FBCB Question: Strength Of Schedule

[Ben E Lou]

When you become a national power (my prestige is around 80), how many games are you playing against Top 50 teams?

 Savannah State  2057 Season Info

 Current Performance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Team Prestige: 80                      Record Vs 1-50: 6-10
 Season Record: 25-10                   Record Vs 51-100: 5-0
 Conference Record: 12-2                Record Vs 101-200: 9-0
 Home Record: 12-3                      Record Vs 200+: 5-0
 Current Poll Rank: 18                  Current RPI Rank: 11

 Stat Rankings:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Points:          75.2         National Rank: 63     Conference Rank: 1   
 Points Allowed:  66.6         National Rank: 45     Conference Rank: 4   
 Rebounds:        36.0         National Rank: 209    Conference Rank: 7   
 Assists:         18.1         National Rank: 12     Conference Rank: 1   
 Steals:          6.9          National Rank: 181    Conference Rank: 6   
 Blocks:          4.1          National Rank: 62     Conference Rank: 2   
 Turnovers:       11.0         National Rank: 5      Conference Rank: 1   
 Fouls:           17.9         National Rank: 34     Conference Rank: 3   
 FG%:            .459          National Rank: 16     Conference Rank: 1   
 FT%:            .685          National Rank: 111    Conference Rank: 5   
 3P%:            .364          National Rank: 80     Conference Rank: 3   

Is 16 too many, not enough, or just right?

[SirFozzie]

wow.. depends on the conference really.. I think Gonzaga only played 4 games against top 50 RPI teams

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

wow.. depends on the conference really.. I think Gonzaga only played 4 games against top 50 RPI teams

I'm in the Sun Belt Conference. I didn't do a team-by-team check, but I'm thinking that at least 10-12 of the top 50's were non-conference games.

[SirFozzie]

then I think you're really top loading your non-conference schedule

[Barkeep49]

It seems to me like your SoS is much higher than it needs to be for the non-conference matchups but I also am not as successful in the game as you are so perhaps what I know doesn't count for much

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

It seems to me like your SoS is much higher than it needs to be for the non-conference matchups but I also am not as successful in the game as you are so perhaps what I know doesn't count for much

Yeah, but I went 6-10 against Top 50 teams. I guess my question is, is it better to go 6-10 against Top 50's and 19-0 otherwise, or 2-4 against Top 50's and win 25-30 against less teams? I haven't followed college basketball closely enough to know what goes into RPI. Would I do better to strike more of a balance in my scheduling?

[digamma]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Yeah, but I went 6-10 against Top 50 teams. I guess my question is, is it better to go 6-10 against Top 50's and 19-0 otherwise, or 2-4 against Top 50's and win 25-30 against less teams? I haven't followed college basketball closely enough to know what goes into RPI. Would I do better to strike more of a balance in my scheduling?

In real life, RPI is a formula that multiplies your winning percentage by the winning percentage of your opponents by the winning percentage of your opponents' opponents (plus a mystery x factor the selection committee uses, but most people discount the x factor completely). I want to say your winning percentage counts 1/4, opp. winning percentage counts 1/2 and opp. opp. winning percentage counts 1/4, but I may have the last two backwards. So it is a balance more wins against lesser competition will have some positive effect on your RPI, but not likely enough to offset the negative of playing teams with worse records.

This is relevant to real life. I haven't read the manual to know if how much the game mirrors this system.

[corbes]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Yeah, but I went 6-10 against Top 50 teams. I guess my question is, is it better to go 6-10 against Top 50's and 19-0 otherwise, or 2-4 against Top 50's and win 25-30 against less teams? I haven't followed college basketball closely enough to know what goes into RPI. Would I do better to strike more of a balance in my scheduling?

In real life, there's two schools of thought. On one hand, there's the Michigan State/Temple approach, which is to play anyone, anytime, anywhere. Then there's the NC State approach, heh, which is to play cupcakes.

I think the ideal mix for RPI is somewhere in between. You want a good strength of schedule, obviously. But you also want wins.

One thing that factors into strength of schedule, I believe, is your opponents strength of schedule. For example, this year, Clemson had a very high strength of schedule because of their ACC schedule, which involved 12 games against top-25 teams.

So, I think you could look to focus on good teams from good conferences. I don't think that playing a top team from a weak conference is a good idea. This reason is why no one wants to schedule games with top mid-major teams (like Creighton, Butler, etc...)

[Barkeep49]

I have noticed, FWIW, that the Poll cares most about wins. If you win a lot of games against cupcakes you'll do better in the poll then if you lose some close games against good teams.

[Wolfpack]

NC State plays cupcakes? Boston College, BYU, FAMU, South Carolina, and Washington all made the tourney field this year and Michigan reached the semis of the NIT last night. Sure there were creampuffs, but every school has those. It might've been true in past years but not this year.

[dixieflatline]

Skydog,

I can't run any numbers for your team because the SOS isn't listed in your team report but I can run some numbers for a real life team. Michigan state was mentioned as playing a hard nonconference schedule and one of those games was a blow out loss to Duke at home. Let's say that instead of playing Duke they played(and beat) a team with the opposite record(5-29) that had the same opponents as Duke(so the second order opponents opponents are not factored in)

MSU's RPI is .5826 good for 39th in the nation. Their SOS was 26th in the nation or 0.5769. Their record was 18-12.

Had they played and beat the 5-29 team their SOS goes down to .5519 but their record goes up to 19-11. Their RPI still goes down to .5677 which drops them to 58th in the nation.

In fact, even beating a team with a .500 record still slightly hurts their RPI and they would have dropped to 40th in the nation or .5802.

The moral of the story. Don't be afraid to play and lose to good teams. Huge reward just playing the game and not a big drop if you lose. As long as you can take the hit in the polls that teams like MSU and alabama did.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by dixieflatline

Skydog,

I can't run any numbers for your team because the SOS isn't listed in your team report but I can run some numbers for a real life team. Michigan state was mentioned as playing a hard nonconference schedule and one of those games was a blow out loss to Duke at home. Let's say that instead of playing Duke they played(and beat) a team with the opposite record(5-29) that had the same opponents as Duke(so the second order opponents opponents are not factored in)

MSU's RPI is .5826 good for 39th in the nation. Their SOS was 26th in the nation or 0.5769. Their record was 18-12.

Had they played and beat the 5-29 team their SOS goes down to .5519 but their record goes up to 19-11. Their RPI still goes down to .5677 which drops them to 58th in the nation.

In fact, even beating a team with a .500 record still slightly hurts their RPI and they would have dropped to 40th in the nation or .5802.

The moral of the story. Don't be afraid to play and lose to good teams. Huge reward just playing the game and not a big drop if you lose. As long as you can take the hit in the polls that teams like MSU and alabama did.

Thanks for the info!

[kingnebwsu]

Wow, yet more proof that all you need to do to dance is finish above .500 in a power conference and lose to a bunch of good teams.

Michigan State pisses me off this year