UMass87

I assigned points to teams for their performance over the past ten seasons (less for SLU and Charlotte) to see what impact the team has had on the A10. Points (each season) were assigned as follows:


18-19 wins 2
20-24 wins 6
25+ wins 10

NCAA bid 5
Sweet 16 10
Elite 8 20
Final Four 40

NIT bid 2
NIT Finalist 2
NIT Champion 5

18-19 losses -4
20-24 losses -10
25+ losses -16

NCAA first round loss to lower seed -3

The win total is after all tournaments. No points are awarded for the CBI since I don't think playing in the CBI does any benefit to the conference.

Over the past ten seasons - here are the point totals:

Xavier 203
Dayton 83
Temple 73
SJU 58
Richmond 56
SLU 35
URI 32
GW 27
UMass 12
Charlotte -6
Duquesne -16
La Salle -20
SBU -55
Fordham -64

Muddy Waters

Thank you very much UMass87.



I bet your post surprizes a lot of the Dayton-haters who post here.

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UMass87

Probably not since they are all Xavier fans and they will be too busy gloating over their significantly greater contribution to the conference.

Knobby

Interesting info but wher/how did you come up with the points? It seems very arbitrary...

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Well, we were smaller, but at least we were slower!

UMass87

It was completely arbitrary.

I can change the point values easily if you want to see what happens. I can't easily change the win/loss groupings (the points are in a spreadsheet cell but the win and loss totals are not).

My thinking was that lots of wins help other teams in the conference and lots of losses hurt other teams in the conference. Losses were weighted higher because the impact of the losses is a greater negative (in part because the win total is inflated by tournament success). Tournament success is weighted most because it brings the most positive notoriety to the conferences (and money). The NIT doesn't do much for the conference so is significantly lower weighted than the NCAA.

Knobby

Not complaining, just wondering.... LaSalle is the biggest surprise to me - I thought they would be a lot lower since the have only been to the NIT once (and lost in the first round), and have pretty much sucked most other years as well...

Temple gets killed by the early NCAA exits....

Dayton doesn't surprise me - lots of NITs and they have won a lot of regular season games.

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Well, we were smaller, but at least we were slower!

BU04

As a Butler fan this is a nice ranking system for me to get to know the league better. I am excited to see how Butler will stack up against what has been and is going to be a great league. I took your calculation and applied it to Butler over the last 10 years to see how it stacks up. I realize this is not an exact science because the win totals are inflated by playing in the Horizon. The other thing I did not count into the calculation because it was not offered was National Finalists the points only go as high as Final Four. So Butlers number basically NOT counting the 2 national championship game appearances is 184.

As I said I am really excited to have the opportunity to see A-10 teams come to Hinkle Fieldhouse. Seems to me this is a great move for Butler and hopefully the A-10 as a whole.

UMass87

BU04 - I put the Final Four value in specifically for Butler and VCU fans (and I would have given 80 for a NC appearance) so that they could see, independent of their former league performance, where they would stack up.

Mostly, the rankings are a decent reflection of the past decade. The one exception might be SBU which has a miserable five year stretch which will start rolling off their ten year average next year. Historically, SBU has been more mediocre than terrible. Fordham is the only team that has been flat out terrible - always.

ace93

I think *almost* always is more accurate, but that might be splitting hairs. We did have 1 season where we finished tied for 4th and another in which we made the conference semi-finals. That's certainly nothing to brag about, but it does not constitute always. That's all neither here nor there though b/c our number is horribly bad no matter what. I'd hate to be the one team to lose to that flat out terrible team though.

As for the numbers, no way is an NIT finalist just about as valuable as an NCAA bid. An NIT champion is not better either. And if you are going to give the NIT champ more points than the NCAA bid, then assigning at least one point for the CBI would follow the same logic. More chance for wins, minimal, but some exposure.

The point deduction for a loss to a lower seed is understandable, but that means that an NCAA bid can garner you less points than a NIT finalist and that seems off to me.

Bona Wolf for Pope

This is why I didn't bring up the question about point values...because even with them changed, Bona's is still way down because of 03-08. As a point of comparison, if you use the last five years, and the five years immediately before 2002-2003, SBU has 26 points. More respectable, and I think more indicative of where we are (and will be) as a program (though the next couple years will say a lot about if we return to 16-15 type seasons or if we can take a step up). I know a lot of schools would like to forget about 5 year stretches of their history, but hopefully the reasons for thinking about this as a very special exemption are justified (and I'm very happy that it was only 5 years, and not 10 or 20).

There are two different ways, it would seem, of determining value to the conference: Xavier fans will say it's about NCAA units and making S16 runs and Dayton fans will say it's about consistently winning 22 games (and a LaSalle fan will say it's about not losing 20 games in consecutive seasons). The way the numbers are here, your system seems to slightly favor the win a lot in the regular season camp, with Dayton being second. Having said that, I don't have a better suggestion and would probably put Dayton in the top five over this last ten year stretch in a subjective list.

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UMass87

Ace93 - my thinking was that if a team does well in the CBI then it is reflected in their win total and they get points for it. The CBI gives the conference ZERO positive recognition. It is widely considered a joke of a tournament and its only value is to give young teams tournament experience. The same is true but to a lesser degree for the NIT but there is a bonus for the NIT because the NIT finals actually get some press and the teams get some recognition which is good for the conference. IMO NIT finalists do more positive for the conference than does a NCAA team that loses in the first round. First round losses make leagues look overrated.

I probably should not have said "always terrible". The fact is that in four of the ten years Fordham was mediocre. My perception is colored by all the prior years. UMass had four negative years in ten and was mediocre in six. The four bad UMass years were not, however, nearly as bad as Fordham's and the mediocre UMass years were much better than Fordham's.

UMass87

Bona Wolf - my system definitely does reward winning a lot of regular season games (and is even more punishing for a lot of regular season losses) because those wins and losses are the drivers of the RPI and almost every other rating that people look at (and, what people lok at is important because it drives perception of the conference). Dayton is unquestionably a big positive to A10 teams on the bubble - Dayton's wins help keep that bubble team's chances up. Conversely, Fordham is almost always bad for A10 teams on the bubble.

Bona Wolf for Pope

It also doubly rewards teams because of their wins in the postseason...the Bonnies were a 17 win team before the A-10 tourney this year, and I'm sure a couple of Dayton's 20+ win seasons were augmented by the conference and NIT tournaments. Not that I'm begrudging this...I go to games to see a win.

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AdamtheFlyer

Taking away points for a first round NCAA loss to a lower seed is wrong.

According to your system, Dayton got 9 points for winning the NIT in 2010. Temple got 2 points for their first round loss to South Florida this year. On what planet is an NIT spot worth 7 more points than any NCAA spot?

I like the idea in theory, but you can't have Dayton ahead of Temple and have a sound system. Temple has to be #2.

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UMass87

My thinking was that it adds to a negative perception of the conference. Remember, the question was "what have you done for the A10 lately?" I figure there are ways you can help the conference: wins help your conference mates ratings, a lot of wins brings positive recognition to the conference, progress in the NCAA brings a lot more positive press and significant financial rewards. There are also negative things a team can do: lose a lot of games and lose a game in the first round of the NCAA tournament to a team that you should beat. When a team loses in the first round to a weaker team the feeling is that the team and the conference were overrated.