NCAA Monday RPI 2018-19 Season

Ignatius L Hoops

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 9, 2015
Messages
10,170
Reaction score
3,109
Points
113
https://extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/Stats Library/DI WBB Nitty Gritty 11-25-18.pdf

It's early, but we're off!. The RPI for B1G schools is listed first with the Strength of Schedule following the named school. Through games of 11/25.

24 Northwestern 178
43 Michigan 109
50 Minnesota 234
54 Indiana 296
83 Michigan State 174
95 Iowa 136
101 Penn State 99
103 Maryland 320
107 Wisconsin 237
112 Purdue 186
154 Ohio State 328
174 Nebraska 96
184 Rutgers 258
207 Illinois 329
 

The Syracuse win bumped the RPI from 43 to 14 for the time being. :clap:
 

The Syracuse win bumped the RPI from 43 to 14 for the time being. :clap:

(albeit with a season-ending projected RPI of 54, which is not going to get the Gophers into the tournament. Probably need to do better than 1107 in the B1G)
 

(albeit with a season-ending projected RPI of 54, which is not going to get the Gophers into the tournament. Probably need to do better than 1107 in the B1G)

This point by thatjanelpick is absolutely true. In fact, I'd say the Lady Gophers definitely need to do a lot better than 11-7 in the B1G to make the NCAA tournament.

The reason is the combination of our very weak non-conf schedule plus the fact that RPI is a totally bankrupt system for rating relative quality of basketball teams. The RPI score (the computed number that gets sorted to determine the RPI rank) is 3/4 composed of (how good our opponents are and how good our opponents opponents are). Only 1/4 of our RPI score is based on how good the Gophers are. Thus Gophers RPI score is only very approximately correlated to how good Lindsay and the Ladies are as a basketball team. Rather, it is mostly a measure of how good are the teams we (will have) played this year (in other words the strength of our schedule). Half of our SoS is just the strength of the B1G, and the other half of our SoS is the strength of our non-conf schedule, which is very weak both in absolute terms, and also weak relative to the non-conf schedules of other B1G teams.

Thus, since the statistically bankrupt RPI score is mostly a measure of quality of our opponents (and only 1/4 of a measure of the Lady Gophers basketball prowess), and the Gophers most probably have the weakest non-conf schedule in the B1G, that means that if we come in 5th place-ish in the B1G we still come in with the lowest RPI score in the B1G. Meaning we end up with the worst RPI ranking in the B1G. So the only way to bump up our RPI score (from a base of lowest relative to other B1G teams) is by winning a truckload of B1G teams, I conjecture that we need to go about maybe 14-4 in the B1G to get our RPI up to a point where the NCAA selection committee won't choke on it.

This is bad-news/good-news story. First the bad news. Accepting as largely true the statement by others in different thread that our non-conf schedule was mostly set by Stollings, that means that Stollings left us with the boat anchor around our neck of needing nearly immaculate play in the B1G in order to get an RPI better than a bubble team.

Now for the good news. I think the Gophers can hit the 14-4 mark or better in the B1G. Or perhaps we'll go 13-5 at worst, and the NCAA will throw another Bubble Party for us but we'll land on the Big Dance side of the bubble.

But the bottom line is, thanks to the uselessness of RPI as a measure of basketball-team quality, we need to be that much better of a team just to make it into the NCAAs. But once we get in, we could go far as long as we don't get an early bad matchup like the Oregon Ducks.

To further illustrate this point, note that the huge leap in our RPI ranking according to
http://www.realtimerpi.com/rpi_190_Women.html
is almost fully due to the fact that Syracuse has played and beat a lot of good teams, and only marginally due to the fact that we beat Syracuse per se. Now as we continue to play weak teams for a while, that will gradually dilute the benefit we got from playing/beating Syracuse, and our RPI score will fall as our RPI ranking gets worse and worse. RPI scores are bunched tightly together at the leaderboard so as RPI score falls rather gradually, RPI ranking will get worse more dramatically. Already now, our current active RPI ranking dropped a slot to 15th, and our projected end-of-season RPI ranking dropped to 58th, thanks to playing Air Force. Note that beating Air Force didn't help us much at all. The fact that we were Minnesota nice and agreed to play Air Force is what put a hit on our RPI, and the fact that we won only marginally reduced the bit of playing them. This will continue to happen as we (hopefully) win out the non-conf schedule, with the fact that we played them continuing to whack our RPI by diluting the benefit of playing Syracuse.

Moral of story? Go Gophers, win-out non-conf schedule! Go Gophers, beat tons of B1G teams!
 
Last edited:

https://extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/Stats Library/DI WBB Nitty Gritty 12-2-18.pdf

NCAA RPI (listed first) with Strength of Schedule and record through games of 12/2/18

16 Minnesota 171 (7-0)
23 Michigan 19 (5-3)
35 Indiana 266 (7-0)
52 Maryland 255 (8-1)
54 Northwestern 195 (5-1)
75 Penn State 49 (5-3)
80 Michigan State 208 (6-1)
81 Ohio State 45 (3-2)
84 Purdue 151 (6-2)
88 Iowa 149 (5-2)
126 Rutgers 106 (5-3)
135 Wisconsin 217 (6-2)
148 Illinois 240 (5-2)
177 Nebraska 64 (2-5)
 


I'm not confident that the Gophers will finish 14-4 or 13-5 in BIG play. It's looking more and more like this is a "grind it out" team that is going to have to win with defense and toughness...and the athleticism of Bell and Bello. If Hubbard can get on the court ago, that should help, but we have to remember that she won't be able to solve all this team's deficiencies. The putrid non-conference schedule puts a lot of pressure on the Gophers...not only to win all of their remaining non-conference games, but to win a lot of conference games. The Syracuse game was a huge win. Boston College is probably the toughest remaining non-conference game, as it is a road game against a formidable opponent. The possible silver lining with this team is that they should be able to win some games while shooting poorly, with the solid defense, good rebounding and toughness they've shown so far this year. Last year offensively, the team had 3 good three point shooters in Wagner, Pitts, and Hubbard, and three guards that could get to the hoop in Wagner, Hubbard, and Bell. This year, with Wagner's graduation and Hubbard's injury, we're left with Pitts as the only consistent three-point threat (and she hasn't been shooting it all that well) and Bell as the only person who will consistently penetrate. (Brunson also does that occasionally, but not often enough.) It's looking more like a "grind it out year".
 

I think this team can win anywhere from 10-12 conference games, but obviously some things need to be addressed. First and foremost, the free throw shooting has to improve. They'll get to the line a lot because they're very aggressive going to the basket. Rebounding is also a strength, so they should be fine on the glass. Shooting percentage and offensive decision making are two areas of concern. I don't think they'll shoot an overly high percentage a lot of the time unless Hubbard magically comes back sometime this season.

One thing they do have going for them is their toughness and Bell's ability to make plays late in games. They'll never give up on a game or a quarter, so in theory they'll likely give themselves a chance to win almost every time out. Defensively they're pretty strong. More ball pressure than in the past and they seem to collapse on help-side in the post pretty well. Plenty of games will come down to grinding it out, but there will also likely be games where they shoot it a little better than they have. At this point, just looking for progression. If they can iron out a few things (most notably the charity stripe), they'll be fine imo.
 


Charlie Creme had us as a #4 seed in the Chicago region of the NCAA tourney [emoji23]

Only 5 B1G teams projected in (safe to say that the Syracuse win on BTN impressed the authorities):

2 Maryland
4 Minnesota
5 Iowa
7 Michigan
8 Indiana
 




https://extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/Stats Library/DI WBB Nitty Gritty 12-9-18.pdf

Monday RPI listed first with Strength of Schedule and record through games of 12-9-18 following team name. I'll add that last season at this time our RPI was 59 and strength of schedule 208. (59 was 7th best in the B1G).


17 Minnesota 167 (9-0)
19 Indiana 166 (9-0)
24 Iowa 72 (7-2)
31 Maryland 223 (9-0)
32 Michigan State 154 (8-1)
45 Michigan 97 (7-3)
62 Northwestern 74 (5-3)
65 Purdue 89 (7-3)
92 Ohio State 34 (3-3)
98 Rutgers 128 (6-3)
115 Penn State 75 (6-4)
121 Nebraska 59 (4-5)
126 Wisconsin 214 (7-3)
137 Illinois 247 (6-2)
 
Last edited:

https://extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/Stats Library/DI WBB Nitty Gritty 12-9-18.pdf

Monday RPI listed first with Strength of Schedule and record through games of 12-9-18 following team name. I'll add that last season at this time our RPI was 59 and strength of schedule 208. (59 was 7th best in the B1G).


17 Minnesota 167 (9-0)
19 Indiana 166 (9-0)
24 Iowa 72 (7-2)
31 Maryland 223 (9-0)
32 Michigan State 154 (8-1)
45 Michigan 97 (7-3)
62 Northwestern 74 (5-3)
65 Purdue 89 (7-3)
92 Ohio State 34 (3-3)
98 Rutgers 128 (6-3)
115 Penn State 75 (6-4)
121 Nebraska 59 (4-5)
126 Wisconsin 214 (7-3)
137 Illinois 247 (6-2)

Have to say, I never expected the ladies to be leading the conference in RPI at this stage.
 

I'm not confident that the Gophers will finish 14-4 or 13-5 in BIG play. It's looking more and more like this is a "grind it out" team that is going to have to win with defense and toughness...and the athleticism of Bell and Bello. If Hubbard can get on the court ago, that should help, but we have to remember that she won't be able to solve all this team's deficiencies. The putrid non-conference schedule puts a lot of pressure on the Gophers...not only to win all of their remaining non-conference games, but to win a lot of conference games. The Syracuse game was a huge win. Boston College is probably the toughest remaining non-conference game, as it is a road game against a formidable opponent. The possible silver lining with this team is that they should be able to win some games while shooting poorly, with the solid defense, good rebounding and toughness they've shown so far this year. Last year offensively, the team had 3 good three point shooters in Wagner, Pitts, and Hubbard, and three guards that could get to the hoop in Wagner, Hubbard, and Bell. This year, with Wagner's graduation and Hubbard's injury, we're left with Pitts as the only consistent three-point threat (and she hasn't been shooting it all that well) and Bell as the only person who will consistently penetrate. (Brunson also does that occasionally, but not often enough.) It's looking more like a "grind it out year".

Keep your fingers crossed that they avoid the injury bug.

Not only is having Hubbard a big help, the development of Mercedes Staples will be critical down the stretch. We need people who can stretch defenses. If Hubbard and Staples can be three-point threats, that would something.
 



Haven't seen enough from Staples yet to make me think that she's going to contribute a lot this year.
 

https://extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/Stats Library/DI WBB Nitty Gritty 12-16-18.pdf

NCAA RPI through games of 12-16-18 with strength of schedule and record.


16 Indiana 172 (9-0)
17 Iowa 39 (8-2)
27 Michigan State 162 (9-1)
32 Minnesota 276 (10-0)
41 Maryland 276 (10-0)
60 Northwestern 85 (5-3)
61 Rutgers 87 (7-3)
65 Michigan 179 (8-3)
76 Ohio State 54 (4-3)
91 Purdue 79 (7-4)
96 Penn State 74 (7-4)
109 Nebraska 77 (5-5)
130 Illinois 246 (8-2)
141 Wisconsin 258 (8-3)
 
Last edited:

https://extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/Stats Library/DI WBB Nitty Gritty 12-16-18.pdf

NCAA RPI through games of 12-16-18 with strength of schedule and record.


16 Indiana 172 (9-0)
17 Iowa 39 (8-2)
27 Michigan State 162 (9-1)
32 Minnesota 276 (19-0)
41 Maryland 276 (10-0)
60 Northwestern 85 (5-3)
61 Rutgers 87 (7-3)
65 Michigan 179 (8-3)
76 Ohio State 54 (4-3)
91 Purdue 79 (7-4)
96 Penn State 74 (7-4)
109 Nebraska 77 (5-5)
130 Illinois 246 (8-2)
141 Wisconsin 258 (8-3)

19-0? I like the sound of THAT!
 


Thanks for the catch. It was more distracted typing than daydream predicting.

I'll simply split the difference and state that if they go 19-0 to start the season, their RPI will be a heckuva lot better than 32...:p
 

The biggest roadblocks to 19-0 are the games at Michigan, at Michigan St, and the home game with Iowa.

The Gophers will definitely have the target on their backs. Don’t think it’ll be easy to get keep winning just because it’s looked easy so far.
 

The biggest roadblocks to 19-0 are the games at Michigan, at Michigan St, and the home game with Iowa.

The Gophers will definitely have the target on their backs. Don’t think it’ll be easy to get keep winning just because it’s looked easy so far.

I think Maryland would be a potential roadblock as well....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

I think Maryland would be a potential roadblock as well....

Don’t play them til the end of February. If it gets to that point, Maryland could be a roadblock to 27-0, not 19-0.

According to the Gamer algorithm, the Gophers will lose all their Big Ten road games except for the ones in Wisconsin and Northwestern. Even though it has been a small sample size, I think the Gophers have responded well in their road games so far.
 

I think Maryland would be a potential roadblock as well....


Last year we upset Maryland, but doing so this year would be a lot more challenging since the game is at Maryland.

Don’t play them til the end of February. If it gets to that point, Maryland could be a roadblock to 27-0, not 19-0.

According to the Gamer algorithm, the Gophers will lose all their Big Ten road games except for the ones in Wisconsin and Northwestern. Even though it has been a small sample size, I think the Gophers have responded well in their road games so far.

The RealTimeRPI Gamer algorithm might be fairly well architected generally, but I believe it's a bit wack in terms of putting about twice as much emphasis as is deserved on the impact of being a home game on the win/loss result. I suspect they might just follow the home/away emphasis that the RPI metric itself places on home vs away, which I also deem to be an over-emphasis. Actually, let me revise that statement. I believe the RPI/Gamer emphasis on home advantage might be spot on for teams like Minnesota where there is a lot of fan loyalty and support and game attendance, such that playing at home is a non-trivial factor. But for the average NCAA WBB team, the impact of playing at home is less significant than the RPI/Gamer math makes it out to be. So that asymmetry is actually advantageous to the Gophers (and Gopher WBB thanks you for that, fellow Gopher fans).

Employing that asymetry as a core assumption, Let's make a (very ball-park-ish but a starting point) guestimate of what the pre-tournament record "could be" (barring losing games that we should win, or further injury). We'll do what I'll call an optimistic/pessimisstic estimate - namely optimistic about games we think we ought to win, and pessimistic about games that we're somewhat worried about. The specific assumptions for this guestimate will be:

(1) Assume we do due diligence this weekend and complete our win-out of the non-B1G pre-season by defeating Rhode Island.

(2) Optimistically assume (as Gamer does as well) that we'll win all games against bottom-dwelling and middle-dwelling B1G teams (the ones we think we should be able to beat handily, unless we choke or don't close out).

(3) Pessimistically assume that we will lose most of the games against teams that we're worried about. In that set I'll include {Maryland (away), Iowa (home), Michigan (away), Michigan State (home and away)}. By "most" and "pessimistically" I mean to assume that we'll split the home-and-away series with Michigan State, but lose the other 3 challenging games.

These optimistic/pessimistic assumptions imply a 25-4 record in the full regular season. Of course, there's always the possibility that we might upset one of the teams that we're worried about. And on the flip side we might mess up and lose some game(s) that we're optimistically hoping to win. Or perhaps both.

Bottom line, a 25-4 season is a good target that the Lady Gophers should aim to beat, via great playing and great coaching. It would certainly get us into the NCAA playoffs, unless the NCAA committee is insane (something that I wouldn't count out, given our insanely poor strength of schedule at end of season, as estimated by RealTimeRPI).

By the way, if we get even close to the above target record, the only way that the NCAA committee would cross us off the Big Dance list would be if there were too many other B1G teams with higher RPIs, and they had a target number of B1G teams in mind for inclusion, and they gave way too much emphasis on RPI versus win/loss record within the B1G league. If that should happen, it would be a rotten shame, since RPI is a corrupt measure of teams' basketball capability and achievements during a given season.

Look at the RPIs as of Monday (yesterday, 12/17) as just noted in this thread, focusing initially just on B1G teams. Within the B1G, Indiana comes in at the top spot with a #16 ranked RPI and an SoS of 172. It's undefeated at that point just like Minnesota, and it does have an SoS that's 104 ranks better than Minnesota - yet it didn't get a single vote in the AP top-25 poll. It's highly improbable that Indiana will finish better than Minnesota, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan State and Michigan in the B1G. This is exemplary of how meaningless the RPI metric is, especially during the pre-season.

On the other hand, Iowa is one rank lower than Indiana at #17 with SoS = 39 and record of 8-2. And Iowa is decently ranked in the API poll, and we think legitimately so. Iowa ends up with a decent RPI via having a poorer record, but against a much stronger set of opponents. In other words there's two basic ways a team can get a good-looking RPI: (a) either have a perfect or nearly perfect won/loss record (even against fairly weak teams); or (b) have a decent (but not perfect) won/loss record against a tough set of opponent teams; or (c) some combination of the two.

Method (c) is currently exemplified by Northwestern, who has an OK but not-so-good record of 5-3, but against a set of opponents who collectively give it a current SoS of 85, which is good but not as impressive as Iowa's opponents. Both Minnesota and Maryland are good examples of (a) with both teams undefeated at 10-0 but with horrible SoS of 276, giving them RPI ranks of #32 and #41 respectively at the moment. And of course, being early in the season, the relatively meaningless RPIs are even more meaningless since they don't reflect either the game results or impact on SoS of playing their league opponents.

Interestingly, if you look at the entire RPI list as of Monday, Minnesota and Wisconsin Green Bay are neck-and-neck in RPI rating and ranking. But Minnesota gets there entirely by method (a) whereas Green Bay gets there entirely by method (b). The Gophers are undefeated against mostly weak opponents; whereas Green Bay has a nearly 50/50 win/loss record against very strong opponents. So who's to say which team is better, Minnesota or Green Bay. Last year that was determined in round one of the playoffs.

Bottom line is that a highly ranked RPI means: either you're a good team, or else maybe you just played a bunch of good teams, or maybe a bit of each. But contains no information about which of the three holds true.

So as we see the Gopher RPI rise in spite of continued winning, we should not worry too much about that; but just hope that the NCAA committee doesn't put too much stock in RPI either (as they shouldn't since it's a largely meaningless joke of a metric). Fortunately they have a resume sheet for each team being evaluated for the playoff, so in principle that resume should count more than RPI.
 
Last edited:

With no change in win/loss projections, Gopher projected RPI is now 38, helped presumably by a combo of the league and MN opponents, overperforming. That’ll get the team in the tourney.
 

Ok, just got done reading over on the men's side of how the RPI will have nothing to do with getting into the tourney for the men's team, and I remember reading last year that the NCAA was making that move, so did that not apply to the women's side?
 

Ok, just got done reading over on the men's side of how the RPI will have nothing to do with getting into the tourney for the men's team, and I remember reading last year that the NCAA was making that move, so did that not apply to the women's side?

The NCAA switched the men's game to NET as a sorting tool. The women's game stayed with RPI.
 

Meanwhile, the Realtime algorithm has changed its mind: MN beats MI, with attendant boost In RPI
 

https://extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/Stats Library/DI WBB Nitty Gritty 12-22-18.pdf

With no games until after the Christmas break, it's Monday's RPI on Sunday. Through games of 12-22-18 and the end of the non-conference season with RPI, Strength of Schedule and Record:

11 Iowa 32 (9-2)
15 Indiana 119 (11-1)
28 Minnesota 248 (11-0)
33 Michigan State 188 (10-1)
43 Maryland 273 (11-0)
63 Rutgers 86 (7-3)
72 Purdue 65 (9-4)
95 Michigan 256 (9-3)
101 Northwestern 137 (7-4)
105 Penn State 71 (7-4)
106 Ohio State 23 (4-5)
111 Nebraska 51 (5-6)
163 Illinois 235 (8-3)
179 Wisconsin 311 (9-3)
 

Meanwhile, the Realtime algorithm has changed its mind: MN beats MI, with attendant boost In RPI

In fact, RealTimeRPI Gamer has bopped the Gopher projected end of season RPI ranking all the way up to 21. For reference, it has Maryland at an RPI ranking of 18 at end of season.

Also, RealTime has just barely changed it's mind - it has us beating @Michigan by one point. It hasn't changed it's mind on our other B1G away losses. But it has us losing @Rutgers and @Northwestern by one point. And losing @Purdue by two points. I suspect the latter three games are quite winnable. Of course, the Michigan game is also quite lose able. In any event, as thatjanelpick points out, if we can match or better Gamer's predictions, we're in the tourney.

The new NET system is experimental for NCAA Men only, as a replacement for RPI at tournament time. It's widely assumed that the Women hoops program would get it next year if it works out well.

Early thoughts on NET were on the order of "well, RPI is so horrible, and so not a measure of a team's basketball achievements in a season, that NET is bound to be an improvement over RPI." Indeed, I've harped on the stupidity of RPI in several posts.

But surprise, early reports suggest (and convince me) that NET is a step backwards, and RPI is better than NET. In fact, it's such a mess that they will probably have to either revise it or abandon it.

It's complicated why, but if I get some spare time I'll try to write up why NET is a bust on the MBB forum. If I do, I'll mention the post here for cross reference.
 
Last edited:

Update:

RealTimeRPI updates dynamically, and in a matter of hours (as of 6:40 PM Sunday Dec 23) I noticed a couple things. First, besides @Michigan, it had also flipped @Nebraska to a win. It now predicts the Gophers as a 5-loss season. It still predicts Maryland as a 4-loss season.

Second, sometime this afternoon it flipped the end of season RPI ranking order of Maryland and Minnesota. It now predicts the Gophers end of season RPI ranking at #16 and Maryland at #20, thus flipping their order.

Don't attach any significance to this, however. It only means that the Gophers 11th opponent Rhode Island, is a stronger team than whomever Maryland played in their 11th game. Thus making Maryland's predicted final SoS ever so slightly worse than Minnesota's. Since RPI is mostly a measure of how strong your opponents are (and only slightly a measure of how strong your team is), that minor change causes Gamer to predict the Gophers will have a better RPI than Maryland at end of season, assuming all it's game predictions come true. At the same time it still predicts that Maryland will win one more game than Minnesota.

That's not inconsistent on Gamer's part. It's just a symptom of the fact that RPI is not a good metric for how good a given basketball team is.
 

Realtime has Indiana at 12-0 when they’re actually 11-1. I wonder how many other errors they have.
 




Top Bottom