2026 ARTICLE 10: SIMULATED END-OF-SEASON RANKINGS AND NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKETS FOLLOWING WEEK 4

Here is a link to an Excel workbook with simulated full-season NCAA RPI and Balanced RPI ranks -- and other important information -- for teams, conferences, and regions.  The ranks are based on the actual results of games played through Sunday, September 6, and simulated results of games not yet played.

 2026 RPI Report as of 9.6.2026

2026 Article 8 has an explanation of the method I use to generate the simulated ranks and of the key information in the workbook.  Article 8 also has instructions on the best way to download the workbook.

For purposes of evaluating the usefulness of the ratings the simulation currently uses to predict the results of games not yet played:

The table's reference to Team 1 is to the home team or, if a neutral site game, the team whose name comes first alphabetically.  The table indicates that although individual teams' results may not be consistent with the ratings used for predictions, results of all the teams together are reasonably consistent with those ratings.  In other words, missed single game predictions tend to even out over the number of games already actually played.  Perhaps of significance, although it may be too early to tell, there appears to be a little higher proportion of wins and lower proportion of ties than in the past.  It is possible, however, that this will change as conference play begins.

SIMULATED NCAA TOURNAMENT BRACKETS USING THE NCAA RPI AND USING THE BALANCED RPI

Here are currently simulated NCAA Tournament brackets, first based on the NCAA RPI and then based on the Balanced RPI.  Following those is a table showing how the two compare. (NOTE: For conference tournaments, I have used simulated conference tournaments based on the NCAA RPI.)

Here is a key to the tables:

The first table shows the projected NCAA Tournament bracket based on the Committee's using the NCAA RPI:

The next table shows the projected bracket based on the Committee's using the Balanced RPI:

The final table compares the projected brackets.  It shows the teams in conference order so you can see how a change to the Balanced RPI would affect conferences' teams.  Salmon highlighting means the team gets a poorer treatment by the rating system and green means the team gets better treatment.  No highlighting means the treatment is the same.

In reviewing the table, it may help to consider it together with the weekly RPI report linked in the first paragraph of this article.  If you review the data in that report, particularly the details of the data for conferences and regions -- the Autonomy region, in particular -- you will see that the NCAA RPI discriminates against the Autonomy conferences because of the way it measures Strength of Schedule.  The essence of the Balanced RPI is that it fixes this problem.  Thus the above table shows the effects of the discrimination and the effects of fixing it.

NOTE:  The Comparison tables are very preliminary, so it is not the details that are important but rather the overall impression in terms of the effects of the NCAA RPI's discrimination.  As a check against assigning too much weight to the details:

In 2025, the actual Top 57 in the end-of-season NCAA RPI rankings included 37 Autonomy teams and 20 teams from other conferences.  In 2024, the numbers were 39 and 18; in 2023, 34 and 23; and in 2022, 40 and 17.  Thus one could reasonably expect the number of Autonomy teams in the Top 57 to be between 34 and 40 and the number of other conference teams to be between 17 and 23.

In this week's 2026 projection, the NCAA RPI Top 57 include 35 Automony teams and 22 teams from other conferences.  Thus this is in the range of past distributions.

And, in the above 2026 projection, the Balanced RPI Top 57 include 45 Autonomy teams and 12 teams from other conferences.

Comparing the NCAA RPI and Balanced RPI projected brackets, the NCAA RPI excludes from at large consideration 10 autonomy teams that the Balanced RPI says should be considered and instead substitutes for consideration 10 teams from other conferences.  Although I think the number will shrink some at the end of the season, I also think this is an indicator of the effect of the NCAA's persistence in using the NCAA RPI.