Gophers non-conference RPI

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This is the untold story of why they are sitting well when it comes to tournament bids.
They have a non-conference RPI of 6 overall.
I find this surprising considering their best non-conference opponents have RPI's of #6, #47, #49, and #56.

What seems to be key is that you don't play teams who are horrible, more so than worrying about teams who rank highly.

Currently they only played 3 teams with RPI's below 200.
Michigan for example played 5 teams, including two which were below 300.


Whoever does the scheduling for the Gophers seems to do a good job. Schedule weak conference teams who will finish in the top 1/4 - 1/3 of their conference and avoid horrible teams and your RPI will be great.
 

This is the untold story of why they are sitting well when it comes to tournament bids.
They have a non-conference RPI of 6 overall.
I find this surprising considering their best non-conference opponents have RPI's of #6, #47, #49, and #56.

What seems to be key is that you don't play teams who are horrible, more so than worrying about teams who rank highly.

Currently they only played 3 teams with RPI's below 200.
Michigan for example played 5 teams, including two which were below 300.


Whoever does the scheduling for the Gophers seems to do a good job. Schedule weak conference teams who will finish in the top 1/4 - 1/3 of their conference and avoid horrible teams and your RPI will be great.

Schedules are made so far in advance that some of it is a crap shoot in terms of how good a team will be. That said the non-conf schedule this year was a nice mix of a few good teams and some other very beatable teams that were not complete garbage.
 

Schedules are made so far in advance that some of it is a crap shoot in terms of how good a team will be. That said the non-conf schedule this year was a nice mix of a few good teams and some other very beatable teams that were not complete garbage.

Not the whole schedule. I think the gophers currently only have 1 non conference game on the books for next year and that is the second part of the home and home with Arkansas. Most of the scheduling will start being done this summer which will certainly allow schedulers to predict how a team will do that season.
 

This is the untold story of why they are sitting well when it comes to tournament bids.
They have a non-conference RPI of 6 overall.
I find this surprising considering their best non-conference opponents have RPI's of #6, #47, #49, and #56.

What seems to be key is that you don't play teams who are horrible, more so than worrying about teams who rank highly.

Currently they only played 3 teams with RPI's below 200.
Michigan for example played 5 teams, including two which were below 300.


Whoever does the scheduling for the Gophers seems to do a good job. Schedule weak conference teams who will finish in the top 1/4 - 1/3 of their conference and avoid horrible teams and your RPI will be great.

Pitino/his Basketball Ops guy deserve credit for this. It's not an eye-opening non-conference schedule, but it's solid, they clearly did their homework. 3 of the 4 Sun Belt teams they played Texas-Arlington (#56 RPI), Arkansas State (#78) & Georgia Southern (#107) are either tied for first or a game back in the Sun Belt race, Vanderbilt and Arkansas are decent (both currently in RPI top 50), and even one of Gophers' worst opponents Mount Saint Mary's (#185) is leading its conference. Wins over teams who make the field certainly don't hurt if you end up on the bubble.

And they obviously made an effort to avoid scheduling traditionally awful teams/conferences (i.e. from the SWAC, MEAC, Southland) that likely would end up in the 300s, unlike Crean, who schedules a bunch of truly awful opponents every year. This year it may finally bite him.

My only gripe with Gophers NC schedule this season is too many home games. Take one of those lower-tier home games (LIU/NJIT) and replace it with a true road game. My belief if you're a P6 team is you should play 2 (3 if you're really bold) true non-conference road games every season. 11 non-conference home games is too many. We were the only P6 school in the country that scheduled that many.
 

Pitino/his Basketball Ops guy deserve credit for this. It's not an eye-opening non-conference schedule, but it's solid, they clearly did their homework. 3 of the 4 Sun Belt teams they played Texas-Arlington (#56 RPI), Arkansas State (#78) & Georgia Southern (#107) are either tied for first or a game back in the Sun Belt race, Vanderbilt and Arkansas are decent (both currently in RPI top 50), and even one of Gophers' worst opponents Mount Saint Mary's (#185) is leading its conference. Wins over teams who make the field certainly don't hurt if you end up on the bubble.

And they obviously made an effort to avoid scheduling traditionally awful teams/conferences (i.e. from the SWAC, MEAC, Southland) that likely would end up in the 300s, unlike Crean, who schedules a bunch of truly awful opponents every year. This year it may finally bite him.

My only gripe with Gophers NC schedule this season is too many home games. Take one of those lower-tier home games (LIU/NJIT) and replace it with a true road game. My belief if you're a P6 team is you should play 2 (3 if you're really bold) true non-conference road games every season. 11 non-conference home games is too many. We were the only P6 school in the country that scheduled that many.


I agree. The neutral court game in SD is a nice add, but an additional road game or two would be good for RPI purposes.
Overall though, they really did as good of a job. When Tubby was coach, we had some good scheduling as well, especially his last year. Our RPI was high that whole year.
 


Pitino/his Basketball Ops guy deserve credit for this. It's not an eye-opening non-conference schedule, but it's solid, they clearly did their homework. 3 of the 4 Sun Belt teams they played Texas-Arlington (#56 RPI), Arkansas State (#78) & Georgia Southern (#107) are either tied for first or a game back in the Sun Belt race, Vanderbilt and Arkansas are decent (both currently in RPI top 50), and even one of Gophers' worst opponents Mount Saint Mary's (#185) is leading its conference. Wins over teams who make the field certainly don't hurt if you end up on the bubble.

And they obviously made an effort to avoid scheduling traditionally awful teams/conferences (i.e. from the SWAC, MEAC, Southland) that likely would end up in the 300s, unlike Crean, who schedules a bunch of truly awful opponents every year. This year it may finally bite him.

My only gripe with Gophers NC schedule this season is too many home games. Take one of those lower-tier home games (LIU/NJIT) and replace it with a true road game. My belief if you're a P6 team is you should play 2 (3 if you're really bold) true non-conference road games every season. 11 non-conference home games is too many. We were the only P6 school in the country that scheduled that many.

Agree on the non-conf games. If anything, gets you ready for your conference season, especially if you have young players who need to get used to playing in front of opposing crowds. Plus it's a metric used for selection, so why not try inflate your road wins early?
 

Schedules are made so far in advance that some of it is a crap shoot in terms of how good a team will be. That said the non-conf schedule this year was a nice mix of a few good teams and some other very beatable teams that were not complete garbage.

Other than home and home series, which are usually strong for SOS, the entirety of the schedule is typically set 1 year or 9 months before.. so they should get all the credit for this schedule.
 

Yep, it's not like football. Most of the scheduling is done between April and July. Arkansas on the road and an ACC Challenge opponent (likely at home) are the only 2 things we know about the 2017-18 non-conference schedule. If there is more, haven't heard or seen it referenced anywhere.
 

Let's not forget the obvious here: the Gophers have a nonconference RPI that high not just because they played a solid schedule, but because they went 12-1 against that schedule. The only loss was the true road game at Florida State. It's one thing to schedule games, it's another thing to actually go out and win them. This team did both.
 



Let's not forget the obvious here: the Gophers have a nonconference RPI that high not just because they played a solid schedule, but because they went 12-1 against that schedule. The only loss was the true road game at Florida State. It's one thing to schedule games, it's another thing to actually go out and win them. This team did both.

Agreed.

The point I'm trying to make however is that when the media talks about a tough schedule (which RPI largely reflects) they like to look at the top, and go, "Oh look, the best teams they beat were #47, #49, and #56. That's nothing big." And the mindset is that teams ranking 50-60 is "average".

The media likes to then say "Look at Wisconsin who played North Carolina, and Syracuse, and #16 Creighton, and Georgetown", failing to mention the rest of their schedule.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin's non-conference SOS is 192. Why? Because they scheduled #281, #274, #297, #324, #348. With those teams, Wisconsin is playing 5 games against teams in the lowest 20% of all Division 1 teams and the Gophers avoided that.
 

Agreed.

The point I'm trying to make however is that when the media talks about a tough schedule (which RPI largely reflects) they like to look at the top, and go, "Oh look, the best teams they beat were #47, #49, and #56. That's nothing big." And the mindset is that teams ranking 50-60 is "average".

The media likes to then say "Look at Wisconsin who played North Carolina, and Syracuse, and #16 Creighton, and Georgetown", failing to mention the rest of their schedule.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin's non-conference SOS is 192. Why? Because they scheduled #281, #274, #297, #324, #348. With those teams, Wisconsin is playing 5 games against teams in the lowest 20% of all Division 1 teams and the Gophers avoided that.

That is also why the selection committee is looking for a new metric that replaces rpi. a team shouldn't be penalized for playing #281 if they win by 30. (Assuming they have some higher ranked wins too).
 

Agreed.

The point I'm trying to make however is that when the media talks about a tough schedule (which RPI largely reflects) they like to look at the top, and go, "Oh look, the best teams they beat were #47, #49, and #56. That's nothing big." And the mindset is that teams ranking 50-60 is "average".

The media likes to then say "Look at Wisconsin who played North Carolina, and Syracuse, and #16 Creighton, and Georgetown", failing to mention the rest of their schedule.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin's non-conference SOS is 192. Why? Because they scheduled #281, #274, #297, #324, #348. With those teams, Wisconsin is playing 5 games against teams in the lowest 20% of all Division 1 teams and the Gophers avoided that.

To be fair, some of that is in the eye of the beholder. I think people could be correct on either side of it, and I don't think it is a media thing.

I mean, lets say the non-conference season was ten games, just for the sake of simplicity. Compare the following:
- Team A plays five games vs teams ranked 10-20, and five games vs teams ranked 200-210.
- Team B plays all ten games vs teams ranked 70-80.

RPI would say that Team B played a significantly harder schedule than Team A when you go strictly by the numbers. (Average rank of Team A opponents is about 110, average rank of team B opponents is around 75.) I don't know if I agree with that though. Team A might have a worse average rank of opponent, but they also played five opponents ranked better than any one opponent played by Team B.

Now, that is an extremely simplistic example, but it points out the problem with just looking at the schedule numbers. RPI is too simplistic, and it also doesn't include margin of victory as a factor. Which is more impressive: beating the #60 team by 2 or beating the #70 team by 30? RPI would say the win over #60.
 




To be fair, some of that is in the eye of the beholder. I think people could be correct on either side of it, and I don't think it is a media thing.

I mean, lets say the non-conference season was ten games, just for the sake of simplicity. Compare the following:
- Team A plays five games vs teams ranked 10-20, and five games vs teams ranked 200-210.
- Team B plays all ten games vs teams ranked 70-80.

RPI would say that Team B played a significantly harder schedule than Team A when you go strictly by the numbers. (Average rank of Team A opponents is about 110, average rank of team B opponents is around 75.) I don't know if I agree with that though. Team A might have a worse average rank of opponent, but they also played five opponents ranked better than any one opponent played by Team B.

Now, that is an extremely simplistic example, but it points out the problem with just looking at the schedule numbers. RPI is too simplistic, and it also doesn't include margin of victory as a factor. Which is more impressive: beating the #60 team by 2 or beating the #70 team by 30? RPI would say the win over #60.

Good point, but as a fan, I would much rather see the team playing mostly 70-80 type teams than one that splits between super high and awful. Generally more competitive and tests their ability to be consistent. Playing rotten teams allows a good team to be bad and still win. Not so with the more competitive teams. The impressive thing about this year's non-con schedule is that most of the games were competitive. The hard part for the fan is interpreting whether the team was decent or not. Did they play poorly and beat a bad team, or did a decent team keep them on their toes. Always a challenge in the pre-season. It's clear the schedulers went to the Esposito school of scheduling. Well done.

But it would still be nice to get another name opponent or two in the Barn.

RPI isn't perfect, but everyone knows what it is and so is basically on the same playing field in non con season. Any system that would reward teams for being "efficient" in crushing low rung teams by 30 is not something I would favor. Encouraging running up the score is just not a good idea.
 

It's a matter of consistency vs ability to beat the championship contender.

Over the test of time, consistency is big, but to have the ability to beat a #1 overall makes it appealing for the tournament.

My point in this thread was to congratulate whoever put the schedule together because they scheduled middle of the pack teams who are at least average, who we've been able to beat. That will always do well.

To me, the best way to select tournament teams is add up the RPI scores of your top 15 RPI wins and add up the scores of your worst 5 losses. Lowest scores get in.
 




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