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Question for k9_r

coolonetoo

Junior
May 12, 2003
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Nebraska fell in the RPI rankings even when it won this weekend. Next up is a home series against an opponent ranked even lower than Northwestern. Is it more or less guaranteed to drop even with a sweep?
 
Not K9_r but we will most likely drop slightly even with a sweep. The nice thing is playing Illinois on the road and then The Big Ten Tourney (Assume we don't collapse and miss out) will bump our SOS back up a tad which in turn will also bump up our RPI.

It'll also depend on what other teams in the RPI rankings do. We don't have any midweek games and most of those games are where other teams may take a hit if they lose.
 
Not K9_r but we will most likely drop slightly even with a sweep. The nice thing is playing Illinois on the road and then The Big Ten Tourney (Assume we don't collapse and miss out) will bump our SOS back up a tad which in turn will also bump up our RPI.

It'll also depend on what other teams in the RPI rankings do. We don't have any midweek games and most of those games are where other teams may take a hit if they lose.

The latest RPI needs report from Boyd's World estimates two more wins will net top 32 and six wins will land us in the top 16. I expect three or four wins which would seem to make a 20-something RPI likely.
 
The latest RPI needs report from Boyd's World estimates two more wins will net top 32 and six wins will land us in the top 16. I expect three or four wins which would seem to make a 20-something RPI likely.
The problem with only 2 or 3 more wins is it puts us in jeopardy of missing the conference tournament, at which point our RPI will be meaningless. No B1G team is getting in if you can't even qualify in the #7 rated RPI conference. For as much as the conference has improved and now looking at 5 bids, still have long way to go when sitting behind the MVC. Bottom part of this league is truly bad.
 
The problem with only 2 or 3 more wins is it puts us in jeopardy of missing the conference tournament, at which point our RPI will be meaningless. No B1G team is getting in if you can't even qualify in the #7 rated RPI conference. For as much as the conference has improved and now looking at 5 bids, still have long way to go when sitting behind the MVC. Bottom part of this league is truly bad.

The issue of conference record vs. RPI has been debated to death on this board so I won't go there. I only threw out the possibility of two more wins as it relates to estimating the RPI. I think we'll win 3-4 with four most likely.

I'm not worried about making the conference tournament. Even if we win only two more games, Minnesota would have to win four against Iowa and Michigan State or Penn State would have to win five against Michigan State and Purdue or Northwestern would have to sweep Michigan and Maryland or Rutgers would have to sweep Illinois and Iowa. None of the things in this paragraph are going to happen. Sweep Purdue like we should and we'll probably have a spot locked up with a week to go.
 
The issue of conference record vs. RPI has been debated to death on this board so I won't go there. I only threw out the possibility of two more wins as it relates to estimating the RPI. I think we'll win 3-4 with four most likely.

I'm not worried about making the conference tournament. Even if we win only two more games, Minnesota would have to win four against Iowa and Michigan State or Penn State would have to win five against Michigan State and Purdue or Northwestern would have to sweep Michigan and Maryland or Rutgers would have to sweep Illinois and Iowa. None of the things in this paragraph are going to happen. Sweep Purdue like we should and we'll probably have a spot locked up with a week to go.
Yes, debated to death, but in the context of finishing 4th vs. 7th or 8th and still making the tournament. I will give this team their due on the 16 game win streak, but outside of that we have been a complete roller coaster. if we get one of those weekends (this weekend) that we all know can happen in baseball and lose a series, or even go 2-1 and then get swept by Illinois I dont feel comfortable at all.

The current top 6 would appear to be locks at this point The last 2 spots would appear to be up for grabs between 3 teams (NU, IU, and MInn). IU only has one series left against OSU, but only has played 19 games. I assume they have had a few games impacted by weather. Havent taken the time to look and see how the B1G handles that but assume its win %. If IU wins 2 of 3 against OSU that last weekend they would lock up 1 of the 2 reamining spots (assuming the likely scenario we don't win more than 4 remaining games).

Minnesota does have a tough road ahead but as an Iowa poster pointed out on this board last week, thats a different kind of series and one that Iowa has struggled with for some reason, no matter the records. Then they finish up with MSU. If they find a way to win 4 games, we have to get 3 just to tie them and get the last spot by virtue of the head to head series win (assume this is how its broken). Woiuld be hard to imagine they can win any more than 4 (at a max) so we should be good if we simply find a way to play .500 ball the rest of the way out.

Bottom line is we will know a lot more after this weekend. They are the only team below us that Im worried (slightly) about and will be watching their scores as much as ours.
 
Nebraska fell in the RPI rankings even when it won this weekend. Next up is a home series against an opponent ranked even lower than Northwestern. Is it more or less guaranteed to drop even with a sweep?
That loss to NW was costly.

Purdue's miserable W/L record is going to ding us Just like NW's did. However, winning against these poor teams tends to balance out the hit but we lost one at NW and that pushed us above 25 RPI. We really needed to sweep that series. And we MUST sweep Purdue b/c home losses are the most costly.

Losing at home, even once, to a poor team is a double ding. Adding a bad team to your SOS plus adding a loss to your loss column is two times bad. We are going to zoom above 30 RPI if we lose any games to them.

These RPI numbers are all darn close to each other. Ours is 0.5752, ranked 27. The one above us is 0.5757 and below us is 0.5739. Those are tiny fractions and screwing up or shining bright can move you several spots in rank.

When the Illinois games come on our record we will recover pretty well. Sweep Purdue and we should stay ~ where we're at. Simply playing Illinois will lift our SOS (which is 3/4 of RPI) beyond the low price of a road loss. Three games is three SOS boosts. Three road losses is three cheap dings. Win one of those and it's plus plus. Two road losses = 1.4 loss, one road win = 1.3 win. About even.

Purdue is going to ding us but Illinois should lift us right back up and likely more than the Purdue ding or the road losses to Illinois.

Sweep Purdue, stay about the same. Get swept at Illinois, move up a bit.
 
There are a couple extreme examples of how RPI works.

Illinois has a schedule full of baby seals. Teams with terrible records and a lot of them. Friday morning, Illinois was RPI 27 and SOS 177. The reason their RPI was so high was b/c of wins. Lots and lots of wins. Balanced off the poor SOS and better than balanced. That worked for them.

So now, Monday morning, they are RPI 8 and SOS 150. Huge jump in both. Went on the road and swept a high RPI team. Pluses all around.

Earlier, Illinois swept Purdue at home and didn't drop in RPI. Same with all the other bad teams they played. Of course their real RPI boosts came against the few good teams they beat.

Second example is us.

Last Monday we were RPI 20, SOS 18. On Wednesday morning we were RPI 12, SOS 10. Huge jump. I went looking and, when I saw why, I knew it wouldn't stand.

Tuesday night 12 of our prior opponents went 10-2. Way out of balance. Shouldn't expect a group to do much different than their group record which, for them, is ~ .500. They crushed that and, sooner or later that should reverse and come back to norm.

Not only that but the two losses were to the group. Creighton lost to us and KSU lost to Minnesota. It was all a family affair. No points leaked out to the field.

Well it came to balance real fast. Saturday our RPI/SOS was near today's level because Friday, our prior opponents went 6-13. Bounce, bounce, and bounce back

Wednesday morning's numbers were an extreme anomaly and, frankly, I wish it hadn't happened. It created some buzz on national boards we couldn't live up to. Going from RPI 12 to 27 is an unhealthy reputation stain. Monday's 20 to Saturday's 23/24 is more easily explained.
 
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Does any RPI number other than the one on May 25 matter to the committee? Not being snarky, I truly don't know the answer. I would think the committee members would intentional not look at RPI rankings during the season for fear of creating biases.
 
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Does any RPI number other than the one on May 25 matter to the committee? Not being snarky, I truly don't know the answer. I would think the committee members would intentional not look at RPI rankings during the season for fear of creating biases.
Nope. May 25th is the right date.
 
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