DR G. PODCASTs thread

[Deleted]

New podcast feature this season:
client.stretchinternet.com/client/lasalle.portal#


Per sports illustrated: Pittsburgh, Louisville, and La Salle have among the best schedules for managing RPI in college basketball. The theory is based on scheduling as many 20-win opponents as possible (because opponents won/loss is half of the RPI criteria) and scheduling a mix of the top teams you are capable of beating. G understands this and has demonstrated it well over his 7 years. He also describes the difficulty in getting the best RPI teams to take a chance on playing La Salle because we are no piece of cake and because our conference has a lot of .500 teams in it, rendering the A10 RPI not appealing enough for our prospective opponents. Interesting topic and I know there will be a few eyebrows raised on here to find that our schedule is so favorable to our RPI.

Here is the article referenced on the podcast:
sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/luke_winn/09/27/schedule-strength/index.html

[JoeFedorowicz]

I understand the math at play here, but it is not the type of scheduling that I like. It is gaming the system, squeezing the most out of a conservative, low-level platform that produces a good, but shallow RPI.

If I am reading it correctly, the article is not saying that Giannini is scheduling strong teams, but that he is scheduling teams that appear strong when they might not be, hence upping their own RPI number.

To be completely honest, I'd rather it be the other way. Play harder teams to beat harder teams. That said, La Salle hasn't beaten harder teams in over a decade.

As one might expect, significant gaps sometimes exist between teams' NCSOS rankings according to kenpom.com and the RPI. And therein lies the exploitable opportunity: It's possible to obtain a high NCSOS according to RPI -- which is all that really matters -- without playing a non-conference schedule that's highly difficult.

[MisterD]

If bad math is used for RPI, I'm all for exploiting that bad math. (Especially as a non-BCS that is already at a major scheduling and calculating disadvantage to start.)

[talkinbball]

Completely agree with JoeF. Plus, under this strategy, I assume the RPIs used are those from the end of the previous year not some projection for the current year whereas, at tournament selection time, tournament selections are based on current year RPIs. So teams that are at, or near the end of an "up" cycle, say Iona and Siena,may look great when they are scheduled but, when they fade, don't actually help when it matters.

[explorer88]

Nov 7, 2012 10:33:35 GMT -5 talkinbball said:

Completely agree with JoeF. Plus, under this strategy, I assume the RPIs used are those from the end of the previous year not some projection for the current year whereas, at tournament selection time, tournament selections are based on current year RPIs. So teams that are at, or near the end of an "up" cycle, say Iona and Siena,may look great when they are scheduled but, when they fade, don't actually help when it matters.

I don't think that is neccesarily true. I am positive G and I assume the other coaches who use this strategy, project if a team high in wins last year will be high in wins again the current year. So in other words, if Central Ct. wins 22 games the previous year and G wants a high win team from that conference he would try and schedule the team that he projects to be the 22 win team in that conference in that particular year.

I do agree this type of scheduling does not consider the fan factor of the more established name schools who will not win 20 + games but are far superior to the low major high win team if they played. The fan tends to lose out on seeing some of the teams play the program you root for.

[JoeFedorowicz]

I should clarify. I understand the strengths of the strategy and if what you are trying to do is purely make the NCAA tournament, it might even be the correct one.

What I do not think it does is prepare this team to be better later in the year or in the future. If all you do is play the Delaware and Riders of the world, you are never going to be able to play with the big boys.

~Joe Fedorowicz

[luhoopsfan]

The other challenge he has in scheduling is that playing the "Big Boys" is difficult because his philosophy is that he won't do anything other than a home-and-home and those are really tough to get. Having that tournament fall through in Vegas really hurt the schedule and obviously wasn't planned. If that one had come through there would have been 2 of the upper BCS teams available.
I think his logic is that playing a .500 BCS team is actually worse than playing Bucknell strictly from an RPI standpoint for 2 reasons. 1- there's a decent chance you lose, which obviously doesn't help and 2- even if you win, the help on the RPI isn't nearly as good if you beat a 15-win BCS team as if you beat a 23-win Bucknell. and in either case, the loss is worse with the BCS game
I for one would very much like to play a lot more "name" teams and agree that playing the tougher teams helps prepare your team better but you can't play those games at a cost of hurting your RPI too much or not getting anything in return in subsequent years.
The perfect schedule was the year that everyone got hurt but it was the benefit of being in a good tournament and being able to schedule a home-home with OK State and getting the unique offer to play kansas on a "neutral" court. Other than Kansas, UCLA, UNC, Duke I don't see many programs worth playing only 1 time outside of a tournament setting
Would love to hear if next year's schedule has some good matchups on it, seems like there's always a couple guys that know what we're in line for a little earlier than the rest.

[Deleted]

Nov 7, 2012 17:14:07 GMT -5 luhoopsfan said:

The other challenge he has in scheduling is that playing the "Big Boys" is difficult because his philosophy is that he won't do anything other than a home-and-home and those are really tough to get. Having that tournament fall through in Vegas really hurt the schedule and obviously wasn't planned. If that one had come through there would have been 2 of the upper BCS teams available.
I think his logic is that playing a .500 BCS team is actually worse than playing Bucknell strictly from an RPI standpoint for 2 reasons. 1- there's a decent chance you lose, which obviously doesn't help and 2- even if you win, the help on the RPI isn't nearly as good if you beat a 15-win BCS team as if you beat a 23-win Bucknell. and in either case, the loss is worse with the BCS game
I for one would very much like to play a lot more "name" teams and agree that playing the tougher teams helps prepare your team better but you can't play those games at a cost of hurting your RPI too much or not getting anything in return in subsequent years.
The perfect schedule was the year that everyone got hurt but it was the benefit of being in a good tournament and being able to schedule a home-home with OK State and getting the unique offer to play kansas on a "neutral" court. Other than Kansas, UCLA, UNC, Duke I don't see many programs worth playing only 1 time outside of a tournament setting
Would love to hear if next year's schedule has some good matchups on it, seems like there's always a couple guys that know what we're in line for a little earlier than the rest.

What he said ^^

It looks like there are 3 OOC games left to schedule for the 2013-14 season. Heard that there is a good possibility that the team will be playing in a 3 game exempt tournament in November at a tropical location.

These other games are confirmed as far as I know:

Home: Temple, Siena, Hartford
Away: Villanova, Miami, Penn State, Penn, Iona
Neutral: 3 game exempt tournament