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The difference between BPI and RPI

L Buff

L Buff

Commissar of the Albuffs Collective Left
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation


Colorado Buffaloes (BPI Rank 34, RPI Rank 18)
Colorado earned a signature win at Oregon on Thursday, but BPI doesn’t recognize the win as favorably as RPI. The Buffaloes won by just one point and Oregon was without starting point guard Dominic Artis. Oregon (2-3 without Artis) is certainly not the same team without him.

According to RPI, road wins are worth more than twice as much as home wins. A road win over a top-50 team like Oregon is great for a team’s résumé. But BPI recognizes that the win came by just one point (BPI takes margin into account) and weighs the game less when a team isn’t at full strength.
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To the b-ball afficianados here (e.g., CVille, Nik, jg, etc.) ... which one is more accurate IYO ... and does the NCAA Selection Committee consider BPI in addition to RPI? Or is BPI just a construct exclusively of ESPN?
 
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BPI sounds horrible. Who cares if you only win by one point on the road to a top 50 team and one that was ranked #19? Injuries are a part of sports, don't punish a team because the other team had a injured player.
 
'Tini said:
BPI sounds horrible. Who cares if you only win by one point on the road to a top 50 team and one that was ranked #19? Injuries are a part of sports, don't punish a team because the other team had a injured player.
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That's what I tend to think also. For instance, does BPI factor in the fact that Ski had a fever of 100+ for a couple of games when he was in his "slump"? I think not.
 
'Tini said:
BPI sounds horrible. Who cares if you only win by one point on the road to a top 50 team and one that was ranked #19? Injuries are a part of sports, don't punish a team because the other team had a injured player.
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I agree. Completely subjective standard.

I hope CU got a boatload of points for the total screwjob of the officials in the Arizona game.
 
This is a heated topic for the section committee, officially RPI is only one tool of many that the committee uses to evaluate teams, but it has been heavily leaned on by the selection committee over the years.

Individual committee members are free to use and discuss BPI, KenPom or anything they please in the selection process.
 
I find BPI interesting, but I have a hard time getting past the ESPN construct and I personally don't follow it heavily.

RPI certainly has its major flaws, but it's what I've been 'raised on', so to speak, so I'm always one to look heavily at RPI and favor it.
 
The thing that has annoyed me most about the onslaught of BPI numbers is that ESPN, since its their model, are constantly banging us over the head with it. I haven't really dug into the formula, but damnit ESPN, you are not the know all and end all.
 
There are a ton of issues with RPI, it is a simple calculation that doesn't take in a bunch of factors. The BPI may have its own issues, but it is a step in the right direction IMO.

RPI calculation is made up of:
25 percent comes from a team's own winning percentage, 50 percent from its opponents' winning percentage, and 25 percent from of its opponents' opponents' winning percentage.

So basically if you play a hard schedule and lose every game you will look pretty good in the RPI's eyes. Strength of schdule plays way to important of a role (and is why CU looks good in RPI this year and missed out on the tourney two years ago).

The RPI can be gamed by scheduling and this year CU played the game pretty well.
 
BPI is interesting because it makes me laugh. Bilas used to rail against the RPI, so he did his own with some other factors put in (such as a key injury when the game was played). Came out almost exactly the same as RPI. So he put a bunch more weight to point differential. I agree that it can matter. I also agree with him that beating teams should matter more than just having inflated ranking from playing great teams on the road and losing to them. But that's where the human analysis comes in rather than the spreadsheet. By trying to quantify the eyeball test, he put too big of a premium on point differential. Why penalize a team for going to its bench and doing some teaching once a game's in or out of hand? Why encourage bad sportsmanship by putting a premium on blowouts? Why penalize teams for a slower pace of play that yields fewer points and, therefore, closer victory margins?

The selection committee doesn't use BPI and it shouldn't. But it should also be careful to only use RPI as a tool and consider other factors the spreadsheet doesn't capture.
 
Great answers all ... thanks! Once again I've learned about something I formerly didn't know a lot about.
 
Buffnik said:
BPI is interesting because it makes me laugh. Bilas used to rail against the RPI, so he did his own with some other factors put in (such as a key injury when the game was played). Came out almost exactly the same as RPI. So he put a bunch more weight to point differential. I agree that it can matter. I also agree with him that beating teams should matter more than just having inflated ranking from playing great teams on the road and losing to them. But that's where the human analysis comes in rather than the spreadsheet. By trying to quantify the eyeball test, he put too big of a premium on point differential. Why penalize a team for going to its bench and doing some teaching once a game's in or out of hand? Why encourage bad sportsmanship by putting a premium on blowouts? Why penalize teams for a slower pace of play that yields fewer points and, therefore, closer victory margins?

The selection committee doesn't use BPI and it shouldn't. But it should also be careful to only use RPI as a tool and consider other factors the spreadsheet doesn't capture.
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Jay Bilas didn't create the BPI, this was Dean Oliver's invention.

I haven't watched this yet, but this is a video from last year with Oliver and somebody from ESPN analytics department speaking at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytic Conference on BPI.

[video=youtube;_cYfN1hmRZ4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_cYfN1hmRZ4[/video]
 
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