a few things...

1) Winning margin caps at 10 points. Net efficiency is uncapped, which I think is stupid. But if the NCAA only tries to de-emphasize it from a percentage basis or by a simple point cap, I think that is the wrong fix. I think net efficiency should be adjusted, and weighted in a similar fashion to how KenPom does it -- "The adjusted version adjusts for the quality of opposing defenses, the site of each game." KenPom does weight recent games more, which I do not agree with for tournament purposes (although it does make sense for his metric). The benefit to adjusted efficiency is it fixes the problem from last season -- NC St pounds cupcakes, racks up incredible efficiency numbers, and gets a high NET because of it. NCAA has to step in and say "Sorry you didn't beat anybody, you are not in the tournament." There is a fundamental difference between beating Duke by 30, and beating North Carolina A&T by 30, and I think that should be recognized in these efficiency metrics. I think that should be a factor. Then you work on the cap of roughly 40 points any time in the 2nd half, 30 points under 10 minutes, and 20 points under 5 minutes, where after that, things simply "dont matter." At that point, you just average out efficiency for the remainder of the game, and adjust for opponent, and teams can let their reserves get some run. I think that is a satisfactory fix for all efficiency concerns.

2) Secondly, last year the first NET was released on November 26th. I happen to think they should wait until December 15th to release it every year. The NET, like the RPI is completely meaningless at this time of year because it is results driven. At least for the NET, I think they should wait until teams have at least 10-11 games in their belt before throwing it out there. It just doesn't mean anything.

3) While I agree that I think they could find several people in the private sector who may be able to deliver a superior product, it's still the NCAA Tournament, run by the NCAA, filled with NCAA teams, selected by the NCAA selection committee, using NCAA approved metrics. You are never going to get the full transparency you desire. I am glad that the NCAA did consult with other experts, and try to emulate the best of various systems. I think we would all agree there are holes in the NET. I hope those will work to be corrected. I hope the NET can become to basketball what pairwise is to hockey (where a committee geographically slots the teams, but the pairwise selects the teams and their seeding), but it's not there yet. But I also think the NET has the makings of something that can be far superior to the RPI with the correct tweaks.

RJ,
I think the fact that RPI and NET are results driven as you say is a good thing.
Everyone knows that that larger the sample the more accurate the results. But it’s also fun to watch early on especially to see teams break from the pack that surprise the experts. Kind of like a horse race it’s exciting to watch the whole race.
CBS Sports Top 25 and 1 uses RPI and they also have the RPI and NET data on their site.

Today’s RealTime RPI has West Virginia #1 and Maryland #5. Two teams URI played quite well against and both Road Games. LSU Ranked #46.

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[Rhody83]

URI lost to Maryland by 18 points. That is played quite well

[KevanBoyles]

For what it’s worth, are our RPI is now 40.

[ramster]

For what it’s worth, are our RPI is now 40.

Now down to #48.

6 A10 Teams #56 or better

62485B3B-232A-4E0C-AEBA-CAD29E473E0A.png

[Rhodymob05]

Based on my own perception of these teams so far, RPI is way more accurate then kenpom.

[ramster]

Based on my own perception of these teams so far, RPI is way more accurate then kenpom.

Here is the Big East as of Tonight

96B35FF4-7782-43EA-9D33-F0250A80FC6B.png

[TruePoint]

Based on my own perception of these teams so far, RPI is way more accurate then kenpom.

I feel like this has mostly to do with where they have URI. You think George Mason is 70 spots better than VCU? None of these metrics are perfect, and that certainly includes RPI, although I do think RPI’s value became way understated over the last decade.

[Rhodymob05]

Based on my own perception of these teams so far, RPI is way more accurate then kenpom.

I feel like this has mostly to do with where they have URI. You think George Mason is 70 spots better than VCU? None of these metrics are perfect, and that certainly includes RPI, although I do think RPI’s value became way understated over the last decade.

VCU/GM might be the only disagreement I have with those.

[rjsuperfly66]

Ramster, I know you had been asking about this, just saw this in an article. Not sure why it was so underreported.

Debut of NET Rankings Delayed by 2.5 Weeks

NCAA Director of Media Coordination/Statistics David Worlock, who’s the Media Coordinator for the NCAA Tournament, tweeted on Friday that the NET rankings and team sheets will become public on Dec. 16, then updated daily through Selection Sunday.

Last year, the NET rankings made their debut on Nov. 26, so this will give college basketball fans and the privately held NET formula roughly 2.5 more weeks than last year, when people lost their minds when Ohio State started at No. 1 and Loyola Marymount was No. 10.

(The eight teams in between — Virginia, Texas Tech, Michigan, Gonzaga, Duke, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Virginia Tech — held up really well, by the way.)

If you know anything about statistics, you know that a five-and-a-half-week sample size is going to be much more accurate than a three-week one, and I would guess that the public outcry from fans last November — even if it was misguided — had something to do with the later reveal this season.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/watchstadi ... -2019/amp/

[ramster]

RJ
Thanks for sharing. Not sure why writer says NET will be delayed 2.5 weeks when from November 26 to Dec 16 is actually 20 days or more like 3 weeks. But that is a lot more time to get more OOC games Into consideration plus even some Conference Games got some teams

I was surprised to read Ken Pom considers a teams previous 9 seasons, not just the last season. Were you aware of that?

It’s worth noting that kenpom.com’s preseason ratings take into consideration a program’s last nine seasons, and preseason ratings are still factored into a team’s current rating, which is to say that there’s still a long way to go until we truly know what this season holds for the best teams in the country.

[ramster]

Top 5 A10 Teams by W/L Record are 41-4.

B3C9A524-DADB-46EC-ADB1-6C3FE0FC1B5A.png

[ramster]

Top 5 Teams by RPI have a record of 39-7

URI has the toughest SOS followed by Dayton

A10 is back again ranked as the 7th best Conference after a dismal performance in 2018-19 Season.

188A0091-8FED-449C-A0CD-2DF77DDCC1D8.png

[Rhodymob05]

Every conference game is going to be a barn burner, I can't wait.

[theblueram]

It's going to be interesting next week where the A10 stands with the NET. Still the 7th ranked Conference?