Happy Valley Hardball with a sabermetrics twist

In another surprise, PSU stands atop the Big Ten RPI Rankings.

Team
W-L
Pct
RPI

1
Penn State
4 – 3 – 0
0.571
67

2
Michigan
4 – 7 – 0
0.364
81

3
Michigan State
6 – 4 – 0
0.600
84

4
Ohio State
8 – 2 – 0
0.800
97

5
Iowa
4 – 5 – 0
0.444
104

6
Indiana
4 – 6 – 0
0.400
195

7
Minnesota
3 – 7 – 0
0.300
196

8
Illinois
1 – 5 – 0
0.167
208

9
Northwestern
3 – 7 – 0
0.300
255

10
Purdue
1 – 6 – 0
0.143
286

For the first time in several years, Penn State’s RPI has actually taken a jump during the first two weeks. Traditionally, PSU’s southern trips result in a string of losses but thanks to some good performances in Texas against some quality opponents the Nit’s RPI ranking has jumped to #67.

Team
W-L
Pct
RPI

1
Ohio State
5 – 1 – 0
0.833
90

2
Michigan State
4 – 2 – 0
0.667
94

3
Iowa
3 – 2 – 0
0.600
96

4
Illinois
1 – 2 – 0
0.333
109

5
Michigan
3 – 4 – 0
0.429
115

6
Penn State
2 – 1 – 0
0.667
120

7
Northwestern
2 – 5 – 0
0.286
197

8
Minnesota
2 – 4 – 0
0.333
211

9
Indiana
2 – 5 – 0
0.286
232

10
Purdue
0 – 3 – 0
0.000
249

One of the advantages of playing a top twenty program when you have a record as poor as ours is that your RPI won’t change much if you lose. Such was the case this week when despite going 1-4, our RPI went up three spots from 133 to 130.
I’ll post a final [...]

Despite our two wins over the weekend, our RPI dropped once again, this time to #133. That’s what happens when you play a team with an overall record as poor as Iowa (14-32). Despite our somewhat optimistic start to the year, it looks like we are going to wind up just about the [...]

Nothing like getting swept over the weekend to put your RPI into a free fall.

Our three losses over the weekend dropped us thirteen spots in the RPI rankings to number 100 overall.

These losing two of three weekends aren’t helping our RPI cause at all as we slipped another six spots to 87.

A .500 week (2-2) led to a slight RPI drop as PSU fell to #81 from the previous week’s 74.

A successful (3-2) week against quality opponents (Bucknell, Kent State, and Michigan) resulted in a continuation of the upward trend for Penn State’s RPI as the Nits moved up 20 places from 94 to 74.

Last week we saw the ugly drop that our RPI took even though we went 3-0. The reason? NY Tech was such a bad opponent.
This week we get to witness the opposite effect. PSU’s RPI jumped to #94 despite going a pedestrian 3-2. Why? Our opponents were much [...]

Beginning this week I will be tracking Penn State’s RPI ranking plotted over our 2008 ranking during the same period. In addition to weekly posts where I discuss the RPI, I will also carry a smaller version of this chart in the side panel.

Our lofty ranking of seventh in the RPI last week was [...]