BYU's season profile

I like the way CBS shows each team's wins and losses and sorts them by rpi. BYU has a lot of work to do, but maybe surprisingly to some fans, doesn't really have a loss yet that the committee would kill them over. Right now BYU would land as a 2-4 seed in the NIT, but there is still plenty of season left. It's just going to take a win each over SMC and Gonzaga along with taking care of business against the rest of the WCC.





http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/teams/rpi/BYU/brigham-young-cougars" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I like it too! Here's the pic:


BYU Wins 2016-01-07.PNG

I'm not sure where the committee draws the line, but I'd say losses over 100 are pretty bad. And we're not even close on a quality win. An interesting thing though, all of our away games have also been our toughest opponents.

"pretty bad" by the committee's standards would be losing to a team in the 200s or below or maybe below 150. Harvard will move up anyway as they win a lot in the Ivy and possibly win it. They were quite good against Auburn and Oklahoma. Remember, there are 350 D1 teams. Top 100 is better than the top third Also, ANY top 100 win is considered quality by the committee, but top 50 is of course better. The general philosophy behind the "quality win" idea is that you just beat a team that on a good day could have beaten you even if you're really good. Beating someone in the top 30% of D1 qualifies. I think fans tend to be less impressed than the committee, IMO, for whatever reason, and have a hard time looking beyond name brands or the AP top 25.



BYU has two against the top 100 As UNI and Belmont play well in their leagues, they will move up that ranking. Also, I think there is a pretty good chance N. Mexico slides into the top 100. We will need top 50 wins against SMC and Gonzaga.



Again, all of this is moot if BYU loses games they shouldn't or can't win any remaining games against SMC and Gonzaga. Another factor here is that beyond the top 3 teams, the WCC is the worst it's been since we've been in it, so I think it's actually less likely we lose the head scratching games this year. But we'll see. Short of doing that above, our resume so far is building up well for a decent NIT seed, but that's not all that exciting obviously.

Though not used directly by the committee, Ken Pomeroy and Sagarin are both good to very good indicators of how the team has improved over the last few weeks. BYU is now ranked #44 on Kenpom and #43 on Sagarin. This is solid NCAA bubble territory with BYU trending upward. This doesn't mean we'd be in the tourney as of today because the committee looks at other things. However, the rpi over the course of the entire season tends to eventually catch up to what these other systems are showing, whether up or down. The point is, that normally a team ranked in the 40s will eventually end up winning the games down the line that it needs to get the committee's attention. Also, you have to keep in mind the teams we've beaten like Belmont, UNI and UNM will probably move up the rpi as they get into league play -- especially Belmont and UNI.



Sagarin's "predictor" rating is good for predicting margin of victory. Basically you can expect a team to more or less hold its spot in their Sagarin ranking if the MOV for their most recent game lands where "predictor" would indicate. Of course, the exact spot is also dependent on what other similarly ranked teams do. Interestingly, when factoring in SMC's homecourt advantage, the 11 point loss at SMC actually hit exactly where the formula expected. However, the win at Pacific and last night was actually better than expected, so BYU continues to inch upward. Right now it would predict about an 18 point win over USF.



http://sagarin.com/sports/cbsend.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



http://kenpom.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;