Shortcuts to having a better RPI?

Yappi

Yappi

Go Buckeyes
For those that study it closely, what are some shortcuts to having a better RPI? What is most important? Record? Quality of opponent? Opponents schedule? Size of school?

In football, a Harbin cow was the best team in a bad conference that was mostly DI-DIII. Someone who was usually going to win 7-8 games each season but be a fairly easy win. Just wondering what the OHSAA basketball coaches should be looking for when they are scheduling for the next season.

One suggestion is that games after the deadline don't matter. You can test your team against better competition or get some easy wins for confidence. It doesn't affect the RPI either way.
 
 
I've seen some teams benefit from a soft schedule and some teams not. For example, McDermott Northwest dropped down in the SOC to the middle tier and scheduled a very weak out of conference also. They ended the season 19-3. They received the 4 seed based off RPI but if there were a coaches vote, I think many schools would have voted them more towards the 7-8 seed just because of the obvious drop in schedule. (This is where opponent division strength factor needed to be added in, like MartinRPI uses.)

Northwest was 15-2 going into the draw. Wheelersburg was 16-4, and Wheelersburg wrapped up the one seed. So, it is good in theory that coaches can't just vote off record because many coaches don't do the research necessary to properly seed teams.

On the other side, South Webster had a very tough schedule and they were comfortably the 1 seed in terms of MaxPreps RPI throughout the year even with having more losses than the #2 throughout most of the season. Granted, SW ended up going 19-3 so it wouldn't have mattered. But they likely could have went 16-6 ish and still been the one seed over a 2-3 loss team due to strength of schedule (one that would have been even higher if division strength factor was added in).

In the past South Webster would almost always be seeded by the coaches based off their total losses with absolutely zero credit given to their strength of schedule. With MaxPreps RPI, they're likely going to be a top seed for quite some time (as long as they're having a winning season) compared to years past where coaches would try to vote them in the 4-8 range.

TLDR; What I'm trying to say is I've seen benefits both ways so I'm not sure there's an exact avenue to take to have a slight edge in RPI boosts.

I do think the argument of "well we're down so we're not going to play you" should go completely out the window. Losing to a great team with a winning record can literally help you in terms of your RPI, not to mention make your team better for playing stiff competition. But there will always be coaches who would rather beat up cupcakes than challenge a heavyweight.
 
If they are going to continue to use some kind of RPI system there absolutely has to be some way of taking school size into account. As of now a school like St Ignatius would get the same credit for beating a 20-0 Garfield Heights team as they would beating 20-0 Fort Jennings (the smallest school in Ohio). There is no world where a that makes sense.
 
tcgobucks said:
If they are going to continue to use some kind of RPI system there absolutely has to be some way of taking school size into account. As of now a school like St Ignatius would get the same credit for beating a 20-0 Garfield Heights team as they would beating 20-0 Fort Jennings (the smallest school in Ohio). There is no world where a that makes sense.
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So St Ignatius should get a bigger bump for playing a 20-0 Garfield Heights rather than a 20-0 Richmond Heights? Not opposed to a school size factor, but it's not a cure all.
 
D1nwobb said:
So St Ignatius should get a bigger bump for playing a 20-0 Garfield Heights rather than a 20-0 Richmond Heights? Not opposed to a school size factor, but it's not a cure all.
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They would.....though other than Richmond Heights that's likely not going to be an issue again
 
SWOHHoops said:
My advice....If you are using an RPI next year rip up the contract with MaxPreps and sign a contract with Martin.
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Tend to agree with that but at our district meeting Sunday we were told the biggest reason (outside of $ I'm sure) that they used Maxpreps is because Martin is one person and if something happened to him then what?
 
Caldwellbasketball said:
Tend to agree with that but at our district meeting Sunday we were told the biggest reason (outside of $ I'm sure) that they used Maxpreps is because Martin is one person and if something happened to him then what?
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That's a valid point, but the logical response is we would go with MaxPreps if that happened.
 
Caldwellbasketball said:
Tend to agree with that but at our district meeting Sunday we were told the biggest reason (outside of $ I'm sure) that they used Maxpreps is because Martin is one person and if something happened to him then what?
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Does Joe Eitel have help? Couldn't you use this same argument for football?
 
I've been able to replicate Martin's formula. He gives slightly less weight to WP and of course has the SSF (Strength of Schedule Factor). He doesn't publicize the SSF (as far as I know) and I haven't studied it long enough to get a sense of where he's starting, other than he multiplies a factor of 5% with his SSF number as part of the final ranking.
If the OHSAA had used his ratings instead of MaxPreps in NEO D2, the top 20 seeds (top 4 seeds in the 5 NEO districts) would have been the same, with a few in different spots. Biggest changes would have been Canfield (5 v. 3), CVCA (4 v. 5), VASJ (17 v. 11) Warrensville (13 v. 10), Northwest (11 v. 15).

To answer the Eitel question: That's the OHSAA's formula, which is no secret. It's on the website. Eitel is just the smartest person in Ohio who came up a cool website to do the work for the Association.
The MaxPreps formula is also published. Martin's formula is proprietary.
 
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goshengophers said:
I've been able to replicate Martin's formula. He gives slightly less weight to WP and of course has the SSF (Strength of Schedule Factor). He doesn't publicize the SSF (as far as I know) and I haven't studied it long enough to get a sense of where he's starting, other than he multiplies a factor of 5% with his SSF number as part of the final ranking.
If the OHSAA had used his ratings instead of MaxPreps in NEO D2, the top 20 seeds (top 4 seeds in the 5 NEO districts) would have been the same, with a few in different spots. Biggest changes would have been Canfield (5 v. 3), CVCA (4 v. 5), VASJ (17 v. 11) Warrensville (13 v. 10), Northwest (11 v. 15).

To answer the Eitel question: That's the OHSAA's formula, which is no secret. It's on the website. Eitel is just the smartest person in Ohio who came up a cool website to do the work for the Association.
The MaxPreps formula is also published. Martin's formula is proprietary.
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It is not a strength of schedule factor. It is a school size factor based on opponents using 5.5 for D1, 5.0 for D2, 4.5 for D3, and 4.0 for D4. He has it weighted at 5%.
 
When I use to do a power rating system the enrollment of a school had nothing to do with anything in it nor should it. Margin of victory and defeat in comparison with the projected margins was big in my ratings. What a school did after a school played them no longer had any effect on that teams rating unless they played that opponent again. It makes no sense to me if Team A beats Team B in week 1, and then in Week 10 Team B beats Team C why should that have anything to do with Team A's rating. I know that is huge in Harbins...... but strength of schedule should not be based on wins and losses but by the quality of the opponent a team is playing regardless of that teams record.
 
tcgobucks said:
If they are going to continue to use some kind of RPI system there absolutely has to be some way of taking school size into account. As of now a school like St Ignatius would get the same credit for beating a 20-0 Garfield Heights team as they would beating 20-0 Fort Jennings (the smallest school in Ohio). There is no world where a that makes sense.
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This 1000%.
 
Back to the OP question.

If I were a coach looking to pad my RPI (not sure I would really want to in most cases) I would request games vs the weakest conferences top teams. That gives me a boost in OPPONENTS WIN PERCENTAGE and should also help in OPPONENTS OPPONENTS WIN PERCENTAGE.

RPI Maxpreps version is a bit different from Harbins in the fact a loss to a very good team is way better than a win over a team with a 10% win percentage.

Take a look at Dayton Stivers schedule if you want to see the exact opposite of how to pad your RPI. They are a D3 playing mostly D2 and D1 competition, many of which are not very good , but good enough to defeat Stivers. They had some great wins over decent teams, yet finished at #17 seed due to a losing record and their opponents record. I believe they would have been a 7-10 seed under the old method.
 
vamp2syd said:
When I use to do a power rating system the enrollment of a school had nothing to do with anything in it nor should it. Margin of victory and defeat in comparison with the projected margins was big in my ratings. What a school did after a school played them no longer had any effect on that teams rating unless they played that opponent again. It makes no sense to me if Team A beats Team B in week 1, and then in Week 10 Team B beats Team C why should that have anything to do with Team A's rating. I know that is huge in Harbins...... but strength of schedule should not be based on wins and losses but by the quality of the opponent a team is playing regardless of that teams record.
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So why would you play anyone worth a damn week 1? If we win we get nothing from it anyway because they haven’t played any games yet…
 
D1nwobb said:
It is not a strength of schedule factor. It is a school size factor based on opponents using 5.5 for D1, 5.0 for D2, 4.5 for D3, and 4.0 for D4. He has it weighted at 5%.
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Thank you for the clarification. I apologize for misrepresenting what it meant.
 
NLLBEST said:
So why would you play anyone worth a damn week 1? If we win we get nothing from it anyway because they haven’t played any games yet…
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In a power rating system not all teams start equal at the beginning of the season. This is why a power rating system should not be used to determine who makes the playoffs but can and should be used for seeding purposes. At times, it does matter when a team plays another but look at it another way. You play Moe in week 1 and get the win. two weeks later two players are ruled ineligible due to recruiting and another key injury deflates their lineup. Now, other teams start to beat up Moe. In my power rating system your win over a fully staff Moe team gains more rating points than what you would gain in a Harbin like system.....
 
vamp2syd said:
When I use to do a power rating system the enrollment of a school had nothing to do with anything in it nor should it. Margin of victory and defeat in comparison with the projected margins was big in my ratings. What a school did after a school played them no longer had any effect on that teams rating unless they played that opponent again. It makes no sense to me if Team A beats Team B in week 1, and then in Week 10 Team B beats Team C why should that have anything to do with Team A's rating. I know that is huge in Harbins...... but strength of schedule should not be based on wins and losses but by the quality of the opponent a team is playing regardless of that teams record.
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I'm sure it was a ton of work so I get why you gave up doing it, but your system was as accurate as any I have seen. You're right that it couldn't be used for seeding as it would be too tempting to run up the score, but I know of multiple coaches who used your system when considering where to place on the tournament brackets.
 
Flevans said:
I'm sure it was a ton of work so I get why you gave up doing it, but your system was as accurate as any I have seen. You're right that it couldn't be used for seeding as it would be too tempting to run up the score, but I know of multiple coaches who used your system when considering where to place on the tournament brackets.
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I find this hard to believe. Coaches know who the teams are. They aren't going to determine who they play based on some rankings system. No teams this year placed themselves on a line based on the OHSAA RPI or Martin RPI. The only reason they used them is to determine the order. The coaches know who they are playing
 
Interesting thing I noticed....this year so far there are 15 double-digit seeds in the district semis in SWOH across the four divisions. Last year there was 6. Is this because the RPI is so bad or just more parody in SWOH?
 
tcgobucks said:
I find this hard to believe. Coaches know who the teams are. They aren't going to determine who they play based on some rankings system. No teams this year placed themselves on a line based on the OHSAA RPI or Martin RPI. The only reason they used them is to determine the order. The coaches know who they are playing
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When coaches voted on teams seeds some would use my rating system to rank teams that they may not have seen not to figure out where to place their team on the bracket.
 
SWOHHoops said:
Interesting thing I noticed....this year so far there are 15 double-digit seeds in the district semis in SWOH across the four divisions. Last year there was 6. Is this because the RPI is so bad or just more parody in SWOH?
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I'd say parody.
 
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