RPI RIP: NCAA kills off controversial metric, introduces self-branded tool

The NCAA has officially killed off the RPI.

It was about time. The RPI was introduced in 1981 as a somewhat bullet-proof equation to judging the NCAA’s best teams, but over the years it’s flaws became apparent.

That is why today, the NCAA has introduced ‘NET.’

Introducing the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), a modernized metric replacing the RPI this season.

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👉 https://t.co/6omYudsWTK pic.twitter.com/Dwlq4RWRSv

— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) August 22, 2018

Here is how Andy Katz explains it…

The NCAA Evaluation Tool, which will be known as the NET, relies on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses. To make sense of team performance data, late-season games (including from the NCAA tournament) were used as test sets to develop a ranking model leveraging machine learning techniques. The model, which used team performance data to predict the outcome of games in test sets, was optimized until it was as accurate as possible.

The NCAA apparently isn’t going for a complete revamp, because they are keeping the quadrant system.

This marks the second consecutive year the committee has made a significant change. Before last season, a quadrant system was adopted to place greater emphasis on success in games played away from home on the team sheets, which offer a snapshot of each team’s schedule and results. The existing quadrant system still will be used on team sheets, with the NET replacing the Rating Percentage Index to sort games based on the opponent’s ranking:

Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75

Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135

Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240

Quadrant 4: Home 161-351, Neutral 201-351, Away 241-353

While the quadrant system was widely deemed an improvement to the selection process, the NET is another significant step in addressing the recommendations the NCAA received from the NABC’s ad hoc committee, whose purpose was to make recommendations regarding the selection, seeding and bracketing of teams.

It will be interesting to see how this changes the rankings, if much at all. One way to find out would be for someone to run this tool over the past few years to see how close they committee was on their Tournament selections.

The only problem with that?

The NCAA isn’t open-sourcing this thing. They have not released the exact equation to the public and no one is sure if they ever will.

I guess it’s good to see the NCAA at least trying some new things in hopes to modernize and stay relevant, but are they even doing that if they don’t offer full transparency into the data?

Here is what some of the industry has been saying this afternoon…

I’m a fan of the RPI taking a back seat moving forward, but I’m wondering if the tournament will essentially mirror the NET rankings. If so, takes some of the drama out of Selection Sunday (and bracketology).

— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) August 22, 2018

NET versus RPI will be split like an atom over the next few weeks, but here's one important thing to remember: The best way to still build an NCAA Tournament resume is to beat teams that are projected to be in the NCAA Tournament.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) August 22, 2018

One more: The NCAA has not had discussions yet on whether or not to fully release all of the data/code that will comprise this NET metric and its algorithm. Obviously 99.9% of the public won’t care — but whereas RPI’s (primitive) formula was known, shouldn’t this one be, too?

— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) August 22, 2018

The big, big, big question — and it remains to be seen how this will play out — is whether the use of the NET and discarding of the RPI levels the playing field a bit for teams outside the power conferences.

— Patrick Stevens (@D1scourse) August 22, 2018