Before the tournament starts, everyone is looking for any kind of edge to fill out the brackets in their office pools. I know that I”m not the only one that will go straight towards the RPI rankings at the end of the year to get just a little added help when I can’t decide on a particular game. But for all the websites that drop the knowledge BEFORE the tournament starts, no one ever goes back to see how those RPI advantages play out. Well, that’s about to change! Here’s how the RPI stacked up against the Selection Committee over the first weekend of March Madness.
Midwest Regional
The top 3 seeds won in the first round; but those were the only top seeds to win. The 4th through 8th seeds were all upset. According to RPI rankings, the two best teams matched up against one another in the 2nd round was the game between the Louisville Cardinals (#4) and the Siena Saints (#19). Interestingly enough, the reward for Louisville beating Siena is that they get to play 
the winner of the worst game of the 2nd round—Arizona (#62) beat Cleveland State (#54). Two of the three worst teams in the Round of 32 were in that game—only Maryland (#55) was in the same category. Continuing with the difficult match-up theme of the Midwest Regional: the toughest game in the Sweet 16 is the Kansas Jayhawk/Michigan State Spartan game. All of that is kind of funny when you consider this is the region that was completely destroyed by upsets in the 1st round!
West Region
Unlike the Midwest Region, the seeds pretty much held true to form. As far as the seeds were concerned, the only two upsets were the mild #8/#9 game where Texas A&M beat up on BYU and the equally fickle #7 vs. #10 game where Cal fell to Maryland. There was only one upset in the 2nd Round with the seeds, an extremely mild upset of the #5 seed Purdue sneaking by #4 seed Washington.
The RPI wasn’t as accurate in the first round. Utah State lost by a point to Marquette; Cal lost to Maryland; BYU still had problems with the Texas A&M Aggies. Just like the seeds, the RPI rankings only gave us one upset in the round of 32—the Purdue Boilermakers over the Washington Huskies.
East Region
Before the tournament started, all of the statistical analysis of the brackets showed that the East was going to be this year’s Group of Death. Even though this was supposed to be the most difficult region, all 4 of the top seeds (and top RPIs) made it through to the Sweet 16. In fact, only the Wisconsin/Florida State game provided a real upset. As far as the RPI is concerned, the Oklahoma State victory over Tennessee was an extremely mild upset (#20 over #18). But that’s it—everything else was chalk.
According to the RPI, the top 2 teams in the entire country are in the East—and both Duke & Pitt are still alive. Here’s the best way to sum this up, the worst team in the region that’s still left is the Xavier team that is 17th in the country. Congratulations with your #1 ranking Pitt! You’re reward is an extremely underrated and feisty Musketeer team that has tournament experience from last season and senior leadership. Both of those are 2 of the most important things to have—except for that small edge that Pitt has: talent.
The health of Ty Lawson's toe might be more important than all the stats in the world
South Region
Again, in the South Region both the RPI rankings and the seeds both held form. By every metric available, the 4 best teams in the bracket will all be playing in Memphis next weekend. If the RPI rankings are going to mean anything in the Sweet 16, the Gonzaga Bulldogs could be in trouble. Besides that Louisville/Arizona game, the Bulldogs game against the North Carolina Tar Heels sets up to be the toughest game for an upset. According to RPI rankings, Gonzaga is only the 26th best team in the country, facing the #3 Tar Heels. With Ty Lawson looking like he’s ready to make his run towards One Shining Moment, the Zags could have an uphill battle.
On the bottom half of the bracket, Michigan was the biggest upset, but they were promptly ousted by Blake Griffin and Company. Again, once the teams got to the 2nd round, the seeds and the RPI rankings held true to form. All of the favorites prevailed, pitting Syracuse and Oklahoma to fight it out for a spot in the Elite 8.
Overall
- You think that there isn’t that big of a difference between the #1 and #2 seeds in the tournament? Look at how much easier the opponents for the #1 seeds are in the Sweet 16 this year. The average RPI ranking for the #1 seeds opponents (Arizona #62, Purdue #25, Xavier #17 and Gonzaga #26) is 32.5. The average RPI ranking for the #2 seeds opponents (Kansas #11, Missouri #10, Villanova #13 and Syracuse #12) is 11.5. To put this in perspective—who would you feel more comfortable playing against with your season on the line: the Kansas Jayhawks or the Arizona State Sun Devils?
- In the 1st round, there were two games that featured teams that were next to each other in the RPI Rankings. Texas (41) played Minnesota (42) and Temple (31) played Arizona State (32). In both instances, the higher SEED won the game.
- Five members of the Sweet 16 are from the Big East. When you look at their RPI rankings, it should come as no surprise since they’re all in the Top 13 in the entire country. The only other conferences that have multiple teams left are the Big XII (Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri) and the ACC (North Carolina and Duke).
- Obviously, the worst team left by every measure is the Arizona Wildcats. The #12 seed in the Midwest region took their #62 RPI ranking and steamed through Utah and Cleveland State en route to their Sweet 16 appearance. While Cleveland State was one of the worst teams to make it to the 2nd round, the Utah Utes are still the only team in the RPI Top 13 to lose. Besides the Utes, the next best team to be eliminated was the Florida State Seminoles when they lost to the Wisconsin Badgers.
Even though the underdogs had some luck in the 1st round, the higher seeds dominated in the 2nd round.
This season, if you wanted to see upsets; I sure hope you watched the 1st round. In the 2nd round of the tournament this year, just about every favorite won. In the 16 games, only Purdue was able to overcome a lower seed and lower RPI ranking. The only other game that could even be remotely considered an upset was Arizona (and their lower RPI ranking) beating Cleveland State. Even with that said, Arizona was a higher seed—and would you really consider Arizona beating Cleveland State an upset? Sometimes you have to take a step back and realize what you’re looking at!
To be honest, I learned one thing over the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. This year, the seeds were much more accurate than the RPI rankings. The only team that had a high RPI and didn’t have a high seed was Utah—and they proved that they deserved their #5 seed. But in those tough #8/#9 and #7/#10 games, the selection committee proved they were as good as the rankings. The RPI was right twice, the committee was right twice, twice they were both wrong and twice they were both right. It couldn’t be any more evenly split!
So what does all of this mean for the next couple of rounds of the tournament? Well, if the trends continue, we’re going to have a bunch of #1 vs. #2 games in the Elite 8. Actually, as much as all of us like to see the upsets in the first couple of rounds, I always like seeing the BEST teams playing for the championship when we get to the later rounds. If you want to look at RPI rankings, the best chance for an upset is the Missouri (#10) beating Memphis (#7) in a battle for Tiger supremacy.
As for me, I’m done trying to predict games. My brackets are a mess, all of these numbers have just confused me for next year and I just want to watch basketball now. Really, I think the tournament has brought me to a high level of understanding. As Socrates said: “All I know is that I know nothing.” Damn, that’s depressing.
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