Well, our RPI and KPI were 23 and 21…

Posted on: December 1, 2024 at 20:56:14 CT

That puts us squarely in the 6 seed range (21-24).

Of course, those are 2 criteria, big ones yes, but not the only ones. There’s a reason why the selection committee doesn’t just line up the seeds in order of either metric.

But here are the 6 seeds (Florida, TAMU, USC, Minnesota) compared to us, with some of the relevant metrics:

RPI/KPI rank:

Missouri 23/21
TAMU 21/16
Florida 24/19
USC 22/24
Minnesota 26/31

We are 3rd in RPI rank among those 5 teams (better than Florida and Minnesota), and 3rd in KPI rank (better than USC and Minny, and way better than Minny).

And here are top 1-25, top 26-50, and top 1-50 RPI records:

Florida 2-3, 5-2, 7-5
TAMU 2-4, 4-1, 6-5
Missouri 1-6, 6-0, 7-6
Minnesota 2-9, 1-1, 3-10
USC 1-7, 1-1, 2-8

I think there’s more than a reasonable case for us getting a 6 seed over either Minnesota or USC, probably both.

We played 13 matches against top 50 teams and went 7-6: Minny played the same number and went 3-10. And both our RPI rank and KPI rank were better than them, the latter significantly so.

USC played only 10 matches against top 50 teams and went 2-8 compared to our 7-6. USC and us had 1 top 25 win, Minny had 2.

My bigger argument is getting a 7 seed while those two B1G teams got 6 seeds. Even though the metrics between us, Florida and TAMU are very similar (maybe slight edge to the other two), they both hold head to head wins over us, which the committee would put weight on.

Now I don’t know SOS, which the committee also uses.