It's time to say goodbye to good old RPI.
In a recent ruling, the NCAA announced that it would no longer use RPI as the main means of selecting the teams for March Madness every year. It has been a huge part of the committee's selection process since 1981.
RIP RPI https://t.co/6Q8ZzC02Kb
— Bucci Mane (@Buccigross) August 22, 2018
In its place, the league is introducing the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET for short. It will rely on strength of schedule, game results, game location, net offensive efficiency, net defensive efficiency, scoring margin and the quality of wins and loses to create its own ranking system.
RPI will still be used by other sports committees in Division I such as the Women's Basketball Committee.
Gavitt said that the NET has been a couple years in the works. That this was a way to combine results and predictive metrics. The RPI was 37 years old and had become outdated. “This was long overdue,” Gavitt told @WatchStadium
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) August 22, 2018
The recent change is one of many the NCAA has been trying to make in regards to college basketball. They recently declared that elite prospects and players may have their own agents, allowing them to come back to school if they declare for the NBA Draft and aren't selected. However, USA Basketball and the Player's Association still need to sort that out.
RIP RPI. I look forward to trashing the NCAA's new metric once the 2019 bracket is revealed and doesn't include a team I thought should make the field.
— Chris Stone (@cstonehoops) August 22, 2018
Regardless of how necessary NET was, it'll certainly take fans some time to get used to it. Hopefully this new system can help the selection committee avoid making selections as egregious as some of the selections they made last year.
Fare thee well, RPI. You will be missed.