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RPI & NET

BradleyBiz said:
I think they sold a lot of season tickets (probably at a discount) with the coaching change. They have 4400 or so listed as the attendance for nearly every game, but most games only have half that number actually show up.
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That's probably most of it, but it is also Indiana in the winter in a city with not much to do...I guess that argument could be made for the cities most of the MVC teams are located in, but I think Evansville may be the worst.
 
BradleyBiz said:
Just curious - do you think MVC leadership is putting any pressure on Evansville to turn it around in basketball? They have not been competitive in years and even the women's team has been at the bottom of the conference several years recently (I understand BU women's is there this year). This year in MBB especially, UE is ranked as one of the 20 worst D1 programs and is really dragging down the entire conference (especially without LUC offsetting it with a high NET ranking).

Do you think the MVC would ever ask Evansville to leave the conference if they remain this uncompetitive in the two major revenue sports? Or is that something that just does not happen unless there are disciplinary issues or a lack of institutional control?
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I think you have to do more than be bad to run the risk of being kicked out of the league. Their men's soccer team finished 3rd in the fall, and the baseball team was picked 3rd in the pre-season poll. Granted, these sports aren't as important as basketball, but they are showing the ability to be competitive in other sports. The other thing that Evansville has to be cognizant of is not just their standing in the MVC, but also in their own city. With USI now competing at the D-I level, Evansville runs the risk of becoming even loss popular in their own town.
 
Old Coach said:
I think you have to do more than be bad to run the risk of being kicked out of the league. Their men's soccer team finished 3rd in the fall, and the baseball team was picked 3rd in the pre-season poll. Granted, these sports aren't as important as basketball, but they are showing the ability to be competitive in other sports. The other thing that Evansville has to be cognizant of is not just their standing in the MVC, but also in their own city. With USI now competing at the D-I level, Evansville runs the risk of becoming even loss popular in their own town.
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University of Southern Indiana is already looking like a better team than cross-town Evansville. It is their first season as a D1, and they are a member of the Ohio Valley Conference (USI and Lindenwood were added to replace Murray State and Belmont). It will take a couple years to recruit better players, but they have a great history in Division II (National Champion in 1995, and 4 Final Fours), and they have not embarrassed themselves this season. They are 8-8 in the Summit (15-14 overall) and tied for 6th place out of 10 teams.
OVC Standings- https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/standings/_/group/20

More impressively, they are 2-0 against the MVC (Evansville is 1-17), having easily beaten Southern Illinois in November, 71-53-
https://usiscreamingeagles.com/spor...3/southern-illinois-university/boxscore/10768

And they beat Indiana State in December, 88-85 in OT-
https://usiscreamingeagles.com/spor...-2023/indiana-state-university/boxscore/10650

They lost close games at Missouri (97-91) and at Notre Dame (82-70), and also have losses to Western Illinois, Chicago State, IPFW, SIUE, and EIU.
They are averaging a home attendance of 2,385, which is better than UIC, Valpo, and Belmont, and is better than Loyola was averaging when they joined the MVC.
 
Da Coach said:
A blogger who does NIT Bracketology-
https://thebarkingcrow.com/nit-bracketology/

He has both Drake and Bradley in the brackets. Bradley is designated as an auto-bid team (assumed to win MVC but will get an automatic NIT bid if loses tournament).
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It is nice to see Bradley in the conversation for a post season tournament appearance. That is the result of winning over 20 games before the league season is over and being in first place heading into the final week. Having played well over the entire season, makes our chances of playing well in St.Louis much better. I prefer this much more, than finishing third, fourth or fifth and hoping we get lucky over a three day period in St.Louis. Multiple seasons like this, will bring back attendance and enhance recruiting.
 
I feel that the numbers lie. The league is down compared to some years past but with the new transfer rules more teams have to rebuild every year. So it takes time to gel as a team. I think 6 or 7 teams in the MVC could win games in the NCAA tournament if given the chance. Another thing is that the formulas to rank teams have been rigged to favor power conferences.
 
With last night's win over Valpo, Bradley has moved up two spots to No. 58 in the NET. Drake, meanwhile, surged 11 spots -- from 71 to 60. Almost no separation as Championship Sunday approaches. What a game that should be! Bring the title home, Braves, and fans -- lets fill the Civic Center with red!
 
Unless some of Drake's wins moved up in the NET rankings, I feel like win #23 must carry some significance in NET. I don't know how else Drake could jump 11 spots and leapfrog so many with a win over ILSt. Interesting...
 
OhRotanes said:
Bradley's NET is now at 56. Drake dropped to 70. Really no shot at a 2 bid conference this year
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Sadly, you are most likely correct, though if we can have a BU-Drake rematch in the finals at Arch Madness, that could change, but unlikely. Let's face it, the NCAA is only interested in packing it with all the power conference teams. Blah.
 
Tommy said:
Sadly, you are most likely correct, though if we can have a BU-Drake rematch in the finals at Arch Madness, that could change, but unlikely. Let's face it, the NCAA is only interested in packing it with all the power conference teams. Blah.
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Mid-majors probably need NET in the 30s to get at-large consideration these days unfortunately. Even if the championship game in St. Louis is Drake vs Bradley rematch and Drake wins, it would be easy for the committee to just say, well Bradley has an auto-NIT bid, so go be happy with that, and no one would question it at all pretty much.
 
So Bradley's net ranking started the weekend at 54. Now it's gone up to 59 even with winning 2 games and getting to the championship. Meanwhile the rpi is down to 33 and they moved up 4 spots. Just another reason the net favors the big conferences. ESPN is showing 10 teams from the big ten in their bracket today. That's ridiculous. You can't tell me that the 10th team from the big ten is better than either drake or bradley.
 
60 today. But Drake is 64 so a win today should be worth a few spots at least.

Looks like if we win we’re a 12, maybe an 11.
 
pauly616 said:
So Bradley's net ranking started the weekend at 54. Now it's gone up to 59 even with winning 2 games and getting to the championship. Meanwhile the rpi is down to 33 and they moved up 4 spots. Just another reason the net favors the big conferences. ESPN is showing 10 teams from the big ten in their bracket today. That's ridiculous. You can't tell me that the 10th team from the big ten is better than either drake or bradley.
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Totally agree with you. Would love to see some of these teams come to Peoria to play but they won’t. Enough said…
 
pauly616 said:
You can't tell me that the 10th team from the big ten is better than either drake or bradley.
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And even if they were, they had their shot all season long as well as in their conference tournament. Such a load of crap. They continue to come up with new and creative ways to push mid-majors farther down in the rankings, and it's impossible to get a decent NET when none of the power conference teams will play you on your court and often times, at all.

I guess we have no choice but to win the conference tournament every year and start taking these chumps down one at a time in the NCAA tournament. Let's start today!
 
Bradley's NET dropped from 59 to 60 with their win over INSU, and Drake's NET rose from 67 to 64 with their win over SIU.
https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketbal...urnaments-schedules-brackets-scores-auto-bids
Unfortunately, nowhere good enough to hope for an at-large bid for either team.

And it used to be a somewhat unwritten rule for the NCAA selection people back a couple decades and more ago that teams with double-digit losses do not deserve a bid.
That "rule" was dropped a long time ago as the NCAA created RPI and then NET in an all-out effort to get more Power 6 teams in the tournament, and fewer mid-majors, so the big boys could keep more of the money and avoid those pesky upsets.
Big Ten Standings today-
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/standings/_/group/7

13 of the 14 teams have double-digit losses, and only 1 team has more than 20 wins.

For comparison, here is the MVC standings-
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/standings/_/group/18

5 of the 12 teams have more than 20 wins! And twice as many teams have fewer than double-digit losses, and SIU only reached 10 losses yesterday.
No wonder the NCAA committee has to keep re-doing their formulas to keep the mid-majors out.
 
Tommy said:
And even if they were, they had their shot all season long as well as in their conference tournament. Such a load of crap. They continue to come up with new and creative ways to push mid-majors farther down in the rankings, and it's impossible to get a decent NET when none of the power conference teams will play you on your court and often times, at all.

I guess we have no choice but to win the conference tournament every year and start taking these chumps down one at a time in the NCAA tournament. Let's start today!
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Amen Tommy!
 
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