http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/s...e-ncaa-tournament-bubble.html?_r=2&ref=sports
This provides some hope for Iowa's NIT chances.
"When I posed this question to David Worlock, the associate director for the men’s tournament, his answer was unambiguous: we were supposed to be picking the best teams. The committee members spoke frequently of the “shirts and skins testâ€: who would beat whom if they actually played a game?
Under this paradigm, one particular factor tended to dominate in our discussion of the teams: quality wins. Which teams had showed they could win against tough opponents, especially away from home?
The focus on quality wins, it turns out, contradicts another criterion that the selection committee weighs heavily: the Ratings Percentage Index, or R.P.I. The system, developed in 1981 in the era of the DOS prompt and the Commodore 64, tends to give computer rankings and other objective attempts at analysis a bad name.
Over the long run, R.P.I. has predicted the outcome of N.C.A.A. games more poorly than almost any other system. And it shows some especially implausible results this season. Southern Mississippi, for instance, was somehow ranked ahead of Missouri, even though it has endured seven losses to Missouri’s four (some of them against middling teams like Houston, Texas-El Paso, Alabama-Birmingham and Denver).
.........
But to a large extent, the N.C.A.A. process is a case of two wrongs making a right, counterbalancing R.P.I. flaws by making a series of mental adjustments to it. Using a more reliable system as the point of departure would give the committee a better way through the unenviable task of sorting through the bubble."
This provides some hope for Iowa's NIT chances.
"When I posed this question to David Worlock, the associate director for the men’s tournament, his answer was unambiguous: we were supposed to be picking the best teams. The committee members spoke frequently of the “shirts and skins testâ€: who would beat whom if they actually played a game?
Under this paradigm, one particular factor tended to dominate in our discussion of the teams: quality wins. Which teams had showed they could win against tough opponents, especially away from home?
The focus on quality wins, it turns out, contradicts another criterion that the selection committee weighs heavily: the Ratings Percentage Index, or R.P.I. The system, developed in 1981 in the era of the DOS prompt and the Commodore 64, tends to give computer rankings and other objective attempts at analysis a bad name.
Over the long run, R.P.I. has predicted the outcome of N.C.A.A. games more poorly than almost any other system. And it shows some especially implausible results this season. Southern Mississippi, for instance, was somehow ranked ahead of Missouri, even though it has endured seven losses to Missouri’s four (some of them against middling teams like Houston, Texas-El Paso, Alabama-Birmingham and Denver).
.........
But to a large extent, the N.C.A.A. process is a case of two wrongs making a right, counterbalancing R.P.I. flaws by making a series of mental adjustments to it. Using a more reliable system as the point of departure would give the committee a better way through the unenviable task of sorting through the bubble."
