Other Scores - Week 9

first significant result of the evening:

UNC 5 - Clemson 1
The major ramification is that UNC now owns Clemson's woeful RPI. UNC dropped behind UP to #3 in the ARPI.

In anothe rslightly shocking development, Wake is leading Maryland 2-1 I think this one isn't so good for us if it stands, as Wake is competing with OSU on the fringes of a tournament slot.

Wake defeared MD 2-1

an interesting finish, apparently. several fouls at the end including a yellow and a red within 17 seconds to the same MD player and a red to a second MD player.

Texas is leading OK State 1-0 very late in the second half. Not good for the Pilots.

Texas 1, Oklahoma State 0. Final.

other than it hurt our RPI a little, it's not a bad result for us. they were starting to be an issue for seeding. a bad stumble by us might have put them ahead. it would be nice if Florida lost one, too.

tomorrow they Play TAMU, so is would probably be fine for them to stumble again. when two teams we played play each other, the RPI is a wash.

I think we want the lower RPI team to win if they are both above the 40 level and we still get the bonus.

Our bonus points shrank as California fell out of the top 40 yesterday, losing to Arizona which has a losing record. With LMU also falling out, we dropped from beating 7 top-40 teams to beating 5, and one of those—SMU—is on the brink, at #40. Beating Santa Clara would add a pretty safe one. San Diego looks more likely to climb back in than Cal.

some other teams to watch Sunday. basically, the ACC and the Pac 10 are all interesting. Notre Dame is also a big issue.

Ariz v. Stanford - miracles happen. I'm not surea Stabford loss helps us much. it would hurt our RPI.

Ariz State v. CAL a CL win helps our RPI

Florida v. Arkansas - expecting miracles to violate the laws of physics might be a bit much
Florida st. v. VT ???

Frances Marion v. Clemson - this will be a stunner

Georgetown v. Notre Dame. - GU was a bit overhyped early with a cake schedule, but they look to be the only team on ND's conference schedule who could beat them except maybe Marquette in their tournament.

Miami v. Virginia - just 'cause it's an ACC team. We want Miami to step up.

UNC v. Maryland - Maryland was an overhyped contender and stumbled, but maybe they can pull one out. I doubt it. They will play with two starters serving red card suspensions from the Wake game.

SMU v. UCF - an SMU win helps our RPI

Wisc. v. Michigan - another RPI thing

Washington v. Oregon State - who do we want? UW helps our RPI, but OSU may be a better shot at a hosting partner at this point. Both are on the bubble.

Oregon v. Wash St. - another RPI helper?

Wake v BC - I think we want Wake here. if BC wins out we are back in RPI trouble.

Rutger v. Lousville

PSU v. Idaho St.

Frances Marion? Clemson, you know it doesn't count if they're not DI, right?

Maryland just beat UNC 2-1

Penn State beat Illinois 2-0. Does that help the Pilots RPI?

Notre Dame tied Georgetown 1-1.

The Pilot RPI is looking very good right now. Playing St Marys and SF won't help any, though assuming they win out, they appear a shoe-in for a #1 seed.

Indigo Kid wrote:Penn State beat Illinois 2-0. Does that help the Pilots RPI?

Yup. any win by one of our opponents helps

If two opponents play each other, the only thing that matters is that they both stay above 40 or 80 in the RPI to get us bonus points.

Again .. how about a national championship playoff .. with "conference winners" .. only!!

slick wrote:Again .. how about a national championship playoff .. with "conference winners" .. only!!

I personally love the idea, maybe with a few teams added from strong conferences, but it will never happen. The trend is away from making regular season mean much. Look at pro basketball for the worst example. The regular season means practically nothing for the top teams - an extra home game in the playoffs.

slick wrote:Again .. how about a national championship playoff .. with "conference winners" .. only!!

Not sure I can agree with this. We failed to win the WCC the year we won our first national championship (2002).

fan from afar wrote:I personally love the idea, maybe with a few teams added from strong conferences, but it will never happen. The trend is away from making regular season mean much. Look at pro basketball for the worst example. The regular season means practically nothing for the top teams - an extra home game in the playoffs.

An even more egregious example: In Oregon high school soccer this year there are many conferences in which every team qualifies for a "play-in" game. If it wins the play-in, it's in the state playoffs.

In other words, you can lose every regular-season game 10-0 and still win the state championship if somehow your team miraculously learns how to play the game before the playoffs.

It's the age of a trophy for everyone, no kid has to face the harsh reality that sometimes you lose and that you learn from it. To paraphrase Albert Finney in the movie "A Good Year" - you learn more from losing than you do from winning and what is the most important thing you learn? That you don't like losing.

You guys do get that if only conference champions played, we wouldn't have the trophy in the case from 2002, right?

In fact, neither team in the final game would have been there. Pepperdine was the automatic qualifier that year.

That was great! A national championship game between two WCC teams, neither of which was the conference champion.

Well technically, there were co-champs. But pepperdine got the bid.