Which is better?

[willandi]

Marquette beat Connecticut tonight. Is the slight boost we might get in RPI better than moving Marquette farther down, or off, the bubble?
Seems to me that, at this point, it would be better for all the lower echelon teams to lose, the favorites to win, and RPI be da**ed.
For sure in the conference tourneys, we want as few upsets as possible. Let all the league leaders get the auto bids, and more at large for the others, like SMC after we beat them tonight and in Vegas.

[willandi]

No response, maybe posted at a bad time, so I'll try again. It's intended as a serious question.
Tonight Illinois is at Purdue (losing in the 2nd half, but still close) and Baylor is hanging tough with OK St. These two, with wins, would give us a marginal boost in RPI, but with losses may move closer to the bubble or out status.
Are we better off getting the slight boost or having the bubble teams lose and remove themselves from competition for an at large? If enough of the bubble teams lose in this next week or two, it would enhance the Zags possibility of at large. I am still expecting, and hoping that we win out and remove any doubt, but the question is inrended as a serious one.

GO ZAGS!!!

[bullzag23]

No response, maybe posted at a bad time, so I'll try again. It's intended as a serious question.
Tonight Illinois is at Purdue (losing in the 2nd half, but still close) and Baylor is hanging tough with OK St. These two, with wins, would give us a marginal boost in RPI, but with losses may move closer to the bubble or out status.
Are we better off getting the slight boost or having the bubble teams lose and remove themselves from competition for an at large? If enough of the bubble teams lose in this next week or two, it would enhance the Zags possibility of at large. I am still expecting, and hoping that we win out and remove any doubt, but the question is inrended as a serious one.

GO ZAGS!!!

At this point I don't think the RPI boost is enough for it to matter much to us so I'm hoping for the bubble competition to weed itself out over the next week and a half.

[willandi]

Kind of my thoughts too, just didn't want to hear that I was completely wrong.LOL

[NotoriousZ]

On the other hand, our "quality wins" could use all the quality that they can get. I say the more wins the better for Marquette, Xavier, Baylor, and St. Mary's (except if they meet us in the WCC final of course).

Isn't it true that the committee primarily looks at quality wins and bad losses, and doesn't even have RPI data after selecting the teams that have a shot to make it in?

[MickMick]

Upsets in conference tournaments will blow up this discussion of miniscule RPI changes in a big mushroom cloud.

[U Zig, I Zag]

I don't know if there is an East to West timeline as they decide the final 64(68) but I am all for teams we have dealt with, win or loss getting good wins and getting into the tourney ahead of selection sunday. It can only do us favors. The talk about Marq, Illi, and even Baylor has been better, as of late. That only helps us. Even WSU proving themselves at UW certainly can't hurt. Also, that was fun to watch.

[Martin Centre Mad Man]

I cringe when a bubble team picks up a marquee resume-saving win in the final weeks of the season. Virginia Tech did us no favors by beating Duke.

Baylor, OK St., Ill., Marquette, Memphis, K-State, and St. Mary's are bubble teams that don't make me cringe quite as much when they win, because the Zags have played them and it helps the Zags' profile if the Zag opponents look good at the end.

Have we really played that many games against bubble teams?

[Reborn]

I'm all for Marquette winning. I really like them, and Gonzaga played a very good game against them. In terms of who makes it into the DANCE and who doesn't, I think that the position that I take is that Gonzaga just keeps winning, one game at a time, and as they do it will not be up to the committee. I believe Gonzaga will win the WCC tournament, so I guess I don't worry so much about the bubble teams. The one game Gonzaga really needs to win is their first game in the semi's. Go Zags!!! And then it's on to the finals!!!

I do think it's better for the teams we have played to keep winning. It will help us secure that 11th seed or perhaps a 10. Every game that Marquette, Baylor, Xavier, Oklahoma St., wins only makes us look better. I also think that every game Notre Dame wins helps us because we played them so well in their gym. I would say better than most.

[lothar98zag]

I would like every single non-conf Zag opponent to win every single game they have leading up to and including selection sunday. And in addition to that every single bubble team loses every single game during the same time period. But that won't and can't happen, so just in case...



Win Vegas!

[DZ]

The only time it is worth cheering for a bubble team that we beat is if that win pushes the bubble team to the top 50 RPI. We are currently 3-6 against top 50 RPI (not bad, SMC is 1-4), so if one of our defeated opponents wins a game that puts them in the top 50, we become 4-5, two teams do, we become 5-4 and RPI wins against the top 50 are an important stat.

Unfortunately, I do not think single wins do that much to move a team up unless they were already at 50-55.

[Oregonzagnut]

Big jumps in RPI only occur in the first quarter of the season, once averages and trends get established in the data, it is very difficult to get move very far when you have ours and everyone elses SOS and W-L% pretty much established. Its related to the law of diminishing returns.

What we see now is pretty much what we get +or- a few points. And scheduling 2-3 patsies like we do, only cancelled out the reason why the WCC started doing byes in the tournament in the first place. To help avoid RPI damaging games. Then we go and schedule UCB who has a worse RPI than the team we would have played in our own first round WCC game. As a 2 seed, I believe we would have played LMU at RPI 276. Instead we played UCB at RPI 311. I understand and agree with the desire to guarantee a win on senior night though. So I am torn!!

Personally I would rather play in our own conference. But that is just me. It helps strengthen our own conference also.

[Shanachie]

And scheduling 2-3 patsies like we do, only cancelled out the reason why the WCC started doing byes in the tournament in the first place. To help avoid RPI damaging games. Then we go and schedule UCB who has a worse RPI than the team we would have played in our own first round WCC game. As a 2 seed, I believe we would have played LMU at RPI 276. Instead we played UCB at RPI 311. I understand and agree with the desire to guarantee a win on senior night though. So I am torn!!

Personally I would rather play in our own conference. But that is just me. It helps strengthen our own conference also.

The RPI thing may have been a secondary reason for the format change, but the real driver was to protect the teams that performed well in the regular season and give them the best possible chance of getting the auto bid. If you're only getting one bid, you should do everything possible to make it the team that will get the best seed and therefore have the best chance of winning a game or two.

And as for your last comment, it's not an either/or thing. Teams are allowed 29 regular season games (or 31 if they play in a pre-season tourney). Conference tournament games don't count against the limit, so the Zags would probably play the out of conference patsy anyway (though that game would likely be scheduled earlier in the year if they had to play a regular conference tournament format).