|
Fans of the Nebraska Omaha Mavericks finally have something to brag about this season—they're number one in the RPI. At least, according to Yahoo/Rivals. And they're really number 0, or number "blank". But still, that's pretty good for an 11-16 team! What happened?
Just a few weeks ago we noticed that some RPIs around the web mistakenly include Nebraska Omaha in their calculations. Since Nebraska Omaha isn't considered a full-fledged Division I team—a school can play only 4 non-Division I teams to qualify per the NCAA's rules—including them in the calculation was causing some discrepancies in the RPI figures for other teams. Any site with an RPI that lists 345 teams is no doubt making this mistake, as there should be only 344 teams on the list.
It looks like Rivals got the message, or figured it out on their own, but they seem to be having trouble extricating the Mavericks from their list; they now show up on top of the heap.
When viewed on Yahoo/Rivals' rankings page, it looks like Nebraska Omaha is #1. When viewed in full, Nebraska Omaha is not at #1, per se, but at #0, or # "nothing." Their computer program has some kind of glitch and doesn't quite know what to do with the Mavericks—it doesn't count them, but still lists them. Where do you list a team that doesn't count? At the top, apparently.
Here are a couple of amusing screen shots from Monday's RPI listing at Yahoo Sports:
Above: Yahoo/Rivals' RPI listing on morning of Monday, February 20
Above: Yahoo/Rivals' RPI expanded listing on morning of Monday, February 20
Rivals' RPI calculations, however, have been fixed, since Colorado State's numbers—and those of other Nebraska Omaha opponents—seem to be correct now. The process of culling Nebraska Omaha from the cohort just ended up listing them at the top as a fluke, causing a great deal of confusion among those who rely on Rivals' RPI numbers. In trying to fix their mistake, they've made things even worse. Not people noticed or cared about the error when Nebraska Omaha was listed around #300, but putting them at the top raised eyebrows!
Note that in Rivals' expanded listing Nebraska Omaha has no RPI value and no Strength of Schedule rank, so they aren't being included in the calculation. But the computer is going ahead and figuring out their performance against the top 50, top 100, etc. Since Yahoo/Rivals tracks them in the conference standings, they are probably on the Yahoo Sports' master list of Division I basketball teams, so they're being made a special case when it comes to the RPI. So far they aren't handling that special case very well.
It's surprising that it took Yahoo most of the basketball season to realize their mistake. Nebraska-Omaha's inclusion in their RPI was one of the things that prompted us to start calculating the RPI ourselves instead of wondering who is getting it right or wrong.
We assume they'll fix it pretty soon. For now, though, enjoy the amusing screen shots.
|
this is exactly why they should quit using the rpi for everything
Posted by: Air Jordan | March 11, 2012 at 09:06 PM