If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

Postby Wufan » January 25th, 2017, 7:15 pm

This is good stuff, and I think it illustrates the point well, but cdizzle is correct that your numbers are flawed because each team would not have played WSU and will therefore not be as good as you project. Again, I doubt if you went to the extraordinary work of simulating games against replacement level teams each season, that the outcome would be different.

The second point I'd like to make is that the original argument was "if WSU left the conference would drop to 16". With that statement, Royalshocks questions are still legitimately at play. Would the loss of the current "marquee" program hurt the overall brand of the MVC such that the rank dropped further than the numbers by themselves would indicate? Honestly, too much conjecture here to come up with a reasonable explanation, but much better to ponder than to dismiss as off topic.
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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

Postby TheObserver » January 25th, 2017, 7:40 pm

RoyalShock wrote:That's a pretty good analysis, though I didn't read it verbatim.

The real questions are:

1. Will the MVC, sans WSU, have an at-large worthy team every year?
2. If not, will the coaching level continue to decline?
2b. If so, how that affect the ability to recruit better players to become at-large worthy?


These are the major points of the discussion. The Valley would take a pretty serious hit with their name program leaving. At that point, it doesn't matter if you're the 13th, 14th, 15th, or 16th rated conference.
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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

Postby TheObserver » January 25th, 2017, 7:43 pm

Wufan wrote:This is good stuff, and I think it illustrates the point well, but cdizzle is correct that your numbers are flawed because each team would not have played WSU and will therefore not be as good as you project. Again, I doubt if you went to the extraordinary work of simulating games against replacement level teams each season, that the outcome would be different.

The second point I'd like to make is that the original argument was "if WSU left the conference would drop to 16". With that statement, Royalshocks questions are still legitimately at play. Would the loss of the current "marquee" program hurt the overall brand of the MVC such that the rank dropped further than the numbers by themselves would indicate? Honestly, too much conjecture here to come up with a reasonable explanation, but much better to ponder than to dismiss as off topic.


Exactly. It's all speculation. That's why nobody is wrong in their opinions. redbirdgrad is very much underselling a WSU loss in the conference. Regardless, nobody knows who would be added. Nobody knows how the teams would line up. Nobody knows how the RPIs would compute. The only thing we do know is that a consistent Top 30 program with traditionally high RPIs would be leaving the conference. It would hurt.
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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

Postby Play Angry » January 25th, 2017, 8:25 pm

Interesting discussion.

There is some confusion (or maybe oversimplification, which could be parsed further) of correlation with causation regarding the decline in the conference's RPI following Creighton's departure. Below is the lazy summary of the comment:

This season (2016-17):

Creighton's RPI: 12 (.6554) (prior to tonight's thumping)
Loyola: 119 (.5296)

Last season (2015-16):

Creighton: 94 (.5433)
Loyola: 238 (.4587)

2014-15:

Creighton: 156 (.5050)
Loyola: 87 (.5406)

2013-14:

Creighton: 17 (.6237)
Loyola: 292 (.4214)


Now, let's take the lazy route and see where the MVC would have finished in RPI in each of those seasons when simply subbing Loyola's RPI with Creighton's (again, an oversimplification for the reasons stated above w/r/t scheduling impact, etc., but no way am I investing that sort of time):


This season (2016-17):

Current: 12 (.5070)
Adjusted: 11 (.5206)

Last season (2015-16):

Actual: 13 (.4974)
Adjusted: 13 (.5059)

2014-15:

Actual: 9 (.5186)
Adjusted: 9 (.5154)

2013-14:

Actual: 11 (.5084)
Adjusted: 10 (.5286)

*all numbers above taken from WarrenNolan


The biggest raw impact occurred, by far, in Loyola's inaugural season (coinciding with Doug McD's senior campaign). As you can see above, the oversimplified calculation of replacing Loyola's RPI with Creighton's results in the following:

Average Annual Difference in Conference RPI Rank: 0.5 spots
Average Annual Difference in Conference RPI Rating: .0098

Now, taking Redbirdgrad's numbers from the prior page (Average Conference rating in CU's final 4 seasons = .5284; Average Conference Rating in LUC's first 4 seasons: .5071), we can see the average difference in the MVC's RPI rating during these periods is .0213. The portion directly attributable to Loyola's RPI impact in lieu of Creighton is .0098 as noted above, which equals just 45.9% of the total average difference in the league's RPI during those seasons. In some years (2013-14), the impact is much greater. In others (2014-15), Loyola was actually a net positive vis a vis the Bluejays on the conference's overall rating.

However, the conclusion is that, while Creighton's departure impacted the league's decline in RPI significantly, the primary driver of decline was actually the cumulative deteriorating performance of the non-Loyola members of the MVC during those seasons (accounting for 54.1%, a narrow majority, of the decline).

Now, an interesting comparison for projection purposes would involve removing WSU's RPI and replacing it with the rating of projected replacements to judge net impact (again, oversimplified because of the impact on scheduling and other ancillary factors). Certain candidates (Valpo, etc.) would mitigate the loss substantially and others (UIC, etc.) would piledrive the league on a relative basis.
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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

Postby Play Angry » January 25th, 2017, 8:44 pm

Another interesting projection would involve both (i) arresting the MVC's (remaining members') trendline decline following any projected departure by WSU, and (ii) projecting that the MVC's (remaining members') trendline decline continues on a straightline basis using the 8 year sample (pre and post Loyola) in an attempt to capture "outside factors" like recruiting impact of league peers following the exodus of a leading member, etc.
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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

Postby Play Angry » January 25th, 2017, 8:53 pm

Play Angry wrote:Now, an interesting comparison for projection purposes would involve removing WSU's RPI and replacing it with the rating of projected replacements to judge net impact (again, oversimplified because of the impact on scheduling and other ancillary factors). Certain candidates (Valpo, etc.) would mitigate the loss substantially and others (UIC, etc.) would piledrive the league on a relative basis.


This was stated inarticulately.

What I intended to say is that it would be interesting to project the net impact using specific, reasonable replacement candidates ranging from Valpo, etc., on one end, and UIC, etc., on the other end, and evaluating that net impact based on the actual conference RPI ratings for a given season during the sample period (rather than using the average historical rating of that slot during the sample period, this would involve using the year by year actual conference ratings to project the net impact on conference ranking, which was the method used in the post above detailing Loyola's portion of the "blame" for the league's sucktitude following CU's departure). The numbers are surprisingly volatile on a year by year basis, and the method above would result in a significant difference.
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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

Postby LanceShock » January 25th, 2017, 9:37 pm

If WSU left, RPI is the least of any Valley team's worries that is aspiring to get an at large bid. A bigger issue, where being in the Valley has hurt WSU the last two year, is that it removes two games from the schedule against a team that (at least for now and into the foreseeable future) that can help give a team some of the good wins needed to get an at large. If you are a Valley team and something goes wrong with your nonconference schedule (ie an injury to a key player during the nonconference or opponents performing below what would have been expected), and all of a sudden you are looking at needing to win Arch Madness to go to the NCAA tournament.
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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

Postby Rambler63 » January 25th, 2017, 10:08 pm

Play Angry wrote:Last season (2015-16):

Creighton: 94 (.5433)
Loyola: 238 (.4587)

Oddly enough this was the year Loyola beat Creighton head to head, not the previous year when Loyola had the better RPI.
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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

Postby Redbirdgrad » January 25th, 2017, 10:24 pm

Cdizzle wrote:
Redbirdgrad wrote:Even though you play a team twice a year, it has a very minute impact on the final RPI of a team. Take a look at the bottom of any team on RPIforecast.com and you'll see the impact each individual team has on another. It's pretty small. So pulling a Wichita out of your schedule twice a year isn't a huge deal as long as you don't replace it with a 300 level team.

My point is that you aren't merely pulling WSU (or Creighton) out of 2 games on your schedule. You're also pulling them out of 2 games for 8 other teams you play twice on your schedule, plus at least one more in St. Louis. It directly effects either your opponents' record or your opponents'-opponents' record for 19 games each year. That can add up. I'm not arguing your conclusions. Just curious on the math you've used. It can be done, but it takes more than just running some averages.

Your example is poor, comparing Drake and Evansville, and perhaps even illustrates my point.

Drake has been consistently sucky for 8 years, and you can notice the contrast between pre and post Creighton.

Evansville was an emprically better team over more recent years, so the difference in numbers is negated by their own team improvement.

Drake was a more constant level of team, and the impact of the loss is noticeable in their numbers.


Going to have quite a few responses as I'm just now able to take a look at this. The spreadsheet I did this on is at my office though, so I'll have to answer anything specific tomorrow.

Regarding Drake and Evansville, I just grabbed two of the teams in the conference. I wasn't singling them out other than to work through examples of how those teams fared. What you're seeing with Evansville though is that internal growth of a team or program can negate the loss of a conference member. For Evansville, they were able to do it. For Drake, like you said, they weren't. This shows both sides adequately and you can still reach the conclusions we've all made.
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Re: If Wichita Left.... (RPI Talk)

Postby Redbirdgrad » January 25th, 2017, 10:38 pm

Going to address this in 2 parts. Both good points.

Wufan wrote:This is good stuff, and I think it illustrates the point well, but cdizzle is correct that your numbers are flawed because each team would not have played WSU and will therefore not be as good as you project. Again, I doubt if you went to the extraordinary work of simulating games against replacement level teams each season, that the outcome would be different.

Thanks for taking a look at it and the kind words. The numbers are overly simplistic to reach a rudimentary point that was the crux of an argument in another thread. Would the Valley fall to 16th as a result of Wichita leaving. The answer was a resounding no, which was all this analysis was proving. I'm glad others have dove deeper because it's an interesting discussion regardless of conference affiliation.

To your point, yes, each team will drop due to the "opponents record" and "opponents opponents record" part of the RPI. If you look at the "future weight" of any conference team according to rpiforecast.com, you can see that any 1 conference member is associated with roughly 4.42% of a team's RPI. Thus, Wichita's influence on ISU's RPI is 4.42%. It's slightly more when you look at opponents opponent's record in conference play, so let's use 5% as a guideline. What we really need to do is go in and remove 5% of Wichita's record, and their opponents records from all 8 years and we'll be closer to being right on the money, but even without this analysis we're within 5% of the intended result anyway, and even closer once you add in the replacement team. So yes, you're correct that you can get closer than my simplistic overview did, but the result is the same. The MVC isn't dropping too far (if at all) once Wichita leaves. But again, that's more due to the current state of the 13th-16th conferences than what the Valley has going on.

Wufan wrote:The second point I'd like to make is that the original argument was "if WSU left the conference would drop to 16". With that statement, Royalshocks questions are still legitimately at play. Would the loss of the current "marquee" program hurt the overall brand of the MVC such that the rank dropped further than the numbers by themselves would indicate? Honestly, too much conjecture here to come up with a reasonable explanation, but much better to ponder than to dismiss as off topic.


This is a tough one. The MVC has survived many name schools leaving, and it's still been able to right the ship. Would this be another example in that line, or would this be the straw that broke the camel's back? It's insanely hard to quantify this though as the replacement team comes into play, as does the ability of the other conference members to improve their athletic prowess within the current structure. Difficult one to tackle, but I don't see the MVC dropping below some of those below us, even with a loss of Wichita... do you? Success is cyclical. Without Wichita, maybe Northern Iowa or ISU runs 18-0 in conference, is able to recruit better, and becomes the next Wichita within 5 years. Then, you're not losing Wichita's numbers because UNI or ISU took it's place... so you just have to find a replacement for their average RPI instead of finding the one for WSU like we originally thought. It's a fun discussion, but not one that you can put a number on.
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