NCAA Baseball RPI Formula and Selection Process

[A_R_K_A_N_S_A_S]

First of all, the RPI.
The formula used in NCAA baseball is the same as that used in basketball except for the adjustment of home and road records. Starting in 2013, college baseball "RPI formula will value each road victory as 1.3 instead of 1.0. Each home win will be valued at 0.7 instead of 1.0. Conversely, each home loss will count 1.3 against a team's RPI and each road loss will count 0.7 against a team's RPI. Neutral-site games will retain the same value of 1.0, but the committee is studying how to determine if a game should be considered a neutral-site contest. The adjustment is based on data showing that home teams win about 62 percent of the time in Division I baseball."[2] The change was made because of the discrepancy in the number of home games teams play. Some schools are able to play 35-40 of their 56 allowable games at home, while other teams, due to factors such as weather, may play only 20 home games.

This adjustment replaces the current system of bonuses or penalties that teams receive. Bonus points are awarded for beating top-75 non-conference opponents on the road and penalty points are given for losing to bottom-75 non-conference opponents at home. Bonuses and penalties are on a sliding scale, separated into groups of 25, with the top bonus for a road win against a top-25 team and the worst penalty for a home loss to a bottom-25 opponent.

[A_R_K_A_N_S_A_S]

And, there is this:

The Rating Percentage Index, commonly known as the RPI, is a quantity used to rank sports teams based upon a team's wins and losses and its strength of schedule. It is one of the sports rating systems by which NCAA basketball, baseball, softball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, and volleyball teams are ranked. This system has been in use in college basketball since 1981[1] to aid in the selecting and seeding of teams appearing in the men's playoffs (see March Madness), and for the women's tournament since its inception in 1982. In its current formulation, the index comprises a team's winning percentage (25%), its opponents' winning percentage (50%), and the winning percentage of those opponents' opponents (25%). The opponents' winning percentage and the winning percentage of those opponents' opponents both comprise the strength of schedule (SOS). Thus, the SOS accounts for 75% of the RPI calculation and is 2/3 its opponents' winning percentage and 1/3 its opponents' opponents' winning percentage.

The RPI lacks theoretical justification from a statistical standpoint. Other ranking systems which include the margin of victory of games played or other statistics in addition to the win/loss results have been shown to be a better predictor of the outcomes of future games. However, because the margin of victory has been manipulated in the past by teams or individuals in the context of gambling, the RPI can be used to mitigate motivation for such manipulation.

Some feel that the heavy emphasis upon strength of schedule gives an unfair advantage to teams from major conferences. Teams from "majors" are allowed to pick many of their non-conference opponents (often blatantly weaker teams). Teams from minor conferences, however, may only get one or two such opponents in their schedules. Also, some mid-major conferences regularly compel their member teams to schedule opponents ranked in the top half of the RPI, which could boost the strength of that conference and/or its tougher-scheduling teams. In basketball, the Missouri Valley Conference has successfully done this: It has become one of the top-rated RPI conferences, despite having very few of its teams ranked in the two national Top 25 polls. [1] In 2006, the NCAA began to release their RPI calculations weekly starting in January. Independent sources, such as ESPN or CNN/SI, also publish their own RPI calculations, which are updated more frequently.

[Kevin]

it is flawed

[A_R_K_A_N_S_A_S]

The RPI is the most important part of the selection process and the same formula is being used this year.

In order for a team to be considered for an "At Large Bid" to the NCAAT, the team must have a RPI of #75 or better, or receive a recommendation from a regional committee advisor. That is the only 2 ways to receive a bid for a regional, other than by winning the conference's automatic bid(s). 

The order of importance for placing teams into the tournament (bids):
#1 RPI = 50% (roughly)
#2 The teams overall W/L record = 25% (roughly)
#3 Conference Performance/Overall Ranking = 25% (roughly)
Of course the RPI already considers road games and opponents records and SOS, etc.

They started with roughly 90 teams last year in the initial pool of teams to be considered for bids (the top 75 RPI and the additional recommended teams).

The recommendations are made by members from the regions advisor board. The region's advisors actually rank the teams in the region each week and keep the other regions advised about the teams that they consider to be #1, 2, 3 etc. It all starts with the region advisors and works it's way up to the national selection committee.

When it comes to seedings, there is no actual dead set formula. The final say in how the teams will be set in seeds is done thru communications by the national selection committee. They do consider all of the above information and try to regionalize it with the best teams staying close to home and receiving the highest seed.

There will be 31 Automatic Bids this year and 33 At Large Bids.

Division I Baseball Championship Information:
http://www.ncaa.org/championships/division-i-baseball

[Kevin]

the selection has gotten worse over the years.

first, the rpi is flawed. anytime you have 3 teams from the big south in the top 60 of a power ranking, tells you it is flawed.

second,political correctness (or being fair), no longer does size of stadium, or fan support mean anything. basically conference champions from most of the bigger conferences are going to host, whether they deserve to or not. Most years, there is no way a big ten, sun belt, conference usa team should host, but they will.

third, to many small schools are represented on the committee.

i am still bitter over the year, the hogs won 19 league games, swept usc-e at their place, and they hosted, hogs didn't.

the crap is rigged. call me a nut all you want. i have spent a lot of time research this stuff the last few years. regional play is important to me for a couple of reasons, one, i want the hogs to have the best chance to go to omaha, two i want to play somewhere my father & i can go and watch. it is one of the special things we do.

so to see this crap, play out year after year, really steams me.

[Razorback7281]

the selection has gotten worse over the years.

first, the rpi is flawed. anytime you have 3 teams from the big south in the top 60 of a power ranking, tells you it is flawed.

second,political correctness (or being fair), no longer does size of stadium, or fan support mean anything. basically conference champions from most of the bigger conferences are going to host, whether they deserve to or not. Most years, there is no way a big ten, sun belt, conference usa team should host, but they will.

third, to many small schools are represented on the committee.

i am still bitter over the year, the hogs won 19 league games, swept usc-e at their place, and they hosted, hogs didn't.

the crap is rigged. call me a nut all you want. i have spent a lot of time research this stuff the last few years. regional play is important to me for a couple of reasons, one, i want the hogs to have the best chance to go to omaha, two i want to play somewhere my father & i can go and watch. it is one of the special things we do.

so to see this crap, play out year after year, really steams me.

Here Here +1

[Lake City Hog]

RPI, SOS and Conference Standings are not really a part of any "formula" for awarding tournament bids or awarding host rights. Those things are simply used in whatever way is needed to JUSTIFY the decisions of the committee.

In the business world job descriptions are not written to get the best candidate, but to allow the business to choose the candidate that they want. Much like the vagaries of RPI, SOS and Conference Standings, job descriptions are almost always written with just enough ambiguity to allow "wiggle room."

[A_R_K_A_N_S_A_S]

RPI, SOS and Conference Standings are not really a part of any "formula" for awarding tournament bids or awarding host rights. Those things are simply used in whatever way is needed to JUSTIFY the decisions of the committee.

In the business world job descriptions are not written to get the best candidate, but to allow the business to choose the candidate that they want. Much like the vagaries of RPI, SOS and Conference Standings, job descriptions are almost always written with just enough ambiguity to allow "wiggle room."

This is petty much true. I think it was 2 years ago, some members of the national committee came forward and openly admitted (not shamefully) that they had the tools to place and justify just about any team in any seeding that they wanted, within reason of course. Much of the decisions are made on recommendations by the regions advisors that watch the ball being played in their area. Our job is to impress the region advisors in our area and give them the numbers to work with.

To follow up on what Kevin was talking about: Unfortunately we are in a part of the country that is hard to justify more than 2 or 3 hosts (depends on the region boundaries we are looking at), while most other SEC teams have tons of ncaa baseball teams on every block and can justify having multiple hosts in the same state sometimes. Sometimes, another downfall for us is playing in the SEC where 4, 5, or even 6 teams are being considered for hosting. The committee will have a hard time, (and this is what kevin is talking about with USCe) every time, justifying more than 4 teams from a conference as hosts with only 16 total available.

I'm interested to see how they treat us this year, with our SOS being so impressive. DVH has had some trouble scheduling good teams to come to Baum for midweek games late in the season, but he has also had some bad luck in that some of those teams did not perform as well as expected when he scheduled them. It's out of our control on how well our opponents will do in other games.

[onebadrubi]

the selection has gotten worse over the years.

first, the rpi is flawed. anytime you have 3 teams from the big south in the top 60 of a power ranking, tells you it is flawed.

second,political correctness (or being fair), no longer does size of stadium, or fan support mean anything. basically conference champions from most of the bigger conferences are going to host, whether they deserve to or not. Most years, there is no way a big ten, sun belt, conference usa team should host, but they will.

third, to many small schools are represented on the committee.

i am still bitter over the year, the hogs won 19 league games, swept usc-e at their place, and they hosted, hogs didn't.

the crap is rigged. call me a nut all you want. i have spent a lot of time research this stuff the last few years. regional play is important to me for a couple of reasons, one, i want the hogs to have the best chance to go to omaha, two i want to play somewhere my father & i can go and watch. it is one of the special things we do.

so to see this crap, play out year after year, really steams me.

You are correct sir!

[Kevin]

This is petty much true. I think it was 2 years ago, some members of the national committee came forward and openly admitted (not shamefully) that they had the tools to place and justify just about any team in any seeding that they wanted, within reason of course. Much of the decisions are made on recommendations by the regions advisors that watch the ball being played in their area. Our job is to impress the region advisors in our area and give them the numbers to work with.

To follow up on what Kevin was talking about: Unfortunately we are in a part of the country that is hard to justify more than 2 or 3 hosts (depends on the region boundaries we are looking at), while most other SEC teams have tons of ncaa baseball teams on every block and can justify having multiple hosts in the same state sometimes. Sometimes, another downfall for us is playing in the SEC where 4, 5, or even 6 teams are being considered for hosting. The committee will have a hard time, (and this is what kevin is talking about with USCe) every time, justifying more than 4 teams from a conference as hosts with only 16 total available.

I'm interested to see how they treat us this year, with our SOS being so impressive. DVH has had some trouble scheduling good teams to come to Baum for midweek games late in the season, but he has also had some bad luck in that some of those teams did not perform as well as expected when he scheduled them. It's out of our control on how well our opponents will do in other games.

The did not have a problem having ole miss & miss state host in the same year.

[Kevin]

A lot of what you are talking about i with wiggle room is a&m getting in going to Oregon.  Who was on the committee. THATS RIGHT THE A&m AD

[A_R_K_A_N_S_A_S]

THIS SAME INFORMATION WAS POSTED IN ANOTHER THREAD, JUST THOUGHT IT WOULD BE GOOD TO HAVE IT HERE ALSO, FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.

Below is the national committee. After these ten committee members,  there are advisory committees within each region to share their knowledge of teams, to provide insight and provide several voices to ideally paint a fairer picture of which teams should receive bids.

**Remember we cannot post personal contact information such as telephone numbers and addresses.** I'm going to leave their names out also, because we don't need them.

Chair
Director of Athletics
Central Michigan University

Senior Associate Director of Athletics
Wake Forest University

Director of Athletics
Florida Atlantic University

Director of Athletics
University of South Alabama

Senior Associate Commissioner
Colonial Athletic Association

Director of Athletics
University of California, Los Angeles

Director of Athletics
Texas A&M University

Director of Athletics
Indiana State University

Senior Associate Director of Athletics
Binghamton University

Director of Athletics
University of San Francisco

We've had good relations with some of the schools that have members on the national committee.

There are 8 regions with the regional advisory committees being made up of 5 to 6 (7 in the west) additional members. Arkansas and the entire SEC are in the South Region along with the entire Atlantic Sun Conference and the entire Sun Belt Conference. This doesn't mean that we are going to end up in the South Region, it just means that all of the teams from those 3 conferences are being watched each week by those 5 or 6 advisory committee members and they will advise the national committee on who they think are the best teams from our region. Each of the 8 regions are chaired by one of the national committee members (not sure I like this). Last year the South Region Advisory Committee was chaired by the Texas A&M A.D.


Links:
http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/PreChamp_DI_Baseball_2015.pdf (page 26)
http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/PRE%20RD%20Host%20Ops%20Manual%20-%20ALL%20-%202015.pdf  (page 5)

[Kevin]

Why are all those small schools personnel on the committee. What do they know about big time baseball.

How long do you get to be on the committee

[Kevin]

 Noticed auburn started the season vs Binghamton wonder how much that check was for. 

[A_R_K_A_N_S_A_S]

Why are all those small schools personnel on the committee. What do they know about big time baseball.

How long do you get to be on the committee

Looks like 4 years.


Former South Carolina head baseball coach and current athletic director Ray Tanner will join the NCAA Division I baseball committee beginning in the 2015-16 school year. The 10-person committee is tasked with selecting the 64-team postseason field. Tanner will serve a four-year term, and Maryland AD Kevin Anderson and TCU AD Chris Del Conte will join him as the committee's newest members. http://www.garnetandblackattack.com/2015/2/18/8064505/ray-tanner-to-join-ncaa-baseball-committee

I would think the TCU AD is replacing the A&M guy for South Region.