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Broke the top 100!


akronzips71

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Nice. RPI Forecast has us at 91 if we lose 3 more as they expect (@Can't State, UB and EMU) win one, we end at 76, win 2 - 61, and win out - 49. The losses @ NIU and OU killed us. They have an RPI wizard tool to calc RPI and change game results and we'd be at 69 with those two wins. Not going to get an at-large at this point, but an RPI in the 60s might be the difference between a 15 seed and an 11 seed.

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The RPI Wizard is fun. Just for kicks I entered wins for all 30 games this season and the Zips RPI projected to #12. So even with an undefeated regular season the Zips would still rank behind where, for example, #8 Gonzaga and #9 VCU are right now. But it's interesting to see how high in RPI a team with a middle-of-the-road SOS like the Zips could rise if it ran the table during the regular season.

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The RPI Wizard is fun. Just for kicks I entered wins for all 30 games this season and the Zips RPI projected to #12. So even with an undefeated regular season the Zips would still rank behind where, for example, #8 Gonzaga and #9 VCU are right now. But it's interesting to see how high in RPI a team with a middle-of-the-road SOS like the Zips could rise if it ran the table during the regular season.

Dave,

This is something I've pointed to for years, in debates concerning our ability to raise our profile, and possibly get an NCAA at-large bid.

It's so darn near impossible to run the table. So, you have to increase RPI. We have no other choice. And since we can't change the conference schedule, we have to change the OOC schedule.

I'd be interested to see exactly where we stood after that 18 game winning streak a couple of years ago. That in itself would be so improbable to ever repeat again. Yet, it also may not have put us in At-Large position either.

Risk a few more losses, and increase the schedule strength. It's the only choice to raise our status.

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Dave,

This is something I've pointed to for years, in debates concerning our ability to raise our profile, and possibly get an NCAA at-large bid.

It's so darn near impossible to run the table. So, you have to increase RPI. We have no other choice. And since we can't change the conference schedule, we have to change the OOC schedule.

I'd be interested to see exactly where we stood after that 18 game winning streak a couple of years ago. That in itself would be so improbable to ever repeat again. Yet, it also may not have put us in At-Large position either.

Risk a few more losses, and increase the schedule strength. It's the only choice to raise our status.

I think I recall being in the 40's, and ranked in the Top 25 for a few days.

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And Buffalo is #42 right now with a 15-7 record. And Toledo was #38 after losing in the MAC tournament last season and was the highest-ranked RPI team to be excluded from the NCAA tournament. I hope no one is under the illusion that a MAC tournament loser with a high RPI might get an at-large bid from the NCAA tournament selection committee. Reality is that no MAC team can reach a high enough RPI to get an at-large bid. Ain't a gonna happen. Fuhgeddaboudit. The only benefit of a higher RPI for the MAC tournament winner would be to get a slightly higher NCAA tournament seeding, which may or may not work to the Zips advantage depending on the luck of the seeding draw.

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And Buffalo is #42 right now with a 15-7 record. And Toledo was #38 after losing in the MAC tournament last season and was the highest-ranked RPI team to be excluded from the NCAA tournament. I hope no one is under the illusion that a MAC tournament loser with a high RPI might get an at-large bid from the NCAA tournament selection committee. Reality is that no MAC team can reach a high enough RPI to get an at-large bid. Ain't a gonna happen. Fuhgeddaboudit. The only benefit of a higher RPI for the MAC tournament winner would be to get a slightly higher NCAA tournament seeding, which may or may not work to the Zips advantage depending on the luck of the seeding draw.

you took the words right out of my mouth. The NCAA is not built for a second MAC (or other mid-major conference) team. The highest seed they will allow is 13. NO WAY a MAC school will be seeded higher.

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Dave,

This is something I've pointed to for years, in debates concerning our ability to raise our profile, and possibly get an NCAA at-large bid.

It's so darn near impossible to run the table. So, you have to increase RPI. We have no other choice. And since we can't change the conference schedule, we have to change the OOC schedule.

I'd be interested to see exactly where we stood after that 18 game winning streak a couple of years ago. That in itself would be so improbable to ever repeat again. Yet, it also may not have put us in At-Large position either.

Risk a few more losses, and increase the schedule strength. It's the only choice to raise our status.

The OOC losses to MTSU and PSU really hurt. The MTSU and OU losses are particularly tough to take because they were by 1 point. NIU shouldn't have been a loss. An older / more mature version of this team probably only has three losses right now: Miami FL, NDSU, and Toledo. However, I can accept this team's performance. Top to bottom, this is the most athletic team KD has ever had yet it is still very young. There will be growing pains.

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you took the words right out of my mouth. The NCAA is not built for a second MAC (or other mid-major conference) team. The highest seed they will allow is 13. NO WAY a MAC school will be seeded higher.

Please see the 2013 zips. Or the 2008 Can't State team. Or... Oh nevermind. I bet you guys are a lot of fun at parties.
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Please see the 2013 zips. Or the 2008 Can't State team. Or... Oh nevermind. I bet you guys are a lot of fun at parties.

2013 Zips were a #12 seed, etc.

Yep, and I still think that the NCAA will not seed a MAC school higher than a 13.

the 2013 Zips won 26 games. Name another school in NCAA tournament history that won 26 games and was a 12 or lower.

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Nice. RPI Forecast has us at 91 if we lose 3 more as they expect (@Can't State, UB and EMU) win one, we end at 76, win 2 - 61, and win out - 49. The losses @ NIU and OU killed us. They have an RPI wizard tool to calc RPI and change game results and we'd be at 69 with those two wins. Not going to get an at-large at this point, but an RPI in the 60s might be the difference between a 15 seed and an 11 seed.

The lowest rated teams to get at-large bids:

- #67 USC - 2011

- #64 Marquette - 2011

- #63 NC State - 2005

- #63 Stanford - 2007

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You are too easy. ;)

Can't, 2002, #19 RPI, #10 seed, lost to Indiana in the Elite 8.

+1.

30 wins and a nice resume...and a 10 seed.

The NCAA is now formatted for the big 5. Yes, in 2002 Ken+ had a huge year and made a nice little run (that they still live off of)..... My point is, it isn't the same now. The NCAA doesn't want that anymore. Look at what they've done to football.

EDIT: I said 12 or lower...meaning 12, 13, 14, 15 or 16...guess I should have said "higher"?

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Yep, and I still think that the NCAA will not seed a MAC school higher than a 13.

the 2013 Zips won 26 games. Name another school in NCAA tournament history that won 26 games and was a 12 or lower.

I don't have the time for that list. Your argument was that the NCAA would never seed a MAC team higher than 13 and there's 2 in the past 7 years that I can think of off the top of my head.
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The problem with the Zips' big 2012-2013 winning streak was that only 3 of the 19 wins were over top 100 RPI teams (no top 50). Then the PG made a big mistake that ended his career, cost the Zips a win over Can't and created an opportunity for the NCAA tournament selection committee to say, let's see how these pretenders do against VCU's Havoc defense without a real PG. Similarly, Toledo's great RPI last season was compromised by no real signature wins and some weak losses. This season Buffalo was best positioned in RPI in the MAC, but also has no real signature wins and a not-so-sterling overall record. The only way a non-MAC-tournament winner has a chance to get a good seeding from the NCAA tournament selection committee is to put it all together -- no excuses. It can be done, but so far over the past decade every MAC team has found a way not to do it.

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+1.

30 wins and a nice resume...and a 10 seed.

The NCAA is now formatted for the big 5. Yes, in 2002 Ken+ had a huge year and made a nice little run (that they still live off of)..... My point is, it isn't the same now. The NCAA doesn't want that anymore. Look at what they've done to football.

EDIT: I said 12 or lower...meaning 12, 13, 14, 15 or 16...guess I should have said "higher"?

2012- #13 Ohio, 27 wins

- had lead in final minute at 7th ranked L'ville before losing by 5.

- won at Northern Iowa by 17pts when UNI was 10-1 with RPI of 2.

- finished December 12-1 with votes in AP poll.

- of 51 teams seeded better than Ohio only 7 had more wins.

- 7 teams with fewer wins and worse RPI were seeded better than Ohio, all were high majors.

The MAC can get an at-large bid again someday but its not going to because of the specific achievements of the next best available MAC team, its going to be because of the overall achievements of the entire conference. We're making progress but perceptions won't be changed over night.

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The MAC can get an at-large bid again someday but its not going to because of the specific achievements of the next best available MAC team, its going to be because of the overall achievements of the entire conference. We're making progress but perceptions won't be changed over night.

Overall better conference play would help raise the an individual teams RPI, because that's the only thing that matters. If a MAC team had a great season (and that includes a couple wins over ranked teams probably, but that's what every other at-large team has on their resume too), and lost in the MAC final, the MAC would get two teams in. The same things would be true for the MEAC and any other smaller conference, its just not likely to happen, especially with the schedules most play. There isn't an opportunity for those signature wins, but it's individual team performance, not a conference as a whole that matters.

Since 2002 (Can't's big run), MAC teams seeded higher than 13:

02 Can't 10

03 CMU 11

04 WMU 11

05 Ohio 11

06 Can't 12

08 Can't 9

13 Akron 12

I'll grant you most of those were a number of years ago, but the MAC has been seeded higher than 13 in more than half of the last 13 tournaments. I think one could argue the quality of the league has decreased in recent years which accounts for the lower recent seeds.

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I believe that in 2008 our arch rivals would have gotten in as an at-large but they won the auto bid anyway keeping the MAC to one bid that year.

I believe the MAC could be a multi-bid league if there were three or more teams with an RPI similar to Buffalo's this year and those teams had won-loss records somewhere around what Akron had in 2013. To me its threefold, RPI plus record plus other good RPI competition within your conference. It is much more doable in the MAC than in a league like the Ohio Valley or Atlantic Sun but still not something we are likely see with much frequency.

I miss the way it was when I was still in school, back then the MAC would more frequently get two teams in. I think there may have even been three once but I'm not certain about that.

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I believe that in 2008 our arch rivals would have gotten in as an at-large but they won the auto bid anyway keeping the MAC to one bid that year.

This at least brings me back to my point. Ken+ would have surely gotten in with a #19 RPI in 2008, and Toledo did not get in with a #38 last year.

This should tell everyone where the target needs to be. If our RPI after our 18 game win streak a couple of years ago was in the 40s, it wasn't going to be good enough. Not sure where we might have been if we could have won all of those remaining games, but again, those things are so improbable.

Although I do believe that the selection committee will give final spots in tournaments to teams that have a "name" vs. a "no name", I guess you have to be good enough so that you aren't in that discussion. Ken+ was a #9 seed in 2008. If there was some sort of conspiracy against the MAC, this would have never happened.

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To try to understand this better, let's take a quick look at the history of RPI. It was first used by the NCAA in 1981 to help in selecting and seeding teams for the NCAA tournament. It was never intended to be the most important selection criterion but just one of many tools. The NCAA has repeatedly said that the selection and seeding process is based on each team's entire body of work, including record, signature wins, bad losses, SOS, RPI and several other measurements.

The MVC as a conference made a decision to try to game the RPI system by encouraging all of its teams to play OOC schedules that produced artificially high OOC RPI. Then during conference play their RPI rankings were further magnified by playing each other. That strategy reached the height of gamesmanship in 2006 when the MVC had a ridiculous 6 teams in the top 40 RPI despite each of those teams having no fewer than 8 losses:

19. Missouri State 20-8

23. N. Iowa 21-9

24. Wichita State 23-8

27. S. Illinois 22-9

35. Bradley 20-10

40. Creighton 19-9

That was capped off when the NCAA selection committee compared those RPIs to each team's entire body of work, decided the RPIs were way inflated and famously made Missouri State the highest RPI team to ever be excluded from the NCAA tournament. The MVC went through this exercise because they were primarily a basketball conference looking to increase their prestige. Since the MAC is primarily a football conference with basketball secondary, they'd never bother try to do this with MAC teams. And since the NCAA is on to the RPI inflation scam anyway it wouldn't really help.

The bottom line here is that putting undue emphasis on RPI is a waste of time if the rest of a team's entire body of work doesn't match up. There's some value in having a higher RPI but it needs to be kept in proper perspective.

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This at least brings me back to my point. Ken+ would have surely gotten in with a #19 RPI in 2008, and Toledo did not get in with a #38 last year.

This should tell everyone where the target needs to be. If our RPI after our 18 game win streak a couple of years ago was in the 40s, it wasn't going to be good enough. Not sure where we might have been if we could have won all of those remaining games, but again, those things are so improbable.

Although I do believe that the selection committee will give final spots in tournaments to teams that have a "name" vs. a "no name", I guess you have to be good enough so that you aren't in that discussion. Ken+ was a #9 seed in 2008. If there was some sort of conspiracy against the MAC, this would have never happened.

I agree, although, even with an RPI in the 40s Akron may have had a shot due to their record and the long winning streak had gone to 21 games just before the MAC title game. I don't think its an issue of RPI alone nor record alone. I think it is some sort of hybrid between RPI, record, and perception. I wouldn't have bet on an at-large in 2013 but there at least would have been some discussion about it.

I don't think there is a big conspiracy against the MAC by the NCAA selection commitee. I just don't think they, or any of the large media hubs, research the MAC enough to know how good the conference teams may actually be. It is the NIT selection committee that drives me nuts. If any MAC school gets in at all, they are always underseeded to decrease the probability of a home game.

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