Road/Neutral Records, Herpes, and You

Yes; you have herpes.

Now that I got the last two parts of the headline out of the way, let's look at road/neutral records.

First, the Hawkeyes. Here's a rundown of Iowa's R/N record under Alford:
2000: 5-12
2001: 10-7
2002: 5-11
2003: 5-7
2004: 5-9
2005: 8-8
2006: 8-8
2007: 3-11

Altogether, that's 49-83, or .3712. That is, on its face, grossly incompetent. Nonetheless, let's provide a little context for Iowa's road foibles.

Over the last 5 years, the road/neutral record of the top 50 RPI teams has averaged close to 9-6 per team--overall, it's 2259-1465, or a .6067 average.

In the context of bubble teams, however, that's not a totally accurate figure for Iowa to go after if they want an at-large bid, so let's start filtering that down a bit.

If you look only at the Top 50 teams that earn at-large bids, since a conference champion's R/N record is totally irrelevant, the record goes to 1361-971, which is still near 60% (it's .5991). Meanwhile those Top 50 teams who are denied bids are decidedly under 50% (.4697).

But those figures can be skewed a bit, especially by mid-to-low-major teams who play eight conference road games against Northeast Butt State. So filtering it down to power conference teams who receive at-large bids (since, once again, a champion's R/N record is moot), the figure is 939-729, or a hair over 56%. Meanwhile, the difference is even greater when you observe Top 50 power conference teams who are denied bids--their winning percentage is only .4051!

If you're perceptive, you might be saying to yourself, "You, Mr. O.P. Surprise, are making a foolish generalization." I certainly am. Included in those power conference at-large bids are teams that are sometimes as high as #1 with, for example, a 17-1 R/N record. So there are some outliers skewing the data. If we cut out the Top 10, the average power conference team receiving an at-large bid did so while they won a shade over 52% of their games: they went 693-631.

Let's bring it back to Iowa. It seems fair to say that Iowa, should they want to be in contention for an NCAA berth, ought to be shooting for a R/N a bit on the right side of .500. And what effect would that have on this year?

Iowa has gone 3-11 away from Carver this season. Let's see what happens if they had gone 7-7. We'll take the 4 R/N losses against the worst-rated teams, turn them into wins, and see what it does to Iowa's resume (WARNING: What follows may cause wailing about what "might have been" and the gnashing of teeth):

Iowa (21-9, 10-6)
The non-conference now boasts a neutral win against Alabama. The worst loss turns into the UNI meltdown instead of the ASU debacle or the Drake murder job.

In the Big 10, Iowa has a slight edge in the record tie-breaker against Indiana and owns the 3 seed.

As to what their RPI would look like, their resumes look most similar to those of Indiana (#23) and Illinois (#35). Let's split the difference and put Iowa at, say, #29.

You had better believe that's an easy bid to the NCAA at about a 7 seed. Maybe better.

Unfortunately for Iowa, it's a fantasy that gets played out on a yearly basis, because Alford quite reliably fields teams that can't win consistently away from home. Even last year's 3 seed was only .500 away from Carver (8-8), which made them a ticking NCAA time bomb that blew up during the first-round game against (sigh) Northwestern State.

It also stands to reason that Iowa has not won a tourney game since the last time they were over .500 in road/neutral games--in 2001, when they went 10-7, then defeated Creighton in the tournament.

That's got to change, and there's no indication that the Hair Gel Squad is even moving in the right direction after 8 years.