Some More RPI Thoughts

Just random musings about RPI and how it's affecting the playoff setup this year ...

First off, it's become apparent that there's little a team can do about the records of their opponents. With opponents' winning percentage being an equal part in the RPI formula to your own winning percentage, it really makes a difference how well your opponents do over the course of the season. But how can you count on that ahead of time?

Let's look at Xavier. Their non-district schedule included Iowa City Regina (a 1A powerhouse that had made it to the championship game for, like, a decade straight), Decorah (a solid 3A program), Davenport Assumption (another perennial playoff qualifier), and West Delaware (a constant presence in the 3A playoffs and one of the most consistently winning 3A programs in eastern Iowa). On paper, that looks like a recipe for an outstanding RPI.

But as the year went along ... Regina limped to a 5-4 record and missed the playoffs. West Delaware did the same. Assumption actually ended up with a losing record (4-5). Now, could this have been foreseen? The last time Regina had more than 3 losses was 2002; the last time they won fewer than 9 games was 2006. Assumption hadn't had a losing season since 2008. West Delaware's last season with fewer than 7 wins was 2007. It had been TEN YEARS or more since any of these three programs had a record like this year ... AND IT HAPPENED TO ALL THREE OF THEM this season. What are the odds?

Even with the unexpectedly poor performance by three of Xavier's four non-district foes (Decorah won their district with a 7-2 record), the Saints still ended up with the third-best RPI statewide. The issue with that, though, is should Xavier make it to the semifinals in the UNI Dome, the state will re-seed the four remaining teams, with number 1 playing number 4 and number 2 playing number 3. Xavier is at number 3; the number 2 team is Lewis Central, the undefeated leader of the west side in 3A, the team that most observers figured would make a logical championship opponent for the Saints. But ... now they're possibly slated for a semifinal match, making any championship game rather anticlimactic.

So this is where we can look to Xavier's schedule and what they expected to get from their opponents. If either Regina or West Delaware had won one more game, making their record 6-3, Xavier's RPI would have been raised above Lewis Central's into the number 2 spot. Oddly, though, even if all three of Regina, Assumption, and West Delaware had each won another game, that probably would not have been enough to get Xavier into the number 1 spot. That spot is held by Sergeant Bluff-Luton, which brings us to another kind of head-scratcher. You see, Lewis Central is undefeated. Xavier is undefeated. Solon (at number 4) was undefeated. Sergeant Bluff-Luton has lost a game, their season opener ... to Lewis Central. Not only did they lose, they lost handily (49-14, I believe) with a running clock in the second half. Yet their RPI remained high enough to them to hold the top spot above every undefeated 3A program in the class. (It had to do with their opponents' winning percentage; SBL's opponents won 55 of their 81 games, which is crazy ridiculous. Decorah's opponents won 53 games, but nobody else had opponents with over 50 wins. Lewis Central, Xavier, and Solon all had exactly identical opponents' records, leaving the opponents' opponents' winning percentage to sort out those three.)

But ... the quarterfinal round isn't over at the time I write this. Should Spencer knock off Sergeant Bluff-Luton on Friday (and SBL only won 24-20 last time they played), that would make Lewis Central the top remaining seed, and Xavier in the second spot. In that event, Lewis Central would play Spencer in one semifinal (unless Western Dubuque upsets North Scott, in which case the Bobcats would be Lewis Central's opponent). Xavier would take on North Scott (or Spencer if Western Dubuque should win), setting up the potential championship that everybody has been looking for since August.

But we shall see how things shake out Friday night.