The more I dig into this schedule the better I like it and I liked it a lot when it was released. Here is a really exciting stat - using figgie rpi from the end of last year - the A10 conference rpi average of all teams ended at 200.9. Basically VCU and Dayton held their own and everyone else fell between 157-276. Thankfully there were no teams in the 300s, but the conference needs 3 teams with RPIs better than 70 and we weren’t even close last year.
The OOC 2018 schedule...those teams ended last year with an average rpi of 86.8. That is the best rpi I have ever seen for a UD OOC schedule by probably 2x. I’ve run these numbers pretty much every year for the last 10 years or so and I can’t remember a year our OOC schedule was better than a 160 rpi. Many years it was disappointing because it was better than our A10 schedule, but not that much better. This schedule is a huge difference. The biggest reason is we only have two teams with RPIs greater than 193. Past years we’ve had 4 or 5 of those teams. 3 teams are between 120-144. Everyone else is 88 or better with two top 10s which I think is also a first.
Since these RPIs are from the end of last year, I dug into how many seniors, juniors and sophomores each team has returning for this year. Plus I looked at the tenure of each head coach and where the team finished in their conference. We will be going up against some very veteran teams, highly tenured coaches and a boat-load of teams that finished 1st or 2nd in their conference, just like UD. Those details are my next post.
Last edited by BeckysTXA; 04-05-2018 at 09:01 PM..
|