The Summit League 2022

[omahalaw]

Great to see the Mavericks avenge the earlier loss to SD State. Looking forward to a similar result against South Dakota! I hope it won't be long before Omaha is to the Summit League what Creighton is to the Big East and Nebraska is to the Big Ten.

[kiyoat]

Summit Matches
Saturday, October 22 

Away ..................Home ...............Time

Western Ill ..........North Dakota ....12:00 P.M.

Oral Roberts ........Kansas City ........1:00 P.M. Video

South Dakota St ..Denver ...............1:00 P.M.

St. Thomas......... North Dakota St ..1:00 P.M.

South Dakota ....Omaha .............3:00 P.M. Video

USD @ Omaha is #1 vs #2 with only a half-game separation!  Plus, it's one of only two free streams on Saturday...An obvious pick for the match to watch (or attend - Baxter is a good place to watch VB)

[boxcariii]

Oct 21, 2022 9:05:57 GMT -5 omahalaw said:

Great to see the Mavericks avenge the earlier loss to SD State. Looking forward to a similar result against South Dakota! I hope it won't be long before Omaha is to the Summit League what Creighton is to the Big East and Nebraska is to the Big Ten.

It's a good goal, but as a Jays fan, my perspective is that you want South Dakota and Denver to help you by staying strong as well. Outside of Marquette, the Big East is such a drag to Creighton. 

At the top, the more the merrier. It's okay to have 4 really strong teams in a 10 team conference. That's 40% of the league. That's not too bad. Still, the more "top" teams in the league, the merrier. 

[kiyoat]

Oct 21, 2022 9:37:03 GMT -5 boxcariii said:

Oct 21, 2022 9:05:57 GMT -5 omahalaw said:

Great to see the Mavericks avenge the earlier loss to SD State. Looking forward to a similar result against South Dakota! I hope it won't be long before Omaha is to the Summit League what Creighton is to the Big East and Nebraska is to the Big Ten.

It's a good goal, but as a Jays fan, my perspective is that you want South Dakota and Denver to help you by staying strong as well. Outside of Marquette, the Big East is such a drag to Creighton. 

At the top, the more the merrier. It's okay to have 4 really strong teams in a 10 team conference. That's 40% of the league. That's not too bad. Still, the more "top" teams in the league, the merrier. 

100%

Especially for a mid-major this is critical.  If the Summit ever wants to aspire to regular at-large bids, you have to have a pool of at least 3 or 4 teams that can potentially have a fantastic non-conference season for RPI boosting.  One dominant team doesn't get you there, and can potentially destroy the strength of the rest of the conference, as the best players on those teams will inevitably transfer out.  Fan interest tanks, too, if those non-dominant teams feel they have no shot.  JMO

[kiyoat]

Match thread made:

South Dakota @ Omaha

[trojansc]

Oct 21, 2022 10:45:30 GMT -5 kiyoat said:

Oct 21, 2022 9:37:03 GMT -5 boxcariii said:

It's a good goal, but as a Jays fan, my perspective is that you want South Dakota and Denver to help you by staying strong as well. Outside of Marquette, the Big East is such a drag to Creighton. 

At the top, the more the merrier. It's okay to have 4 really strong teams in a 10 team conference. That's 40% of the league. That's not too bad. Still, the more "top" teams in the league, the merrier. 

100%

Especially for a mid-major this is critical.  If the Summit ever wants to aspire to regular at-large bids, you have to have a pool of at least 3 or 4 teams that can potentially have a fantastic non-conference season for RPI boosting.  One dominant team doesn't get you there, and can potentially destroy the strength of the rest of the conference, as the best players on those teams will inevitably transfer out.  Fan interest tanks, too, if those non-dominant teams feel they have no shot.  JMO

What I don't understand is that South Dakota didn't schedule like they even cared about an at-large bid. They scheduled Louisville, which, is a match that doesn't hurt you in terms of RPI, but is a very low likely chance that South Dakota will win that match.

But then after that, the next best team on their non-conference schedule is.... New Mexico?

South Dakota got left out of the tournament a few years back because of this. This year, their RPI is at 40, so they are within striking distance again. But they should not get any consideration at all with how poorly they scheduled.

[kiyoat]

Oct 22, 2022 23:05:26 GMT -5 trojansc said:

Oct 21, 2022 10:45:30 GMT -5 kiyoat said:

100%

Especially for a mid-major this is critical.  If the Summit ever wants to aspire to regular at-large bids, you have to have a pool of at least 3 or 4 teams that can potentially have a fantastic non-conference season for RPI boosting.  One dominant team doesn't get you there, and can potentially destroy the strength of the rest of the conference, as the best players on those teams will inevitably transfer out.  Fan interest tanks, too, if those non-dominant teams feel they have no shot.  JMO

What I don't understand is that South Dakota didn't schedule like they even cared about an at-large bid. They scheduled Louisville, which, is a match that doesn't hurt you in terms of RPI, but is a very low likely chance that South Dakota will win that match.

But then after that, the next best team on their non-conference schedule is.... New Mexico?

South Dakota got left out of the tournament a few years back because of this. This year, their RPI is at 40, so they are within striking distance again. But they should not get any consideration at all with how poorly they scheduled.

I guess, although early in the season it was ranked as the second best schedule in the conference. Now it’s third or fourth. Northern Colorado and UTEP are normally much higher in RPI than they are this year.

Add to that the fact that mid-majors have far less control over their schedules than high-majors. The fact that we played two home tournaments against competitive teams was a huge win schedule-wise. We aren’t “dodging” anyone. Denver typically plays three home tournaments with a single trip to a high-RPI tournament. They actually earned an at-large a few years ago ranked #50, which blew my mind.

[kiyoat]

.. although the trip to USF was a stinker. I’ll give you that.

[trojansc]

Oct 23, 2022 9:33:52 GMT -5 kiyoat said:

I guess, although early in the season it was ranked as the second best schedule in the conference. Now it’s third or fourth. Northern Colorado and UTEP are normally much higher in RPI than they are this year.

Add to that the fact that mid-majors have far less control over their schedules than high-majors. The fact that we played two home tournaments against competitive teams was a huge win schedule-wise. We aren’t “dodging” anyone. Denver typically plays three home tournaments with a single trip to a high-RPI tournament. They actually earned an at-large a few years ago ranked #50, which blew my mind.

High W-L mid-majors are the most desirable teams to schedule in the country. If they're willing to travel, they can easily get on good teams schedules.

UTEP/Northern Colorado may be decent mid-majors, but they aren't NCAA Tournament at-large caliber teams. You shouldn't get at-large bids for beating those teams unless they up their level.

I thought the inclusion of Denver was a bad decision (2018), I had them out of the tournament, but their RPI wasn't #50. Denver had a #39 RPI. They had just 1 Top 50 win, over #43 Saint Mary's. That shouldn't be good enough for an at-large bid, particularly when you had teams with better wins around them.

[kiyoat]

RPI rankings and conference standings 10/24/22

RPI	Prv	Team	W/L
41	(50)	South Dakota	20-2
71	(75)	Omaha	13-8
107	(110)	Denver	13-9
151	(139)	NDSU	15-7
.	.	.	.
208	(200)	SDSU	10-12
218	(211)	North Dakota	10-11
233	(239)	Kansas City	7-16
240	(230)	Oral Roberts	7-15
.	.	.	.
311	(306)	St Thomas	3-20
325	(327)	Western Ill	4-19

Stnd	Team	W/L
1	South Dakota	9-1
2	NDSU	8-2
3	Omaha	8-3
4	North Dakota	7-3
5	Denver	7-4
.	.	.
6T	SDSU	4-6
6T	ORU	4-6
6T	Kansas City	4-6
.	.	.
9	St Thomas	1-10
10	WIU	0-11

After 10 or 11 conference matches, Three tiers have now formed with regard to standings.



Top tier(5) USD, NDSU, Omaha, UND and Denver are all within a match or 1/2 match of each other.  Nothing is set in stone yet, but this group has the easiest path to the 6-team tournament.  Seeding and the regular season title are still up for grabs, though.  Not many matches left between the leaders of this group, so The matches involving NDSU and UND will probably determine the final order.  USD's 5-set wins over Denver and Omaha keeps them in the pole position for a regular season title for now.

On the RPI front USD still holds a (very) slim chance of an at-large consideration, but as has been discussed in this thread, their schedule lacks an impressive OOC win.

In the Middle tier, there is now a 3-way tie for 6th place, with a tournament spot on the line.  SDSU, Kansas City and Oral Roberts are in a dogfight for it (although there is still plenty of time for things to change).

St Thomas and WIU are not yet statistically out of the running for the Summit Tournament, but they are close.  For them, every week is now mainly an opportunity to get an upset and build for next year TBH.

[kiyoat]

Oct 23, 2022 13:37:05 GMT -5 trojansc said:

I thought the inclusion of Denver was a bad decision (2018), I had them out of the tournament, but their RPI wasn't #50. Denver had a #39 RPI. They had just 1 Top 50 win, over #43 Saint Mary's. That shouldn't be good enough for an at-large bid, particularly when you had teams with better wins around them.

Fair enough.  You know way more about this process than I do!  South Dakota probably could have substituted that final tournament at Stetson with a much tougher travel location, like Omaha did.  I think one of the goals for USD is to host a couple of tournaments each year, or at least one.  Getting P-5 teams to come to Vermillion sells tickets, and builds your fan-base.  So there are motivations outside of RPI/SOS.

Question: When head-scratching at-large bids like Denver in 2018 happen, doesn't that just reinforce the idea that the committee is lazy, and leans too heavily on the RPI as a flawed one-dimensional metric?  Personally, I think the development of the NET in college basketball was a huge upgrade.  It's not perfect but it's certainly harder to manipulate into "paper tiger" situations, like can happen with the RPI.

Is there a place for advanced metrics/rankings like Pablo or RichKern in the committee's process?  And will that ever happen?

[jaypak]

How in the world does one pick a Coach of the Year in the 2022 Summit? You could make a case for South Dakota (dominating yet again), Omaha (midseason switch to a 6-2 and instant results), North Dakota State (second in the standings and beat USD), and North Dakota (no one expected them to be 7-3 and maybe 9-3 after this weekend).

Who would your vote go to, if it were held today?

(My vote would be for Tupac, as of today.)

About South Dakota's OOC schedule -
I'd give them an A- for their two home tournaments.  The fields were strong, the only dud being Bakersfield who needed to be a middling power conference team, or high midmajor.  But 5 of the 6 opponents were solid, and bringing in Louisville was a coup for the fans.  As pointed out, midmajor scheduling isn't all about W's and L's.  (Another example of that principle is Omaha inviting Creighton to their tournament and giving them a third-party match (Florida State) on a day Omaha didn't play, then charging admission to the local Creighton fans who showed up to watch their team play a P5 in the same city - revenue game for Omaha in addition to the two dates Omaha itself played.)

The two USD road tournaments have to be graded no higher than a C.  Nothing wrong with the UTEP tournament per se, but it needed to be paired with something stronger.  The only good RPI draw in the USF tournament was Cornell.  When I look at these tournaments, it almost looks like the primary motivator in scheduling them was warm, sunny weather.

[vballfan17]

Oct 26, 2022 11:27:13 GMT -5 jaypak said:

How in the world does one pick a Coach of the Year in the 2022 Summit? You could make a case for South Dakota (dominating yet again), Omaha (midseason switch to a 6-2 and instant results), North Dakota State (second in the standings and beat USD), and North Dakota (no one expected them to be 7-3 and maybe 9-3 after this weekend).

Who would your vote go to, if it were held today?

(My vote would be for Tupac, as of today.)

About South Dakota's OOC schedule -
I'd give them an A- for their two home tournaments.  The fields were strong, the only dud being Bakersfield who needed to be a middling power conference team, or high midmajor.  But 5 of the 6 opponents were solid, and bringing in Louisville was a coup for the fans.  As pointed out, midmajor scheduling isn't all about W's and L's.  (Another example of that principle is Omaha inviting Creighton to their tournament and giving them a third-party match (Florida State) on a day Omaha didn't play, then charging admission to the local Creighton fans who showed up to watch their team play a P5 in the same city - revenue game for Omaha in addition to the two dates Omaha itself played.)

The two USD road tournaments have to be graded no higher than a C.  Nothing wrong with the UTEP tournament per se, but it needed to be paired with something stronger.  The only good RPI draw in the USF tournament was Cornell.  When I look at these tournaments, it almost looks like the primary motivator in scheduling them was warm, sunny weather.

I'd go with Tupac.  From an 0-18 conference record last year to 7-3 currently, granted 4 of those wins are to the bottom 2 teams, but still having wins over KC, ORU & NDSU on top of those seems like a drastic improvement from last season.

[mma40027002]

Tupac...they have overproduced and how can you not give mad props to someone with the name Tupac? 

But really, ND has done far better than I would have expected.

[kiyoat]

Oct 26, 2022 11:27:13 GMT -5 jaypak said:

How in the world does one pick a Coach of the Year in the 2022 Summit? You could make a case for South Dakota (dominating yet again), Omaha (midseason switch to a 6-2 and instant results), North Dakota State (second in the standings and beat USD), and North Dakota (no one expected them to be 7-3 and maybe 9-3 after this weekend).

Who would your vote go to, if it were held today?

(My vote would be for Tupac, as of today.)

About South Dakota's OOC schedule -
I'd give them an A- for their two home tournaments.  The fields were strong, the only dud being Bakersfield who needed to be a middling power conference team, or high midmajor.  But 5 of the 6 opponents were solid, and bringing in Louisville was a coup for the fans.  As pointed out, midmajor scheduling isn't all about W's and L's.  (Another example of that principle is Omaha inviting Creighton to their tournament and giving them a third-party match (Florida State) on a day Omaha didn't play, then charging admission to the local Creighton fans who showed up to watch their team play a P5 in the same city - revenue game for Omaha in addition to the two dates Omaha itself played.)

The two USD road tournaments have to be graded no higher than a C.  Nothing wrong with the UTEP tournament per se, but it needed to be paired with something stronger.  The only good RPI draw in the USF tournament was Cornell.  When I look at these tournaments, it almost looks like the primary motivator in scheduling them was warm, sunny weather.

Today I'd give it to Tupac of UND, but if NDSU wins the regular season it would be hard not to give it to J-Lo (Jennifer Lopez - how's THAT for a name?)

In retrospect, I have to agree with both of you criticizing our road schedule.  Could have been better.  In 2021 the Yotes went 4-6 with a similar schedule, and we were breaking in a new setter this year, so it may have been a miscalculation on Coach W's part, not knowing we wouldn't start slow again.

Here's the non-con with both the final 2021 and the current RPIs.

2022 Non-Conference Season:

date	opponent	21 RPI	current	diff.
Aug 26	Louisville	1	2	-1
	Northern KY	59	108	-49
	Missouri	200	123	+77
Sep 2	vs Portland St	101	85	+16
	vs New Mexico	125	88	+37
	@ UTEP	45	97	-52
Sep 9	CSU-Bakersfield	173	253	-80
	West Virginia	50	160	-110
	Northern CO	61	147	-86
Sep 16	vs Stetson	223	182	+41
	vs Cornell	219	303	-84
	@ USF	248	185	+63
			change:	-228

Not an excuse, but this schedule looked better on paper a few months ago.  West Virginia really tanked.