In spite of State’s abysmal performance on Saturday, I decided to take a look around the ACC and see what has changed from the first look nearly two weeks ago. To change things up a little, I’m going to set aside my brilliantly succinct table format in favor of a series of graphs to summarize the ACC season thus far.
The inserted charts/pictures are links that can be opened in the same or separate window.
Significant Trends of Interest
One of the things that I hate about sports announcers is their proclamations about micro-trends that start with something like “Over the last 4 games…..”. Performances (good or bad) have to be judged against the opponents faced. A “good” trend against the bottom of the conference is not really worth noting. (NFL announcers seem to be about the worst at this.) This is why I risked cluttering up the chart with the results of the games played so far.
UVa starts the season 3-0 with the most note-worthy win coming in Tallahassee. Their wins against State and WF won’t really impress anyone, but you have to play them in the order that they come.
Two weeks ago, I said that UNC had been very inconsistent. Well they fixed that problem…which proves that just being consistent is not necessarily a worthwhile goal. Losing to WF on the road was bad and losing to UM at home is even worse.
Miami isn’t really catching anyone’s attention so far…and might not this season. But going 1-1 after losing to VT in December is about as good a turn-around as any Canes fan could hope for.
UMd going up while losing shows the effect of SOS and tells us more about the teams in the rankings around UMd, than it does about UMd. It’s arguable whether it’s worth talking about either UMd or UM at this point, but it gives me a chance to repeat the line from the Sunday night game….”UMD has as many ACC wins as Duke, NC State, and Carolina combined”.
Up and Down (like a yo-yo)
This figure illustrates a few points that are worth considering:
– It’s still early in the year and the RPI rankings are extremely fluid. Wins and losses often produce large changes in the rankings, so neither panic nor elation should accompany any one game. (Exceptions allowed for losses to NC-Central)
– Those State fans that were crowing over the ND win might hold on until both State and ND prove that the game was worth the time it took to watch.
– I don’t do the detailed math, but FSU’s bouncing line probably illustrates effects that we’ve seen before: home loss (big drop), road win (big jump), and a home win (little change).
NCAAT Status
SOLIDLY IN
The only significant change is that UVA has moved up from the bubble and UNC has fallen down to the bubble. The old Big East has a solid lock on the top of the new ACC….ugh!
BUBBLE RANGE
If you’re new around here, the entire justification for using RPI to identify bubble teams has been explained in great detail before. We’ll take a closer look at those items beyond RPI later on in the season.
State, WF, and the other teams trending towards the middle of the conference will sort themselves out in due time. But the number of “upsets” and “blowouts” from the past two weeks show why I would never bet money on college sports.
When the RPI rankings don’t change the way you expect, here’s some advice: Take a deep breath and just relax. Wins are always good (some are better than others) and losses are always bad (some are worse than others) and changes in RPI rankings don’t override the scoreboard. The key thing to remember is that the “RPI” that gets thrown around is a ranking and not the actual calculation. Thus any change from one game to the next is heavily influenced by what happens with the teams AROUND the one that you are looking at. The RPI ranking will sort itself out over the course of the season AND the NCAAT Selection is a process and not a calculation.
STATE’S UPCOMING GAMES
State’s upcoming schedule against WF (x2), GT, UMD, and UM should help tell us where State sits with respect to the middle of the conference. Throw in games @Duke, @UNC, and FSU and the next four weeks should pretty much tell us all we’ll need to know about 2013/2014 Pack basketball. Considering that I switched to the NFL playoffs when Sat’s game reached 19-4, I hope that State’s effort and results actually warrant further discussion.
WTF????
That has to be one of the most expressive exclamations ever and one that I used a number of times while searching around the internet in preparation for this entry I’ll try to be a little more articulate and share those things that surprised me.
How did I miss that?
I decided that I would keep track of the RPI rankings and prepare charts when I saw something worth discussing. After a little thought, I decided to get the rankings on Monday (after the weekend games) and on Friday (after the mid-week games). This would minimize my work while giving the maximum amount of useful data.
But then I noticed that the ACC has at least one game every Monday this season. Somehow I went through the pre-season review without seeing that. That gives every team short turn-around weeks with Saturday and Monday games. Oh well, ESPN has to get their money somehow before they can write checks to the ACC.
State’s Monday games are on Jan 20 against UMd in Raleigh and @Pitt on 3/3.
Where did they find that?
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I always liked the diamond logo. But that might be because I associate it with the best football coach State has had in over 30 years.
You have got to be kidding me!!!
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I’ve actually seen that hat in a store in VA…but I’ll bet they’re not big sellers in NC. Did you notice that the hat designers managed to get a better shade of red than whoever ordered the first seats for the ESA?
WTF?????????
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I’m speakless
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