RPI Update

[GonzoCat]

UNI is up to 42 in the Pomeroy RPI standings. The MVC is #3 with a pretty good margin over #4 conference. Seven Valley teams in the top 53 RPI.

We are not going to drop that far playing each other and the conference will not drop below 4th place by the end of the season unless we have a disasterous Bracket Buster weekend.

[CR Panther]

Nice-here's hoping we keep building on a really nice number this early in the season.

[DWadle1983]

UNI is up to 42 in the Pomeroy RPI standings. The MVC is #3 with a pretty good margin over #4 conference. Seven Valley teams in the top 53 RPI.

We are not going to drop that far playing each other and the conference will not drop below 4th place by the end of the season unless we have a disasterous Bracket Buster weekend.

The MVC is likely to only finish ahead of one BCS conference, at most two, because of the BCS conferences having better non-conference winning percentages, but the MVC has played a slightly tougher non-conference schedule than a couple of them, like the Big 12.

[DWadle1983]

The other thing that will help MVC overcome a conference with a slightly higher non-conference winning percentage like the Big 12 is the MVC did a better job of avoiding non-conference home losses, and did better in road and neutral court games.

[Cobra 23]

Sounds horrible, but we really need ISU and Iowa to start playing a lot better as our strength of schedule looks pretty bad right now. If we were to end up around 4th-5th in the conference, we need to have a few quality wins outside of the conference and getting those teams closer to finishing in the middle of the Big 12 and Big 10 would help a lot come tournament time.

[pantherfan4ever]

Sounds horrible, but we really need ISU and Iowa to start playing a lot better as our strength of schedule looks pretty bad right now. If we were to end up around 4th-5th in the conference, we need to have a few quality wins outside of the conference and getting those teams closer to finishing in the middle of the Big 12 and Big 10 would help a lot come tournament time.

why does that sound horrible? I always root for iowa schools when they arent playing uni.. i think it is a good thing, not horrible.. after living in texas and hearing them rant about their schools and how much every other state sucks it is great to see any iowa school bring some respect to the state... always root for UNI over any other iowa school though, of course

[Panthers to the Bone]

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=163916

One step closer to the NCAA Tournament: Northern Iowa lost the head coach and several key regulars from last year's tournament team, so it figured this team would be fighting to stay among the Missouri Valley Conference elite. But the Panthers still have point guard Brooks McKowen and bigs Grant Stout and Eric Coleman, and promoting Ben Jacobson to head coach allowed them to remain comfortable in the same system. UNI opened 2-0 in the Valley, including a significant road win at Wichita State, and is 11-2 for the season.

[Deke3]

Nice find PttB. I like to read things like this...it shows other people are taking notice!

[Deke3]

Iowa's win should help some!

[DrewDog]

Up to 37th through Jan 3rd.

[ceaser150]

Mike Greenberg's site has the MVC as the #1 ranked conference and UNI at #33. Kenpom.com has the MVC at #3, only.0002 behind the ACC. UNI is #35.

[DWadle1983]

I had e-mailed Ken Pomeroy and asked, even though it was still early, what he would guess would be the MVC's final RPI rank. He said it was too early to tell, and in response to my comment that I was guessing 6th, indicated he didn't think it would go below 6th. That would mean the MVC would finish ahead of at least 1 BCS conference again. Pomeroy referred me to this website:

http://www.rpiforecast.com/

where they are attempting to predict final rankings, and they are predicting 6th, with a shot at 5th.

Notice how this has predicted the final RPI ranks for each MVC team, and it would mean that only 3, Missouri State, Southern Illinois, and Wichita State would go, and that will be at least 1 too few if the MVC finishes ahead of at least 1 BCS conference. It will be interesting to see where UNI ranks tomorrow since this system would have predicted an SIU win.

[UNIPNTHR]

kenpom has us up to 24th this morning.

http://kenpom.com/rpi.php

[DWadle1983]

kenpom has us up to 24th this morning.

http://kenpom.com/rpi.php

UNI's non-conference SOS is at 266, and Pomeroy's predictions now pick UNI to have a 11-7 MVC regular season mark with 4 of the predicted losses giving UNI between 40 and 46% chance of winning. I also see that Loyola, in spite of starting 3-1 in the Horizon, has seen its RPI drop to 88.

[UNI05Alum]

UNI is up to 42 in the Pomeroy RPI standings. The MVC is #3 with a pretty good margin over #4 conference. Seven Valley teams in the top 53 RPI.

We are not going to drop that far playing each other and the conference will not drop below 4th place by the end of the season unless we have a disasterous Bracket Buster weekend.

7 Valley teams now in the top 44! Nearly 16% of the top 44 are MVC schools..