This needs to be read

[barkeep1967]

We have a poster on SalukiTalk that offers up a rant weekly about the two national polls. It's a very informative read and nearly everybody looks forward to the weekly rambling with great anticpation.

I encourage all MVC fans to read this. It is his best work to date and I thought others should get to see it.

GORO's Rant


... because you'd barely know the #6 conference in all the land even existed if you got all your information from the polls!

Here's this week's AP poll for week #17... peruse and enjoy:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/rankings?poll=1&year=2007&week=17

Let's toss around a few numbers, and you'll see why "Hidden Valley" is so perfect a sponsor for the pollsters this week.

Taking a peek at the top 8 conferences, you'll find:

Of the five teams with 13 or more conference wins, four of those teams received votes... Creighton's the one left out.

Of the 11 teams with 12 or more conference wins, nine of those teams received votes.

Creighton and Missouri State are the two teams with nothing.

Of the 16 teams with 11 or more conference wins, 14 receive votes.

Creighton and Missouri State, zip.

Of the TWENTY-SIX teams with 10 or more conference wins, a total of twenty-three of those teams received at least one vote. Guess which three teams were shut out completely?

Creighton, Missouri State, and Bradley.


Someone please explain it to me when the media talking heads tell me that RPI doesn't matter...it's how you do in your conference, right? So what's up with the Missouri Valley not getting ANY recognition from the voters on how its teams have done in conference?

From top to bottom, we've heard from those media types that the MVC's a really strong conference, and it's much tougher this year to get those hard-earned conference wins. So when Creighton, Missouri State and Bradley are able to reach 10+ wins in this tough top-to-bottom conference, shouldn't that mean anything?

The MVC, along with the Ohio Valley and Northeast Conferences, are the only leagues in which every team has at least 5 conference wins.

It's too bad Creighton, Missouri State and Bradley couldn't have fattened up their conference marks against BCS bottom feeders like Arizona State (1-15 in conference), Cincinnati (1-13), Penn State (1-13), Colorado (2-12), Northwestern (2-12), Oregon State (3-14), Rutgers (3-12), Minnesota (3-12), South Florida (3-11), or Baylor (3-11), for example.

The MVC, along with the SEC and ACC, are the only leagues with every team having at least 11 total D-1 victories, and they're also the only three leagues with every team in the top 150 of the RPI.

I dunno.. how about let's check and see how the top eight conferences did when they played the other teams in the top 8. Maybe we'll see the MVC struggle against the other big teams...

Pac-10 20-13 .606
ACC 30-23 .566
MVC 16-13 .552
MWC 17-15 .531
Big 10 25-27 .481
Big 12 28-32 .467
Big East 25-31 .446
SEC 20-27 .426

Nope... it looks like the Valley's done quite well there, too. Also toss in the fact that the MVC played nearly all of those games either on the road or at neutral sites, and having a record over .500 is pretty darn impressive.

Gee, the Big East couldn't even muster a .500 record against the other big boys... why again would this conference be talking about a possible EIGHT teams in the Big Dance? And WHY does this team have no less than FIVE ranked teams this week? And why is Villanova still considered a safe at-large candidate despite currently sitting in a tie for ninth place, while some prognosticators feel like Creighton still needs a win or two in St. Louis, and an esteemed guy like Jerry Palm over at collegerpi.com didn't even have Creighton in his bracket this week?!?

So, if the MVC's got top-to-bottom strength with the RPI numbers, and they've got four teams with double-digit conference wins, and they've more than held their own against the other big conferences, why is the MVC being mentioned as possibly getting as few as two teams into the NCAA tourney?

Go ahead, voters... toss a few votes to Vermont, even though 19 of their 23 wins have come to teams not even in the RPI top 200...

Go ahead... reward Michigan State with 135 votes for their stellar 1-6 road record (Penn State's your ONLY road win? Please...)

... give the Irish a pat on the back and rank them #22 for scheduling EIGHTEEN home games this year, and don't forget their 2-6 road mark, which makes them twice as good as Michigan State, right?

... let's make Nevada a top 10 team, even though they don't have a single top 50 win...

...let's give Davidson 3 votes, even though they don't have a single win against the RPI top ONE HUNDRED...

...let's just forget the Valley's even there, shall we? The voters already do.

See ya Friday night at Hooters, and make sure I've got a beer in my hand to keep the rants to a minimum.

[blueness]

Great post.

I'll pass it along to the Bluejay Board.

[TheAsianSensation]

If you're going to use the argument about conference wins, you need to point out the fact that the MVC plays 2 more conference games than the BE, ACC, SEC, Big 10, and Big 12. To be fair.

In the end....they're polls. They're popularity contests. Of course the big boys are going to win the popularity contest. The only contest I care about is the Selection Committee's.

Your point is still valid, though. I just trust the Selection Committee to not fall into the same trap the voters are in.

[Mc Bulldog]

Thanks Barkeep.

[chuckywang]

Wow...that's a lot of food for thought.

As for me, I never really bought into the notion that conference strength determines (or partly determines) how many bids a conference gets. Take for example, the Big East sub .500 mark against the other top eight conferences. Why should this be a hindrance for Villanova, who is currently sitting in 9th place. Why should Villanova suffer because South Florida, Rutgers, and Cincinnati are so bad? In the end, if Villanova has the resume, then they should get in.

[Dawgbit]

If you're going to use the argument about conference wins, you need to point out the fact that the MVC plays 2 more conference games than the BE, ACC, SEC, Big 10, and Big 12. To be fair.

In the end....they're polls. They're popularity contests. Of course the big boys are going to win the popularity contest. The only contest I care about is the Selection Committee's.

Your point is still valid, though. I just trust the Selection Committee to not fall into the same trap the voters are in.

While you are at it, trust in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.

[MVC Fan]

As for me, I never really bought into the notion that conference strength determines (or partly determines) how many bids a conference gets. Take for example, the Big East sub .500 mark against the other top eight conferences. Why should this be a hindrance for Villanova, who is currently sitting in 9th place. Why should Villanova suffer because South Florida, Rutgers, and Cincinnati are so bad? In the end, if Villanova has the resume, then they should get in.

No, but the problem is a team like Villanova doesn't suffer because those teams are so bad. They're going to get 3 of their conf. wins against those teams (a better example of that actually is W.Va., which has 5 of its 8 conf. wins against the bottom weaklings). Yet if either one goes 9-7 in league or went 10-6 for sure, it's at least 66% that conf. record, combined w/1-2 big name wins, will get them into the NCAAs. Committee can say what they want, but conference record does indeed matter in the selections, and being in the BE & getting X conf. record will benefit those teams. If, say, a CAA team plays those squads, they're basically considered non-victories, but I don't think the committee is going to say WVU was really just 5-6 or 4-7 in the BE when you factor out the weaklings.

Great stuff Barkeep. It is true the polls are just a popularity contest, but I do worry about it. These committee members do see the polls, they do watch ESPN, they do hear the TV ppl hyping team X or team Y. Last yr w/the MVC was a perfect example...they were aware of all the talk about the Valley, and their reaction in the selections/seedings basically showed that they called BS on the numbers that showed 6 teams should've been in the NCAAs. :ranting:

A lot of amateur bracketologists would like to think these guys are objective robots who examine every team based on nothing but hard #s. This is what the committee has fed us for yrs and I used to believe it too, but not after last yr when they proved unequivocally that this is not true. There is plenty of emotion involved, plenty of impression from this or that (Lunardi said the other day someone said Utah State last yr got their bid pretty much because they looked good on TV in the WAC final against Nevada).

[hro]

Great read, thanks for the post.

[tampabluej]

Actually, MO State did fatten up a little on Big East bottom feeder South Florida. Other than that Barkeep is on point.

[NIT]

Some good points, but I would take serious issue with the MVC tough top to bottom statement. RPI's of all are good, but that isn't all telling.

The bottom 4

Indiana State - lost 13 of 14, any team that does this isn't tough, regardless of conference. See Cinci in the big east, they are 1-13 in conference, and can't hang their hat on a Xavier non-conf win (that's reserved for CU).

Illinois State - Best non-conf win was against a 110 RPI Miami OH, a few top 100 RPI wins in conference, but not a tough team by my definition.

Evansville - Non-conf claim to fame, beating 121 ranked Austin Pea. Two decent conf wins, but again, I wouldn't call Evansville tough.

Drake - Yeah they beat some heavy hitters from the Big 6, Iowa & Iowa St, but only beat one team in the top half of the conference. Tough team???

I would say toughER top to bottom, but tough top to bottom???? This is 40% of the conference, and I wouldn't call them close to tough, so right there everone in the conference has 8 games against lower quality teams. It shouldn't be that hard to get 10 conference games if your a tourney quality team in this conference.