Monday, February 7, 2011

Xavier's Artificial Slide

I was looking at these numbers today, and I wondered what the deal was with Xavier? Xavier remains undefeated in the Atlantic 10 conference, and they had been slated by the College Women's Hoops S-Factor as a 3-seed last week (and for most of the season) and as a 2-seed two weeks ago. Their RPI remains high, no. 9 in the country. But Xavier plummeted to a 5-seed in the new calculation this morning.

The reason for this has nothing to do with Xavier's play. While it's true that the Musketeers struggled at Dayton on Saturday in an overtime victory over the Flyers, only wins and losses, not quality of play, are factored into the S-Factor.

The reason for Xavier's numeric slide is due to two teams that Xavier has beaten this season: Michigan and USC. Both teams had been just barely in the top 25 of RPI going into Thursday (the Wolverines at no. 21 and the Trojans at no. 25). Both teams lost games (Michigan to Penn State and USC to UCLA), and therefore both lost ground in the RPI rankings (Michigan is now no. 26, and USC is now no. 29). Which means Xavier, by no fault of their own, now has zero wins over top 25 teams. Thus, the drop in the rankings.


Now in: Liberty, James Madison, Harvard, Texas, Boston College
Now out: Radford, Old Dominion, Princeton, Texas Tech, Southern California

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 10
Big Ten: 7
ACC: 7
Big 12: 6
SEC: 5
PAC-10: 3
Atlantic 10: 2

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