WayBackVazquez said:
Two things: (1) your link hardly presents a colorable argument that the A10 should get the most bids; there are a finite number of slots, it's not as though every team with an RPI of x (apprently for the sake of this argument, 57?) should get a bid. And you MUST understand how crude a metric RPI is anyway. (2) Why is looking at the top 7 teams all you have to do to know there is "absolutely no question" what the stronger conference is? What about the other teams? What about the teams at the top, the means and medians? And anyway, to what end? Which AAC team do you think is being unfairly favored over which more-deserving A10 team?
I like the A10, but let's not go deeming it the new tobacco road just yet.
The answer to the bolded is the AP top 25 vote totals I posted up there. Despite the fact that the top 5 teams in both the A10 and the AAC have remarkably similar RPIs, those AAC teams are all over the top 25 polls while the A10 teams aren't even getting votes. That's purely brand name bias. As for why I only looked at the top 7 teams, well, once I hit a
freaking sub-200 RPI team in the middle of the pack in the AAC, it didn't seem like there was much point in going further. But fine, here are the complete standings:
A-10
1. 24-3, RPI #19, AP #10
2. 20-7, RPI #33, AP Not Receiving Votes
3. 21-7, RPI #24, AP Not Receiving Votes
4. 22-6, RPI #12, AP Receiving Votes (#30)
5. 20-7, RPI #30, AP Not Receiving Votes
6. 18-10, RPI #54, AP Not Receiving Votes
7. 19-9, RPI #56, AP Not Receiving Votes
8. 16-12 RPI #98
9. 13-14 #91
10. 12-15 #192
11. 10-17 146
12. 12-17 152
13. 9-17 201
AAC
1. 24-4, RPI #17, AP #11
2. 24-4, RPI #24, AP #7
3. 22-6, RPI #37, AP #23
4. 22-6, RPI #29, AP Receiving Votes (#26)
5. 20-7, RPI #38, AP #21
6. 14-14, RPI #157, AP Not Receiving Votes
7. 9-18, RPI 208, AP Not Receiving Votes
8. 12-16, RPI, 172
9. 11-15, RPI, 209
10. 7-20, RPI, 156
So amongst the top tier (the top 4 teams), we see a grouping of teams that are relatively equal, but the A10 probably has a slight edge as, of those 4 teams, the team with the highest RPI is SLU, and the team with the lowest RPI is SMU. Amongst the next four teams, the A10 has an incredibly massive edge with 4 top 100 teams including a top 30 team, while the AAC has a collection of one top 40 team and 3 sub-150 RPI teams. As for the 9 and 10 slots, once again the A10 is clearly the winner, with a top 100 team in freaking ninth place in the conference. And even with 3 more teams, the bottom of the A10 barrel is still far superior to the AAC, as the 11th, 12th, and 13th place teams in the A10 would have the 6th, 7th, and 9th best RPIs in the AAC. There is no comparison. Top to bottom, the A10 is far superior, and yet the AAC teams--being big brand names--get far more national respect.
And yes, the RPI is a flawed metric (just like every single other metric that has so far been devised). But given that it is by far the most ubiquitous metric used to compare tournament resumes, I don't know how you could quibble with my use of it here.