By Marc Tracy (NY Times)
March 15, 2019
The Kansas Jayhawks entered the postseason with their wings clipped. Having lost two stars midseason — one to an N.C.A.A. suspension, one to unspecified “personal matters” — they could well sustain double-digit losses for only the second time in 19 seasons.
Yet according to the Rating Percentage Index statistic, which typically saturates bracketological prognostications ahead of the N.C.A.A. tournament’s Selection Sunday reveal, Kansas was, as of Friday morning, the top-ranked men’s basketball team in the country — higher than Kentucky, which beat Kansas handily in January; higher than Virginia, which had zero losses to teams not named Duke; higher even than Duke and its basketball messiah, Zion Williamson.
So should you start penciling Kansas in as one of the four No. 1 seeds before the bracket is released on Sunday night?
Not so fast. While you can still find websites that calculate R.P.I., the statistic is officially no more in the men’s game. The N.C.A.A., which created it nearly four decades ago, disowned it in the statistic’s most prominent sport last year.
“We as a committee have decided the R.P.I. is kind of yesterday’s news,” this season’s selection committee chairman, Bernard Muir, the athletic director at Stanford, said last month.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/sports/ncaa-bracket-selection-sunday-net-rating.html
March 15, 2019
The Kansas Jayhawks entered the postseason with their wings clipped. Having lost two stars midseason — one to an N.C.A.A. suspension, one to unspecified “personal matters” — they could well sustain double-digit losses for only the second time in 19 seasons.
Yet according to the Rating Percentage Index statistic, which typically saturates bracketological prognostications ahead of the N.C.A.A. tournament’s Selection Sunday reveal, Kansas was, as of Friday morning, the top-ranked men’s basketball team in the country — higher than Kentucky, which beat Kansas handily in January; higher than Virginia, which had zero losses to teams not named Duke; higher even than Duke and its basketball messiah, Zion Williamson.
So should you start penciling Kansas in as one of the four No. 1 seeds before the bracket is released on Sunday night?
Not so fast. While you can still find websites that calculate R.P.I., the statistic is officially no more in the men’s game. The N.C.A.A., which created it nearly four decades ago, disowned it in the statistic’s most prominent sport last year.
“We as a committee have decided the R.P.I. is kind of yesterday’s news,” this season’s selection committee chairman, Bernard Muir, the athletic director at Stanford, said last month.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/sports/ncaa-bracket-selection-sunday-net-rating.html
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