Big East vs. A-10

[warriorfan4life]

I see that St. Joe's Lunardi had 6 A-10 teams and 3 Big East teams in his latest bracket. I do not expect this to happen in the least, but it is a flat out ridiculous idea. I know there's the saying that teams earn bid, not conferences, but this fails the common sense test. The Big East is 3rd in the Pomeroy Rankings, while the A-10 is eighth. It is a little closer in the Really Poor Indicator (RPI) system, with the Big East 4th and the A-10 6th. However, simplest of all, the Big East went 8-2 against the A-10, with four of those eight wins over the projected A-10 teams in the field (and all four away on road or neutral courts).

Nova 2-0: 98-68 at St. Joe's, 73-52 over La Salle
Creighton 1-1: 83-79 at St. Joe's, 60-53 loss to George Washington (neutral)
Providence 2-1: 71-63 over La Salle (neutral), 50-49 at Rhode Island, 69-67 OT loss at UMass
St John's 1-0: 104-58 over Fordham
Marquette 1-0: 76-60 over George Washigton (neutral)
Georgetown 1-0: 84-80 over VCU (neutral)

[kneelb4zerg]

You probably noticed that Mack was throwing bombs at the A-10 tonight, said Georgetown would finish second in the A-10. He's right.

[mufan2003]

Joe Lunardi is employed by ESPN right? A common theme, ESPN.

[CaribouJim]

So you think Joe is showing favoritism towards the A-10? For all its faults, the NCAA selection committee's formula is pretty transparent and Joe follows it pretty religiously. Isn't his batting average close to 1.000?

I don't think he is going to put his reputation on the line so he can project more of his home conference teams into the NCAA. Xavier had a chance to close the deal last night though. I bet BE gets in 3-4 teams.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

This is one of the huge failings of the RPI system. In general, most top-50 RPI teams have a good shot at the tournament. Because the bottom of the A-10 is so weak (5 sub-100 teams) it allows the better teams to junk up on wins to improve their RPI. The A-10 has 6 teams in the RPI top-45 because of those wins. Those teams are all but locks because of their RPI. The Big East only has 3 such teams.

When you go to Pomeroy's rankings, I think you get a better picture. The A-10 has 4 top-50 teams in Pomeroy, whereas the Big East has 5. Our league is better. I don't think there's any real debate. But with only 10 teams, you are going to beat up on yourself a lot. If you don't knock it out in the non-con, teams are going to fall off the bubble simply because they are too close to separate.

Right now, Providence, St. John's, Georgetown, and Marquette are all on the outside looking in. Any of those teams would be fighting for the A-10 championship. This is the danger of having 10 teams with very little chaff. If getting the maximum number of bids is what's important, we should be targeting schools like Cleveland State, Richmond, Ohio...not necessarily those schools, but that caliber of competition. Get some easier wins to junk up on. Adding more high-level teams will only make it more difficult for this league to maximize their bid potential come March.

Also...I'm not saying I want those teams over St. Louis or Dayton or VCU, just that that type of team would be a better choice for more bids.

[TheSultan]

So you think Joe is showing favoritism towards the A-10? For all its faults, the NCAA selection committee's formula is pretty transparent and Joe follows it pretty religiously. Isn't his batting average close to 1.000?

I don't think he is going to put his reputation on the line so he can project more of his home conference teams into the NCAA. Xavier had a chance to close the deal last night though. I bet BE gets in 3-4 teams.


Right. Which means it isn't ESPN favoritism either.

[TheSultan]

This is one of the huge failings of the RPI system. In general, most top-50 RPI teams have a good shot at the tournament. Because the bottom of the A-10 is so weak (5 sub-100 teams) it allows the better teams to junk up on wins to improve their RPI. The A-10 has 6 teams in the RPI top-45 because of those wins. Those teams are all but locks because of their RPI. The Big East only has 3 such teams.

When you go to Pomeroy's rankings, I think you get a better picture. The A-10 has 4 top-50 teams in Pomeroy, whereas the Big East has 5. Our league is better. I don't think there's any real debate. But with only 10 teams, you are going to beat up on yourself a lot. If you don't knock it out in the non-con, teams are going to fall off the bubble simply because they are too close to separate.

Right now, Providence, St. John's, Georgetown, and Marquette are all on the outside looking in. Any of those teams would be fighting for the A-10 championship. This is the danger of having 10 teams with very little chaff. If getting the maximum number of bids is what's important, we should be targeting schools like Cleveland State, Richmond, Ohio...not necessarily those schools, but that caliber of competition. Get some easier wins to junk up on. Adding more high-level teams will only make it more difficult for this league to maximize their bid potential come March.

Also...I'm not saying I want those teams over St. Louis or Dayton or VCU, just that that type of team would be a better choice for more bids.


Interesting idea. Make your conference intentionally top heavy to get more bids.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

Interesting idea. Make your conference intentionally top heavy to get more bids.

One thing Lunardi has been pounding lately is the notion that he dislikes seeing teams with losing conference records in the tourney. Well, the reason the A-10 is getting 6 at the moment is because they have 6 teams with high RPIs and good conference records. Same goes for the AAC. Their top teams seem really great, but are they? How much are they bolstered by terrible teams at the bottom?

Having a conference of all great basketball teams is cool in concept, but there is definitely some room for failings in practice. I mentioned this on Scoop a few times before the conference was finalized, that someone's got to lose. We don't really have much of that.

[MU/Panther]

No, it's ignored. Not even in the room with the committee MT @SteveHartnett92: is conference RPI overlooked?

[mufan2003]

So you think Joe is showing favoritism towards the A-10? For all its faults, the NCAA selection committee's formula is pretty transparent and Joe follows it pretty religiously. Isn't his batting average close to 1.000?

I don't think he is going to put his reputation on the line so he can project more of his home conference teams into the NCAA. Xavier had a chance to close the deal last night though. I bet BE gets in 3-4 teams.


No. Joe Lunardi is good. Just getting tired of ESPN's schtick as it pertains to the Big East and was joking seeing Lunardi works for them. Heard it non-stop last season and thought it was over with the start of this season. Now they are doing a 30 for 30 on Selection Sunday, of all days, trying to say the Big East will never be the same when the majority of the teams that inititally made up the conference are still there. Syracuse and UCONN are losses, Louisville was never around until 2006 anyway.

[MU88]

Each year, Lunardi changes his picks at the last minute and as a result, he claims to be more accurate than others. A conspiracy nut might say he adjusts his picks after ESPN gets a look at the preliminary bracket.

In any event, the A-10 this year is a lot like the Missouri Valley a few years ago. Missouri State had an rpi of 21 one year and were left out. MSU had 3 years under 36 in the rpi and didn't make the tourney. If you look at the numbers, many of the alleged good teams have a number of losses to teams outside the top 50. In contrast, MU is 15-3 against teams outside the top 50. If MU, Providence and Georgetown win, MU could be 13-2 against teams outside the top 50 and 5-11 against the top 50. I truly believe that if MU had played 4 more games against schools in the 100-200 range, instead of SDSU, ASU, NM and OSU that they would be in the tourney. We would be 21-9 and our RPI would be in the top 50. Unfortunately, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

MU88, you are 100% right. Alternately, if we had played 4 teams in the 100-200 range instead of Grambling, New Hampshire, IUPUI, and Ball State, we would probably also be in the top-50 and be closer to in than out.

[MKE_GoldenEagleFan]

MU88, you are 100% right. Alternately, if we had played 4 teams in the 100-200 range instead of Grambling, New Hampshire, IUPUI, and Ball State, we would probably also be in the top-50 and be closer to in than out.

I completely disagree, schedule had nothing to do with us missing the tournament... Us not closing games all season did... There was more than enough quality games we had a chance in that we didn't close out on. Win 3 or 4 of those games and we are in and nobody is even questioning the schedule...

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

I completely disagree, schedule had nothing to do with us missing the tournament... Us not closing games all season did... There was more than enough quality games we had a chance in that we didn't close out on. Win 3 or 4 of those games and we are in and nobody is even questioning the schedule...

I still would be, just like I was before the season started. Had we closed out a few more games, we'd still be in, but this was a flawed schedule from day one. Marquette tried to offset tough games with cupcakes so soft they would be better called batter. That formula only works when you win the tough games.

Here's the problem with how our schedule worked out. When we played tough teams, we lost. When we played cupcakes, we lost. When your opponent's RPI is sub-300, it doesn't matter if you win or lose, you still lose because they drag you down. Play teams in the 100-200 range and you don't take a RPI hit. Honestly, I'd rather play the exempt tourney, Wisconsin, and all teams expected to be 100-200 than all the high-profile games we do. It will never happen, but it would be much better for our tourney chances come March, even in down years.

[MKE_GoldenEagleFan]

Replace all the RPI 300+ on our schedule with RPI 100 to 200 teams and we are exactly where we are now... Not in the tournament... Our issue isn't that we had bad losses, our issue is that we didn't have enough top 50 wins... We have 0 top 25 wins and only 2 top 50 wins... Replacing bottom 300 teams with better teams does nothing to solve that problem... Bottom line if they win some more against the 10 top 50 teams they lost to then we'd be in.