(04-28-2015 08:22 AM)Cajunman02 Wrote:  Playing Alabama with an RPI of 47 is actually worse than playing South Alabama with an RPI of 110. Why? Because of their W-L record. Bama is only 3 games over .500 and therefore doesn't contribute much to our opponent's WP (50% of the RPI formula), whereas USA, which is 13 games over .500, will be a big boost to our opponent's WP. Our OOC series with UTSA has a bigger impact on our RPI than Alabama.

Playing App State this weekend will have a negative impact on our opponent's WP (18 games under .500), but because it's on the road, we will get credited 1.3 wins for each win. So theoretically, we could end up with 3.9 wins in the 3 game series this weekend.

Does the fact that Alabama has a large number of losses within the SEC, which has the highest conference RPI mitigate that to some extent, or is it solely based on Alabama's winning percentage?
I would hope that their SEC conference record would not be held against Louisiana.

We need to get Robe to invite Brian to the coaches meetings to give a RPI class, I know he has helped our coaches understand better how to schedule. I know it sounds silly but I reall think a lot of coaches don't fully grasp RPI and how to schedule for it.

(04-28-2015 03:47 PM)Jacque Wrote:  

(04-28-2015 08:22 AM)Cajunman02 Wrote:  Playing Alabama with an RPI of 47 is actually worse than playing South Alabama with an RPI of 110. Why? Because of their W-L record. Bama is only 3 games over .500 and therefore doesn't contribute much to our opponent's WP (50% of the RPI formula), whereas USA, which is 13 games over .500, will be a big boost to our opponent's WP. Our OOC series with UTSA has a bigger impact on our RPI than Alabama.

Playing App State this weekend will have a negative impact on our opponent's WP (18 games under .500), but because it's on the road, we will get credited 1.3 wins for each win. So theoretically, we could end up with 3.9 wins in the 3 game series this weekend.

Does the fact that Alabama has a large number of losses within the SEC, which has the highest conference RPI mitigate that to some extent, or is it solely based on Alabama's winning percentage?
I would hope that their SEC conference record would not be held against Louisiana.

I think what you might be getting to indirectly is that part of the RPI calculation also includes the opponent's opponent's WP. In this case, the lofty SEC records of Alabama's opponent's are now a part of our RPI calculation. But when 50% of your RPI calculation is based on your opponent's WP, you want to schedule winnable games against teams with hopefully high winning %ages.

Yep getting a RPI expert to address the baseball coaches might be a very good idea as baseball is a Belt sport that should get multiple teams into the NCAA almost every year. Our coach, RH, has said on several occasions that the baseball coaches in the Belt get along very well and all will work together in whatever way they can to make the league better.

Something tells me the same attitude is not there among our basketball coaches.

(04-28-2015 03:53 PM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  We need to get Robe to invite Brian to the coaches meetings to give a RPI class, I know he has helped our coaches understand better how to schedule. I know it sounds silly but I reall think a lot of coaches don't fully grasp RPI and how to schedule for it.

Robe has brought it up, that a few years ago, the coaches all agreed to schedule better out of conference. Now, that's not always RPI-optimized, but it typically excluded consistently bad programs. The issue with that is, that was before the conference realignment, though I think it's been brought up since the new teams joined.

Even knowing how to optimize your RPI, it's still difficult to get that done as schools are always going to be handcuffed by geography in midweeks and also by the middle of the conference scheduled bye week. This means earlier start to conference schedule which removes an OOC weekend that almost all conferences are open for scheduling. It also means when you do get your bye, you can only choose from other conferences that have conference bye weeks (SWAC for the Cajuns case).

(04-28-2015 02:04 PM)gonegolfin Wrote:  

(04-28-2015 10:37 AM)wcd35 Wrote:  

(04-27-2015 09:32 PM)Atlanta Trojan Wrote:  Playing App st #234 and ULM #213 will hurt the Cajuns even if they sweep them both.. If they lose then it's gonna really drop

As it has been mentioned, the RPI ranking doesnt matter, it's the W-L record. ULM isnt a terrible game as it stands (though that may change by the time we play them.)

Also, if the Cajuns are to lose, it is better to do it on the road to one of those teams than at home where a loss hurts more (1.3x vs 0.7x). The portion of the RPI that takes into account the result of your games is your adjusted win pct with home/road factors. That part of the RPI does not take into account the record of which team you lose to or which teams beat you, only where the loss occurs. Losing to UALR (#181) on the road hurts less than losing to Stony Brook (#63 RPI) at home.

Where you hurt is in just playing bad record teams (your opponents win pct). There's a breakdown of those numbers on Ragin Pagin by GoneGolfin. He breaks down the remaining Cajuns remaining schedule

wcd35 is correct. As I have been saying for years, the RPI impact of a scheduled game is much more about the opponent's WP than it is their RPI rank (the two do not necessarily correlate and the trick is to find the hidden gems). This is why Alabama is not really a benefit to the Cajuns' RPI, other than that it was two road wins (which you can get anywhere). Though it does help in that the Cajuns were able to notch two wins against the RPI Top 50 … but we are talking calculating the RPI here, not the other selection committee criteria.

When scheduling, you want your OWP to be significantly higher than your OOWP. That is, you want your opponents to have lofty winning percentages … and they have a better chance at having lofty winning percentages if they schedule weaker opponents (weaker OWP). There are several other axioms of my RPI scheduling approach, but this is the most important.

With respect to home vs. road losses above … not quite correct. Yes, it is better to lose on the road vs. at home … but only if your adjusted winning percentage is over .500. Else, the reverse is true. Also, the reasoning is not quite as you state above. A loss at home and a win on the road is an adjusted W/L of 1.3 wins and 1.3 losses. A win at home and a loss on the road is an adjusted W/L of 0.7 wins and 0.7 losses. As you can see, adding 1.3 wins and 1.3 losses to your adjusted WP is going to have a modestly more negative impact than adding 0.7 wins and 0.7 losses if you have an adjusted WP of over .500. The converse is true if your adjusted WP is under .500.

As for the Cajuns' RPI and their upcoming games …

Winning the home game vs. New Orleans and going 3-1 on the road at Nicholls State and Appalachian State (3) will result in an RPI fall to .56178 from .56588 (all other things being equal). OWP would fall to .53474 from .55592. An RPI of .56178 would result in a fall to #42 in this week's RPI rankings. However, that is mostly due to teams between #30 and #43 being packed nicely together.

After weathering the UNO and Appalachian State OWP storm, South Alabama and ULM will be a nice reprieve and an opportunity to climb higher. Going 2-1 vs. South Alabama and 2-1 vs. ULM would bring their RPI higher to about .56335 (all other things being equal) … putting them at about #38 in this week's rankings.

Brian

You know, I never thought about the fact that 1.3-1.3 added to an above .500 schedule would be worse than 0.7-0.7. Guess it's always going to be like that while you are weighting home and road wins as opposed to giving bonuses for beating a certain ranked base RPI team like softball

(04-28-2015 07:34 PM)GaSoEagle Wrote:  Yep getting a RPI expert to address the baseball coaches might be a very good idea as baseball is a Belt sport that should get multiple teams into the NCAA almost every year. Our coach, RH, has said on several occasions that the baseball coaches in the Belt get along very well and all will work together in whatever way they can to make the league better.

Something tells me the same attitude is not there among our basketball coaches.

Don't get me started on these damed basketball coaches. They protect their six figure jobs at the peril of their schools, and the conference. They do everything possible to make sure only the winner of the SBC tournament gets to the dance.

They then can complain on their coaches shows how unfair life has been to their programs.

Baseball schedule is almost impossible to control. During midweek you can't really travel far, so you are limited to regional opponents. If you have a bunch of regional opponents with bad years, there's not a lot you can do about it.

What you pretty much control is the 3 week period before conference play starts, and even then you are bound by restrictions to your travel budget (I know we can't travel cross country for a game for instance)

(04-29-2015 09:58 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Baseball schedule is almost impossible to control. During midweek you can't really travel far, so you are limited to regional opponents. If you have a bunch of regional opponents with bad years, there's not a lot you can do about it.

What you pretty much control is the 3 week period before conference play starts, and even then you are bound by restrictions to your travel budget (I know we can't travel cross country for a game for instance)

And the dumb*** conference bye week... So 4 weeks technically

Scheduling non-conference winnable games means only something to the first team, and even then only for a short period. For the conference, the main thing is to just schedule winnable games. If team A schedules only crap schools, but wins, their RPI will be high initially. But every team in the conference that plays them gets a boost, which in turn will eventually boost team A too.

(04-29-2015 10:06 AM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(04-29-2015 09:58 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Baseball schedule is almost impossible to control. During midweek you can't really travel far, so you are limited to regional opponents. If you have a bunch of regional opponents with bad years, there's not a lot you can do about it.

What you pretty much control is the 3 week period before conference play starts, and even then you are bound by restrictions to your travel budget (I know we can't travel cross country for a game for instance)

And the dumb*** conference bye week... So 4 weeks technically

Yes, but there are limited games available during your bye weeks. For instance, we had the choice of hosting a bad Missouri Valley team, a bad SWAC Team, or traveling to a good Big 12 team this weekend. Coaches were committed to helping our RPI, so we had to sacrifice extra home games to go on the road this weekend.

The reality though is with 11 teams, we can't do anything about it. Only way to fix it is either drop someone, or add a 12th team.

(04-29-2015 10:10 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(04-29-2015 10:06 AM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(04-29-2015 09:58 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Baseball schedule is almost impossible to control. During midweek you can't really travel far, so you are limited to regional opponents. If you have a bunch of regional opponents with bad years, there's not a lot you can do about it.

What you pretty much control is the 3 week period before conference play starts, and even then you are bound by restrictions to your travel budget (I know we can't travel cross country for a game for instance)

And the dumb*** conference bye week... So 4 weeks technically

Yes, but there are limited games available during your bye weeks. For instance, we had the choice of hosting a bad Missouri Valley team, a bad SWAC Team, or traveling to a good Big 12 team this weekend. Coaches were committed to helping our RPI, so we had to sacrifice extra home games to go on the road this weekend.

The reality though is with 11 teams, we can't do anything about it. Only way to fix it is either drop someone, or add a 12th team.

That's why I said dumb*** bye and technically BC it's hard to find anyone worth a damn that has an opening in middle of conference

(04-29-2015 10:13 AM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(04-29-2015 10:10 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(04-29-2015 10:06 AM)Louisiana99 Wrote:  

(04-29-2015 09:58 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Baseball schedule is almost impossible to control. During midweek you can't really travel far, so you are limited to regional opponents. If you have a bunch of regional opponents with bad years, there's not a lot you can do about it.

What you pretty much control is the 3 week period before conference play starts, and even then you are bound by restrictions to your travel budget (I know we can't travel cross country for a game for instance)

And the dumb*** conference bye week... So 4 weeks technically

Yes, but there are limited games available during your bye weeks. For instance, we had the choice of hosting a bad Missouri Valley team, a bad SWAC Team, or traveling to a good Big 12 team this weekend. Coaches were committed to helping our RPI, so we had to sacrifice extra home games to go on the road this weekend.

The reality though is with 11 teams, we can't do anything about it. Only way to fix it is either drop someone, or add a 12th team.

That's why I said dumb*** bye and technically BC it's hard to find anyone worth a damn that has an opening in middle of conference

The worst part is that Most league's have 4 OOC weekends, so the team that starts the year in the SBC on their bye has a significant scheduling advantage.

Otherwise, we are pretty much limited to regional leagues that have a bye during league play as weel. (Big 12, MVC. SWAC)