Seems that I am compelled to lose this same argument every year; I just can't help myself. But I think all of you are "making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.”
I think your gut's telling you the truth. I watch a lot of ACC, CAA, Big South and Patriot league games and the ACC this year, to my eye, was not that overwhelming. I walked away from games more often than not very disappointed with the overall play and patiences of the ACC teams.
I appreciate you support. But your agreeing with my statistically indefensible viewpoint does not redeem that quote from being the dumbest thing ever uttered by a US President.
Agree with the assessment of the comment, but we are not talking the national or world economy. The NCAA soccer data is very limited and heavily influenced by such things as scheduling home and away games. These types of influences are not accounted for in the RPI numbers. I understand that the RPI takes into account away wins and ties but there are other factors that weight into those games. The ACC uses its clout to stack its home non-conference schedule. Maybe once a season, an ACC team will go on the road, on a weekday against a non-conference opponent. For years I have watched the ACC schools force schools from the Big South, Southern, CAA and even the Conference USA into those weekday games at the ACC school. At times, it appears to me, that the ACC thinks they are doing the school a favor. As with soccer in general, statistics can fool you and your gut or 'eye test" maybe the way to go.
Fairly said! My hypothesis entitled “ACC RPI Hoarding” is woefully under-developed. I need a collaborator to do like, I don’t know, all of the real thinking.
Maybe a bit strong, but the ACC schools know the other teams need to play them for the RPI ratings and they will not give them a weekend game and they usually offer a 3 for 1 or maybe a 2 for 1 deal. I don't blame the ACC schools, they are going to take this advantage, who would not. But we should not pretend it is fair when we it comes to the RPI ratings. This is not a professional league where everyone is playing a home and away series each season. And just sometimes it works for those smaller conferences. As this year, the Big South got two NCAA bids because High Point went into Duke and snagged a win and got the RPI rating to get an at large bid. Ironically enough, I can imagine the Duke coaching staff (and possibly players) taking some credit for this.
Your either trolling or this is a naive statement. I have been told by coaches in the ACC, Big South and Patriot League that historical RPI plays apart in their scheduling decisions.
Obviously it does, but who knows what a team like High Point will look like in a year or two. Perhaps the NCAA should bump up the bonus for an away win to force ACC teams to schedule more away games. Likely then we will hear everyone griping about how the ACC is taking advantage of the system by scheduling all non-conference games away from home.
So be it. Let the ACC work the system by making all their non-con matches away. I am all ready for that to happen. Bring it on. As mentioned a hundred times over the years; the single factor that needs the most changing is that the NCAA must be transparent in their RPI formula. Gaucho Dan and other savants have done well in reverse-engineering the NCAA machine. But that should not be necessary. That formula should be published every March, before schedules are released.
True, especially since their HC is being interviewed by his alma mater, UNCG, per another thread It would not hurt, but I do not think it will compel the ACC schools to go off campus because they do not need the bump in RPI due to their conference play.
NCAA Basketball has dropped the traditional RPI for some new calculation, one in which it has not divulged either, has it not?
If you schedule an ACC team just for RPI reasons, pray that you don't get the one that finishes at the bottom of the ACC.
NCAA ice hockey has had for years a complicated method that compares every pair of teams on several points, one of which is RPI (and RPI is the tie-breaker). In principle, the teams with the best records in the pairwise comparisons get the at-large spots in the tournament, if they are not already in as conference autobid winners. They also have tried out different values for the three multipliers in the RPI formula. https://www.uscho.com/rankings/pairwise-rankings/d-i-men/
Really, 10 of 12 ACC teams were in the top 50 in RPI, the other two were 51 and 87. They have to schedule them with those odds.
The reason the ACC schools can rely on their conference play is that their conference is good from top to bottom (for the most part). So when teams of lesser conferences schedule a couple of big mid week games, that is made up for the fact that their conference games are equivalent to some of the mediocre mid week games that ACC teams have. I commend teams like Indiana, Maryland, and Akron for pushing such difficult OOC games, and look where that has landed them. There has been talk of limiting the number of teams that should come from a conference in the tournament, but how can you deny that the 8th place team in the ACC shouldn't be in the tournament when they went 1-0-1 against teams in the elite 8 during the season. Even the Massey index, which weights home and away games more heavily and seems to take scores into account said all 9 ACC teams that got into the tournament shouldve been in the tournament. There is no doubt the ACC massively underachieved this year in the tournament. Were they worse than their rankings showed? Very likely, but no numbers have outright shown this. With respect to their seeds and where they lost in the tournament, the ACC underachieved this year, slightly underachieved last year, slightly Overachieved in 2016, about neutral to slightly overachieved in 2015, and Overachieved in 2014.
I should note that I am completely for a new rating system that rates teams more accurately that the RPI. I believe away wins should be weighted heavier, and some type of head to head comparison should be taken into account, although the committee does this when comparing schools on the bubble.
In the end, I would probably like to see them just limit the number of teams that come from a conference. No matter how good the conference is, if you cannot finish in the top half in regular season, your chances of advancing are probable limited. Give someone else a shot.
And I think if you aren't able to win one of these mediocre conferences (Ivy league, Dartmouth specifically) you don't deserve to be in the tournament. If you aren't constantly playing teams in the top 50 of the RPI, what is there to show that you can beat a team in the tournament. Again, even the 8th place team in the ACC still advanced to the second round.
It appears we have come to an impasse, victory to the status quo Although, I do not think this about how well a team does in a one and done tournament, but who is given the opportunity.
I do believe every ACC team plays a few games a year that they can blood a few of their younger players. Wake Forest played Presbyterian, Davidson and High Point for example. What is the reason for these games? All of the games at home Duke played Wofford, Campbell and High Point? What is the reason for these games? All of the games at home. These games are scheduled with schools knowing that their RPI will be top 50 regardless of the results in the ACC games. I know from personally talking to Ken Lolla, that Georgia State, Lipscomb and St Bonaventure are on the schedule to give role players game time. The RPI is a skewed system, but ACC teams will always capitalize on the skew. It is easier for High Point/St Bonaventure to get a game with an ACC team then it is a mid major like a UAB or Tulsa.