RebKell's Junkie Boards

[calbearman76]

This post was actually spawned by a discussion regarding Iowa State in "who goes where," but since this was getting far afield I started a new thread.

After Nebraska there are 6 other teams that are ranked in the top 25 and are quite close based on results.

.....teams..... Overall Conf.vs.each vs.Neb vs.rest... Non-conference
................... W/L .. W/L ..other........... of Conf. best win .. (losses)
Oklahoma ...... 21-9 11-5 .. 5-4 .... 0-1 ... 6-0.... TCU.. (Conn,Tenn,ND,Ga)
Iowa State...... 23-6 11-5 .. 3-2 .... 0-2 ... 8-1.... Iowa.. (Drake)
Texas A&M...... 22-7 10-6 .. 5-4 .... 0-1 ... 5-1.... Duke.. (TCU)
Texas............. 21-9 10-6 .. 4-5 .... 0-1 ... 6-0.... Rutgers..(Conn,Tenn,USC)
Baylor............ 22-8 9-7 ... 4-5 ..... 0-1 ... 5-1.... Gonzaga.. (Tenn)
Oklahoma St... 21-9 9-7 ... 4-5 ..... 0-1 ... 5-1... Ga. Tech.(Ohio St, Mich St)

Iowa State played each of the other teams once; all of the others played home and home. Iowa State had only 2 home games in the five, against Oklahoma and Baylor. The home team won 16 of the 25 games, so Oklahoma, Iowa State and Baylor were at a slight disadvantage.

Among the six teams, only Texas A&M and Texas had wins over a top 27 RPI team and each of them had a loss to a team not in the top 27. Iowa State was the only other team to lose to a team outside the top 27 (#144 Drake).

Here are the RPI ratings along with the national polls and the Sagarin computer ratings, both overall and ELO Chess. (The ELO Chess ratings in Sagarin only considers wins and losses.) :

.....teams......RPI .. AP .. ESPN .. Sagarin..ELO Chess
Oklahoma....... 7 ... 12 .... 12 ...... 13 ....... 9
Iowa State..... 24 .. 14 .... 14 ...... 15 ....... 14
Texas A&M...... 8 ... 11 ... 11 ........ 7 ....... 10
Texas ........... 13 .. 15 ... 20 ....... 11 ....... 11
Baylor........... 14 .. 16 ... 18 ......... 9 ........ 12
Oklahoma St.. 12 .. 20 ... 21 ........ 23 ....... 17

Based on the records it is hard to justify that Iowa State is significantly below the other five. It is even harder to justify that Oklahoma State should be ranked third in the group. I believe the Sagarin ratings are generally better, but Baylor is clearly overrated. Overall, I would lean towards the AP or the ELO Chess as the most representative ranking of these teams.

Given how close the teams are, the results in the Big 12 Tournament could shake up the ratings. Whichever team(s) make the finals would move to the top of the group. Oklahoma State, which to me is the lowest of the six, would move ahead of Iowa St., Oklahoma and Baylor with three wins.

The other notable point is that it is unclear whether these teams deserve to be as high as they are as a group. To me the top 4 teams in the country are clear, and this group was 0-12 against them. They were 1-2 against the other 3 likely two seeds (Notre Dame, Duke and Ohio State). Other than the win over Duke there is probably no win over a team that will be better than an 8 seed. On the other hand, a similar case can be made for (or against) all the other teams vying for the last 2 seed and the 3-6 seeds.

[beknighted]

Nice work. While I think right now (and as described in the thread you mention) that Iowa State looks like the loser in this group in terms of seeding, that certainly could change in the conference tourney.

One thing that is really remarkable about the top of the Big 12 is how few OOC RPI top 25 games they have. Nebraska, Iowa State and Oklahoma State have none. Oklahoma has 3, all losses, Texas split 2 games, Texas A&M has 1 (a win), and Baylor has a loss. Contrast that with UConn, Stanford, Tennessee, et al., or even with Xavier. They've made it very hard to judge how good they are compared to the rest of the top teams.

[FS02]

Thanks for the analysis... very interesting.

It's hard to see how by beating up on each other these teams could have actually boosted their RPI, but they certainly boosted Nebraska's.

The Cyclones biggest problem right now might be that Alison Lacey is still recovering from pneumonia (per Voepel), and when she comes back who knows how much strength and conditioning she will have lost?

[calbearman76]

[beknighted]

That's kind of a "yes, but," if you know what I mean. Sure, it drops off considerably after UConn and Notre Dame, but it's not like they don't count, and my comment was about the top teams.

If you put the teams you've identified as the top 7 teams in the Big 12 against the comparable teams in the Big East, this is what you get:

Big East

UConn 5-0 v. RPI top 25, 8-0 v. RPI top 50
WVU 0-1 v. RPI top 25, 3-1 v. RPI top 50
Georgetown 0-0 v. RPI top 25, 1-1 v. RPI top 50
Notre Dame 3-0 v. RPI top 25, 3-0 v. RPI top 50
St. John's 0-1 v. RPI top 25, 0-2 v. RPI top 50
DePaul 1-1 v. RPI top 25, 2-1 v. RPI top 50
Rutgers 0-3 v. RPI top 25, 3-5 v. RPI top 50
TOTALS: 9-6 v. RPI top 25, 20-10 v. RPI top 50

Big 12

Nebraska 0-0 v. RPI top 25, 2-0 v. RPI top 50
Iowa State 0-0 v. RPI top 25, 1-0 v. RPI top 50
Oklahoma State 0-2 v. RPI top 25, 3-2 v. RPI top 25
Oklahoma 0-3 v. RPI top 25, , 2-4 v. RPI top 50
Texas 1-2 v. RPI top 25, 2-3 v. RPI top 50
Texas A&M 1-0 v. RPI top 25, 2-1 v. RPI top 50
Baylor 0-1 v. RPI top 25, 1-1 v. RPI top 50
TOTALS: 2-8 v. RPI top 25, 15-11 v. RPI top 50

[I see that I misread OK State's record before - the Cowgirls actually played 2 OOC RPI top 25 games.]

The top 7 Big East teams played, on average, about 0.85 more RPI top 25 games and 0.56 more RPI top 50 games than the top 7 Big 12 teams. If you take out the two teams from each conference that played the most RPI top 25 or 50 games, it obviously gets closer, but I'm not sure what that proves.

I do think that the central point remains correct - given the dearth of OOC games against top opposition, it's harder to evaluate teams like Nebraska, Iowa State, Baylor and Texas A&M than it might otherwise be. Conversely, it's easier to evaluate UConn, Notre Dame and Rutgers.

[beknighted]