Silly speculation

[milldew72]

Joe Lunardi has Valpo a 15 taking on Ohio State in Louisville.

[vusupporter]

You're right, it's silly - no regular season rematches are allowed in the round of 64.

[StlVUFan]

You're right, it's silly - no regular season rematches are allowed in the round of 64.

Lending further credence to the theorem that Lunardi expends zero effort on these things -- certainly far out of proportion to the props he gets.

[milldew72]

You're right, it's silly - no regular season rematches are allowed in the round of 64.

Lending further credence to the theorem that Lunardi expends zero effort on these things -- certainly far out of proportion to the props he gets.

Couldn't agree more

[talksalot]

I see that the Warren Nolan RPI site downgraded us from a 15 to a 16 after last nights heroics!... anyway, I see a 3-14 matchup with Baylor... But I'm looking forward to the banners...I believe we can make room for 3 more in the rafters!

Ya know what's fun?  Talking about this.  it's been wayyyy tooooo long... and wait'll next year!   

[valpotx]

If we do get to the NCAA tournament, I can't see us being a 16 seed.  There are wayyyy to many lesser conference winners that will be taking those slots.

[valporun]

tx, we could wind up being a 16 seed, since we haven't been in the tourney for 8 years, and with the First Four series, that's 2 16 seed games for the lesser conferences, and depending on how many of those lesser conference champions have been in the tourney in those 8 years, could look more favorably on the other school than it would on us, plus they'll look at our tourney history as Valpo, not as Horizon League, the conference of the 2010 and 2011 National Runner-Up.

[valpotx]

But they mainly base it off of RPI as well.  I can guarantee that 8-10 of the less conferences have a champion that will have a much lower RPI than us at sub-100.

[IndyValpo]

But they mainly base it off of RPI as well.  I can guarantee that 8-10 of the less conferences have a champion that will have a much lower RPI than us at sub-100.

Right now 5 conferences have no one with a RPI as high as ours....Southland, American East, Big South, MEAC and SWAC....and then there are the usual upsets.

[FWalum]

You're right, it's silly - no regular season rematches are allowed in the round of 64.

I don't think this is cast in stone.  I think the rule is worded more like this; "The committee is, if possible, to avoid matching teams up who played previously in the year or in the previous year's tournament.".

[historyman]

You're right, it's silly - no regular season rematches are allowed in the round of 64.

I don't think this is cast in stone.  I think the rule is worded more like this; "The committee is, if possible, to avoid matching teams up who played previously in the year or in the previous year's tournament.".

Correct. If you listen to the writers that go through the mock selection draft in Indy to show them have difficult it is you hear them talk about trying to follow all the suggestions that the NCAA has given them. Most of them say that the process takes longer than you think because it is done by a group. When they try to keep teams that have played each other during the season from playing each other it gets difficult. The other one that they say always bumps into scheduling conflicts and was mentioned specifically by a writer for being a thorny issue was keeping BYU away from Sunday games when the goal of this tournament is to play as many games on the weekend when TV viewers have time off from work to see those games. The selection committee does not have an easy job at all and many teams are moved around by seed or RPI just to avoid the match-ups that are not desired.

[drewsaders11]

I think Bracketology is fairly useful for the at large teams, especially those teams right on the bubble (last four in/out).  These guys, Lunardi, etc., usually seem to get them correct for the most part, so there is some credibility to looking at bracket predictions for those spots. 

However, for 13-16, where the autobids get the seeds, it definitely depends on how many top seeds (or comparable 2 or 3 seeds) win their conference tournaments.  If Valpo wins two home games and makes the tourney while several of the lesser conferences have 4 or 5 seeds win the bid, Valpo will be moved up the board.  Last year, there were a lot of lesser seeds that won, meaning teams that would have been 14 or 15 if they won were now a 13 or 14.  This also served to water down the NIT, as there were several autobids to lesser conference winners that took away slots for more deserving teams there, pushing those teams to the CIT or CBI. 

Anyways, I agree with Joe Lunardi at this point, who has Valpo ranked as 60 amongst the at-larges/conference winners/conference leaders at this time.  Hypothetically, 56 Akron could lose the MAC, 57 Nevada could lose the WAC, etc., and we get pushed up to 54 or 55 and get a 14. 

In all honesty, a 15 seed should be expected if there aren't many upsets among those teams.  The Horizon League has a decent league rpi (14/15), but it doesn't have any teams whose rpi is above 85-ish (CSU), whereas ours is in the 90s.  The HL is very balanced ( 8 teams between 7 and 14 conf wins, and rpis between 80 and 220, with most around 110 or 120), whereas other leagues around the 13-15 seed mark have one or two good teams and several bad teams. 

Thats my opinion, and I hope we can convincingly win two games at the ARC and get up to a 21-10 D1 record, while possibly boosting the RPI a bit more and seeing some other mid-major conference 1 and 2 seeds get upset. 

[agibson]

I see that the Warren Nolan RPI site downgraded us from a 15 to a 16 after last nights heroics!...

Probably he is just using RPI.  So, this was the effect of playing a team with a really lousy RPI (Loyola).  Even if we beat them, it's at home, and their effect on strength of schedule drags us down.

The real selection committee doesn't just go by RPI.  And, from the Mock Selection media exercises, it seems that they don't talk about team RPI much, per se, in deciding where to rank a team.  It used to be hardly visible on the selection sheets: it looks like now it's a little more prominent.

Whelliston always used to argue that what was more important was the RPI of your _opponents_.  Valpo's average RPI of wins (161) and losses (145) isn't all that impressive.  We've only _played_ one top 50 team this year.  In the 51-100 category we look OK: four wins and a loss to Arizona on the road.  And, of course, we've lost eight games to teams with inferior RPI's.  Including three to the sub-200 set.  Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Going back to straight RPI for a moment.  How much can upsets reasonably help us?  We have the five conferences already mentioned as below us: SWAC, MEAC, AEast, Southland, and Big South.  They take the play-in games and one 16.  I see three others where an upset would very likely raise us up the ladder: NEC, Big Sky, Patriot.  There are other conferences where an upset would probably move us up, but an upset just doesn't seem very likely (Big West, SoCon, OVC, Belmont).  And, for the rest (Sun Belt, MAAC, MAC, Summit, CAA, Ivy, WAC, all the top-ranked conferences) we'd need not just an upset, but an upset from the number 3, or number 4 (or number 6) team.

So, from straight RPI, it's hard to see us above... 15?  And, if conference tournaments are chalky, 16 may really be possible.  Those losses in the non-conference schedule may bite us!

In terms of really looking at the whole season, not just at RPI, where should we be seeded relative to a Bucknell, a Weber State, a Montana, a Long Island, a Wagner?  I'd have to look more carefully....  Maybe Horizon League or Valpo name rec gets us a little boost - hard to say!