Zips Hoops Rankings

[Dave in Green]

@HS Stripes, we are in total agreement. Win 2 at the Q and all the talk about at large bids becomes superfluous. To keep it real simple:

W2@Q

[RootforRoo44]

@HS Stripes, we are in total agreement. Win 2 at the Q and all the talk about at large bids becomes superfluous. To keep it real simple:

W2@Q

I like it.

#Win2atQ

[MDZip]

Zips have climbed to #3 in the ESPN mid-major rankings. Only Gonzaga and MTSU are ahead of us - and we beat MTSU, c'mon give us #2. The Bobkittens are #11.

[MontrealExposloveZippy]

Zips have climbed to #3 in the ESPN mid-major rankings. Only Gonzaga and MTSU are ahead of us - and we beat MTSU, c'mon give us #2. The Bobkittens are #11.

Yea, how can we not be #2?? We probably won't trump Gonzaga unless everything falls off the wagon

[akronzips71]

Zips have climbed to #3 in the ESPN mid-major rankings. Only Gonzaga and MTSU are ahead of us - and we beat MTSU, c'mon give us #2. The Bobkittens are #11.

And Creighton beat us.

[MDZip]

And Creighton beat us.

Yes, but Creighton is not directly behind Akron. I also hadn't seen this, while it is not directly applicable to this year, ESPN did a ranking of the most successful 50 programs of the last 50 years. You got included as long as you had been playing D-1 basketball for at least 15 years. The conference rankings are below (Miami didn't miss the top 50 by too much). The Zips are tied with Oregon, Lafayette and Mississippi Valley State. Can you imagine where we'd be without Keith Dambrot? And for any of you that might like a good read, I noticed the Citadel is almost at the bottom of the rankings. An excellent author by the name of Pat Conroy wrote a terrific book called "My Losing Season", about playing basketball for the Citadel.

61. Miami (Ohio)

78. Ohio

T-118. Ball State

T-121. Toledo

T-150. Bowling Green

T-164. Can't State

T-172. Akron

T-221. Western Michigan

224. Central Michigan

T-229. Eastern Michigan

T-256. Buffalo

T-267. Northern Illinois

[MDZip]

While I don't have any hope for the AP rankings, in the coaches poll, the Zips sit at #28, and numbers 21, (CSU), 22 (Pitt), 23 (Oregon), 24 (VCU) and 27 (St. Marys) all lost since the last poll. A lot of them lost to good teams (Pitt lost twice to ranked teams), so if the Zips can get past NDSU tonight, do they have a chance to crack the top 25? If we win, I'm betting we end up at #26, so tantalizingly close.

[johnnyzip84]

And for any of you that might like a good read, I noticed the Citadel is almost at the bottom of the rankings. An excellent author by the name of Pat Conroy wrote a terrific book called "My Losing Season", about playing basketball for the Citadel.

I second that! :thumb:

It's one of my favorite sports related, non-fiction books of all.

My brother went to WVU in the 70's and he used to talk about seeing all of those old Southern Conference championship trophies. Pat's account of the road games at WVU, ECU, VMI etc brought some of that home to me. It's hard to imagine WVU being affiliated with the Southern Conference these days.

[skip-zip]

@skip-zip, a Zips win in Athens would be counted as a good win as long as the Kitties cooperate by upsetting Belmont on the road and latch on to some of Belmont's RPI goodness. It's the whole body of work that counts, and a Zips win over NDSU win at the JAR would also add a little weight to the Zips' resume. No single win and no single loss gets the job done with the selection committee. It's all about the "body of work." As I've said many times, the Zips need all the stars to align on this one. The odds are against it. But as long as we expect the Zips not to ever give up trying, we shouldn't give up on the Zips' possibilities, however remote.

Dave,

First, I am not going to get into a long rant over the history of what has happened in those selection rooms. It's unpredictable, at best.

But, that would be a "body of work" comment, if someone in the selection room looked at our entire OOC slate, and stated that Akron's best OOC win was only a win over MTSU at home in overtime. Wouldn't it?

I'm merely saying that I see this as a credential that could easily get us eliminated from serious consideration. And remember, we are only having this discussion because this situation would occur because we would be adding at least one more loss to our record. That additional loss could be what seals our fate as well.

And just for the record, I think 5 losses should be good enough for us to get a chance at an at-large. I'm tired of the 12-loss teams from the "power conferences" getting those last at-large bids. I'll be yelling and screaming right along with you if we don't get a fair shake. I just think that there's enough missing from our resume for those old men in that room to give us the boot.

[Dave in Green]

@skip-zip, I've presented so much data on this issue that my fingertips have blisters. I'll just repeat one point. The Zips' best win this season was over #25 MTSU at our place. Iona's best win last season was over #49 Nevada at Iona. That lesser best win did not prevent Iona from receiving an at large bid last season. If anyone has any data that suggests that Iona had anything in their body of work last season that was better than what the Zips would have if they win out but lose the MAC tournament championship game, I don't recall anyone presenting it. But I do understand it's a long shot depending on what other teams do this season. Iona hit it just right last season with a virtually identical resume to what the Zips could have this season. But circumstances change every season.

[RowdyZip]

While I don't have any hope for the AP rankings, in the coaches poll, the Zips sit at #28, and numbers 21, (CSU), 22 (Pitt), 23 (Oregon), 24 (VCU) and 27 (St. Marys) all lost since the last poll. A lot of them lost to good teams (Pitt lost twice to ranked teams), so if the Zips can get past NDSU tonight, do they have a chance to crack the top 25? If we win, I'm betting we end up at #26, so tantalizingly close.

A lot will depend not only on the W/L of this game, but the margin. If the Zips can somehow dominate start to finish and win by 20+, I think we make both polls. A close win, and I think we still hit the coaches poll at 25. A loss...and...well...all is lost.

[Dave in Green]

Live RPI moves the Zips up to #46 following tonight's win over NDSU. This is likely to change after tomorrow's games are played, and the Zips could either move further up or drop a little depending on what other teams do.

[akronzips71]

Don't we also move up if OU wins?

[Dave in Green]

@akronzips71, yes, the biggest bump in RPI that the Zips can possibly get in the remainder of the regular season is if #73 OU beats #27 Belmont on the road, and then the Zips beat OU on the road to go along with the Zips home win over OU. That has the potential to get the Zips' RPI into the 30s. None of the other teams we play (Buffalo, Miami, Can't) will be worth more than a position or two in RPI.

[akronzips71]

@akronzips71, yes, the biggest bump in RPI that the Zips can possibly get in the remainder of the regular season is if #73 OU beats #27 Belmont on the road, and then the Zips beat OU on the road to go along with the Zips home win over OU. That has the potential to get the Zips' RPI into the 30s. None of the other teams we play (Buffalo, Miami, Can't) will be worth more than a position or two in RPI.

Thanks

I think I will petition the NCAA to award extra points for 18 game win streaks.

[akronzips71]

RealtimeRPI has us at #36

The others list us as #45 or #46

Feels good to be a solid top 50 team!

[Dave in Green]

I'm not sure how the pure RPI services come up with different numbers, as RPI is a very specific formula using specific data and should produce identical results. Of course the more sophisticated rankings such as KenPom, BPI, etc., add other factors that make them different. But every pure RPI ranking should come out the same as the next one.

Speaking of KenPom, he now has the Zips ranked #43. Impressively, the Zips' defensive performance last night caused their defensive ranking to jump from #50 to #40 overnight, while the offense remains relatively stable at #61. Earlier in the season, the Zips had a better offensive ranking but their defense was down around #100. Climbing all the way up to #40 is a good sign that Coach Dambrot has really been putting the focus on D.

[bigsix0]

That real time rpi #36 is that websites own power ranking. Real time rpi lists the zips actual rpi at 46.

[Dave in Green]

With all the RPI numbers crunched from last night's games, the Zips now sit at #35 -- easily their best ever.

[zippy5]

rpiforecast has us at 21 going into the NCAA tournament if we win out till then. I wonder what kind of seed we'd be looking at? 6-8? That would put us in the 21-32 range. This is fun.

[doublezip]

Princeton takes down Harvard tonight. Princeton's RPI was 121 and Harvard was top 100. Can Princeton get in the top 100, if they win out? Another top 100 win can't hurt.

[Dave in Green]

Princeton has already moved up to #110 on Live RPI. But Harvard is the only Ivy League win that really helps Princeton's RPI. The RPI rankings of the four Ivy League teams that Princeton has left to play are #207, #267, #280 and #314. That's not likely to get them into the top 100.

[Dave in Green]

Ha, just noticed that on a night when only eight college games are being played, the Zips' RPI rank just moved up from #35 to #34. So the Princeton win did have value for the Zips.

[Dave in Green]

With the Zips' recent problems, I haven't been paying too much attention to RPI. But the results of other games involving teams the Zips have played have moved their RPI rank back up to #51 from down around #60 after the Can't loss. The only value of RPI now will be in NCAA tournament seeding if the Zips W2@Q. Also, Ken Pomeroy has crunched the numbers on the MAC tournament, and they show the Zips having the best chance to win (45.8%), followed by OU (37.3%), Can't (10.1%) and WMU (4.7%). But, the computers do not count the problem at PG, which KenPom addresses in his analysis:

Akron’s technically the log5 favorite, but last week their starting point guard was charged with trafficking marijuana and their backup point guard has a turnover rate near 50%, so this is a fairly significant development. Obviously, the odds below do not fully take this into account. Ohio’s lone two conference losses were to a fully-loaded Zips squad, most recently in overtime. This is a WCC-style bracket containing multiple byes for the top two seeds, but it makes more sense for the MAC to play this way. Since they’ll rarely have an at-large candidate, there’s more incentive for them to send their best team on to the NCAA tournament. Of special note here is the 1-in-300,000 chance for Northern Illinois, who posted an in-conference offensive efficiency a full 0.1 points-per-possession worse than any other MAC team.

[meatwad]

I was shocked to read that Betancourt's turnover rate was near 50%?!!?

Reading through the definition of that it means essentially what you would think. The % of turnovers expected on 100 plays. Yikes. I'm sure that is skewed by early season showings and Betancourt was better against Can't. We need that down dramatically in the coming days though. No wasted possessions.