Today's RPI update

Perd Hapley

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Yea, I think it’s been clear in basketball and baseball that the committees are already slotting teams in before the last day or two of conference tournament games and they don’t affect much unless someone steals a bid. That or they take the illogical position that they’re not going to be swayed by one or two games compared to the whole season, which is stupid because the first two games of the season certainly count in full
I think in general you have to have some cut-off, though, and you also have to take results of conference tournament games with a grain of salt….because a lot of teams really aren’t playing for anything in those games except not getting anyone hurt. Texas A&M was arguably in that boat last night.
 
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L4Dawg

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People think the selection committee looks at conference record a LOT more than they really do. They really don't care much about that. They're looking at overall wins, losses, and schedule.
Yes, and because we are in the SEC that means that our conference record has a lot to do with how our overall record looks.
 

johnson86-1

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I think in general you have to have some cut-off, though, and you also have to take results of conference tournament games with a grain of salt….because a lot of teams really aren’t playing for anything in those games except not getting anyone hurt. Texas A&M was arguably in that boat last night.
If there needs to be a cutoff because of just time to make decisions, that makes sense. THey need to make selections and get them out so people can plan and re-examining the last four host sites or whatever because of late conference tourney games and then dealing with the shuffling of other seeds probably is too much (it does seem like you could at least take it into account for the last 4 in or so without messing up everything, but maybe even that causes too much shuffling because of geographic considerations for lower seeds).

But for the grain of salt, you have games in February where it's cold and people are rusty, you have OOC games where teams are trying out new pitchers and/or trying to work pitchers back from injury or seeing if they can handle game pressure or whatever. You have games where key players are out because of injury or whatever. You have teams that load up early OOC games in a week so they end up going deeper in their pitching staff than they would for a normal week. All those games count towards RPI so I don't know why tournament games wouldn't count in full.
 

MSUDC11-2.0

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I think in general you have to have some cut-off, though, and you also have to take results of conference tournament games with a grain of salt….because a lot of teams really aren’t playing for anything in those games except not getting anyone hurt. Texas A&M was arguably in that boat last night.
Interestingly they changed the time they announced hosts about a decade ago. They used to announce at like noon on conference championship day before those games were even played. I specifically remember them showing the host sites on the scoreboard at the Hoover Met during the 2005 and 2012 SEC title games and learning we weren’t one of them, and then we went on to win that afternoon both times.

I think around 2013 they started announcing hosts on Sunday night after all the championship games.
 

patdog

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I think in general you have to have some cut-off, though, and you also have to take results of conference tournament games with a grain of salt….because a lot of teams really aren’t playing for anything in those games except not getting anyone hurt. Texas A&M was arguably in that boat last night.
Honestly, the entire day in the SEC tournament yesterday was a joke. It's really hard to take a tournament seriously when half the teams there don't take it seriously.
 
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OG Goat Holder

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Honestly, the entire day in the SEC tournament yesterday was a joke. It's really hard to take a tournament seriously when half the teams there don't take it seriously.
Games still count. You could also say that we didn't take a lot of early season games seriously.
 

Perd Hapley

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If there needs to be a cutoff because of just time to make decisions, that makes sense. THey need to make selections and get them out so people can plan and re-examining the last four host sites or whatever because of late conference tourney games and then dealing with the shuffling of other seeds probably is too much (it does seem like you could at least take it into account for the last 4 in or so without messing up everything, but maybe even that causes too much shuffling because of geographic considerations for lower seeds).

But for the grain of salt, you have games in February where it's cold and people are rusty, you have OOC games where teams are trying out new pitchers and/or trying to work pitchers back from injury or seeing if they can handle game pressure or whatever. You have games where key players are out because of injury or whatever. You have teams that load up early OOC games in a week so they end up going deeper in their pitching staff than they would for a normal week. All those games count towards RPI so I don't know why tournament games wouldn't count in full.
But the difference is, in those early February games, priority #1 for every team in the country is still to win games. That isn’t the case in the conference tournaments, for many teams.

Its a very slippery slope for the committee to try and judge intention for players and coaches, but I know that it happens….whether it is consciously or subconsciously.
 

johnson86-1

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But the difference is, in those early February games, priority #1 for every team in the country is still to win games. That isn’t the case in the conference tournaments, for many teams.

Its a very slippery slope for the committee to try and judge intention for players and coaches, but I know that it happens….whether it is consciously or subconsciously.
I don't think that's true. Certainly you can't just concede games like you theoretically can in the tournaments, but coaches are balancing every game against developing players for conference games and figuring out roles. If you're going to discount tournament games, should you discount midweek games? At best your 4th starter is playing midweek games for power conference teams. Probably worse than 4th starter because you probably have one or more bullpen options that could start are kept in the bullpen because they are better and you want them for the weekend. Do lower conference teams ever get the best shot from power conference teams?

If you're splitting hairs to the point of actually comparing individual wins and losses between two teams, sure consider whether a big win or bad loss was early in the year, or whether they picked up an easy win against a national seed coasting in their conference tourney, or if they picked up a good win playing against a team dealing with several important players on the other team were temporarily out with an injury, or picked up a bad loss when several players on the team in question were temporarily out with an injury, but I don't think it's legitimate to just discount tourney games as a rule and not others unless there is a time constraint.
 

Perd Hapley

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I don't think that's true. Certainly you can't just concede games like you theoretically can in the tournaments, but coaches are balancing every game against developing players for conference games and figuring out roles. If you're going to discount tournament games, should you discount midweek games? At best your 4th starter is playing midweek games for power conference teams. Probably worse than 4th starter because you probably have one or more bullpen options that could start are kept in the bullpen because they are better and you want them for the weekend. Do lower conference teams ever get the best shot from power conference teams?

If you're splitting hairs to the point of actually comparing individual wins and losses between two teams, sure consider whether a big win or bad loss was early in the year, or whether they picked up an easy win against a national seed coasting in their conference tourney, or if they picked up a good win playing against a team dealing with several important players on the other team were temporarily out with an injury, or picked up a bad loss when several players on the team in question were temporarily out with an injury, but I don't think it's legitimate to just discount tourney games as a rule and not others unless there is a time constraint.
What you’re missing is that “carving out roles” is a byproduct of the coaches not yet knowing who all their best players are in specific situations, in the real games. Coaches never play worse players intentionally over better players unless they are blatantly conceding a loss (example - not wanting to burn good pitchers after getting down in a huge deficit), or they are playing in a game where they know before the first pitch is thrown that it really doesn’t matter if they win or lose - like a guaranteed national seed playing in a conference tourney game. And the coaches on the other side in any early season game are doing the same thing, and for the same reasons. So, it’s a wash.

The midweek game argument? That’s also a wash. You’re only arguing one side of it. Of course lower conference teams don’t get the best shot from the blue bloods in the midweek. But the blue bloods don’t get the best shot from the lower conference teams, either. Those lower conference teams also have weekend series, against conference foes, that require them to save pitching. And those games are far more important for them to win, no matter how much exposure they would get from being giant killers for a day.

Coaches playing marginal players early in the year, and it not working out, does not mean at all that they aren’t prioritizing winning. They still very much believe that the player in question is one of a handful in a particular role for which there was not enough separation in practice to determine who was best. So, games are then used to gather more data and carve out the long term plan. Same is true in any other sport.

And as far as if it’s legitimate to discount tourney games? I’m not saying that it is. I’m just saying that it DOES happen, right or wrong.
 
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