The Bonnies: 2020-2021 Season Thread

Since I'm being a Debbie Downer today. I wonder if we see another rash of COVID pauses since most schools have the general population returning to campus this week or next week. It seems like the number of pauses has gone down since students went on break but it could just be I've gotten numb to the news.
 
I didnt know where to put this but I have always wanted to do a bracket myself to see how it turns out. So here is my first crack. Let me know if you have any feedback or questions. I tried to follow the guidelines as best I could. I had to swap 5-6 teams around to avoid conference issues. Red means they are an AQ. The blue is just to separate the matchups out. If anyone is curious, I can post my seed list too. I seeded the top 16 myself and used Bracketmatrix and the NET rankings to do the rest.

1611782958284.png
 
I didnt know where to put this but I have always wanted to do a bracket myself to see how it turns out. So here is my first crack. Let me know if you have any feedback or questions. I tried to follow the guidelines as best I could. I had to swap 5-6 teams around to avoid conference issues. Red means they are an AQ. The blue is just to separate the matchups out. If anyone is curious, I can post my seed list too. I seeded the top 16 myself and used Bracketmatrix and the NET rankings to do the rest.

View attachment 260
Looks pretty good, but there's a typo -- you typed in two 1s next to number 1 seed st bonaventure.
 
We shall see if this is true, but it looks like we will have a busy 5 days... It appears that we are gonna host Travis Ford and the Evil Bills on Monday, unless he cries "wolf" like he did at Richmond.

1/30 - vs. GMU
2/1 - vs. SLU
2/3 - at SJU

 
We shall see if this is true, but it looks like we will have a busy 5 days... It appears that we are gonna host Travis Ford and the Evil Bills on Monday, unless he cries "wolf" like he did at Richmond.

1/30 - vs. GMU
2/1 - vs. SLU
2/3 - at SJU



That would certainly not be ideal
 
Someone told me we go to st Louis next Saturday but I haven't seen anything confirming that yet.

Edit slu announced it so it must be happening
 
Last edited:
It is the last day of January and the Bonnies have not lost a game this month. They are #35 in the NET, #9 in the RPI (which nobody pays attention to nowadays but still means something to some of us), and in first place in "the mighty A10." I did not expect this. I know it could worsen quickly if we have a significant injury to one of the starters and we are always vulnerable to foul trouble, but this is significantly better than I expected. Expect a lot of attention on the Bonnies by talking heads who want to get in on a good story. The team seems to be getting better as we go along. February should be fun.
 
That jump in the net rating is surprising. Looks like maybe one of our q4 wins turned into q3?

edit: also, that #9 in rpi is equally wild. The lowest I can ever remember them is in 2016 when some projections had them at 29...
 
Last edited:
That jump in the net rating is surprising. Looks like maybe one of our q4 wins turned into q3?

edit: also, that #9 in rpi is equally wild. The lowest I can ever remember them is in 2016 when some projections had them at 29...
One of these days I have to spend the time understanding this better. #9 in rpi is baffling to me, but I will certainly take it.
 
Keep in mind that the Bonnies have only played 10 games. RPI, an unreliable "statistic" under any circumstances, is nearly worthless with so few games played.
 
On the other hand, the NET--which currently ranks Colgate #15 vs. the Raiders' #51 rpi--also comes up with some strange shit. BTW, when did Colgate change the name from Red Raiders? Fucking speech codes again!
 
For the same reason, X. Colgate has only played a handful of games. I don't know how the NCAA sett the starting point so I am not sure how Colgate is ranked so high. Over a thirty game season, a team's starting point has little or no influence on its end of season rating. This year, that's not gonna be the case for many, possibly most teams. It's gonna be a mess.
 
Didn't Sagarin use the term "connected"? Basically RPI was worthless until every team was an opponents' opponent away from everyone else? That may not happen this season.

I don't understand all the hate on the RPI. No it's not perfect and neither is any computer ranking trying to sort out 350 schools that don't play each other. But it was fantastically simplistic, are you winning, are your opponents winning, and are the teams they are playing winning? The H/A tweaks were good.

I think the NET has clearly built in major conference bias, though seeing Colgate so high gives me some hope.
 
Didn't Sagarin use the term "connected"? Basically RPI was worthless until every team was an opponents' opponent away from everyone else? That may not happen this season.

I don't understand all the hate on the RPI. No it's not perfect and neither is any computer ranking trying to sort out 350 schools that don't play each other. But it was fantastically simplistic, are you winning, are your opponents winning, and are the teams they are playing winning? The H/A tweaks were good.

I think the NET has clearly built in major conference bias, though seeing Colgate so high gives me some hope.
Wouldn't you say the NET is less bias than RPI?

Feel like the Quad system actually helps a bit for a team like Bona that consistently plays a lot of road games. More points for road wins and less for home wins.
 
There are parts of the NET that are pretty good. It takes location into account and uses efficiency metrics The issue I have with it is there is a secret part of it and that screams P5 bias. No matter what tools are out there, it all really depends on the committee. In 2016, we got fucked. In 2019 Belmont got an at large, which there is no way they would have got in 2016. The tools are only as good as the people using them. The quadrant system is nice but you can do that for any metric. They just choose to use NET for it.
 
Wouldn't you say the NET is less bias than RPI?

Feel like the Quad system actually helps a bit for a team like Bona that consistently plays a lot of road games. More points for road wins and less for home wins.
I don't think NET has less bias than RPI at all. RPI was pretty much straight arithmetic. Then they improved it by weighting H/A differently as well. Where the NET lost me was when they revealed that one of the major components was the super-secret TVI, and I think that's where the bias lies but no one can prove it.

The quads are still just an arbitrary line drawn through the rankings that they'll discard as soon as beating VCU is better than beating Duke - which right now it is. They also don't value high ranking in conference victories when your conference is an A10 vs. being in a P5 (see 2016). The committee hasn't changed their approach, they just got a computer ranking they like using better. At the end of the day they will yap about the eye test, which might as well be called "name on the jersey" test, when they have to decide between a Bonaventure or a - blows brains out - 10th team from the Big Ten.
 
I don't think NET has less bias than RPI at all. RPI was pretty much straight arithmetic. Then they improved it by weighting H/A differently as well. Where the NET lost me was when they revealed that one of the major components was the super-secret TVI, and I think that's where the bias lies but no one can prove it.

The quads are still just an arbitrary line drawn through the rankings that they'll discard as soon as beating VCU is better than beating Duke - which right now it is. They also don't value high ranking in conference victories when your conference is an A10 vs. being in a P5 (see 2016). The committee hasn't changed their approach, they just got a computer ranking they like using better. At the end of the day they will yap about the eye test, which might as well be called "name on the jersey" test, when they have to decide between a Bonaventure or a - blows brains out - 10th team from the Big Ten.
The problem with the RPI is it was so easily gamed and the power schools figured it out. They still manipulate the system as much as they can but the secret part at least keeps them from knowing exactly how to do it. I am surprised nobody has reverse engineered the NET yet. I just think back to a few years ago and the PAC 12 totally gamed the RPI into getting 5-6 bids. Oregon St got in as a 7 seed with an RPI of like 20 and then got smacked by VCU because they really werent that good.
 
Can't you still game the NET system? A school like Drake and Winthrop which collectively have no real good wins...and have solid NET rankings.

I think the thing that the A10 consistently struggles with is winning out of conference. From Davidson to Fordham, we never seem to have enough teams entering conference play with 10+ wins.

Our schedule (too many road games) and lack of performing each season is why we seem to struggle in the rankings. in '16 we had too many bad losses. In 2018 a bit of the same and the A10 was pretty bad. Not sure how many mulligans the committee gives you, but when you have north of four Q3/Q4 losses, you're in trouble.

If the committee has shown us anything lately, it might be better to have less good wins with no bad losses than a bunch of both.
 
As long as there are no stipulations on winning percentages, such as achieving a certain winning percentage in conference, or considering winning percentages vs the Quadrants, all such metrics are inevitably in favor of the power.

There's examples every year. Do you want to talk about a team who wins 4 games against Quandrant 1? Or do you want to talk about that same team who won 4 and lost 11 vs Q1 in terms of their .266 winning percentage?
 
Back
Top