DAYTON (OH) — In-season tournaments are all the rage now, and they should be considering the NCAA allows teams to count such festivals of round-robin roundball as one just one game on the schedule. For programs like Dayton that must bolster their post-season tourney resume’ outside their league, it’s a great chance to add some games to the schedule and play BCS schools that might otherwise turn down a home-home series.

Sometimes the luxury of playing a BCS opponent comes at a steep price however. This year, the Global Sports Main Event is a perfect example of the Flyers getting snookered for a game with Cincinnati at the expense of three RPI-killing opponents to round out the tournament field.

Just how damaging was the Global Sports Main Event (GSME)? What if I told you Dayton’s non-conference RPI would be significantly better had we skipped match-ups with Mount St. Mary’s, Savannah State, and Florida A&M altogether and chosen instead to play a one-way game at Cincinnati’s home court of Fifth Third Arena — and lost 68-34?

Instead of adding three wins at home against cupcakes and taking a loss at US Bank Arena, UD would have been better served by simply agreeing to play UC at their facility.

But things get even more interesting.

What if I told you the Flyers would have boosted their non-conference RPI by simply avoiding the entire GSME altogether? Instead of going 3-1 and padding the non-conference record at 12-3 overall, Dayton would have earned an equally dramatic jump in RPI had they finished the non-conference season at 9-2. What they trade in overall victories, they make up for in Strength of Schedule — and SOS is worth 50% of overall RPI — twice as much as winning percentage.

All of this sounds plausible, but I have the data to officially back it up. The conclusion is quite elementary:

Dayton was penalized by the RPI for participating in the Global Sports Main Event no matter how well the Flyers performed. Taken in totality of the four-game tourney, UD had nothing to gain and everything to lose by virtue of the three cupcakes forced upon the schedule for the privilege of playing Cincinnati.

Not only was the GSME an RPI boat anchor, our research is based upon Cincinnati’s undefeated record (14-0) as of this writing. As the only game of significance in the tournament, UC’s perfect record inflates the merit of the GSME to its most positive light. Had UC lost a few games, the impact would be even more pronounced.

The GSME has handicapped Dayton’s RPI from NCAA lock status to bubblicious at very best.

Let’s look at how we got here and what the data reveals.

CURRENT REALITY

– The UDPride RPI (the most accurate RPI ANYWHERE) currently has the Flyers at #52 with a 12-3 non-conference record. This includes four games in the Global Sports Main Event: three home victories over MSM, Savannah State, and FAMU; one loss at Cincinnati (US Bank Arena will be classified as a UC home game after we petition the NCAA later this season).

THE OTHER POSSIBLE OUTCOMES

– Let’s assume Dayton went 4-0 in the GSME instead of 3-1, thereby earning maximum value within the RPI computation. Dayton would be 13-2 with an RPI of #37.

– Let’s assume Dayton agreed to play in the GSME for the chance to play Cincinnati on a neutral court (even though it is considered a road game by the NCAA), and knowingly swallowed three home match-ups at UD Arena against poor RPI opponents for the privilege. Our assumption here is Dayton viewed playing Cincinnati as equal to or greater in value than the burden of playing three cupcakes at home. In other words, UD only really wanted the UC game and this was the only way to get it.

Suppose Dayton kept it far simpler and agreed to play Cincinnati at Fifth Third Arena in a one-way one-game series, still lost 68-34, and three matches against MSM, Savannah State, and FAMU never existed. Dayton’s record would be 9-3 and their RPI would be #22.

– Finally, let’s suppose the GSME never took place. Dayton would be 9-2. Their RPI would be #22.

RECAPPING THE RPI’S BASED ON THE GLOBAL SPORTS MAIN EVENT

Current (3-1, 12-3 overall) = 52
Sweep (4-0, 13-2 overall) = 37
UC Away (0-1, 9-3 overall = 22
No GSME (0-0, 9-2 overall = 22

CONCLUSION

As you can clearly see, Dayton was penalized more by winning three games at home against terrible teams than by losing just once away from UD Arena. Further, Dayton was identically penalized for playing the four-game tournament to begin with.

Based on current RPI’s, there was no circumstance where playing the Global Sports Main Event would have been more beneficial than simply playing Cincinnati on their home court, losing, and avoiding the other three matches. Going one step further, simply avoiding the entire tournament (and tourney results of any kind) altogether would have yielded the same RPI improvement.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Some mistakes were clearly made in scheduling this tournament. First and foremost was the guarantee of Savannah State in the tournament field. Unlike Mount St. Mary’s and Florida A&M, Savannah State is a basketball independent and does not have the shelter of a conference to overcome the poor non-conference record from six weeks of barnstorming against quality opponents.

All three teams take a bevy of guaranteed paydays during their non-con schedule to pad the athletic department books at the expense of losses on the overall record. All three teams have poor records, but Dayton can re-claim some RPI points when The Mount and FAMU play teams in the NEC and MEAC and (hopefully) grind out a few wins. Savannah State’s schedule eases up after New Year’s, but they play just three home games the rest of the season (and just six all season). The Mount and FAMU split the remainder of the season at home and on the road as a result of conference play. Not that The Mount and FAMU get off the hook either — they are poor teams too and do nothing to help UD’s RPI either. There were a bunch of red flags that should have gone up however with regard to all of these teams.

Dayton must proceed with caution and learn from the Global Sports Main Event. Sometimes getting greedy for a BCS opponent and a bunch of buy games to replenish the piggy bank can turn out of be more harm than good. As the data has shown, beating awful teams at home actually HURTS your RPI — and the more of those games played, the greater the penalty for playing them. Nothing good comes from scheduling sub-300 teams in the RPI, other than making money from ticket sales and concessions.

Perhaps that last point was a major part of the decision. At $20 a ticket and 13,000 tickets sold, that’s $260,000 a game. At three games and concessions, UD took in close to $1M in gross revenue. Certainly bills must be paid, but at what point does the proposition become a matter of jumping over dollars to save dimes? True market value of the UD basketball program is earned with NCAA bids and no in-season series should subject that goal to compromise.

It should be noted that many of these in-season tournaments are organized by third parties and provide tournament concepts and parameters schools like UC and Dayton agree on as main hosts of the event. But sometimes opponents are not known when contracts are signed.

It behooves Dayton to tread more carefully in the future and run the numbers — both financially and competitively. The RPI is a formula everyone knows and should understand. The Flyers have already committed to the Old Spice Classic in Orlando next year, a no-brainer given the quality teams that tournament has invited in past years. The same goes for the 2013 Maui Invitational — a tourney that invites six BCS schools and one non-BCS school every year to join host Chaminade in the premier in-season tournament of the college basketball calendar.

Some tourneys eye closer scrutiny however and the Global Sports Main Event falls in that category. We’re suffering from an RPI of 52 when staying home and adding more practice time would have yielded an RPI of 22. Judging by past non-conference seasons, the Flyers have entered A10 play with an RPI in the teens or 20s every time they fought realistically for an NCAA at-large bid. Few teams can and do charge up the RPI rankings after finishing the non-conference with an RPI in the 50s — unless eight of the top 16 teams in the RPI are in your conference as the Big East has.

It’s a long climb. Here’s hoping Mount St. Mary’s, Savannah State, and Florida A&M pull a few upsets along the way to make it easier for us.

We didn’t make it easy on ourselves — which is very un-UD like considering how well we’ve played the RPI game in years past.