RPI 101: Misused stat isn't last word

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RPI 101: Misused stat isn't last word

Friday, March 02, 2007

Auburn is the worst basketball team in the Southeastern Conference. That's not my opinion.

It's a fact.

The RPI says it's so.

Just one more reason the RPI should die.

According to the Ratings Percentage Index - the most misused and abused stat in sports - Sam Houston State is a better basketball team than Auburn. So is Albany.

There are 336 Division I basketball teams. The RPI ranks 100 of them ahead of Auburn. No wonder Jeff Lebo is sick to his stomach.

No wonder No.101 Auburn gets no love from bracketologists across the land. Consider the NCAA Tournament projections for the SEC as posted Thursday afternoon on Sportsline.com.

"Projected champ: Florida. At-large: Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Alabama. Bubble: Arkansas, Georgia, Ole Miss, Mississippi State."

Unmentionable: last-place South Carolina, last-place LSU and Auburn, which shares first place in the West.

The RPI is made up of three components - your team's winning percentage, which counts for 25 percent; your opponents' winning percentage (50 percent); and your opponents' opponents' winning percentage (25 percent).

In this case, it sounds like it's just made up.

What's hurting the Tigers is playing too many games against teams with really low numbers, but Auburn is 4-6 against teams in the RPI top 50. That's more top-50 wins than anyone in the SEC but Tennessee (7), Florida (5) and Vandy (5). Alabama has two.

Against the SEC teams Sportsline.com projects will make the NCAA field, Auburn is 4-2. Against Alabama, a genuine bubble team, Auburn is 2-0.

Yet going into Thursday's games, Alabama's RPI was 38, which put the Tide 63 spots higher than the Tigers. Go figure.

The good news for Auburn is that the RPI is not the final word on which teams get at-large bids and which teams don't. The RPI isn't necessarily more important than the numbers on the scoreboards in Beard-Eaves and, say, Coleman coliseums.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to SEC Commissioner - and third-year selection committee member - Mike Slive.

"You want to be careful in overanalyzing one piece of information," Slive said Thursday. "No matter how often we say the RPI is just one piece of information the committee considers, it's very hard to get people to understand that."

The RPI gets discussed way more in the ESPN studios than it does in the NCAA selection committee's command center. A team with a higher RPI isn't guaranteed an at-large bid ahead of a team with a lower RPI.

The members of the selection committee watch a lot of teams play a lot of games all season long. They tend to trust their eyes and their guts more than anyone else's computers.

Or, as Slive said, "In the final analysis, you can take all the quantitative data you want, but you have to make a subjective decision."

There's a lot of basketball left before the final analysis next weekend. What if Auburn beats Ole Miss on the road Saturday to share the SEC West title with Sunday's Alabama-Mississippi State winner?

What if the Tigers win a couple of games in the SEC Tournament?

Lebo isn't feeling very good right now, but the truth should cheer him up. His team isn't dead yet.

Kevin Scarbinsky's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Write him at kscarbinsky@bhamnews.com.

The Birmingham News - al.com