ESPN releases conference BPI rankings

[BirdsEyeView]

So how can you justify the Valley's 4-spot average drop since Creighton left? What has changed between them leaving and now? And why wouldn't it be reasonable to assume a similar drop would happen given the equal level of the two programs leaving? Again, you're either assuming WSU is replaced with a WSU/Creighton like team (which hasn't happened) or another team of the Valley is going to elevate to a WSU/Creighton type level (which also hasn't happened).

In 2012-13, Creighton's last year, the Valley was 8th. And this year the Valley is 12th. What has happened since?

1. The American Athletic Conference was created in 2013. It has occupied a place in the top 8 most years, so that accounts for one place that you describe.
2. The spots between 9th and 13th have fluctuated quite a bit, with the MVC, West Coast, Mid American, Mountain West all in or near that grouping. Depending on the year, the Summit, Colonial, and Sun Belt all making appearances in that range.
3. The MVC was 9th the year WSU and UNI made the NCAA, ISUr made the NIT, Loyola won the CBI, and Evansville won the CIT. That was less than two full years ago.
4. Things fluctuate. The Mountain West was 3rd in conference strength and the SEC was 9th (just behind the MVC) in 2012-13. Today the SEC is 5th and the Mountain West 10th. In 2014-15, the Mountain West was 13th.
5. Scheduling misjudgments and errors happen. If WSU plays only one MEAC team, if Long Beach State had two more points to beat Florida Gulf Coast, and if WSU beats Michigan State, the Shockers are probably a top 40 RPI team right now. If Drake started the season with Jeff Rutter instead of Giacoletti, maybe they're 50 spots better in the RPI and the MVC has no teams worse than 250 (which can't be said by the AAC, A10, Pac 12, or SEC).

These complaints seem like a deliberate mischaracterization. If you have no confidence in your fellow conference members, just say so. Don't cherry pick numbers to make it look like the sky is falling and no one has any agency to change it. And if you're going to claim this conference is a hopeless case compared to the awesome Mountain West or American, for instance, say why you think you would trust Tulane, South Florida, Air Force, San Jose State, and East Carolina to protect your men's basketball RPI in all the ways that Bradley, Missouri State, Loyola, and Drake let you down.

Fantastic post

[LanceShock]

So how can you justify the Valley's 4-spot average drop since Creighton left? What has changed between them leaving and now? And why wouldn't it be reasonable to assume a similar drop would happen given the equal level of the two programs leaving? Again, you're either assuming WSU is replaced with a WSU/Creighton like team (which hasn't happened) or another team of the Valley is going to elevate to a WSU/Creighton type level (which also hasn't happened).

In 2012-13, Creighton's last year, the Valley was 8th. And this year the Valley is 12th. What has happened since?

1. The American Athletic Conference was created in 2013. It has occupied a place in the top 8 most years, so that accounts for one place that you describe.
2. The spots between 9th and 13th have fluctuated quite a bit, with the MVC, West Coast, Mid American, Mountain West all in or near that grouping. Depending on the year, the Summit, Colonial, and Sun Belt all making appearances in that range.
3. The MVC was 9th the year WSU and UNI made the NCAA, ISUr made the NIT, Loyola won the CBI, and Evansville won the CIT. That was less than two full years ago.
4. Things fluctuate. The Mountain West was 3rd in conference strength and the SEC was 9th (just behind the MVC) in 2012-13. Today the SEC is 5th and the Mountain West 10th. In 2014-15, the Mountain West was 13th.
5. Scheduling misjudgments and errors happen. If WSU plays only one MEAC team, if Long Beach State had two more points to beat Florida Gulf Coast, and if WSU beats Michigan State, the Shockers are probably a top 40 RPI team right now. If Drake started the season with Jeff Rutter instead of Giacoletti, maybe they're 50 spots better in the RPI and the MVC has no teams worse than 250 (which can't be said by the AAC, A10, Pac 12, or SEC).

These complaints seem like a deliberate mischaracterization. If you have no confidence in your fellow conference members, just say so. Don't cherry pick numbers to make it look like the sky is falling and no one has any agency to change it. And if you're going to claim this conference is a hopeless case compared to the awesome Mountain West or American, for instance, say why you think you would trust Tulane, South Florida, Air Force, San Jose State, and East Carolina to protect your men's basketball RPI in all the ways that Bradley, Missouri State, Loyola, and Drake let you down.

We Shocker fans have no faith in our fellow conference members beyond faith that they will drag us down more often than not. This is the fourth season since Creighton left. During WSU's undefeated season, how many times did the talking heads criticize WSU for "not playing anybody"? Last season, FVV's injury gutted the only meaty part of the schedule for WSU since there weren't any resume building games in Valley play. This year, a combination of a young team and nonconference opponents performing below expectations again left WSU without many resume building wins. With only one other sub 100 rpi team in the conference, it means that WSU had no margin for error in the nonconference. For either WSU or IlSU this year, regular season Valley play is not providing any margin for error for a nonconference slate that did not work out as well as expected.

You are correct that WSU probably shouldn't have intentionally scheduled as many lousy teams as they did. I am not sure how much of that is due to not being able to find better teams and how much due to wanting some easier games for a young team to start the season. Part of the reason WSU fans are not happy with the Valley is the fact that Valley play leaves little to no margin of error in nonconference play.

[Redbirdgrad]

Very nice post Rambler. Hope it doesn't fall on deaf ears.

The reason we don't have to look back at averages etc. is because if you're just looking at maintaining a statistical ranking, you can literally do it by looking at just the numbers and label teams as team A, team B, etc.

I'm sorry the numbers don't work out for you "Observer" but they don't. If there's just moderate improvement in the Valley, and an average team comes in to fill Wichita's place... 12 isn't that hard of a place to hold.

[Wufan]

Very nice post Rambler. Hope it doesn't fall on deaf ears.

The reason we don't have to look back at averages etc. is because if you're just looking at maintaining a statistical ranking, you can literally do it by looking at just the numbers and label teams as team A, team B, etc.

I'm sorry the numbers don't work out for you "Observer" but they don't. If there's just moderate improvement in the Valley, and an average team comes in to fill Wichita's place... 12 isn't that hard of a place to hold.

The only data points that have been posted are a four year average before and after Creighton. The four year avearge with CU was 10 (with a pretty good outlier in there). The post CU average is 11.3 It's pretty fair to reason that w/o WSU, all things being equal, that the MVC would drop to a four year avearge of at least 12, but more likely 13 or 14 (considering the outlier year and how close the conferences are grouped between 10 and 15). If you look at the Valley RPI without WSU, I believe it has been around 14 or 15 the last four years. The math was done previously on Shockernet, but I'm going off memory and don't recall, so you can buy these numbers or not.

There is ZERO reason to believe that if WSU left that another team would step into the spotlight consistently. Absolutely, things are cyclical, but that also means that up teams drop. The five year dominance of WSU is far greater than the 6 year really good cycle that SIU had in the early 2000s. Perhaps Bradley will step back into the limelight?

Bottom line is from a conference ranking perspective, there is no reason to believe that a replacement level program will give the MVC the same level of success, nor is there any reason to believe that an MVC without WSU would have an average ranking all the way down at 16. The MVC is better with WSU in it.

[TheAsianSensation]

So many thoughts:

1) BPI is garbage and ESPN is garbage, but when it produces a metric that rates the Valley very well, ESPN and BPI are the greatest thing ever! Come on.
2) Everyone just focuses on the rank, but focus on the raw numbers as well. The difference between 8th and 12th is much smaller than the difference between 12th and 16th. Think of the conference rankings in tiers. We're in the same tier with the WCC and MWC and A-10, maybe towards the back end of that tier, but still. The next tier down....even if we lose Wichita, we'll be a half-step ahead of the Horizon/Colonial/MAAC/whoever else happens to be the flavor of the month. What would happen if we lose Wichita is we'd be a solid 11th, at the bottom of the tier we're currently in, but it'd take a lot to drop us further. To say we'd be 15th or 16th isn't a case of math, it's a case of using really, really bad math.
3) Teams get bids, not conferences. 8th doesn't mean much when every conference from 7th to 11th is kind of having a garbage year. Look at all the teams - it's scary but true. Every conference in this range is down this year. Rankings are just as much about what the other people ranked around you do as much as what you do.
4) Conference rankings as a whole are just about useless. The only thing that matters is that your conference can provide as many quality win chances to teams as possible.

[Wufan]

So many thoughts:

1) BPI is garbage and ESPN is garbage, but when it produces a metric that rates the Valley very well, ESPN and BPI are the greatest thing ever! Come on.
2) Everyone just focuses on the rank, but focus on the raw numbers as well. The difference between 8th and 12th is much smaller than the difference between 12th and 16th. Think of the conference rankings in tiers. We're in the same tier with the WCC and MWC and A-10, maybe towards the back end of that tier, but still. The next tier down....even if we lose Wichita, we'll be a half-step ahead of the Horizon/Colonial/MAAC/whoever else happens to be the flavor of the month. What would happen if we lose Wichita is we'd be a solid 11th, at the bottom of the tier we're currently in, but it'd take a lot to drop us further. To say we'd be 15th or 16th isn't a case of math, it's a case of using really, really bad math.
3) Teams get bids, not conferences. 8th doesn't mean much when every conference from 7th to 11th is kind of having a garbage year. Look at all the teams - it's scary but true. Every conference in this range is down this year. Rankings are just as much about what the other people ranked around you do as much as what you do.
4) Conference rankings as a whole are just about useless. The only thing that matters is that your conference can provide as many quality win chances to teams as possible.

Love your posts, but...aren't we already a solid 11th on the RPI over the past 4 years?

[glm38]

Interesting discussion. And pretty entertaining. To me the truth is somewhere in the middle of the two main viewpoints. Wufan is absolutely correct that losing WSU would hurt. Despite creighton's total lack of success in the ncaa tournament losing them has hurt us.

But I don't think there's any way we drop all the way to 16. Most basketball programs are at least somewhat cyclical. It doesn't appear we have a replacement for WSU now but several years down the road who can say?

WSU is enjoying a wonderful run right now that should be celebrated. And there's no doubt there is a lot of jealousy from other Valley programs. But I do agree with the idea that some WSU posters wrongly blame the conference for everything. The simple truth is that the Shox for the first time in the last 5 years or so had a very poor OOC performance. That's not an indictment of the WSU program. Really it's to be expected after losing 2 AA's and incorporating so many young and inexperienced players.

[TheAsianSensation]

So many thoughts:

1) BPI is garbage and ESPN is garbage, but when it produces a metric that rates the Valley very well, ESPN and BPI are the greatest thing ever! Come on.
2) Everyone just focuses on the rank, but focus on the raw numbers as well. The difference between 8th and 12th is much smaller than the difference between 12th and 16th. Think of the conference rankings in tiers. We're in the same tier with the WCC and MWC and A-10, maybe towards the back end of that tier, but still. The next tier down....even if we lose Wichita, we'll be a half-step ahead of the Horizon/Colonial/MAAC/whoever else happens to be the flavor of the month. What would happen if we lose Wichita is we'd be a solid 11th, at the bottom of the tier we're currently in, but it'd take a lot to drop us further. To say we'd be 15th or 16th isn't a case of math, it's a case of using really, really bad math.
3) Teams get bids, not conferences. 8th doesn't mean much when every conference from 7th to 11th is kind of having a garbage year. Look at all the teams - it's scary but true. Every conference in this range is down this year. Rankings are just as much about what the other people ranked around you do as much as what you do.
4) Conference rankings as a whole are just about useless. The only thing that matters is that your conference can provide as many quality win chances to teams as possible.

Love your posts, but...aren't we already a solid 11th on the RPI over the past 4 years?

More or less, yeah. 11th. But everyone is underestimating the distance between us and 12th. This can be highlighted by pointing out that no conference behind us can hold on to 12th place consistently. It's currently the CAA's turn to run there for a couple of years, we'll see if they can hold.

[Redbirdgrad]

Wufan I literally did the math for you on removing Wichita. I guess you missed that post? Or you're ignoring it like Shocker fans do when facts make their positions looks silly.

Asian is exactly right. The move to 16 is too much of a drop off for just removing Wichita. It doesn't work that way.

I get Wichita wanting to improve its situation for its program. Wish ISU was in the same boat. But on your way out to bash a conference and make completely erroneous statements that can't be backed makes you guys look foolish. The MVC is better with Wichita than without .. no doubt. But we aren't the 16th best conference when you guys leave. If that even happens.

[AndShock]

A quick glance of this year's RPI makes it look like the Valley is closer to 19th than it is to 10th. Maybe this year is an extreme outlier but it certainly wouldn't be an extreme outlier if WSU were gone.