Is West Virginia the best team in the Big East?

Over at the Bracket Project's Bracket Matrix, the consensus seems to be that West Virginia is a number 9 seed and the 6th best team in the Big East. My projections have West Virginia winning the Big East, going about 26-4 overall and 15-3 in the Big East which would be enough to win the conference title. They are also projected to win the Big East tournament and get a number one seed. So, why is the consensus that they will be a nine seed? Well, alot of the projections are based on the teams performances to-date. Mine are based on their projected records and RPIs in March.

If you look at the polls (Coaches and Press) as of last Monday, West Viriginia was 33rd in one poll and not getting votes in the other. Why the lack of respect for the Mountaineers? They have one loss, which came to Tennessee on a neutral court by two points. Aside from that one game, they have absolutely demolished their competition by an average of 36 points. I supect that many of the experts projecting brackets are using the polls as one of their tools. Because I use Jeff Sagarin's PREDICTOR in my simulations to predict the future RPI and the DANCE CARD methodology along with the forecasted RPIs to predict the tournament field, I don't have to rely only on what has happened to-date, but what will likely happen by the end of the season. One of the main reasons my projections put West Virginia so high is that Sagarin's PREDICTOR ranks them #1. This is due to the fact that they have been utterly humiliating the competition (aside from the Vol's of course). Will this spell success in the BE regular season? That is what Sagarin's numbers seem to suggest. The seeds themselves are somewhat subjective, but unless West Virginia completely falls apart a 9 seed certainly seens too low.

Finally, if you compare today's RPIs to the projected rpi's for the Big East, you get the following:

Current RPIs:
Current RPI Team
12 Providence
13 Marquette
36 Syracuse
39 Louisville
41 West Virginia
45 Pittsburgh
46 Villanova
51 Seton Hall
61 St. John's
63 Connecticut
69 South Florida
71 Notre Dame
84 Georgetown
146 Rutgers
220 DePaul
286 Cincinnati

Projected end-of-regular-season RPIs

ERPI Team
7.2 West Virginia
16.3 Pittsburgh
18.5 Georgetown
20.2 Marquette
39 Louisville
40.1 Providence
44 Notre Dame
47.4 Villanova
56.2 Connecticut
63.1 Syracuse
103.3 Seton Hall
110.1 South Florida
114.6 DePaul
120.5 St. John's
183 Rutgers
204.8 Cincinnati

So, judging by the current day-to-day RPI, West Virginia is sort of a good to middle-of-the-pack Big East team. However, if you look at the projected end-of-regular-season RPI, West Virginia is right at the top. The day-do-day RPI means nothing as far as the selection committee is concerned. The RPI that matters is the one in March, which is the purpose of my projections.