SMU moves up to #37 in the RPI

[Rebel10]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi

[PonyFan32]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

[Lebanese4Life]

Can someone explain how Southern Miss has a higher RPI than us?

[ponyboy]

This is a good read, Lebanon: http://bigbluehistory.net/bb/rpi.html

There are generally five or six conferences in Division I which are considered power conferences and whose members can, in general, be expected to be one of the top 150 teams in the country, even the teams which finish in last place. Compare this to a low level conference where none of the teams are considered within the top 150 teams in the country. Obviously, one or two teams from that conference will do very well, and in the process accumulate a respectable won-loss record along the way, most entirely against what is poor competition (in the context of Division I as a whole.). Comparing only the won-loss percentage of the last place team of a power conference with the won-loss percentage of a low-level conference champion, with no regard for the schedule each school actually played, one would be completely misled as to which team was the stronger. This type of scenario plays out not just in the above example, but between the many levels of Division I. So in actuality, using won-lost percentage is oftentimes not a clear-cut measure of how strong a team is. That is why I consider it a 'fuzzy' measure of team strength as opposed to other systems which I would consider more direct AND accurate.