We found an incoming link to SFN from a great blog named, “The Hot Hand in Sports”.
In this entry Hot Hand takes a look at Fresno State’s run to the NCAA Baseball Championship and links to an old SFN entry focused on RPIs.
Just thought you may have some interest. The blog is unique and takes more of an intellectual view of sports than you see in most places. That should be right up VaWolf’s alley!
The ACC’s total of 19 NCAA tournament wins from 2006 to ‘08 is an all-time low for a three-year period since 1979-81, which was before the tournament expanded to 64 teams. The Big East, Pac-10 and Big Ten all play 18 conference games and got higher percentages of their members into the NCAA tournament in 2008.
The Charlotte Observer and the News and Observer ran the same article today stating, “amid concern over a lack of NCAA tournament at-large bids in two of the past three years, ACC athletics directors plan next month to discuss expanding the conference men’s basketball schedule to 18 games.”
There have been some interesting comments made about the Bubble this year that need to be saved for future reference. Plus Alpha/RAWFS has fixed it so I can use tables again….so here goes a little supplemental information about this year’s marginal selections/snubs:
Let’s start with some tables that go pretty well with a commentary from last week:
My tables were updated from last year’s entry so the parsing is slightly different from Jeff’s…but the tables do a good job at highlighting the key points from that commentary. The bottom line is that RPI ranking is an easy first cut at where teams from BCS conferences stand with the NCAAT Selection Committee.
Earlier this year I made the mistake of allowing myself to get sucked into a ‘hypothetical’ conversation about NC State’s chances of making the NCAA Tournament. At the time our Wolfpack was tracking in the 30s and 40s of the RPI and I was trying to use facts and statistics to de-bunk ridiculous statements and incorrect conclusions being spread on the internet by your typical nameless, faceless, uninformed fan.
Sidney Lowe continued his mastery of “Basketball Grobe” tonight as the NC State Wolfpack won for the third time in the last four games. The Wolfpack is now 15-7 with an ACC record that now stands at .500 at 4-4.
NC State never trailed in route to our second consecutive win over a team ahead of us in the Atlantic Coast Conference standings. The Wolfpack hit 5-of-6 free throws in the final minute to seal the ten point win JJ Hickson delivering as needed, finishing 13-of-17 from the free-throw line. The Associated Press has their story about tonight’s game posted. ACCNow has these comments.
Frank Haith’s Miami Hurricanes beat Clemson, 75-72, today in a key ACC match-up that may ultimately serve to support NC State’s slim chances to earn an NCAA Tournament bid when the 2007-2008 college basketball regular season comes to a close.
I definitely understand that Clemson will have a stronger mathematical impact on NC State’s RPI than Miami in light of the fact that the Wolfpack plays Clemson twice this season and Miami only once. But, as important as I believe a strong RPI is to any NCAA Tournament bid I also recognize the need for any NCAA Tournament resume to include as many ‘good wins’ as possible.
Jeff’s partial listing of RPI rankings earlier this week held several surprises and spurred me into looking at State’s ACC schedule versus these too-early RPI rankings. So let’s look a little closer at the surprises (well they surprised me anyway) as well as State’s ACC schedule which doesn’t open until next weekend against UNC.
STATE
The unpleasant aspects of this young season have been beaten to death, so I won’t dredge back through any of that. However, one thing that I didn’t expect when the schedule was unveiled was that State’s OOC schedule would be rated this highly.
NC State’s win over #8 ranked Georgia Tech doesn’t seem to have mathematically done much for the Wolfpack’s quest to get back on the radar of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee.
Heading into Sunday’s agame, State’s RPI was a paltry #115 and Georgia Tech’s was in the Top 15.
After the evening, State’s RPI improved only six spots to #109.
Since Monday morning the Wolfpack has inched up the RPI (to #100), meaning State has gained more ground in the RPI since Sunday’s win due to the play of our opponents (like St. John’s win over Pitt) than by knocking-off Top 15 Georgia Tech.
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