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| RPI Team W/L Strength of Schedule
54 Creighton 5-3 52
74 Drake 5-2 175
85 Indiana State 7-1 227
117 Northern Iowa 3-5 40
127 Missouri State 5-3 176
145 Illinois State 3-3 108
180 Wichita State 4-2 261
220 Bradley 2-5 138
250 Evansville 2-7 162
320 Southern Illinois 0-7 204
Note that our strength of schedule falls in the bottom half of the Valley. UNI has had the toughest schedule so far, followed by Creighton.
I heard a radio announcer refer to Ball State as a "pretty salty ball club" yesterday. Just out of curiosity, I looked up their RPI. Here it is, followed by their W/L and SoS: 192 Ball State 3-5 82.
Data source: http://www.realtimerpi.com/rpi_Women.html
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| It looks like Drake's win over ISU is the MVC's best win by RPI. Drake might be in the discussion for an at-large bid if they win the rest of non-conference and finish high in the MVC, especially if Iowa and ISU turn into decent teams. I'm surprised CU is that high in RPI, but I guess that getting beat by Kansas and Nebraska is a nice RPI booster (and their next game is against Oklahoma, yikes). IlSt might be in danger of falling into mediocrity without Cirone. And SIU has already fallen far below the point of mediocrity.
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| Firstly, at this point in the season rpi's still fluctuate pretty wildly since every game is still a big percentage of the total and all of your opponents are also changing rapidly this early in the season. Also, your source is one known for data errors that often go the entire season w/o being corrected. For example, they show Tennessee Tech on Drake's schedule (with no score reported) and do not have North Dakota on our schedule. Since RPI looks 2 levels deep and considers your opponents opponents, these things cascade through all of their numbers and affect many more teams than just the two teams with the wrong schedule / wrong score.
The win over Iowa State will likely be a big help in boosting our RPI, but the loss to UMKC will be a drag. UNI's SOS is more from only scheduling one truly awful team (where most of the MVC has a couple, or more). The other boost UNI gets is that they have Creighton on their schedule, while Creighton has UNI on theirs.
Ultimately, RPI isn't really going to matter much anyway. The only change of getting in to the dance is to win in St. Charles come March. Given the scheduling the conference teams have done for their OOC, we son't rank that highly as a conference and they'll only take 1. |
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| BlueDawg (12/14/2009)
Also, your source is one known for data errors that often go the entire season w/o being corrected. For example, they show Tennessee Tech on Drake's schedule (with no score reported) and do not have North Dakota on our schedule. Since RPI looks 2 levels deep and considers your opponents opponents, these things cascade through all of their numbers and affect many more teams than just the two teams with the wrong schedule / wrong score.
And, o ye who hides behind a pseudonym while levying criticisms about other's data sources  , what data source would you use? 
I contacted a friend who writes for ESPN and asked which site is best. The response was Jerry Palm's. So here are similar ratings from Jerry Palm's site:
Jerry Palm’s RPI
66 Creighton 5-3 56
88 Indiana State 8-1 260
105 Drake 215
119 Northern Iowa 4-5 65
123 Illinois State 3-3 91
124 Missouri State 5-3 186
147 Wichita State 6-2 276
232 Bradley 2-5 160
257 Evansville 2-7 171
324 SIU 0-7 199
What's the difference in ordering between the two rankings? Creighton is still at the top, Ind St and Drake are flipped, UNI is still 4th, Ill State and Mo St are flipped (but very close in Palm's rankings), and the final three teams are in the same order. So, while there are some differences in rankings, the order of MVC teams is mostly the same between the two.
Can you predict who will win the MVC tournament using these results? Probably not. Can you predict who will have the best in-conference season record with these results? If no one gets hurt, which is a huge if, maybe. There ought to at least be some significant positive relationship between RPI's and final conference record. If there isn't, what does that tell you about pre-conference scheduling? It tells you either that it doesn't matter much (the low/no correlation case) or that high number pre-conference RPI's have better conference records than low number pre-conference RPI's (the negative correlation case).
Whomever wins in St. Charles will go to the NCAA's, but no one else will. The reason comes down to pre-conference schedules. How do you make a case that two teams should go when the best RPI near the end of the pre-conference season is not even below 64? If Drake beats Iowa (who is going to have a hard year), and if Creighton had beaten NB or KS, then maybe two would get picked, assuming that some of the conferences who historically send multiple teams send fewer this year.
Can mid-majors get picked to go the NCAA's even if they don't win their own conferences? Sure.
ISU is going to have a good record unless the injury bug hits. Their record will be good in the conference, but not at the top. But Big 12 will send a lot of teams...Baylor, Texas, A&M, Nebraska, KU all ought to go, plus ISU.
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| Sorry. I didn't mean to come off chippy, it is just that the RPI is a particular pet peeve of mine. I meant to be sniping at the RPI more than the one in particular that you cited. IMO, it is just a facade the NCAA created to justify keeping the MM teams out of the bracket. They created a system meant to favor the BCS conferences and then said see we can't let you in because it wouldn't be fair to teams playing in 'tougher' conferences. The MVC (on the men's side) reads the formula and then tells the teams to schedule up. They play the game by the rules and shame the committee into following the RPI when they do well. It only took a year or two of that for the powers that be to then just ignore it and go back to business as usual and blatantly ignore the RPI. It might be used to decide whether to give the Big 10 a 5th spot instead of giving the Big East a 6th spot, but just doesn't matter much for getting a 2nd MVC team into the bracket.
To be fair to the committee on the women's side the MVC hasn't played the game yet. Creighton tends to schedule up. Drake has in some years, not so much lately. I'd like to see the teams limit themselves to only 1 200+ RPI team per year in the non-conference schedule. That doesn't mean making the schedule brutal, but it would mean an improvement for most of the conference. |
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| Yeah, the RPI is not a perfect measure of competitiveness. However, it does help equalize some of the differences you see across teams that account for differences in W/L.
If you look at this week's AP top 25, there are three teams that most would put in the mid-major category: Xavier (#12), Wisconsin-Green Bay (#23) and James Madison (#24). Several more mid-majors are listed among the teams getting votes. It's not impossible to be a mid-major and be well thought of in women's college hoops. But you probably have to play about 3 teams from any of these leagues and beat them to be considered a pretty good mid-major and worth a vote at this point in the season, I suspect: SEC, Big 12, Big 10, ACC, Big East, and the Pac Ten. Now, you might not have to win 3 games against teams from these conferences if you want an NCAA bid, and you don't win the conference tourney.
Yes, the MVC needs to play up more, despite the potential disadvantage of having to play on someone else's home court to do it. We also need to declare that the team with the best conference record is our MVC rep at the NCAA, so that we really do send the consistently best team, and not the cinderella story from our conference tournament. Also, if our MVC team begins to consistently get past the first round of the NCAA's, it would help convince the powers that be that perhaps our conference is better than what would be reflected by awarding it only one bid.
You know, it's great that we play Iowa and Iowa State. But we are right in the heart of Big 10 and Big 12 country, so why limit ourselves to playing only one team from each conference? :-)
Note: The ESPN/Coaches poll is probably a little more reliable because the people who vote generally do know something about the level of play of the teams they are ranking. The AP poll includes some sportswriters who cover women's stuff on the side and whom are arguably not always as aware of the level of play among different women's teams. However, the ESPN/Coaches poll is not up at the moment.
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| In relatively recent memory (the past 10 years) I know we have had Wisconsin, Northwestern, Michigan (welcome back to the Knapp Cheryl), Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, Tulane...
Seems we ought to be able to schedule more of the Big 10 / Big 12 schools. Should also be able to pick up the occasional team coming in to play Iowa or Iowa State and make a 2 game swing out of it.
I understand some of the years of Amy's tenure she needed to build confidence in young teams, but I think scheduling up is a winning strategy in the long run and will pay dividends even if it means giving up a home game each year. I think some of the Big 10 games were home and home (though that may no longer be available), but even a 2 for 1 wouldn't be the worst thing for a team trying to establish their bona fides.
Missouri & Illinois are also relatively easy trips that could buff up the schedule. |
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| Completely agree with your last post, BlueDawg. I'd add Kansas and Kansas State to the list. Lawrence is less than an hour away from UMKC so it's at most a 4 1/2 hour trip from DM. Manhatten is a little farther.
We might not have had the height or player depth a few years ago to compete against some of the power conference schools, but I think we do now. Plus, we have some very athletic players -- more athletic than what ISU has this year, for example. Kayla Person and Mo Jones are just two examples of that, but we have many more. You can't coach pure athleticism.
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| MVC team RPI's, reflecting yesterday's games:
30 Creighton
49 Drake 
63 Missouri State
74 Illinois State
129 Indiana State
145 Wichita State
165 UNI
214 Bradley
311 Evansville
312 SIU
Conference RPI stays at 10.
Source: http://www.realtimerpi.com/rpi_mvc_Women.html
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