The New Quadrant System (Tourney Selection Related)

[jncuse]

As we get into February one thing you are likely to hear on TV is "quadrants". A fairly significant change to the selection of NCAA teams is how they assess quality wins.

Prior to this year you had four categories with opponents based on RPI:
1-50 (Quality Wins)
51-100 (Decent Wins)
100-200 (Bad Loss)
201+ (Really Bad Loss)

These four categories are now:
Quadrant 1: Home 1-30; Neutral 1-50; Away 1-75
Quadrant 2: Home 31-75; Neutral 51-100; Away 76-135
Quadrant 3: Home 76-160; Neutral 101-200; Away 136-240
Quadrant 4: Home 161-plus; Neutral 201-plus; Away 241-plus.

NCAA selection committee adjusts team sheets, emphasizing road/neutral games more than ever

Some questions and my answers or opinions.

Why? When you consider the standard home court advantage around 3.75 points, beating the #30 team in Ken Pom at home is about the same as beating #75 As teams did not have a balanced amount of home/road games in each group, this split will bring it closer.

Is this a good change? IMO Yes. Winning on the road is harder than winning at home, and it should be included in your quality win totals.

Are rankings based on RPI? It appears so, but I am not 100% sure. In the past it has been, but perhaps now that they are emphasizing things like KP and BPI, they will use an average of the 4 metrics to rank the teams. It woold make much more sense.

Who do this help? Mid majors who generally did not get a change to get 30-50 wins against home teams in conference that are really not that great. What it will do is move more games up to quadrant 1 and quadrant 2 for these teams, so it will make it easier to compare the two.

For P5 teams it will games from quadrant 1 to

That being said in 2017, the bubble was very shallow and I don't believe this would have changed things.

But in 2016, the bubble was perhaps the most complex it ever has been. This rating system would have made it easier to compare teams like Valparaiso, St. Mary's, St Bonaventure, Wichita St, Monmouth, San Diego St, and Tulsa versus P5 teams on the bubble. As you may remember in 2016, the p5 schools got in because they had more top 50 wins (but they also had more opportunity)

Does this help Syracuse?
It could take a few seeds away from P5 schools each year. In 2o17 it would have made no difference. In 2016, it would certainly have changed who got in/out f the tourney.

Where do I find info
Many RPI based sites have not updated. Warren Nolan does have the updates groupings.

Rating Percentage Index (RPI) Live 2017-2018 Men's College Basketball - WarrenNolan.com

 

[Brooky03]

Seems fine. If it results in more midmajors getting in, though, I think I'm going to be annoyed. I might be in the minority, but I don't care much for Cinderella stories. I'd rather see them sweeping the floor than wearing glass slippers.

 

[jncuse]

Games this year that would be viewed differently (focusing on 2 top quadrants, because there are is nothing really redeeming from a quadrant #3 or #4 win.

(Based on Projected RPI)

Move up to a Group
At #103 Boston College (#2 now vs #3 old)

Move down a Gruop:
Home W vs #92 Iona (#3 now vs #2 old)
Home vs #82 NC St (#3 now vs #2 old)

There are not many games that are impacted based on the current projected RPI#... but some are quite close to changing.
Home vs #30 Buffalo is still #1 vs #1, but it could easily fall into #2 in the new system if the RPI only falls to #31.'
Home vs #52 Maryland... in the past some may have hoped they get into top 50, but this year it does not matter. They would need to move up to $30 to be a guadrant #1 victory.

At #153 Georgetown and at #138 Georgia Tech could move into top 2 categories, if those teams can get up to #135.
Right now loss at #138 Wake Forest is our only bad loss as it is quadrant #3... if they get up to #135, we would have no bad losses as of now.

 

[orange79]

I have set up a spreadsheet to track our wins (and losses) by quadrant. I don't even know if the NCAA looks at quadrant losses to determine 'bad' losses, but I'm doing it anyway. I am using RPI as the metric to determine the quadrants. I'm unclear as to what the NCAA is using.

I'll update weekly, but right now (with yesterday's games calculating the RPI), here is where Syracuse stands:

Q1 wins = 1 (Buffalo)
Q2 wins = 5
Q3 wins = 4
Q4 wins = 5

Q1 losses = 3
Q2 losses = 2
Q3 losses = 1 (Notre Dame - just barely a Q3 loss)
Q4 losses = 0

Edit: I will try to update after each SU game.

 

[jncuse]

Seems fine. If it results in more midmajors getting in, though, I think I'm going to be annoyed. I might be in the minority, but I don't care much for Cinderella stories. I'd rather see them sweeping the floor than wearing glass slippers.

It won't result in many, but in 2016 it certainly would have resulted in a couple. To me if Monmouth replaces a Vanderbilt who had 16 games in conference to prove they were above a bubble team I do not mind at all.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

At the end of the day, the committee gonna do what the committee gonna do.

 

[Alsacs]

Honestly the fact this team is on the bubble and could make the NCAA Tournament is just amazing and is a good job by the coach.
We don’t have the horses for me to feel we are a tournament team but if we make it good job.
I don’t know if I can watch all the bad basketball it will take to get there but just get it done.

 

[jncuse]

I have set up a spreadsheet to track our wins (and losses) by quadrant. I don't even know if the NCAA looks at quadrant losses to determine 'bad' losses, but I'm doing it anyway. I am using RPI as the metric to determine the quadrants. I'm unclear as to what the NCAA is using.

I'll update weekly, but right now (with yesterday's games calculating the RPI), here is where Syracuse stands:

Q1 wins = 1 (Buffalo)
Q2 wins = 5
Q3 wins = 4
Q4 wins = 5

Q1 losses = 3
Q2 losses = 2
Q3 losses = 1 (Notre Dame - just barely a Q3 loss)
Q4 losses = 0

I ended up using projected RPI rather than current RPI, merely because being in a P5 will move up your RPI as your season moves along.