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(05-12-2017 09:54 AM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  

(05-11-2017 07:39 AM)ICB Wrote:  If you take the top six Sunbelt team and they face the top six conference USA team, I'd be willing to bet that in a three-game series conference USA wins five out of the six

Using RPI as a predicting tool, you would be wrong. Only CUSA's top team is ranked ahead of the Sun Belt's top team, and just barely.

1. MTSU 34 Texas Arlington 40 - CUSA wins
2. Marshall 108 Georgia State 106 - Sun Belt wins
3. Louisana Tech 116 Arkansas State 113 - Sun Belt wins
4. ODU 136 Louisiana Lafayette - 114 - Sun Belt Wins
5. Rice 174 Georgia Southern 144 - Sun Belt wins
6. UAB 199 Troy 150 - Sun Belt wins.

I know on the court play would be different, but you can only guess what would happen. We use RPI to justify everything so we should look at it as well. And Sun Belt was better next year. Period.

I'll play that game. This time using the final Sagarin Ratings, which, based upon my research during the last three season long pick'em contests is a much better indicator of actual game outcomes than the RPI. As seen below, this predictor estimates C-USA would win 4 of 6 very close games at a neutral sites with Sagarin's composite ratings and that increases to 5 of 6 when using Sagain's predictor ratings (blue).

57 Middle Tennessee = 81.32 (81.05)
80 Texas-Arlington = 78.13 (78.01)
CUSA Wins
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148 Marshall = 72.08 (72.15)
144 Georgia State = 72.29 (72.11)
SBC Wins (CUSA Wins)
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100 Louisiana Tech = 76.16 (76.68)
140 Arkansas State = 72.55 (72.66)
CUSA Wins
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122 Old Dominion = 73.65 (73.62)
158 Louisiana-Lafayette = 71.74 (71.69)
CUSA Wins
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157 Rice = 71.77 (71.84)
197 Georgia Southern = 69.43 (69.17)
CUSA Wins
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169 UAB = 71.01 (71.14)
162 Troy = 71.42 (71.41)
SBC Wins
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Upon looking at both conferences ratings as a whole C-USA had the 19th highest average rating, while the Sun Belt had the 14th. The main difference C-USA being saddled with two additional anchors, both rated in the 300's. If those two anchors are disregarded to only look at 12 vs. 12, then C-USA would have been the 14th rated conference, pushing the Belt down to 15th.

When only looking at average ratings of every conference's top six teams, C-USA comes in at #13, while the SBC would be #15.

Basically, the two conferences are currently very similar in profile, and anyone can find numbers to tilt towards either.