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The ratings are now unbiased so there has been a jump.

It will be interesting to see if we can live up to anything close to this.

Edit (original title had not vs. now... ooops)

We can enjoy this for two more days. Our SoS is really helping us out in both the RPI and even Sagarin, although to a lesser extent. Prarie View and Centenary are gonna torpedo our SoS somewhat, although if we can blow them both out, our Sagarin rating shouldn't drop too much but our RPI is gonna go down, I bet we lose 20 places after playing Prarie View, regardless of the final score.

Start the chant...."Don't Play" "Don't Play" "Don't Play".....We need to keep that rating up there.

Since SMU has played only five Div. 1 games, there is not much info for the computers to work with. However, among the better ratings for estimating a team's power are the Sagarin Predictor (better than regular Sagarin) and the new Pomeroy Ratings. These both rank SMU at #52.

The RPI is worse than meaningless at this point, but there is a new site that estimates season-end RPI, rpiforecast.com. It is predicting a final RPI of #42 for SMU. His procedure is sound, and I would be encouraged by that number if you had played a few more games. It indicates that your schedule isn't too bad for RPI, though scheduling PV and Centenary is a mistake if you are a bubble team.

CarMichael wrote: though scheduling PV and Centenary is a mistake if you are a bubble team.

Heh, you ain't seen nothing yet!

We also have games coming up against North Carolina A&T, Texas Pan-Am and Brown

Yeah, I think if Matt had expected the team to be as decent as it apparently is, he would have scheduled more carefully to avoid those RPI-killing yawners. He may have been worried about avoiding a losing season.

Wouldn't this schedule have been in place before Doherty, or do they do them on a much shorter string than football?

Except for any home-and-home contracts and maybe the FSU tournament, most of the scheduling is done from May through July.

Substituting a slightly better class of cupcake like Sam Houston, SF Austin, TAMU-CC, NW St., SE La., UA-Little Rock for the worst losers would really help RPI, if you won those games. The SWAC generally is RPI poison because they play so many guarantee games, most teams start out around 2-8.

these computer rankings are fun to play with but the bottom line is that the top 100 or so teams will compete in the post season tourneys. We just need to hope this group is good enough to be included somewhere among that group. I think it's important to SMU's basketball future for Doherty to have immediate success and get some momentum going in recruiting

Try this link re: early bracket choices.

http://www.draftexpress.com/bracketexpress.php

MEMPHIS and SMU from the CUSA. Nice "pie in the sky" at the moment, but I can dream, can't I? SMU #12 seed vs. Marquette #5.

Please let me know when it's March 1st and our RPI is #24. This is like having bowl talk in July...not really even worth mentioning right now.

Let's beat these cupcakes. I am ready for the TCU game.

..next topic - why isn't Pearson kicking arse yet? He was one of the best players last year...