NCAA ditching RPI, adopting NET for determining March Madness seeding

The NCAA took a step forward today in determining seeding for college basketball’s premier tournament, officially dropping its use of RPI to determine seeding for March Madness. In it’s place, the committee will use the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET.

RPI, or Ratings Percentage Index, had been a significant factor for the committee in determining seeding since it was adopted in 1981, and while changes had been made over the years, a bigger, more substantial change was needed.

The downfall of RPI is that is was overly simple, relying on strength of schedule and a team’s wins and losses to determine ranking. Meanwhile, NET’s strength is that it pulls data and information from several different…