I'm still amazed. With all the crap that ended the game, what we aren't talking about is how poorly we played, somehow lost Gant and Marquetti (Don't know what happened to this guy) and still were down 1 with 1:30 left in the game. We played like ____ and still had a shot to win at the end. We just limit the dumbass turnovers and actually run an offense like we did all year and I like our chances.
Gant looked shell shocked when he got the dunk attempt partially fouled/blocked as he then missed the easy alley oop afterwards and Marquetti looked like he didn't want to be there. Washington showed his physical limitations in this game as he was just eaten up by Reath inside and they ran him on high pick and rolls ALL game long. He couldn't keep up and they just got what they wanted all game.
Part of it was. Creating the mindset going into the game would have helped. We really played with no swagger or confidence, particularly in the first half. Also, what happened to our cuts on offense where we got so many easy baskets in the lane by Bartley and Marquetti all year long? We did nothing on offense by spot shoot when the clock was running down. Also, defensively, you have to do something different. They ran high pick and roll all game with Bryce outside and he just can't stay with the quicker players they had. How many layups did they get during this game? I lost count. Too many uncontested shots is not going to win you any games. Those are coaching issues that need to be corrected during the game and they weren't.
Miller was Miller. Tubby and under the rim player eaten up by better athletes. Just glad we didn't really give him a chance to shoot us out of the game. Didn't give Davis much of a chance but this environment was tough for him. Marquetti was very disappointing for me. Guy was leaned on heavily all year and played a ton of minutes. He absolutely disappeared in this game when we needed that P5 athleticism against LSU's guards. He actually came in on one stretch and guarded Waters really well after he had just taken Bartley to the hole several times in a row.
The RPI is pure mathematics. You can build a good RPI by understanding the math and playing (and beating) teams who are good in their conference, but not good in absolute terms. The RPI doesn't care whether you beat a 25-5 Savannah State or a 25-5 Kansas. Well, it does care, but not that much. Your opponents record is 50% of RPI, so the most important factor in scheduling for RPI is to avoid teams likely to have losing records. Whether you win or lose is only 25% and how good your opponent's opponent's record accounts for the other 25%. On our schedule this year, our win over SLU and our loss to Clemson were pretty close to an RPI wash.
Point being that RPI is a good tool, but not a perfect one. It would probably be more accurate in measuring your actual team quality if slightly less weight were given to your opponent's record and slightly more to your opponent's opponent's record. That would make it more difficult to game the system, while being a more accurate measure.
Of course the NCAA and the Tournament committees like the imperfect RPI, because it let's them look at other factors when selecting teams and seeding. And they do so in a way that allows them to pick Oklahoma or Syracuse over MTSU or St. Mary's.
What needs to be done is to have an empirical standard, and if you meet it, you are in, and your seed is set according to how you rank in that standard. No committee necessary. The standard need not be perfect, but it should be reasonably derived and as accurate as we can make it, and it must not care whether you are in the ACC or the MEAC.
If RPI were that standard this year, we would still not be in the Dance (assuming that all conferences still get an automatic bid for their champion), but we would have been playing an NIT game at home as a 3 or 4 seed.
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