Columnist Steve Carp: RPI brings things to light for New Mexico

The RPI Game.

That's Ratings Percentage Index, the mysterious formula by which a team's true power rating is devised and evaluated by the NCAA basketball committee every March come tournament time.

The RPI is supposed to be an accurate barometer of a team's true worth. But as anyone in basketball will tell you, that's worth as much as a win over Sacred Heart.

Still, it's fun to see how the polls can rank a team in one respect and the RPI can have that same team lurking among the low-rung programs.

The best example might be New Mexico. The Lobos are 13-2 and ranked 15th in both the Associated Press and ESPN-USA Today polls. But the RPI lists the Lobos at No. 123, and that was before Dave Bliss' team lost to Fresno State Monday.

But when you look at New Mexico's strength of schedule, you can understand why the Lobos' RPI is so different from their ranking in the polls. Out of the 310 Division I teams listed in the rankings produced by RPI guru Jerry Palm in Indiana, UNM's schedule is rated No. 298.

Then there's Clemson, which is ranked as high as 14 in the AP but whose RPI is 88, thanks to a strength-of-schedule rating of 207.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are Oregon and Toledo.

Neither the Ducks nor the Rockets are ranked in either top 25 poll. But Oregon's carrying a lofty RPI of 11 and Toledo is rated 17. Both have strong schedules to go along with their winning records and in the RPI formula, which is built on the strength of not only your schedule but that of your opponents and your opponents' opponents, along with the winning percentages for all of the above, those two schools are among the best.

As for the conference rankings, it comes as no surprise to see the Big Ten, the ACC, the Pac-10 and the Big East at the top. Why? A majority of those schools get invited to all of the premier preseason events, such as the Great Eight, the Jimmy V Classic, the Pete Newell Challenge and tournaments like the Maui Invitational and The Great Alaska Shootout.

Those games feature top-notch competition and even if your team loses, it still gets credit for having played a tough opponent. Many mid-major programs and conferences don't get invited to these events and it reflects in their league's RPI.

The one exception is the Missouri Valley, which was ranked eighth in this week's conference RPI. The MVC usually gets a lot of preseason games with Big 12, Big Ten and Conference USA opponents and this year, the league's overall nonconference record was 56-29.

You can also make a case for the Mid-American, which is ranked 10th out of the 31 Division I leagues. The MAC was 48-41 in nonconference play, but like the Missouri Valley, the MAC's teams played enough good people early and won enough games to boost their RPI.

How much of this will matter come March? More than you think, which may or may not be fair, depending on which side of the fence your team happens to be sitting. Some teams will get hot and give their RPI a much-needed boost. Some will go cold and drop like a stone.

But when it's all said and done, pay attention to the numbers. Because come selection Sunday March 7, it may be the reason your team is in or out of the Big Dance.

If you want to follow the RPI on the Internet, log on to www.collegerpi.com. The new numbers come out every Monday.

* TOUGH SCHEDULE PAYS: Every year, Temple's John Chaney plays one of the nation's toughest preseason schedules, and every year people say he's nuts for doing so.

And when the Owls finished 6-7 before opening Atlantic 10 play, Chaney was hearing how he bit off more than he could chew.

The Owls are playing the nation's third-toughest schedule, according to this week's RPI report, and have taken on the likes of Michigan State, Mississippi, Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida State, Stanford and Fresno State.

But with Temple off to a fast start in the A-10 at 2-0, guess who appears to be getting the last laugh?

"I hope by scheduling like I do, our kids will grow up," he said after his team dropped a two-game West Coast trip against Stanford and Fresno State. "If you're lucky, you'll win a few. But as a coach, it might be the only time in your life where you'll get a chance to teach them how to deal with adversity."

Chaney's team played well on what was the first West Coast road trip for Temple since 1989 when the Owls lost to UNLV.

"The hardest thing is to tell kids to look at the score and tell them they're not losers," he said after the Fresno defeat.

* TOUGHEST OF THE TOUGH: If Temple is playing the nation's third-toughest schedule, guess who's Nos. 1 and 2?

Try North Texas and Western Carolina.

UNT is winless in 10 tries losing to the likes of Maryland, Arkansas, TCU and Iowa State. Western Carolina is 3-9 and the Catamounts have fallen to Clemson, Maryland, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

* TRAVELIN' BLUES: Every year, you hear horror stories about life on the road as the inclement weather which naturally accompanies winter plays havoc with airline schedules, bus trips and hotel reservations.

Rice found itself stuck in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport just before Christmas after playing in Iowa State's tournament. The team's flight to Houston was canceled and there weren't enough seats on stand-by to accommodate the traveling party. So the Owls rented five vehicles and made a four-hour drive from Dallas to Houston.

Elsewhere, Tulsa's flight to St. Louis last week was delayed and coach Bill Self was concerned his team would miss practice prior to facing Southern Illinois. So instead of waiting at the Tulsa airport, the team returned to campus, practiced, then had to scramble back to the terminal as the weather had cleared and the flight was in the boarding process.

Everyone made the flight, but barely. And by the time the team arrived in Carbondale, Ill., it was late at night with a 3 p.m. game scheduled for the next day. Naturally, a tired Tulsa team fell to Southern Illinois, 70-56.

* THE FRAUD FIVE: Well, Auburn proved to be semi-legit after all, beating bogus Tennessee and whipping a pretty good Arkansas team. Cliff Ellis' team may or may not be the 14th best team in America, but the Tigers are good enough to escape the Fraud Five rankings.

However, Rhode Island and New Mexico aren't. So here's this week's bogus quintet:

1. Rhode Island (7-7) -- Another tank job -- this time at Pepperdine.

2. Tennessee (9-4) -- Jerry Green should thank Phil Fulmer for distracting Vols fans.

3. New Mexico (12-2) -- That patsy preseason schedule sure paid big dividends, didn't it?

4. Massachusetts (5-7) -- Latest disaster: losing to Iona.

5. South Carolina (5-8) -- Eddie Fogler's starting to catch some heat.

* HOOP DU JOUR: The WAC's plan to move its conference basketball tournament to Hawaii for 2000 is being fueled by a guarantee of at least 8,000 tickets being sold in advance by the host. The league is trying to do a basketball-football deal in Honolulu similar to the one it had with Las Vegas Events, which had guaranteed $1 million per event for the WAC football and basketball championships. ... Wisconsin showed its toughness as it avoided an 0-3 start in Big Ten play by beating 14th-ranked Michigan State Wednesday. ... The nation's top three teams -- Connecticut, Duke and Cincinnati -- all looked mighty impressive in picking up conference wins Wednesday over Boston College, Georgia Tech and DePaul, respectively. ... Must-See TV: Cal-Stanford Saturday night on Fx (Channel 12). The Bay Area's best go head-to-head in a battle of nationally ranked teams.

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