Anyone had a chance to see this team play? Just reading stats based on their incredibly easy schedule doesn’t tell much.
Two opponents above 250 is probably as many as a P6 team should really allow on their schedule (as much as you can control that). Having eight opponents over 250 is silly. Having those eight opponents over 290 is just plain stupid.Per realtimerpi.com, 7 of our 11 opponents so far this season have a better RPI than the best team Tech has played (and we have a #200-ranked SOS). That's insane.
Iowa 16
Drake 27
Northern Iowa 42
Alabama 73
Texas Southern 74
New Orleans 141
Wright St. 153
North Alabama 242
Southern 248
AR Pine Bluff 303
N. Dakota St. 306
The selection committee has a lot of resources at their disposal and they don't have to do the work themselves to put them together. The nitty-gritty sheet for Tech will show that the wins are a sham and the committee will know it.It's called padding your schedule with wins so it looks good come tourney time.
It's called padding your schedule with wins so it looks good come tourney time.
Given all the RPI analysis in this thread...
I think the Big 12 overall has left itself in a bad position RPI-wise, which will affect NCAA tourney bids, and may not be recoverable during the season.
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_big12_Women.html
Even Baylor, which has been ranked #1 in polls, is barely in the top 50 RPI -- that's a problem!
We are going into the Big 12 season, and given the current state of RPIs, it will be hard for teams to move up substantially in the RPI rankings only playing each other. I haven't watched this as closely in recent years, and maybe some of you know more about what's possible. But the numbers game would not seem to favor teams in the Big 12.
I recall some years ago this was the hole that the Big Ten kept digging for itself. They played a weak non conference, had bad RPIs, and always got shorted come NCAA tourney time, with some quality teams not making it in. Eventually, they turned this around, and all/most teams made a concerted effort to schedule better in the non conference. Now they have ten teams in the latest NCAA bracketology. Moreover, given their RPIs, they go into league play with opportunities to improve an already good RPI.
I'm afraid that ISU goes into league play with few opportunities to improve a subpar RPI. Last year, we had a top RPI and SOS with the preseason WNIT, etc. This year, we had the bad luck with the Thanksgiving tournament cancellation, and we probably had to take what we could get -- unexpectedly low RPI, low win opponents. But this is then made worse with the state of other Big 12 teams. While any given team cannot control the scheduling by other teams, the conference probably needs to do what the Big Ten did and get it going in the right direction.