Martin RPI

[SWOHHoops]

NO dodge, I asked a question that nobody answered. You tried using a game to make your point but do not seem to know anything about the game. Many teams lose games that they led in at one point. Many situations can hurt teams in the second quarter but all play 32 minutes last I checked.

1. I watched the game
2. Cathedral is loaded...kid committed to Mich St, kid committed to Mercer, kid committed to Purdue for football.
3. Cathedral shot 42% for the game and 39% from three. They also shot 20 free throws to PC's 7.

From my interaction with you on here you seem very experienced and knowledgeable, which makes your continual refusal to acknowledge team A losing a close game to team B generally means these teams are very comparable, so PC dropping in any ranking after this game makes no sense.

 

[spirit454]

1. I watched the game
2. Cathedral is loaded...kid committed to Mich St, kid committed to Mercer, kid committed to Purdue for football.
3. Cathedral shot 42% for the game and 39% from three. They also shot 20 free throws to PC's 7.

From my interaction with you on here you seem very experienced and knowledgeable, which makes your continual refusal to acknowledge team A losing a close game to team B generally means these teams are very comparable, so PC dropping in any ranking after this game makes no sense.

EVERY team will drop in ANY ranking after a loss.

My question was more about the change in the game that allowed a comeback, but it doesn't matter. You are trying to promote the team that held an early lead, but you must also face the fact that a team that was up big gave up that lead and ended with a loss. Do great teams do that?

 

[DonJuanDeMarco]

EVERY team will drop in ANY ranking after a loss.

Depending on whether you look at guys like Sagarin and Ken Pom as rankings, this isn't true.

 

[spirit454]

Depending on whether you look at guys like Sagarin and Ken Pom as rankings, this isn't true.

Those guys use a formula as well and even if the teams do not lose a spot, the calculations show a drop with a loss.

 

[DonJuanDeMarco]

Those guys use a formula as well and even if the teams do not lose a spot, the calculations show a drop with a loss.

Not necessarily. Here's a good example. Marquette moved up 3 spots according to Bart Torvik after losing to Xavier on Sunday. They've also dropped after wins against St. John's, Seton Hall, and Georgetown. Earlier in the year, they rose 20 spots after losing to Wisconsin.

T-Page for Marquette - Customizable College Basketball Tempo Free Stats - T-Rank

T-Rank College Basketball Ratings and Rankings. And fun.

www.barttorvik.com

 

[SWOHHoops]

EVERY team will drop in ANY ranking after a loss.

My question was more about the change in the game that allowed a comeback, but it doesn't matter. You are trying to promote the team that held an early lead, but you must also face the fact that a team that was up big gave up that lead and ended with a loss. Do great teams do that?

Not true. Check any poll from Prep Hoops to coaches polls to OPSWA polls, a loss does not automatically drop you and a loss like PC had Monday will typically move you up. The thought that a win moves you up and a loss moves you down, regardless of who you played, only applies to math formulas.

 

[spirit454]

Not necessarily. Here's a good example. Marquette moved up 3 spots according to Bart Torvik after losing to Xavier on Sunday. They've also dropped after wins against St. John's, Seton Hall, and Georgetown. Earlier in the year, they rose 20 spots after losing to Wisconsin.

T-Page for Marquette - Customizable College Basketball Tempo Free Stats - T-Rank

T-Rank College Basketball Ratings and Rankings. And fun.

www.barttorvik.com

When discussing any ranking platform and the moves that happen, you have to consider the teams around them as well. Other teams lose and win which also affects the rank of your team and it's loss or win. In reality a team may stay put or rise after a loss due to the teams around it having played games also.

 

[spirit454]

Not true. Check any poll from Prep Hoops to coaches polls to OPSWA polls, a loss does not automatically drop you and a loss like PC had Monday will typically move you up. The thought that a win moves you up and a loss moves you down, regardless of who you played, only applies to math formulas.

HAHAHA. So now you are using polls that people like you have discredited for years to prove you correct in discrediting this one. Well played.

The idea of a poll in part is that all teams play a competitive schedule first. If teams play a poor schedule it changes. I agree that playing a tough team and losing does not make you a bad team and that is where the SOS part of the formula comes in. This is also true for having a strong record but playing a weaker schedule. The RPI is calculated on 35% record and 65% of who you played. The question is, since the formula covers every team in the state, how does it calculate out of state opponents. Does it really know every team that team has played?

Unfortunately, if you want to believe it or not, Prep Hoops, OPSWA and even a coaches poll have agendas that are being included in the rankings. Although a mathematical formula may not be as perfect as you want it. It is not being persuaded by feelings.

 

[serpico]

Interesting piece in the online Van Wert newspaper. Really small sample size, but the comments are interesting nonetheless. Check out Scott Truxell's random thoughts in sports.

thevwindependent.com

The most interesting part was this:

Also, Martin said if we were to use his ranking system it wouldn’t be beneficial if the districts stayed how they are. He said it would work best if we went to a super district which would put all teams that lead into our regional together. I just think when the man running the program doesn’t think it’ll work, I’m not sure why we were using it.

My question is whether Martin actually said this. Most (all?) of NW Ohio doesn’t have super sectionals/districts. Why would they make NWO the guinea pig when it’s the one place it wouldn’t work well?

 

[Diebler33]

All reasonable points, but I think over the years the aggregated eye-test of the coaches in SWOH has produced the most accurate ranking of teams.

I have said many times this discussion falls one of two ways, I love the eye-test of the coaches and believe it is the best ranking..... or..... coaches have bias so the best ranking is a computer system that treats everyone the same but may not be accurate. It's perfectly reasonable to say the RPI is flawed but I support it because it treats everyone equally. The legal counsel for the RPI (@spirit454) continually tries to justify completely outlier rankings like D3 last year and (although early) Pick Central this year.

Here's the only flaw I see with the RPI. This issue applies to Taft last year in D3 & Pick Central this year in D1. Could also throw in Buchtel in D2 this year. The team's in Ohio that play extremely tough, out-of-state teams, don't get as much credit as they should for playing them. This is because you get credit for an out of state opponent's record, but their OWP is assigned a value of .5000.

Pick Central has played Spire, Valdosta GA, Winter Haven FL, Charlotte FL, Covington Catholic KY, & Cathedral IN. That is SIX teams out of the 15 they've played that they're not getting enough credit as they should be; because in reality, those teams play extremely tough schedules themselves and everyone know their OWP would be much, much higher than .5000.

Buchtel has played Renaissance MI, Woodford County KY, Centennial AZ, Rancho Santa Margarita CA, Miami Country Day FL, & Vashon MO. That's another SIX teams out of the 14 they've played that they're not getting as much credit as they should be.

All that said however, there's no fix for that. If you used out of state opponents true RPI, that's another tens of thousands of game results and schedules from across the country that would need entered into the system. If each state & team in the country used one system to enter schedules & scores it could work. But we know that is not and never will be the case. You could tinker with each one individually, but that opens a whole new can of worms. And most people look at a team's schedule and see they play an out of state team and think "Wow! That's a great opponent," when in reality they know nothing about that team. In my opinion I don't see any other fix other than using that .5000 value for their owp--that is what KY does for out of state opponents in their RPI rankings as well.

 

[SWOHHoops]

HAHAHA. So now you are using polls that people like you have discredited for years to prove you correct in discrediting this one. Well played.

The idea of a poll in part is that all teams play a competitive schedule first. If teams play a poor schedule it changes. I agree that playing a tough team and losing does not make you a bad team and that is where the SOS part of the formula comes in. This is also true for having a strong record but playing a weaker schedule. The RPI is calculated on 35% record and 65% of who you played. The question is, since the formula covers every team in the state, how does it calculate out of state opponents. Does it really know every team that team has played?

Unfortunately, if you want to believe it or not, Prep Hoops, OPSWA and even a coaches poll have agendas that are being included in the rankings. Although a mathematical formula may not be as perfect as you want it. It is not being persuaded by feelings.

You - every poll drops teams for losing
Me - Not true, OPSWA/Prep Hoops doesn't
You - Hypocrite!

Nowhere in my response did I say those are good polls or I abide by them, just pointed out they prove your assertion wrong counselor.

 

[tcgobucks]

The most interesting part was this:

My question is whether Martin actually said this. Most (all?) of NW Ohio doesn’t have super sectionals/districts. Why would they make NWO the guinea pig when it’s the one place it wouldn’t work well?

He is from NW Ohio....I assume that's part of it, though that really shouldn't matter if the guy who created it says it's not right. I will say if you look back at last year's seedings and compare it to his RPI that he was basically spot on with how the coaches voted. There were a few lower seeds that were different but the top seeds were the same as what he had

 

[Diebler33]

The most interesting part was this:

My question is whether Martin actually said this. Most (all?) of NW Ohio doesn’t have super sectionals/districts. Why would they make NWO the guinea pig when it’s the one place it wouldn’t work well?

Yeah i saw he said that as well. Agree 100% though. If there's 40 teams that are all leading into one Regional tournament, they should be seeded 1-40 and assigned to districts based off those seeds. 1-4 are in different districts, 5-8 are in different ones, and so on. Dont care what part of the state youre in, what division, whatever. Imagine if the the NCAA put all the 1 seeds in the south region and the other 3 regions were wide open and incredibly weak? So idiotic the way the NWO does their district tournaments. Which again goes back to what serpico said, why do the pilot in NWO then??

 

[SWOHHoops]

Here's the only flaw I see with the RPI. This issue applies to Taft last year in D3 & Pick Central this year in D1. Could also throw in Buchtel in D2 this year. The team's in Ohio that play extremely tough, out-of-state teams, don't get as much credit as they should for playing them. This is because you get credit for an out of state opponent's record, but their OWP is assigned a value of .5000.

Pick Central has played Spire, Valdosta GA, Winter Haven FL, Charlotte FL, Covington Catholic KY, & Cathedral IN. That is SIX teams out of the 15 they've played that they're not getting enough credit as they should be; because in reality, those teams play extremely tough schedules themselves and everyone know their OWP would be much, much higher than .5000.

Buchtel has played Renaissance MI, Woodford County KY, Centennial AZ, Rancho Santa Margarita CA, Miami Country Day FL, & Vashon MO. That's another SIX teams out of the 14 they've played that they're not getting as much credit as they should be.

All that said however, there's no fix for that. If you used out of state opponents true RPI, that's another tens of thousands of game results and schedules from across the country that would need entered into the system. If each state & team in the country used one system to enter schedules & scores it could work. But we know that is not and never will be the case. You could tinker with each one individually, but that opens a whole new can of worms. And most people look at a team's schedule and see they play an out of state team and think "Wow! That's a great opponent," when in reality they know nothing about that team. In my opinion I don't see any other fix other than using that .5000 value for their owp--that is what KY does for out of state opponents in their RPI rankings as well.

Agree, this Martin guy deserves kudos for taking the time to do this and it provides great debate. But it will never be able to be a true ranking of teams which is why it's use as a seeding tool over the vote of coaches that watch games is silly. I've said over and over the only reason to use it is if it you want everyone treated the same without regard to whether the ranking reflects reality.

 

[RollingTrain]

Agree, this Martin guy deserves kudos for taking the time to do this and it provides great debate. But it will never be able to be a true ranking of teams which is why it's use as a seeding tool over the vote of coaches that watch games is silly. I've said over and over the only reason to use it is if it you want everyone treated the same without regard to whether the ranking reflects reality.

Well, you could argue the coaches seeding at times isn't true either so I guess there is no winner here. It comes down to how much you trust one over the other.

 

[serpico]

He is from NW Ohio....I assume that's part of it, though that really shouldn't matter if the guy who created it says it's not right. I will say if you look back at last year's seedings and compare it to his RPI that he was basically spot on with how the coaches voted. There were a few lower seeds that were different but the top seeds were the same as what he had

Are the MRPI rankings from the tournament draw date available somewhere? I seem to remember some jumbling in the upper seeds in at least one of the D4 districts.

 

[Philly_Cat]

Not true. Check any poll from Prep Hoops to coaches polls to OPSWA polls, a loss does not automatically drop you and a loss like PC had Monday will typically move you up. The thought that a win moves you up and a loss moves you down, regardless of who you played, only applies to math formulas.

A team moving up after a loss I would assume depends on what all of the teams ahead of them do as well.

 

[SWOHHoops]

Well, you could argue the coaches seeding at times isn't true either so I guess there is no winner here. It comes down to how much you trust one over the other.

I agree, no perfect solution but right now I believe the coaches in the Central Region would have PC a top seed while RPI has them 10th. A state coaches poll would have them top 5, the RPI has them 39th.

 

[Philly_Cat]

Yeah i saw he said that as well. Agree 100% though. If there's 40 teams that are all leading into one Regional tournament, they should be seeded 1-40 and assigned to districts based off those seeds. 1-4 are in different districts, 5-8 are in different ones, and so on. Dont care what part of the state youre in, what division, whatever. Imagine if the the NCAA put all the 1 seeds in the south region and the other 3 regions were wide open and incredibly weak? So idiotic the way the NWO does their district tournaments. Which again goes back to what serpico said, why do the pilot in NWO then??

This is similar to what happens pretty much every year with SWO Region 4. There's usually 1 or 2 teams that everyone wants to avoid, so you have 1 or 2 districts that have one high seed and almost all of the bottom seeds in it, creating basically a cake walk for that team where they don't play a competitive game until at least the district championship, sometimes not until the regional semifinal. Meanwhile the other districts will have a gauntlet from at least the 2nd round on, occasionally the first round even.

 

[SWOHHoops]

A team moving up after a loss I would assume depends on what all of the teams ahead of them do as well.

True, and that could work in both the RPI and coaches vote. But a close loss to a team like Cathedral improves a teams "resume" and repect but drops them 8 or 9 spots in the RPI.

 

[spirit454]

You - every poll drops teams for losing
Me - Not true, OPSWA/Prep Hoops doesn't
You - Hypocrite!

Nowhere in my response did I say those are good polls or I abide by them, just pointed out they prove your assertion wrong counselor.

You are funny. Once again I assumed you understood, but I admit I am proven wrong.

Ex..... A team can be ranked #4 in a poll by receiving 2500 votes in a weekly poll. If that team loses a game and other around them lose a game, that team can remain at the #4 spot while receiving 2275 votes that week. To me they still dropped and so did others so no team over took them. Happens often over the course of a season. This is why it's only entertainment to get upset at a poll until the end.

I was not trying to call you a hypocrite. Only pointing out that many like you and I attack the credibility of the polls you are now trying to use and attack the value of the RPI. I would not use Prep Hoops or the Sports Writer's poll for seeding. Both had strong agendas for who they serve.

 

[Diebler33]

Well, you could argue the coaches seeding at times isn't true either so I guess there is no winner here. It comes down to how much you trust one over the other.

Plus if you go look at the 28 football regions and tell me all 28 of those are perfect you're a liar. Heck even if you tell me 14 of those 28 are perfect. Which is why i can see this being used statewide for bball in the future

 

[Diebler33]

I agree, no perfect solution but right now I believe the coaches in the Central Region would have PC a top seed while RPI has them 10th. A state coaches poll would have them top 5, the RPI has them 39th.

There could be 100's of games that affect their RPI in one night. PC was 10-4 before Cathedral. If the 14 teams they already played all lost on that same night, that will lower their OWP. And then you look again at those 14 opponents, and you see how all of THEIR opponents did that night. You can see how that number goes up pretty quick...Obviously that's an extreme hypothetical, but especially after Tues/Fri/Sat when most games are played, there's a ton more games happening that can also affect your rpi. That's 65% of your ranking. The result of PC losing to cathedral may have only dropped them 1 spot for all we know. May not have dropped them at all. But all the other games could've led to them dropping more.

 

[spirit454]

Well, you could argue the coaches seeding at times isn't true either so I guess there is no winner here. It comes down to how much you trust one over the other.

It's funny how what is considered a true poll is up to his opinion of truth.

 

[spirit454]

I agree, no perfect solution but right now I believe the coaches in the Central Region would have PC a top seed while RPI has them 10th. A state coaches poll would have them top 5, the RPI has them 39th.

Why do you feel a "state coaches poll" which doesn't happen, would have a top 5 when the sports writer that cover them do not?

Curious to know if many of the teams you feel are top teams in the state every lose a "23 point lead" to lose a game. I understand the winning team was good, but doesn't it show a teams weakness when they give up a 20+ point lead and lose.?

 

[spirit454]

True, and that could work in both the RPI and coaches vote. But a close loss to a team like Cathedral improves a teams "resume" and repect but drops them 8 or 9 spots in the RPI.

You call it a 'close lose" but should we consider it a 20+ point blowout in the second half.

 

[SWOHHoops]

You are funny. Once again I assumed you understood, but I admit I am proven wrong.

Ex..... A team can be ranked #4 in a poll by receiving 2500 votes in a weekly poll. If that team loses a game and other around them lose a game, that team can remain at the #4 spot while receiving 2275 votes that week. To me they still dropped and so did others so no team over took them. Happens often over the course of a season. This is why it's only entertainment to get upset at a poll until the end.

I was not trying to call you a hypocrite. Only pointing out that many like you and I attack the credibility of the polls you are now trying to use and attack the value of the RPI. I would not use Prep Hoops or the Sports Writer's poll for seeding. Both had strong agendas for who they serve.

You are tough to converse with because you try to win every discussion instead of just discussing...nowhere did I say I like the other polls or they should be used for seeding or use them to attack the RPI, just that they are polls that refute the statement you made.

You call it a 'close lose" but should we consider it a 20+ point blowout in the second half.

This is just a weird twisting of a result to try to fit your narrative....easy yes or no question, if you asked a central ohio coach if Monday's PC result makes them think PC is better than they thought they were a week ago, would they say yes or no?

@Diebler33 I agree that other games impact the ranking, but according to maxpreps there were only 36 games across Ohio on Monday. Using assumptions that could be wrong, the main reason they dropped is because they lost

 

[spirit454]

You are tough to converse with because you try to win every discussion instead of just discussing...nowhere did I say I like the other polls or they should be used for seeding or use them to attack the RPI, just that they are polls that refute the statement you made.

Sorry, but I do not see a conversation as necessarily winnable. I fell we are just talking about our perception of the situation. I do not see every word as being right or wrong. But I do not feel they do not refute anything as already pointed out teams may drop from a loss or stay the same depending on the teams around them. If every team in a poll wins but one, that team will drop or drop it's advantage over the one beneath it.

 

[Philly_Cat]

I agree, no perfect solution but right now I believe the coaches in the Central Region would have PC a top seed while RPI has them 10th. A state coaches poll would have them top 5, the RPI has them 39th.

They still have PN on their schedule. How much you want to bet they make a huge jump in the standings with that win? I'm not going to look at every team's schedule that is 1-10. I frankly don't care enough about the Columbus area to do that, but I'd be willing to bet many of those top 10 are going to be playing each other and also playing teams that they've all shared on their schedules. All of that is going to have huge implications on the rankings over the coming weeks. Just sit back and chill and let it all work itself out. Let PC worry about winning their games and they will be fine.

 

[spirit454]

This is just a weird twisting of a result to try to fit your narrative....easy yes or no question, if you asked a central ohio coach if Monday's PC result makes them think PC is better than they thought they were a week ago, would they say yes or no?

My narrative is that there are many situations that can lead up to a victory or a loss during a game. If a top ranked team has 2 starters in early foul trouble they could find themselves behind at halftime or early in the second half. But as the game goes on it can be expected for the better team to out perform it's opponent.

I am not a Cent Ohio coach so I cannot answer with accuracy. OR do I truly know anything about Ind Cathedral. But knowing coaches I would guess they would say PC played well but could not hold on. This is not a question of does a team scare another team in tournament. It's about where does a team performances place them with other teams. Obviously PC played a good quarter or two very well, but as you pointed out, the end result was the better team closed a 23 point gap and then won the game.