(that’s why football rules…not enough)
Football has it as well. Check out the debates about who makes the “Final Four” playing for the championship. It will eventually get expanded to 16 games and the conference championship games will be eliminated. There will be more $$$ (which is what it is really about), and the argument will be that the only teams that really have a chance at a title will be there. There still will be debates though because where ever there is an arbitrary cutoff point, there will be complaining around the teams near that line, even if they have no real statistical chance of winning it all.
The RPI debates are really about the last 4-6 teams in every year, and 4-6 teams that got left out. Of teams of that profile, VCU with Smart is about the last one that I can really remember that went on any sort of run. Much ado about nothing, but what it means is that there’s buzz and interest about college basketball (and by extension these sorts of sites) during the regular season. If not, the only interest would be during the tournament (much like the NBA).
VAWolf’s write up is great. I knew the quadrant breakdown and how different wins could be viewed home vs. away, etc., but hadn’t really thought of the “winners and losers.” It will be interesting to see how this changes the predictive brackets, if at all. I would tend to agree that the committee’s “mix of inputs” leaves it open to them doing whatever they want. 😀
