2024 ARTICLE 2: THIS WEEK'S NEWS AND UPDATED PREDICTIONS

News

There are two big news items this week.  The first is that it appears there will be changes to the NCAA RPI formula, effective this season:

1.  Rather than ties counting as half a win, as has been the case under the RPI formula previously, they now will count as 1/3 of a win.  This now will match how conferences compute conference standings.  It also will match a change already made for men's soccer.

2.  The bonus and penalty adjustment structure will change.  Under the new structure there will be three bonus tiers (rather than the previous two tiers).  The highest bonuses will be for wins and ties against teams ranked 1 to 25.  The middle bonuses will be for wins and ties against teams ranked 26 to 50.  The lowest bonuses will be for wins and ties against teams ranked 51 to 100.  These new tiers match two things:  (1) How the NCAA presents data about teams to the Committee for use in the NCAA Tournament bracket formation process; and (2) How the Committee looks at results, in terms of their quality.  Under the new structure there will continue to be two penalty tiers, but the tiers will be much broader.  The lower penalties will be for ties and losses to teams ranked 151 to 250; and the greater penalties will be for ties and losses to teams ranked 251 and poorer. 

The second item is that the Women's Soccer Committee is proposing that, effective for the 2025 season, it discontinue using the KP Index as a secondary rating system to the NCAA RPI and that it instead use the Massey ratings.  In my opinion, this would be a great change, as the Massey ratings have minimal discrimination in relation to conferences and regions, unlike the NCAA RPI and the KP Index.

Updated Predictions

Here are updated predicted end-of-season ranks, after incorporating all actual game results through Sunday, August 18.  These predictions include the RPI formula change of ties counting as 1/3 win rather than 1/2 win.  They do not include the changes to the bonus-penalty structure since we do not yet know what the new bonus and penalty amounts will be.

Team NCAA RPI, NCAA Non-Conference RPI, and Balanced RPI Ratings and Ranks

In this table, I have added two columns to what I showed last week.  The SoS Contribution Rank ARPI 2015 BPs column shows, for the NCAA RPI, each team's rank under the NCAA RPI formula as a strength of schedule contributor to its opponents' RPIs.  The SoS Contribution Rank URPI 50 50 SoS Iteration 15 column shows each team's rank under the Balanced RPI formula as a strength of schedule contributor.  If you compare teams' NCAA RPI ranks to their NCAA RPI Strength of Schedule Contributor ranks, you will see that they can be quite different.  For the Balanced RPI, you will see that the Balanced RPI ranks and Balanced RPI Strength of Schedule Contributor ranks are essentially identical.  The NCAA RPI's inconsistencies between its RPI ranks and its strength of schedule contributor ranks are a major problem and follow patterns that are the cause for the NCAA RPI's discrimination in relation to conferences and regions.

Conference NCAA RPI, NCAA Non-Conference RPI, and Balanced RPI Ratings and Ranks

In this table, I have added one column to what I showed last week.  The Conference ARPI SoS Contribution Rank column on the right shows, for the NCAA RPI, each conference's rank under the NCAA RPI formula as a strength of schedule contributor to its opponents' RPIs.  If you compare the NCAA RPI ranks to the RPI strength of schedule contributor ranks, you will see which conferences benefit from the disconnect between NCAA RPI's ranks and strength of schedule contributor ranks and which conferences are hurt.

Predicted Final NCAA Tournament Automatic Qualifiers and At Large Selection Status

These are the Top 57 in the RPI ranks at large candidate group, arranged in order of their likelihoods of getting at large selections.