ACC Basketball Update (1-15)

Photo from News & Observer

Well last week had a couple more big upsets by home ‘dogs and a few match-ups among teams at the top of the conference:

  • GT over ND in Atlanta
  • State over Clemson in Raleigh

Other games of interest:

Breaking through on the road, L’ville had a good week starting with a win over FSU in Tallahassee.  Note that FSU’s leading scorer went down with a concussion in that loss and also missed Saturday’s game against Syracuse.

UNC pulled out a last-second win over ND in South Bend.

Clemson rebounded from the loss to State to beat Miami at home.

FSU and Syracuse entered Saturday’s game with conflicting indicators…both were in the RPI Top 50 while sitting at 1-3 in conference play. But even without Terrance Mann, FSU won at home in a see-saw, double OT affair that saw both teams build and then lose big leads.

So let’s move on to our big picture overview:

 

RPI SUMMARY TABLE


From ESPN

If you paid attention last week, you would have seen that State’s miserable OOC schedule was being somewhat off-set by the #2 conference SOS. I looked at the schedule for last week’s #1 team in conference SOS and fully expected State to take over the #1 spot this week. Since State’s first five conference games were all against teams in the RPI Top 50, that ranking is certainly well-earned.

As I’ve mentioned before, State’s first five games are likely the toughest stretch of its conference schedule. Things get a little easier between now and the halfway point of the ACC season (Note that “easier” does not equal “easy”).

Looking over the master conference schedule, I still expect State to end up much closer to the middle of the conference in schedule strength. In just a little bit, we’ll take a look at how the conference schedule has impacted State’s RPI Ranking.

ND’s 0-2 week moved them back into the Bubble territory. Syracuse also had an 0-2 week but didn’t fall back quite as far as ND.

SIDE NOTE: Someone in the comments last week pointed out that ESPN’s calcs are noticeably different than CBS and others. If I had to bet on one set of RPI calcs (other than the NCAA), I would pick CBS. For now, this difference is not a big deal. But as the season winds down, we’ll keep an eye on both calcs and if the differences are significant, then we’ll base our discussions on the numbers at cbssports.com.

So this looks like a good point to review the trend graphs.

 

RPI TREND GRAPHS

Duke, UVa, and UNC all had 2-0 weeks and are hanging out in the RPI Top 10. Note that once again we see that Clemson’s mid-week road loss didn’t kill their RPI ranking…though UNC’s better week essentially flip-flopped them with Clemson.

Considering Miami didn’t have a mid-week game and then lost on Saturday (road loss at Clemson), their rise into the RPI Top 20 is a little surprising.

Looking at the mid-week points for L’ville and FSU, we see the huge effect that road wins and home losses can have on RPI ranking. L’ville followed that game up with a home win for a 2-0 week and a nice bump in RPI Ranking. FSU’s home loss dropped them down into Bubble Territory and their home win brought them back to the edge of being “IN”.

I expect most people realize that RPI calculations have a home/away weighting factors where home losses hurt more and home wins don’t help as much. If not, FSU’s week serves as a pretty good illustration of how these weighting factors affect RPI ranking.

I complained last week that the Bubble trend graph was rather boring. I appreciate the ACC teams giving me a little more to talk about this week.

As mentioned earlier, ND’s 0-2 week dropped them into the Bubble Region. During Saturday’s game, the announcers said that the guard that left during the first half of the State game was expected back soon. Mike Brey may not say this to his team, but he has to be hoping for 9-9 in conference and getting Bonzie Colson back in time for some type of post-season run.

VT and BC are hanging out at the back side of the Bubble and were joined by State after the win over Clemson. Let’s take a closer look at State’s rise through the RPI rankings:

Like State, GT has had two upsets at home to go along with a miserable OOC schedule. I’m only going to discuss State’s 2018, but wanted to highlight GT’s hot streak to start ACC play.

Let’s back up and remind everyone of the factors that go into the RPI Calculation:

  • Your winning percentage
  • Your opponents’ winning percentage (with the games against you removed)
  • Your opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage.

State is 2-3 since the start of ACC play so their overall winning percentage has dropped. Adding the #1 conference SOS to an awful OOC SOS obviously improved the second two factors. The above graph shows us the net effect on State’s (and GT’s) RPI ranking.

The key point I want to get across is the huge effect that the SOS increase has had on State’s RPI ranking. But the thing that is nearly impossible to illustrate is that State’s rise through the RPI rankings is relative to the teams ranked around them. It is far easier to move past teams ranked 100-150 than it is to move into the RPI Top 50 and higher.

A losing ACC record is only going to take State so far. So I expect everyone to be thrilled with State’s conference play so far. But don’t expect State’s RPI ranking to continue rising unless the ACC wins keep coming at a good pace…which means some road wins against teams in the bottom half of the conference.

 

ACC STANDINGS

 

Georgia Tech has a surprising 3-1 conference record but their schedule difficulty will pick up quite a bit from now until the halfway point of the conference schedule:

At the other end of the conference standings, Syracuse is doing much better in RPI rankings than ACC standings. Since it looks like Syracuse will once again be in the bottom third of ACC SOS, they have a decent chance of climbing out of the hole that they have been digging:

 

NEXT WEEK’S ACC SCHEDULE

I don’t ever remember a time when the ACC mid-week games didn’t include a game on Hump-Day…but that’s what we get this week.

Just like last week, State has a Thursday/Sunday schedule, but the other games on those nights will likely adversely impact my viewing region. Other than State’s games, here are the ones that look interesting:

  • Duke at Miami
  • L’ville at ND
  • Clemson at UNC (is this the year?)
  • ND @ Clemson (maybe?)

That’s it from me.  What did you see?

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

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Home Forums ACC Basketball Update (1-15)

Viewing 19 posts - 1 through 19 (of 19 total)
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  • #129021
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Well last week had a couple more big upsets by home ‘dogs and a few match-ups among teams at the top of the conference:[See the full post at: ACC Basketball Update (1-15)]

    #129022
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    ^^Nice work again… VaWolf….

    I’m thinking this would be a great week if…

    1. With two home games… The Wolfpack goes 2-0…

    2. With two home games… The HOLES goes 0-2…
    This would be historic as it would mean Clempsom won a basketball in Chapel Hill!

    3. Dook loses down in South Beach…

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #129023
    Pack1997
    Participant

    Don’t we want Duke and Clemson to keep winning as it helps our RPI? I don’t think many thought we would have 2 wins in the first 5 games. If we could win most of our home games I would be a very happy fan.

    #129024
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Don’t we want Duke and Clemson to keep winning as it helps our RPI?

    If you’re thinking that we should pull for Duke/Clemson because State beat them, then that line of reasoning isn’t accurate. The results of the game against State are removed from the record when calculating your opponents’ winning percentage. So the results of the game have no impact on the opponents’ winning percentage portion of the RPI calculation.

    Let’s suppose that State has WF and UNC at home in the same week. If State goes 1-1, there would be little difference in RPI ranking no matter which team State beat.

    In ACC play, alot of the games are zero sum. When someone wins, then someone else lost…and we play the loser as well. Where it would make a difference is when one of State’s H/A opponents plays one of the 10 teams that State only plays once. In this instance, it would be slightly better for State’s H/A opponent to win.

    So except for Highstick (and anyone else who despises Clemson), we want Clemson to win as much possible and we’re free to cheer whenever Duke loses.

    #129025
    freshmanin83
    Participant

    VaWolf82 I don’t know home much time you put into your updates but it looks like a lot and is well done and appreciated. Thanks.

    #129026
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    Is it not generally true that the higher our ranking in the conference at Tourny time — the higher our RPI ?

    To put that another way — the more we win and the more the upper division loses, the better chance we have of dancing ?

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #129027
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Is it not generally true that the higher our ranking in the conference at Tourny time — the higher our RPI ?

    To put that another way — the more we win and the more the upper division loses, the better chance we have of dancing ?

    I’m not sure that you’ve said the same thing two different ways.

    The more State wins, the higher the RPI ranking will be. Except when playing State, it won’t matter much who wins or loses in ACC play (with the exception of State’s four H/A opponents). As we saw last year with Syracuse (10-8) and WF (9-9), where you finish in the conference doesn’t directly impact your RPI OR your chances for an at-large bid.

    State’s OOC schedule and conference schedule will clearly affect the RPI ranking. But those are what they are and there’s nothing anyone can do about them now. In the end, it always boils down to the same thing: Winning is always good and losing is always bad.

    #129028
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    My point is, right or wrong, if the HOLES and Dook lost every game for the remainder of the season, that won’t materially impact our RPI, and it would improve our ‘eye ball’ tests, so there’s every reason to pull for the HOLES and Dook to lose every night.

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #129029
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    VaWolf82 I don’t know home much time you put into your updates but it looks like a lot and is well done and appreciated. Thanks.

    Thanks for the note.

    This week’s was easy. There was only one game on Sunday night and the outcome was nearly a fore-gone conclusion. So I input Saturday’s numbers to see how it impacted the trend graphs. Then I put in my expected Sunday night results and made the ACC standings chart. Then I had all day to write the article while watching football and State’s game.

    With three games next Sunday, it’s unlikely that the article will be up this soon.

    #129030
    Pack1997
    Participant

    Only in sports, is that true VA. In life sometimes losing, means winning. For example, the girl at the bar with the adams apple. You are too drunk to notice but fortunately some other schmuck goes home with “her”. You lost, but thats a good thing!

    #129031
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    there’s every reason to pull for the HOLES and Dook to lose every night.

    That’s a given no matter what the math would say. Personally, I include ND in that group except when they’re playing one of the Blues.

    #129034
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    EDIT

    I added a line to the Upcoming ACC Schedule section. The mid-week games don’t include any ACC games on Wednesday.

    #129036
    Packstrength90
    Participant

    Did anyone else notice that we outscored Va. by 12 while Al Freeman was on the bench?
    He breaks up any chemistry when he’s on the floor. Needs to come in off the bench for a while.

    #129037
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    ^Packstrength90
    no… Nice Catch…

    Now looking back that might be something between ALL-erik and Dorn as Dorn had the hot hand during the time I think you’re describing…

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #129040
    ryebread
    Participant

    VaWolf: I always enjoy your posts! Keep them up as the blog needs them.

    We could dance but we’re really weighed down by that non-conference schedule. That has to improve next year. For this year we can’t have any bad losses (i.e. Pitt) and need to get some conference road wins. Do those two things, get to 9-9 in league play and win at least one in the NCAA, the. We’re on the bubble with a chance for it to go our way. In year one of Keatts, particularly given all the roster flux, that would be fantastic.

    It is popular for the fans to pile on Freeman. I think they miss that he routinely gets the toughest defensive draw. He just needs to focus on driving more and not shooting threes. In the big wins we’ve had this year, he drove to the rim to score or pass. We need more of that as opposed to the “bad Al” who forces the action and shoots a lot of tough, contested shots.

    #129048
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Here’s something I never expected to see this year:

    http://www.statefansnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/First-Four.jpg

    Captured screen shot from this take on bracketology

    https://sports.yahoo.com/bracketology-villanova-holds-no-1-155721898.html

    #129050
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    So far this week…

    Dook pulls one out of their a## in South Beach
    NOLES lose on the road…
    and Clempsom couldn’t beat the HOLES in Chapel Hill, if they played the whole game 5 on 4…
    but at least they scared the hell outta Old Uncle Roy…

    And if the forecasted TWO INCH snow in Raleigh doesn’t postpone the game… We need to beat the Deacs by 20 to savage this week…

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #129165
    choppack1
    Participant

    Nac state has some work to do.

    The good news is that the NCAA is evidently going to include Sagarin and Kenpom on their team sheets. This is good news for us as our ratings is higher in both of these rating systems.

    It’s going to be real Interesting to see where our ratings end up if we can finish the season with .500 record in conference. Our horrible ooc schedule is killing us right now.

    #129166
    freshmanin83
    Participant

    The win against WF moved RPI from 64 to 70.

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