Heading into the game with Longwood tomorrow, Texas Tech is off to a mighty fine non-conference record of 10-1. While the overall record is very nice, the arguments against Tech basketball is that the one “good” team that we did play was a loss. I think at this point in the season people and experts love to give predictions, but it is my belief that we are way too early to count the Red Raiders in or out of the Big Dance. Our Big 12 schedule and conference tournament will be the major determining factors.
College basketball is all about stats and trends. Let’s looks at a few of the ratings and where we stand currently…
That 2 point loss to Auburn was a major blow to the chances of Texas Tech making the NCAA Tournament. Yet, we still have a lot of basketball to play. On TeamRankings.com we have a 35.8% chance of making the tourney right now. This site compares to a team like Oklahoma State (9-2) who it predicts has a 42% chance and will be in (if the season ended today) with the #10 seed.
Then you have the RPI where we are sitting at #76, basically with our #273 SOS bringing us down. This is compared to TCU (9-1) who is ranked #24 with a SOS at #123. The RPI has been the most influential to the NCAA selection committee.
In the Coaches Poll this week, Texas Tech didn’t make the Top 25. However, they did receive 3 votes. Compared to the other Big 12 teams that did not get in the Top 25; yet received votes with OSU getting 21, and TCU getting 6.
Now, the most promising of ratings was the BPI. Here is a quick background of the BPI –
BPI is a predictive rating system for college basketball that’s designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward. In the simplest sense, BPI is a power rating that can be used to determine how much better one team is than another. If Las Vegas sports books ever published the power rankings they use to set their betting lines, they would likely look similar to BPI.
RPI has been the go-to system for the NCAA selection committee because of its simplicity, but it fails to capture opponents’ true strength, margin of victory or other predictive factors relating to the difficulty of the game. BPI accounts for all of those factors and more.
Texas Tech is doing very well in the BPI…
A look at the BPI top 30 (led by @DukeMBB) and this week’s key games: https://t.co/ZLj1saG4So pic.twitter.com/HvWwBaL8jL
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) December 19, 2016
The metrics go on and on with Ken Massey’s, Ken Pomeroy’s, Jeff Sagarin’s, and more. But, instead of boring you with the rest of the premature rankings and ratings we should remember one thing. We are about to go into conference play with some of the best basketball teams in the nation. We will get our shot to earn our invitation to the NCAA tournament. Nothing is even close to being finalized yet. All the extended statistics are fancy and fun to breakdown to give preliminary predictions, but all we need to keep doing is winning on the court and the committee will be forced to give us a bid to the Big Dance. Wreck ’em Tech!!! #4:1