Raising the RPI of the Summit League

[NorCalJack]

According to Terry V's blog, the Summit League discussed limiting which opponents the league could schedule in an effort to raise the RPI of the League. Here is his quote

The league’s branding plan - how to roll out the new logo and identity on-campus and in the community - was discussed, along with further details of the Summit Plan. Rather than set some kind of edict in regard to what teams you can and can’t play in order to raise the league’s RPI, member schools will use their own discretion and report back on what worked and what didn’t.

Since things are slow this time of year I thought it would be a good topic to discuss. I know that other leagues restrict their members from playing teams with historically low RPI's. I'm not sure that you can make it a League policy as some teams in the League will have a difficult time in scheduling anyway (Centenary, UMKC). I would like to see teams in our League play a tougher schedule than the Mid-Con in the past. Whatever they decide is fine with me, I'm just glad that it is being discussed.

I'm sure that SDSU and NDSU are advocates of playing tougher schedules. If the League did self-impose a restriction on which teams you could play, it may give SDSU and NDSU another reason not to play former NCC teams.

Go State!!! 8-) 8-) 8-)

[filbert]

Re: Raising the RPI of the Summit League

An absolutely average RPI schedule last year would have been 168 (there being 336 schools in the NCAA's RPI rating in 2006-07).

Doing some quick work . . . the 10 Summit League members played non-conference schedules (defining "conference" as the summit league members + Valpo) that averaged 165.68, pretty darn close to the median of 168.

Centenary: 177.13, and playing zero non-RPI teams;
IPFW: 124.46 but playing five non-RPI teams;
IUPUI: 151.78, playing two non-RPI teams;
UMKC: 148.38, playing two non-RPI teams;
NDSU: 194.83, playing six non-RPI teams;
Oakland: 118.40, playing one non-RPI team;
ORU: 132.65, playing one non-RPI team;
SDSU: 204.52, playing two non-RPI teams;
Southern Utah: 193.08, playing two non-RPI teams;
Western Illinois: 221.60, plaing two non-RPI teams.

Those Summit members whose non-conference opponents' average RPI was over 168:
Oakland, IPFW, ORU, UMKC, IUPUI
Those below 168:
Centenary, NDSU, Southern Utah, SDSU, Western Illinois.

Summit League/Mid Con opponents last year with RPIs under 250:
Denver
Alabama A&M
Howard
Texas State
Radford
Central Arkansas
Eastern Illinois
Idaho
Winston-Salem State
Morehead State
VMI
SE Missouri State
Nicholls State
Texas-Pan American
Montana State
Liberty
Louisiana-Lafayette
Princeton
Texas-Arlington

The only way to improve RPI is 1) stop scheduling perennially bad teams and 2) to schedule good teams and then beat some of them, especially on the road.

[Jacks-D1]

Re: Raising the RPI of the Summit League

For men's bb, I think we better worry about beating teams with bad RPI's before we think about scheduling teams with higher rpi's.

[filbert]

Re: Raising the RPI of the Summit League

For men's bb, I think we better worry about beating teams with bad RPI's before we think about scheduling teams with higher rpi's.

Well, yeah, but I wasn't going to come out and say that . . .