WKU Basketball: NCAA Committee Announces New Evaluation Tool

On Wednesday, the NCAA announced the NCAA Tournament selection committee will be doing away with the RPI ranking system they have used to…

On Wednesday, the NCAA announced the NCAA Tournament selection committee will be doing away with the RPI ranking system they have used to evaluate and measure teams to be selected for the NCAA Tournament.

The new system, which is called the NCAA Evaluation Tool (aka NET), is supposed to be the new, modern system that will look at all the factors the RPI system had (such as quality wins/losses, game location, strength of schedule, etc) but supposedly more fairly for all teams.

It’s definitely no secret that the RPI model did NOT favor mid-major schools in the slightest. We could write a book almost as large as a dictionary of all the talented mid-major teams, including some very good WKU teams, that did not receive an at-large bid into the Tournament because some Power Five school that barely finished the regular season with a record at .500 got in because they played more “quality teams” than the mid-major did. (Look even last year with MTSU or even Saint Mary’s.)

While I still don’t think WKU would’ve got into the Tournament last year despite losing in the C-USA Championship game, it very well could’ve changed the fate for MTSU, who lost to Southern Miss in the first round of the conference tournament despite having a stellar regular season and being nationally ranked towards the end of the year.

I’m hopeful that this new NET system does in-fact give deserving mid-majors the chance to play in the Tournament they haven’t had in recent years. This new system could also make the C-USA a multi-bid league again which would help the strength of the entire conference as a whole.

Pretty much all of us are expecting or wanting the Tops to go back to the Big Dance this upcoming season. And while a conference championship and automatic bid would be great, this new system could possibly be difference between making the NCAA Tournament or going back to the NIT if WKU were to not win the conference championship like MTSU did this past season.

Only time will tell if this truly makes things more fair for all schools, including WKU, down the road but this change is definitely a move in the right direction.