From ESPN (for those not familiar): "The Basketball Power Index (BPI) is a team rating system that accounts for the final score, pace of play, site, strength of opponent and absence of key players in every Division I men's game. BPI can be used to measure both how well a team has performed (going far beyond just wins and losses) and how powerful it is likely to be going forward."

We're in at 188. WSU is 7. UNI is 24. ISUred is 65. Evansville is 69. SIU is 212. MSU is 227. Bradley is 237. ISUblue is 287. Drake is 319.

Shocking that we're in at 5th. I should also note that the difference between Evansvile and us is 21.1 while the difference between us and SIU is 3.1.

Also of note...our strength of schedule rank is 323. Ouch.

_________________
Cigarboy sucks!

They're counting non-D1 games in this measurement, which I find surprising. Pretty interesting, though. They apply a score to each game. It pretty much matches what I've thought about the quality of our performance in each game-- Kent State was the best, Tulane was the worst (even worse than Michigan State), and Jackson State/UIC pretty much in the middle.

Our big problem in this ranking methodology is the VAR RK, where we're the 19th most inconsistent team in college basketball from our best performances to our worst. As I've said before, if we could play like we did against Kent State (or even UTSA) every game throughout the season, we'd finish around fourth in the conference and win 18-20 games.

My big concern is that we are going to take a big hit with these next two games. All the more reason why we need to blow these teams out.

_________________
Cigarboy sucks!

I'm more worried about getting into bad habits. When you play against teams you're supposed to beat comfortably, the energy level sometimes isn't there, you get a lead and start playing more unfamiliar rotations for long stretches, you might get too confident, you don't have big crowds, some players are used in different ways (Doyle as predominantly passer rather than scorer), etc. It's going to be a big adjustment going from these three home games against teams with RPIs around 300 to facing Texas Tech on a neutral court in Las Vegas. I'd rather win the next two in a way that preps us well for Las Vegas. If we do that, we should win the next two by 15+ each game.

All this is wonderful !! But as someone once said-"JUST WIN. BABY" --just as we did at Kent , and do it over and over--Then. all these fancy stats will take care of themselves.
As we go along three things really stand out---BOTH say most about our RAMBLERS--
--We shoot well
--We are lacking height
--We play good Defense--see Kent

I'll go with these.

You're welcome, Jesse.

_________________
Cigarboy sucks!