ESPN poll is also out, I added it to the same article.
I know rankings don't mean too much in the grand scheme of things but it is still disappointing how little respected the sun belt is. We've been at 25/24 with only 9 loses for the past 4 or so weeks or so. Kentucky comes out of no where and jumps us with 14 loses. We beat Notre Dame and have more wins yet they are ahead. I thought our conference got a lot better this year. As I remember, a hand full of our teams got W's over various top 25 teams.
Interesting, you have to go all the way up to the #1,2 teams in the country, to to find a ranked team with more wins than the Lady Cajuns.
But it is never just about total number of wins...but a combination of that...SOS...and number of QUALITY wins.
igeaux.mobi
Until we get out of the SunBelt, we will never receive much respect in any sport.
I hope the Lady Cajuns stick it up everyone's @$$ in post season.
You and others are missing the point that others have tried to make. It is NOT the Sunbelt.
Three teams on our schedule added 240 loses to our schedule and our RPI!!!!!! They were not Sunbelt schools.
We can go play the best tournaments in the country and it doesn't mean crap when we turn around and schedule the very pits of Div 1 softball for our tournament and agree to play the same at McNeese.
This is NOT an issue with the SBC.
ESPN give Orgeron and UL a little credit / press in this link:
http://espn.go.com/ncaa/blog/_/name/...ghth-no-hitter
I don't have time to go into details however we need to schedule teams that consistently have a good winning percentage. It does not matter if they are SEC teams or the Southern conference. That is because the RPI formula gives a 50% weight to your "opponents winning percentage".
Now I don't mean to confuse everyone but lets look at the Cajuns schedule from an RPI standpoint.
Here is the SBC RPI standings to date and keep in mind there are 289 teams in Div 1 softball
Now look at the first 10 teams in our out of conference schedule and keep in mind we played multiple games against some of these schools.
- UL 35
- FIU 61
- FAU 62
- S. Al. 67
- N. Tx. 93
- Troy 96
- ULM 118
- M. Tn 140
Stephen F. Austin 194
Rhode Island 266
Arkansas 114
Prarie View 283
Sam Houston 154
Maine 204
Tenn. St. 252
Southern 242
Jackson St. 231
Grambling 285
An avg. RPI of 222.5 Based on that avg. there were only 66 teams that could have been scheduled with RPI's lower than our average and thank goodness we had the mighty powerhouse Arkansas in there at 114!!
Anyone still up for arguing that the SBC is our problem in softball scheduling?
In the words of the great GoneGolfin, its not the poor RPI teams that lower your RPI, its the teams with the poor records. You have to use the RPI formula to your advantage. Much better to schedule a top end SWAC team than a bottom end SEC team for RPI purposes since OWP is so prevalent in the formula, even though the SEC team is a much better team.
You also would have to add the monetary constaints of having to travel a lot more if you up the RPI schedule.
igeaux.mobi
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