« Calculating Player Value: An Introduction to HOOPWAR | Main | College Basketball Rankings - MRI 2011-12, Week 17 - Tournament Final »

College Basketball Rankings - MRI 2011-12, Week 16 - Pre-Tournament Final

March 12, 2012  |  By Benjamin Miraski

If the MRI were the sole arbiter of the NCAA Tournament, there would be six teams with wholly different reactions to their status today.

But the MRI is not, and I would think probably shouldn't be. You can't just use one formula to rule them all.. although the committee does seem to do that with the RPI.

There is a ting of bitterness this morning, but not much. Drexel did not make the field, despite a ranking of No. 39 in the final MRI, which I believe is the highest it has achieved since I started publishing this about 12 years ago.

The key feature that half of the "snubs" have is that they come from smaller conferences. They didn't win their conference tournament, and therefore lost their "chance" to get into the dance.

I can't begrudge teams that did make it like Colorado, when they won their playoff. That is one way in. The Buffs would have been NITing it or worse if they hadn't have beaten Arizona. Both teams were fighting for their tournament lives. But you can take exception with some of the committees choices.

Here are the snubs and the list of replacements with the MRI rankings in parentheses. The cutoff in the MRI was No. 56, which was Purdue.

Snubs: Drexel (39), Middle Tennessee State (40), Oral Roberts (45), Seton Hall (46), Wagner (54), Stanford (55).

Questionable choices: San Diego State (59), Michigan (60), Notre Dame (64), Xavier (65), Colorado State (81), South Florida (105).

Of course, the MRI has two questionable choices that probably aren't that way in most people's minds. And I will admit that Michigan and Notre Dame probably have good cases for being in. Both teams are within 9 points of the final spot, which if the game was a home game, would mean they would be favored over Purdue. I would imagine the same can hold true for San Diego State, since they were just a few spots off.

On the "snub" side, You can maybe discount Wagner and Stanford, but anyone higher maybe deserved a longer look. As it was, if Iona hadn't gotten into the field, it would have been even a bigger snub, as they were higher ranked than any of these teams. The committee maybe got that one correct.

The big issue should be with the Colorado State and South Florida inclusions. Just based on MRI numbers, they don't belong. In the Ken Pomeroy rankings, South Florida is No. 66 and Colorado State is No. 76. Drexel (41) and Middle Tennessee (61) are higher than both. Seton Hall is higher than both. Stanford is higher than both.

I won't complain any more. It is a difficult job to make the choices for the last spots. It is made even harder now that the field has expanded and the choice to include three more teams of questionable character has to be made.

Either way, we will have a great tournament. That much never changes.

Enjoy the rankings in this week's MRI, along with the rankings of every tournament team after the normal update. All of the Top 25 made the tournament.

Posted March 12, 2012 12:09 PM

blog comments powered by Disqus