2016-17 Season

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InnervisionsUMASS
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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by InnervisionsUMASS » Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:26 am

^^

Thank you, I appreciate your feedback.

Should be nice to see Donte get 1k tonight (ideally) or next week vs Georgia State.
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JBUMass2011
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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by JBUMass2011 » Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:27 am

Oh whatever. I see it as growing pains with a young talented team. You see it as sucking right that's fine. Their inconsistency has caused the games to be close and lose the tight ones to "top100" teams. They should improve and they have to improve. I am enjoying the season and maybe the most I've enjoyed watching them play since the tourny year. They should know they can't slip up tonight and prob should beat GA state. I think 2-3 or 3-2 is possible in first 5 A10 games. GMU is being a little over hyped right now, we should beat them but it's on the road so who knows. Bonnie's have two very good players but they have struggled worse then us against not great teams. Then obviously VCU, Dayton, URI will be tough as hell. Try and steal 1. NiT team steals 1, NCAA team finds a way to win 2. I don't think we are an NCAA team. That being said I'm hoping for 2-3 and 3-2. Brison and Baldwin will be key if we want to steal any of those tough games IMO

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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by UMass87 » Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:47 am

JBUMass2011 wrote:Oh whatever. I see it as growing pains with a young talented team....
I see it as both. Like I said earlier, I hope they are a better team come 1/7 and won't be terribly surprised if they are.

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Swampy
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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by Swampy » Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:49 am

JBUMass2011 wrote:Oh whatever. I see it as growing pains with a young talented team. You see it as sucking right that's fine. Their inconsistency has caused the games to be close and lose the tight ones to "top100" teams. They should improve and they have to improve. I am enjoying the season and maybe the most I've enjoyed watching them play since the tourny year. They should know they can't slip up tonight and prob should beat GA state. I think 2-3 or 3-2 is possible in first 5 A10 games. GMU is being a little over hyped right now, we should beat them but it's on the road so who knows. Bonnie's have two very good players but they have struggled worse then us against not great teams. Then obviously VCU, Dayton, URI will be tough as hell. Try and steal 1. NiT team steals 1, NCAA team finds a way to win 2. I don't think we are an NCAA team. That being said I'm hoping for 2-3 and 3-2. Brison and Baldwin will be key if we want to steal any of those tough games IMO
Get outta here with that rational bullshit! :lol:

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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by JBUMass2011 » Thu Dec 22, 2016 10:19 am

Haha being rationale is tough Lolol. Typically the negative route is easier and I enjoy that route. Just with all the new players I'm trying to give them a chance haha

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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by 69MG » Thu Dec 22, 2016 10:42 am

Let's not forget that we didn't have Gresham for Ole Miss and it was only his second game vs. UCF (he played 3 minutes in the prior game). He is just now starting to show what he can do. I think we beat UCF if Gresham had played in every game and was up to speed by then. But the general point is correct, the schedule matches the team. Being 3-8 against a tough schedule would have accomplished nothing. RPI doesn't matter for this group right now, what matters is how they progress as we get into A10 play.

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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by UMass87 » Thu Dec 22, 2016 11:30 am

69MG wrote:... Being 3-8 against a tough schedule would have accomplished nothing. RPI doesn't matter for this group right now, what matters is how they progress as we get into A10 play.
And, more important, being 8-3 against a weak schedule produces a far better RPI than being 3-8 against a strong schedule. History shows that UMass fans have no patience for losses regardless of the opponent. The idea that people would show up at the Mullins Center to see UMass lose to good teams simply isn't born out by history. A team where your best players are (and were expected to be) freshmen needs to play teams they can beat if we want to build the fan base and get the freshmen quality minutes. When these freshmen are juniors and seniors it will probably make sense to schedule a lot tougher.

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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by Roadtrip » Thu Dec 22, 2016 11:52 am

^But by then the team will have new freshmen; and so it goes.

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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by UMass87 » Thu Dec 22, 2016 11:59 am

Roadtrip wrote:^But by then the team will have new freshmen; and so it goes.
Ya, but this is both a large group (including Pipkins) and it is significantly more skilled group than the players they are replacing or competing for spots with. Ideally, UMass will get back to where they can play most of their OOC games against top 100 teams. If DK continues to recruit well then I think that will happen. I just think it won't start until after next season and am not convinced that it should. When UMass goes undefeated in the OOC and wins many of the games by blowout then I'll buy the argument that the OOC schedule was too soft.

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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by uz2b-len » Thu Dec 22, 2016 2:35 pm

And, more important, being 8-3 against a weak schedule produces a far better RPI than being 3-8 against a strong schedule.
I believe that is incorrect. The basic RPI formula, as I understand it, is .25 your record, .50 your opponents' records, and .25 your opponents' opponents' records. It's tweaked a little for home-neutral-away. Obviously, the accuracy of the quoted statement depends on how weak and how strong the opponents may be.
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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by capezona » Thu Dec 22, 2016 3:13 pm

uz2b-len wrote:
And, more important, being 8-3 against a weak schedule produces a far better RPI than being 3-8 against a strong schedule.
I believe that is incorrect. The basic RPI formula, as I understand it, is .25 your record, .50 your opponents' records, and .25 your opponents' opponents' records. It's tweaked a little for home-neutral-away. Obviously, the accuracy of the quoted statement depends on how weak and how strong the opponents may be.
Long Beach State is a good example. They are 2-10 against a strong schedule (6th SOS) but are in the 150's RPI. I don't know but I imagine they have given up a lot playing against good teams - in attendance, for example (don't know for sure). But they've probably been bringing in lots of money playing on the road against big teams. Not sure that this proves or disproves anyone's point.

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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by UMass87 » Thu Dec 22, 2016 3:19 pm

uz2b-len wrote:
And, more important, being 8-3 against a weak schedule produces a far better RPI than being 3-8 against a strong schedule.
I believe that is incorrect. The basic RPI formula, as I understand it, is .25 your record, .50 your opponents' records, and .25 your opponents' opponents' records. It's tweaked a little for home-neutral-away. Obviously, the accuracy of the quoted statement depends on how weak and how strong the opponents may be.
It is incorrect early in the season but that's really pretty much irrelevant. The RPI's ONLY value is on Selection Sunday - at the end of the season. At the end of the season the quarter that is your opponent's opponents is essentially 0.500 for every team (it converges on 0.500 because the number of teams' records averaged in is greater than all of the teams in D1 ball). So that leaves your winning percentage and your opponents winning percentage to differentiate among teams. The same sort of thing happens, though, for your opponents as happened to opponents' opponents - it converges towards 0.500 for everyone. It doesn't get as close to 0.500 as opponents's opponents because there are fewer teams but it still converges for another reason: two thirds of your opponents are conference opponents and two thirds of their average winning percentage is 0.500 (because they all played each other). So, at the end of the season your actual RPI (not rank) is 1/4 your winning percentage + 1/2 of your opponents winning percentage which is now pretty close to 0.500 (almost always less than 0.600) and 1/4 your opponents's opponents which is now essentially 0.500. So which component is going to provide the greatest boost to your RPI? Well, depends on your record. If your record is very good then your record dominates the final RPI calculation. Similarly, if your record is very bad then your record will dominate the RPI. If your record is somewhere around 0.500 then all the components are around 0.500 and your RPI rank is useless on Selection Sunday anyway.

I used the expected UMass SOS rank this year and RPI SOS numbers from Selection Sunday 2015.

if a team went 13-5 in conference but 3-9 OOC it would have a 16-14 record for a 0.533 winning percentage. Now suppose that the team played the 50th strongest schedule in D1 basketball so that it's SOS was 0.560. Its RPI would be 1/4 of 0.533 = .134 plus 1/2 of 0.560 - .280 plus 1/4 of 0.500 = .125 for an RPI of 0.539 (which would rank them somewhere between 90 and 100)

If the same team went 13-5 in conference but 9-3 OOC it would have a 22-8 record for a 0.733 winning percentage. Now suppose that team played a weak OOC - say the 100th ranked SOS (about what UMass is expected to have this year) so that its SOS was 0.530. Its RPI would be 1/4 of 0.733 = .183 plus 1/2 of .530 = 0.265 plus 1/4 of 0.500 = 0.125 for an RPI of 0.573 (which would rank them somewhere between 45 and 55)

I used the expected SOS rank of UMass for 2016 from rpiforecast.com and I got the SOS and RPI rank numbers from the final 2015 RPI table http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2015/rpi

This is what the "RPI game" is all about. If you and your conference mates maximize wins OOC (pretty much regardless of SOS) then your opponents component of your RPI will be much higher. The better winning percentage OOC by a conference leads to more bids. The non-P5 conferences have a perception of weakness problem, though. They can't only schedule cupcakes or the committee will ignore the RPI and take other teams from the P5. The A10 needs to both play the "RPI game" AND win a few big games against P5 opponents. Generally speaking that needs to be done by the top teams in the conference. This year URI, Dayton, and VCU have been unable to do that. Which means that the A10 is highly unlikely to get more than three bids and may well get one.

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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by DirSport » Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:48 pm

Jack Leaman would have turned 84 years old today.

Can't help but wonder what he'd say about this season's group; I can almost hear it, though. Miss you, Coach.

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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by InnervisionsUMASS » Fri Dec 23, 2016 10:07 am

I think he would have enjoyed them. I still imagine how he would have reacted on the radio to some of Chaz's exploits. I miss that man dearly.
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Re: 2016-17 Season

Post by natwam2547 » Fri Dec 23, 2016 10:47 am

I'd be very surprised if this team gets blown out at all this year. The fact that they can roll out so many guys is definitely a factor. It's probably one of the reasons for their strong 2nd halves. It's really tough for opponents to wear them down. Obviously big If's, but if Lewis can hit some 3's and RH and BG can stay on the court and out of foul trouble, the depth on this team will prevail more nights than not.

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