What is RPI in College Basketball Handicapping?

RPI is an acronym that gets tossed around a lot in the world of college basketball. It’s a calculation that plays a role in how teams are selected for the NCAA tournament and how they are seeded once there. It’s also a tool used by handicappers to evaluate a team to some degree.

The RPI stands for Ratings Percentage Index and it’s a method of evaluating college basketball teams that takes into account both winning percentage and strength of schedule. The idea behind it is that it’s impossible for committee members to watch every game so having a metric that compares teams based on the strengths of their schedule makes sense.

Using a complex formula the RPI weighs a team’s win-loss record at home and away as well as the wins and losses of their opponents. Each of these components is worth 25% of the total calculation.

In 2004 the NCAA updated the way they calculate the WP factor of the RPI to better reflect reality. The new formula takes into consideration the fact that teams tend to win about two-thirds of their games at home and so it adjusts for this by making a win on the road equal to 0.6 wins while a loss at home counts as 1.4 losses. It also gives more weight to games played in neutral sites as they are a more common venue.

In short, a team’s winning percentage and the average win-loss record of their opponents are weighted at 25% of the overall calculation while wins and losses and the average win-loss records of their opponents are weighted at 50%. This gives more weight to the quality of wins and losses as well as the ability to beat upper-echelon teams.