Does anyone else think it's strange??

[jelly_81]

That as much as everyone talks about how tough WSU's early schedule was they have the worst RPI of all the Valley at large candidates. According to ESPN's drive to 65 WSU SOS is 87. While CU's is 24, MSU is 43, and Bradleys is 22. Could the Shocks be in more trouble than anticipated.

:salukis: :valley:

[Ricky Del Rio]

Someone needs to start a thread entitled, "The Official Why I Hate Wichita State Thread."

[KC Shox]

That as much as everyone talks about how tough WSU's early schedule was they have the worst RPI of all the Valley at large candidates. According to ESPN's drive to 65 WSU SOS is 87. While CU's is 24, MSU is 43, and Bradleys is 22. Could the Shocks be in more trouble than anticipated.

:salukis: :valley:

Very astute observation Caption Obvious. Did you just fall off the Yam Wagon? The Shox's SOS has been slipping for the past month. Yes we have issues. Why bother to discuss it, all we can do is just concentrate on the games at hand. We can't control how other team's perform so who cares.

[txsaluki05]

Well LSU and Syracuse were way overrated at the beginning of the season; that was the problem. LSU was at #6 and Syracuse was in the top 15, and look at their records now. Wichita is still a very good team, they just beat some really overrated programs thats all.

[WSUbballer]

That as much as everyone talks about how tough WSU's early schedule was they have the worst RPI of all the Valley at large candidates. According to ESPN's drive to 65 WSU SOS is 87. While CU's is 24, MSU is 43, and Bradleys is 22. Could the Shocks be in more trouble than anticipated.

:salukis: :valley:

Going into the year, would you have considered WSU's OOC schedule strong or weak?
WSU can't help the fact that Syracuse and more notably LSU have been sucking it up. WSU should at least be given credit that they at least went out on the road, tried as hell to schedule quality opponents, and did indeed won those games, which at the time, were against Top 15 opponents. I don't think WSU will be penaltized by the committee for these WINS.

Ask MSU fans if having a high RPI is a shoe-in for the tournament.. :doh:

Besides the neutral win against Va. Tech, what other OOC wins does SIU have to brag about?

[DawgieStyle]

Someone needs to start a thread entitled, "The Official Why I Hate Wichita State Thread."

that can be arranged.

[DawgieStyle]

Going into the year, would you have considered WSU's OOC schedule strong or weak?
WSU can't help the fact that Syracuse and more notably LSU have been sucking it up. WSU should at least be given credit that they at least went out on the road, tried as hell to schedule quality opponents, and did indeed won those games, which at the time, were against Top 15 opponents. I don't think WSU will be penaltized by the committee for these WINS.

Ask MSU fans if having a high RPI is a shoe-in for the tournament.. :doh:

Besides the neutral win against Va. Tech, what other OOC wins does SIU have to brag about?

well there is that 12-3 record in the MVC, which most of you claim to be one of the best conferences in the country, so if you think its that good, I think I'll hang my hat on that as well.

[btisu22]

Again, while it hurts WSU SOS, it isn't there fault that teams that looked good in November tanked on the Shockers. They just need to get it done now.

[rjl]

well there is that 12-3 record in the MVC, which most of you claim to be one of the best conferences in the country, so if you think its that good, I think I'll hang my hat on that as well.

OOC = Out Of Conference.

WSU still has to play MSU and CU once each, two of the higher RPI'd teams in the conference. Other teams have already played them twice.

Losing to the ISU's didn't help our RPI much either.

Regardless, if the RPI is meaningful at all, it's only meaningful at the end of the season after the conference tournaments, when all teams and all their opponents have played out their schedules.

Before the season started, you couldn't find a tougher non-con schedule in the Valley than Wichita State's. And, if several national sports outlet journalists (espn, foxsports, cbssportsiline) were to be believed, it was the hardest early schedule in the nation.

[Bird]

Before the season started, you couldn't find a tougher non-con schedule in the Valley than Wichita State's.

If you don't believe him, just ask any Shocker fan.

While others noticed the games against overrated BCS schools (although USC is having a decent season) were spread between 4 games against RPI 100+ teams, 3 games against RPI 275+ teams and DII Rockhurst.

[DawgieStyle]

OOC = Out Of Conference.

WSU still has to play MSU and CU once each, two of the higher RPI'd teams in the conference. Other teams have already played them twice.

Losing to the ISU's didn't help our RPI much either.

Regardless, if the RPI is meaningful at all, it's only meaningful at the end of the season after the conference tournaments, when all teams and all their opponents have played out their schedules.

Before the season started, you couldn't find a tougher non-con schedule in the Valley than Wichita State's. And, if several national sports outlet journalists (espn, foxsports, cbssportsiline) were to be believed, it was the hardest early schedule in the nation.

I wasn't really concerned about RPI as much as I was stating that SIU's run through the Valley has been equally or more impressive than any valley school's out of conference schedule was.

[TheAsianSensation]

WSU's non-con SoS is now 203. Oy.

They played 3 opponents at 283 or worse, and only played 3 opponents inside the top 100. Looks like WSU will get punished for scheduling bad, when they actually meant to schedule good.

One positive is all the road games. WSU can point to all those roadies and tell the committee they really tried to schedule up this year. And the committee does pay attention to those things. So, it could be a factor if WSU gets to 11-7 in conference with a weak SoS.

[bcrawf]

Looks like WSU will get punished for scheduling bad, when they actually meant to schedule good.

UNI has the same problem. It looked really good but Bucknell, Milwaukee, Iowa, and Washington all turned out to be not very good at all...

[rjl]

When you compare preseason to now, the only Valley non-con gem who lived up to their billing was Wisconsin (and maybe Indiana).

Butler didn't look like a gem, but turned into one.

The SU's, LSU's, UW's, Illinois, Xaviers, and Arkansas of the league have all seen themselves lose some luster.

Normally, that's the problem you'd find scheduling the "mid-major" flavor of the year for upcoming seasons. In this case, though, they're bigger name basketball schools that have several good seasons under their belts recently, including some #1 seeds, final fours, and national championships.

Just bad luck for the Valley, I guess, as you would NEVER have been able to predict that almost every "big name" opponent we scheduled ended up not being the RPI salvation we wanted for postseason consideration.

Hopefully, intent (as in trying to schedule tough) will still be a benefit to the Valley this year, just as it was a drawback to some BCS teams last year.

[MSNSaluki]

When you compare preseason to now, the only Valley non-con gem who lived up to their billing was Wisconsin (and maybe Indiana).

Butler didn't look like a gem, but turned into one.

The SU's, LSU's, UW's, Illinois, Xaviers, and Arkansas of the league have all seen themselves lose some luster.

Normally, that's the problem you'd find scheduling the "mid-major" flavor of the year for upcoming seasons. In this case, though, they're bigger name basketball schools that have several good seasons under their belts recently, including some #1 seeds, final fours, and national championships.

Just bad luck for the Valley, I guess, as you would NEVER have been able to predict that almost every "big name" opponent we scheduled ended up not being the RPI salvation we wanted for postseason consideration.

Hopefully, intent (as in trying to schedule tough) will still be a benefit to the Valley this year, just as it was a drawback to some BCS teams last year.

Wichita State just ran into bad luck with LSU and Syracuse and how those teams have performed this year. Same with UNI with Washington, Bucknell and UW-Milwaukee.

On the other hand, SIU got pretty lucky with Virginia Tech, which has FAR exceeded expectations, and its loss to Indiana hasn't hurt as much because the Hoosiers have FAR exceeded expectations.

Scheduling is pretty fickle.

[smacktalkermsu]

I subscribe to the chaos string........Maybe if LSU or SU would have beaten WSU their entire season would have been different......Each game is not a single entity on an island all by it's self.

Say one team exposes your weakness and it sheds light for everyone else......that can change your entire season.......if that team wouldn't have played you, maybe your weakness would have never been magnified, thus you win more games.

I believe that WSU's wins over LSU and SU were big time wins because how many times do you go on the road and win games vs. BCS schools with records above .500? Not often.....I'm sure there are very few Mid's that can say they beat a BCS team at home that has a respectable record.....WSU beat two such teams. LSU beat A&M for crying out loud....SU has beaten Marquette and Villanova.......Which proves what these two teams really lack is consistency.....because they can beat anyone, and they have proven that.

The RPI is a decent tool.....but i prefer Kenpom rankings and Sagarin ratings.......They are much closer to the truth I believe.

[WSUbballer]

well there is that 12-3 record in the MVC, which most of you claim to be one of the best conferences in the country, so if you think its that good, I think I'll hang my hat on that as well.
Dawgie, do you know what OOC means?

Ah, I see. Now, you're playing switcheroo. Before the conference season, the Valley was an overrated conference using your terms. But when SIU takes control, now it offiicially becomes the toughest conference in America. Backpeddling is a fun sport. You've mastered it well.

[MikeKennedyRulz]

Someone needs to start a thread entitled, "The Official Why I Hate Wichita State Thread."

I think that is every thread as of late. :no:

[IowaJay]

Don't you know that this is all a BCS conspiracy ? They looked at who played the MVC schools & told them to tank it for the rest of the season just to punish the MVC !!:yes:

[DaShox]

While others noticed the games against overrated BCS schools (although USC is having a decent season)

USC is #3 in the PAC-10 standings, the toughest conference in the nation.
USC nearly beat then #2 UCLA @ UCLA on 2/8/07.
USC has dropped two games to UCLA by a total of 9 points.
USC beat #8 Wichita State.
USC beat #9 Oregon in Corvallis.
USC beat #11 Arizona.
USC beat #14 Washington.
USC beat Washington (now #11?)

Decent? If beating five top 15 teams is decent and nearly knocking off the #2 team in the nation is decent....what would be good?