A Little Piece o' History

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In 1981 the NCAA sanctioned the use of the Ratings Percentage Index, or RPI, to aid in the selection of teams to the NCAA Men's Division 1 Basketball Tournament. As the tournament field has grown, so has the uncertainty and confusion regarding how the RPI is calculated and the utter disgust with the results from what is little more than an overblown algebra equation. In recent years, many news services, news outlets and personal bloggers have duplicated the RPI in an effort to inform and educate the public.

The NCAA Selection Committee has always stated that use of the RPI is merely one tool utilized in a much larger process of choosing the 34 at-large teams for the NCAA Tournament. However, if you look back at the last seven years of RPI history and correlate it to the teams selected for the NCAA Basketball Tournament, some distinct patterns and results do emerge.

Since 1999, just seven NCAA Tournament eligible teams that finished in the top 40 RPI have been left out of the NCAA Tournament (in 2003, #5 RPI Georgia declared themselves ineligible for the NCAA Tournament in response to possible rules violations by then head coach Jim Harrick). RPI numbers, courtesy of Ken Pomeroy are results after all conference tournament games have concluded and are final as of the Selection Sunday from each respective year.

Those teams are:

1999-Oregon 15-11 #40 RPI
2000-SW Missouri State 22-10 #34 RPI
2000-Kent State 19-7 #36 RPI
2000-Vanderbilt 19-10 #39 RPI
2001-Mississippi State 16-12 #40 RPI
2003-UNLV 21-10 #40 RPI
2004-LSU 18-10 #38 RPI

A closer inspection of these numbers indicate that nearly half of the teams left out of the tournament with an RPI of 40 or better occurred in 2000. Since 2001, only two eligible teams been snubbed for at-large bid. Twice has a team with 20 or more wins finished in the top 40 RPI and not been selected and no team lower than #34 RPI has been left out of the NCAA Tournament in the past seven years. Over that seven-year time span, 198 eligible teams (an average of 28 teams per year) have earned at-large bids from a potential pool of 205 possible teams, a 97% rate of success.

When analyzed, there is arguably no better indicator of whether a team will make the NCAA Tournament than finishing in the top 40 RPI. To further strengthen that argument, there is an even better chance of making it to the NCAA Tournament if you finish with 20 or more wins and end the season in the top 40 RPI.

While this is not an absolute guarantee of selection into the NCAA Tournament, it has been a steady and solid indicator of which teams the NCAA Selection Committee will choose for inclusion for the Big Dance come March.

Tomorrow, we will delve into the changes that have occurred since the NCAA altered the way the RPI is calculated and how those changes might affect the teams selected to the Tournament this year.

As always, your comments, questions and outbursts are welcome and encouraged.