Each week we will take three Pac-12 teams that are on the bubble and compare them to three national teams that are facing the same fate using blind résumés. Since the Pac-12 is so bad this year, we’re cutting this thing off after today due to the lack of postseason-bound teams. If you did not see the original post explaining everything, please go here.
*All numbers and rankings as of February 18
| Team 1 | Team 2 |
| Winning Percentage: .576 | Winning Percentage: .555 |
| RPI: 93 | RPI: 114 |
| SOS: 60 | SOS: 83 |
| Quality Wins (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 74, 36 | Quality Wins (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 64, 74, 97 |
| Bad Losses (Opponents’ RPI Rank): N/A | Bad Losses (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 151, 139 |
No question here, team one has the better résumé. They have a better winning percentage even though both records are terrible. They also beat team two by 21 spots in the RPI, and 23 spots in SOS. Team two has the edge in quality wins, but team one doesn’t have any bad losses (an impressive stat), which evens out the two categories.
Click the jump to see whom the résumés really belong to.
Team One is Maryland with the quality wins coming against Colorado and Notre Dame. Team Two is UCLA, who got their three quality wins against Arizona, Colorado, and Stanford. Their bad losses are to Oregon State and St. John’s. Now that we know the teams, I still like the Terripans. The no bad losses stat is huge, and that win against the Fighting Irish in Washington, D.C. will be huge when the NIT selection committee is looking for a team to fill one of the final slots in their field.
***
| Team 1 | Team 2 |
| Winning Percentage: .555 | Winning Percentage: .586 |
| RPI: 151 | RPI: 119 |
| SOS: 149 | SOS: 120 |
| Quality Wins (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 40, 100, 31, 114, 69 | Quality Wins (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 47, 97, 81 |
| Bad Losses (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 156 (2), 229 | Bad Losses (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 149, 245, 174 (2), 130, 169 |
Ugh, can you tell we have reached the CBI. Team two has the slightly better résumé, led by their winning percentage and RPI and SOS ranks. Their number of bad losses in the mid to high 100s is concerning, no doubt, but this is the CBI, and I’m guessing they’re not going to be too picky on that category.
Team One is Oregon State. Their quality wins came against Texas, Montana, California, UCLA, and Oregon while the bad losses were to Washington State (2) and Arizona State. Team Two is Butler, who had their quality wins against Purdue, Stanford, and Oklahoma State, and the multitude of bad losses were to Evansville, Ball State, Detroit (2), Wisconsin Milwaukee, and Wisconsin Green Bay. As you can see, each team has had a lot of poor outings against their lower conference foes. I’m still taking Butler.
***
| Team 1 | Team 2 |
| Winning Percentage: .592 | Winning Percentage: .518 |
| RPI: 128 | RPI: 171 |
| SOS: 152 | SOS: 153 |
| Quality Wins (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 119, 99 | Quality Wins (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 154, 151 (2), 93, 31 |
| Bad Losses (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 167, 132, 223 | Bad Losses (Opponents’ RPI Rank): 258, 275, 237 |
Team one is the easy pick here. They are better in winning percentage, RPI, SOS, and although the number of bad losses is even all three of team two’s were against teams ranked in the 200s in the RPI. Team One is Fairfield, with their good wins coming against Old Dominion and Loyola Maryland. Their bad losses came against Providence and Indiana State. Team Two is Washington State, with the quality wins coming against Idaho, Oregon State (2), Stanford, and California. Their bad losses were to UC Riverside, Utah, and Arizona State.
Obviously, both of these teams are pretty bad. I’m still picking Fairfield especially after seeing Washington State’s three bad losses. UCR, Utah, and ASU are very, very bad teams, and if the final CBI spot is to be given to either of these teams, I’m taking the Stags. For comparisons sake, earlier in the season they defeated Arizona State by 11.