Maddening RPI can mean nothing — and everything

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It’s impossible to escape each January, much like bowl games that mean nothing (translation: all of them) and resolutions that won’t last the month, this annual point of debate for those who follow Mountain West Conference basketball.

How strong the league is. How many NCAA Tournament berths it can expect to receive in March. How many fans won’t be able to watch games because of that ridiculous reality that is The Mtn. How Wyoming ever signs a great player once the sun rises in Laramie during a recruiting trip.

Opinions about all of it invariably differ, but numbers have this way of sifting through the bandwagon chatter when it comes to fairly evaluating a league’s overall strength. Another conference schedule opens today, and results already posted suggest a few obvious truths.

1. The Mountain West isn’t nearly as strong as recent seasons and rightfully projects as a one-bid NCAA league today.

2. That will change on Selection Sunday for the simple and inexpert reason that it always does.

If the letters BCS are the most despised in college sports, RPI stands for the most dissected. Ratings Percentage Index. That multifaceted and maddening system devised in 1981 to assist in selecting NCAA Tournament teams. That component the selection committee tells you means nothing out of one side of its mouth and everything out of the other, depending on which conference you happen to be discussing.

Example: If you’re talking Big East, it means everything. If you’re talking America East, not so much.

A computer is involved, so you know things get a little distorted over a season, but realize only these facts: It’s important to win games (especially on the road), play teams that also will win a lot and hope the teams they play win a lot.

Seems so simple. It’s exasperating.

The best Mountain West case study so far is Brigham Young. It was picked to win the conference in preseason polls and still should be. It has the best mix of size and skill and athleticism and loses at home about as often as Jonathan Tavernari passes up a shot inside 30 feet. It spent much of the last several weeks ranked in the Top 25 before falling asleep for a night at Boise State.

“I still think you’d have to say (BYU) has had the best six weeks up until now,” said UNLV coach Lon Kruger, whose team opens league play today at Colorado State.

Which makes this so telling: BYU enters conference with an RPI of 110 and a schedule strength of 240. In the land of RPI, for all the credit you get when playing Louisville and North Carolina and Michigan State, you are penalized for having eight wins against teams that are a combined 23-73 against Division I-A competition. For beating up on the Idaho States and Jackson States and Lamars of the world.

San Diego State has the league’s best RPI at 30, followed by UNLV (38) and New Mexico (60). The Rebels own the best schedule rating at 32 and have the only top-80 Mountain West schedule today. San Diego State is at 81. The next closest is Utah at 132.

It’s one reason you don’t need both hands to count the number of non-league quality wins a selection committee will consider in March. It’s also true the bottom Mountain West teams aren’t just bad this year. They’re dreadful.

Here’s the thing about RPI in January: Fewer than 50 percent of games have been played for any team, meaning the formula’s significance is fairly suspect in the eyes of many.

But the top four RPI leagues today are the Atlantic Coast Conference, Pacific-10, Big East and Big 12. It’s not as if any of them are going to lose momentum now. The Mountain West, meanwhile, has existed between No. 10 and 11 all season. It has finished as high as eighth twice.

Here’s the thing about RPI two months from now: The last thing Mountain West teams need is for anyone to run away with the regular-season title and also win the conference tournament in Las Vegas. That’s a guaranteed recipe for one NCAA bid.

You can improve an RPI greatly in conference (two years ago, San Diego State entered league play at 151 and finished at 56 while earning an NCAA berth) but also can lose all at-large hope by falling to teams you shouldn’t (see Colorado State, Wyoming and Air Force this season), home or away.

Data compiled so far this season tells us the Mountain West is down and destined for one bid. History tells us it will receive more than that. The RPI tells us everything in between. In other words, it still matters.

Ed Graney’s column is published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.