S.O.S????
By Brian Semonian
RauRaur's RPI Guy
03/20/2007
RauRaur's RPI Guy
03/20/2007
Saving Our tournament Souls this year on Selection Sunday, once again, was our Strength Of Schedule. It was our Strength of Schedule that allowed us to breathe a sigh of relief Sunday afternoon, after hearing Arizona announced as the 61st team. Without a doubt, Strength of Schedule was the number one factor in allowing the second longest consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance streak to continue. This year’s schedule was an extra helping of difficult as it included 4 games against current Tourney no. 1 seeds. Three of those four contests were on the road and all of them where competitive games. With a full, healthy squad, our Wildcats were an amazing 16-6 competing against the nation’s second rated schedule. S.O.S. also stands for Sick of Sundevils complaining about their NIT birth. For all of the Sun Devil fans out there that are not able to comprehend how the Strength of Schedule is calculated, I have decided to explain. I hope Sparky takes some notes while preparing for their season next year.
A team’s Strength Of Schedule is a simple formula:
Opponent’s winning percentage (2/3) x Opponent’s Opponent’s winning percentage (1/3).
As you may recall, this formula is 2/3 of the RPI formula mentioned in my previous article. Therefore, a team’s S.O.S. is directly related to their RPI. They go together like a horse and carriage, picking up our Cats and bringing them to the Dance.
ASU had a RPI of 83 and S.O.S. of 77th. They complain about our position in the Pac-10 compared to theirs, but when you take a deeper look into their conference wins you discover that they went 2-8 versus the teams that finished ahead of them. However, now that they have been the latest team crowned by media to be slighted by the Selection Committee it has been free press. Might that lead to tougher programs scheduling a visit to Tempe soon?? They will have plenty of time to think about that while watching the dance at home.
A team’s Strength Of Schedule is a simple formula:
Opponent’s winning percentage (2/3) x Opponent’s Opponent’s winning percentage (1/3).
As you may recall, this formula is 2/3 of the RPI formula mentioned in my previous article. Therefore, a team’s S.O.S. is directly related to their RPI. They go together like a horse and carriage, picking up our Cats and bringing them to the Dance.
ASU had a RPI of 83 and S.O.S. of 77th. They complain about our position in the Pac-10 compared to theirs, but when you take a deeper look into their conference wins you discover that they went 2-8 versus the teams that finished ahead of them. However, now that they have been the latest team crowned by media to be slighted by the Selection Committee it has been free press. Might that lead to tougher programs scheduling a visit to Tempe soon?? They will have plenty of time to think about that while watching the dance at home.
