ESPN’s BPI not only ranks teams but can be used for predictive purposes, and they have daily game projections. So you can look up what they think will happen in particular games as a percentage likelihood of winning as well as point spread. Sagarin is easily used for point-spread predictions, but rpiwizard.com uses his numbers to make percentage predictions for easy comparison with BPI.
They give us a 65% chance of beating Kentucky (Sagarin has only 54%). Only 38% chance of beating Bama (42% on Sagarin). We have a 53.5% chance to beat Auburn (54% on Sagarin, so about the same). And 40% chance of beating Misery (identical to Sagarin).
Expected point spreads on BPI (Sagarin):
Beat Kentucky by 4.5 (2.1)
Lose to Bama by 3.2 (1.0)
Beat Auburn by 1 (2.0).
Lose to Misery by 2.7 (2.4).
This is pretty much in line with my thinking that we’ll win the home games and lose the road games. I am hoping we can catch one of them off kilter and win. That would boost our RPI and seeding.
As I posted last night, going 3-1 from here out with a road loss (doesn’t matter which one) would put us with about 19 RPI, compared to 17 if we run the table. Losing both road games and winning both at home would be 23 RPI. Any of those would be compatible to a top-6 seed, not that the committee will necessarily put us there.
Since this is the first year they’ve added the Quadrant component to the committee sheets, it’s kind of a mystery what role that will play. But if we run the table, we’d have 9 Quadrant 1 wins, even without considering the SECT. UNC and Kansas are the only teams I see that already have 9 Q1 wins. Virginia, Nova and Xavier (top 3 in RPI) don’t.
Win the home games, lose both the roadies, we’d go into SECT at #24, one spot higher than we are tonight (Misery somehow moved past us this afternoon). Beat UK and Bama, lose to Aubie and Misery, #25. So not a big move either way with a 2-2 finish. I also played around with the other possible 2-2 permutations; all 25. I thought the key to 24 vs 25 would be whether we beat Auburn, but not so (and remember that Aubie just suffered a key injury). Of course, then your games in St. Louis are going to affect the RPI and Quadrant information that goes to the committee, and thus the seeding we get three weeks from today.
Conversely, a 1-3 finish looks like a high-30s RPI, which could make for a nervous afternoon on the 11th if we don’t improve that in St. Looie.
The hogs will take care of business this week and get 2 wins!
I just can’t seem to understand how the pundits keep harping on the road wins and I looked today and if we beat Kentucky Tuesday both teams will be 3-6 in road games. Q-1 wins are all noted on each teams sheets wins and losses.
Apparently overall record don’t matter to much with the way Texas A&M is seeded ahead of us even though I can see they have more Q-1 wins. The Minnesota meltdown took one from us! The Houston game could have been one. The non conference schedule failed to benefit the hogs the way it first appeared in early January.
Heck LSU has as many Q-1 wins as the hogs do!
Samford was supposed to be a solid mid major. Right now they’re the worst team on the schedule.
Colorado State suspended Larry Eustachy for treating his players like crap (which seems to be his modus operandi) and then suspended the interim coach. Not sure who’s coaching them now, but they’ve been playing like a team without leadership.
Minny’s Reggie Lynch is not only off the team, he’s kicked out of school.
Kevin Ollie has an NC at UConn to his credit, but the Huskies are being investigated by the NCAA, they’re losing and he’s just about as popular with UConn fans as Bret Bielema was here last November.
At one point we thought OU would be our best win. Right now it’s pretty clear that was Tennessee, although Auburn might replace it next week.