St. John’s And RPI

I’m working on a post about the RPI and all of the fun ways to game it (hi Toledo!) and what teams could’ve done instead. But here’s a fun one I discovered this weekend about St. John’s:

If the Red Storm had played (and beaten) Winthrop, High Point and Stony Brook instead of Fordham, Monmouth and Longwood their RPI would’ve been nearly 20 places higher. Now, an RPI in the 60s isn’t great, but it’s a much easier bubble conversation. One of those games would’ve had to be on a neutral court – likely the SBU game – but it could’ve given the Red Storm a legitimate shot.

By my calculations St. John’s would lose 0.15 expected games by playing schedule 1 instead of schedule 2. Their RPI though would rise by nearly 20 points!

1) Neutral: Fordham; Home: Longwood, Monmouth – 2.71 expected wins, 81 RPI

2) Neutral: Stony Brook; Home: High Point, Winthrop – 2.56 expected wins, 60ish RPI

I’d take that trade off.