RebKell's Junkie Boards

[beknighted]

This week, a look at teams and conferences.

As ever, all stats are from collegerpi.com (and thank you, Jerry Palm). In each category, I’m listing only the teams that were not in a previous category, so you won’t see Tennessee listed four times. Also, teams are in RPI order within each conference, because that was the easiest way for me to do it.

Teams in the RPI top 10

2 - SEC (Tennessee, LSU), Big East (UConn, Rutgers), ACC (North Carolina, Maryland), Big XII (Baylor, Oklahoma)
1 – Pac-10 (Stanford), Colonial (Old Dominion)

There are RPI top 10 teams in six conferences.


Teams in the RPI top 25

7 - Big East (Notre Dame, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Syracuse)
5 - Big XII (Texas A&M, Kansas State, Nebraska)
4 - ACC (Duke, Virginia)
3 - SEC (Vanderbilt)
2 - Pac-10 (Cal)
1 – Colonial, Atlantic 10 (George Washington), Conference USA (UTEP), Mountain West (Wyoming)

Going from the top 10 to the top 25 adds only three more conferences to the list. Notice that one major conference has no teams in the RPI top 25. I’d say it was shocking, but at this point in the season it isn’t really a surprise.


Teams in the RPI top 50

On this list, I’ve put the teams in the RPI top 40 in bold, as that’s a reasonable cut-off between teams that are likely to make the NCAAs and teams that might have some trouble, although this rule is not perfectly reliable and even less reliable for teams outside major conferences.

9 - Big East (DePaul, St. John’s), Big XII (Oklahoma State, Kansas, Texas, Iowa State)
5 - ACC (Georgia Tech), SEC (Georgia, Florida), Big 10 (Ohio State, Minnesota, Purdue, Penn State, Iowa)
3 - Pac-10 (Arizona State), Colonial (James Madison, Virginia Commonwealth)
2- Atlantic 10 (Xavier), Mountain West (Utah)
1 -Conference USA, Sun Belt (Western Kentucky), Missouri Valley (Illinois State), Big South (Liberty), Metro Atlantic (Marist), West Coast (Gonzaga), Southern (Chattanooga)

There are sixteen conferences on this list, seven more than on the top 25 list.


Teams in the RPI top 75

This is a little past the usual threshold for the last at large team, although the tournament committee technically looks at something around the top 100. There usually are a few at large teams between 50 and 70.

12 - Big East (Villanova, Seton Hall, Marquette)
10 - Big XII (Texas Tech), Big 10 (Michigan State, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois)
8 – ACC (Florida State, Virginia Tech, NC State), SEC (Kentucky, Auburn, Arkansas),
5 - Mountain West (TCU, BYU, New Mexico)
4 - Pac-10 (Southern California), Atlantic 10 (Temple, Dayton)
3 - Colonial
2 -Conference USA (SMU), Sun Belt (Middle Tennessee),
1 - Missouri Valley, Big South, Metro Atlantic, West Coast, Southern, America East (Hartford), Horizon (UWGB)

Only two more conferences are represented by the schools from 51 to 75. To tell you what kind of muddle there is in the Big 10, there are no teams in the RPI top 25, but only one outside the RPI top 75 (and it’s way out). The Big XII has only two teams outside the top 75.

For what it’s worth, I might add Boston College to this list as a possible team to consider for the tournament. The Eagles are at RPI 77, but are 5-2 in the ACC and have opportunities for a couple of good wins against Georgia Tech and Virginia, both at home. I suspect they need to win all the rest of their conference games that don’t involve Duke and Maryland to get a real look from the committee.

[umbeta1455]

Thanks for doing this. I enjoy reading these.

the loss to BU and a weak America East conference would make it hard for an at-large bid for Hartford.