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College Basketball says goodbye to RPI

By Shaun Gordon

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - MARCH 16: The NCAA logo is seen in the second half of the game between the Northwestern Wildcats and the Vanderbilt Commodores during the first round of the 2017 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Vivint Smart Home Arena on March 16, 2017 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - MARCH 16: The NCAA logo is seen in the second half of the game between the Northwestern Wildcats and the Vanderbilt Commodores during the first round of the 2017 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Vivint Smart Home Arena on March 16, 2017 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /
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The NCAA has created a new formula that will replace the RPI. For BYU Basketball, this could be a boost, at least in 2018-19.

After more than 35 years as the go-to metric for college basketball, the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) is being replaced.

On Wednesday, the NCAA announced that they’ve created a new rating formula that will take the place of RPI as the primary tool for the NCAA Selection Committee.

The old system was easy to figure out. It was a mathematical equation that added the following:

  • Team winning percentage (x 0.25)
  • Opponents’ winning percentage (x 0.5)
  • Opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage (x 0.25)

It’s a formula that anybody could use, but it left out a lot of key details, such as home/neutral/away games and strength of schedule.

The new formula, called the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), won’t be quite as simple to calculate, but it adds in a bunch of new data:

  • Record
  • Strength of Schedule
  • Game Location
  • Offensive Efficiency
  • Defensive Efficiency
  • Scoring Margin (up to 10 points)

The idea is to give the selection committee a more complete view of a team’s resume, hopefully making the NCAA Tournament selection process more precise.

Now, teams will get a boost for playing good teams on the road, and there’s more incentive to schedule better teams.

The NET could be a mixed bag for mid- and small-major schools. On one hand, there’s a better chance that big conference schools will be willing to travel to good schools from smaller conferences, since the road games will boost their NET.

On the other had, with strength of schedule factoring in, larger schools will have more incentive to schedule more games with other major conferences, leaving fewer games for the little guys.

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For BYU Basketball, this change could be a boost during the 2018-19 season. A majority of their high-profile non-conference games are on the road or at a neutral site (Nevada, Mississippi State, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah), and they play enough of them to boost their strength of schedule.

But it will only be a benefit for the Cougars if they win games.

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