The Schwach Indicator: A More Accurate Way to Rank College Basketball Teams

As the NCAA Tournament approaches every March, you start hearing college basketball experts talk a lot about top 50 and top 100 wins when discussing a team's possible seed or whether or not a school deserves to be in the Big Dance at all.

I think these two criteria are important as well, but they're not perfect. Why? Because not all top 100 wins are created equal. 

Utah is 5-4 against the RPI's top 100, but three of those five wins are against schools ranked 84 or below. West Virginia is also 5-4 versus the top 100, but all of those victories came against the top 69 and two of them were over top 30 teams.

So I set out to create a more precise evaluation system in which teams aren't grouped by 50 or 100, but individually according to their RPI.

I enlisted the help of two friends:  Brad Wachtel, Director of Operations at Hoop Group, a New Jersey-based company that organizes basketball camps and runs an NCAA preseason tournament; and Mike Sverdlov, a computer programmer for New York Life.

We came up with the following formula:

For each victory, a team receives the amount of points equal to their opponent's RPI rank subtracted from 344. So if you beat the RPI's 144th ranked team, you receive 200 points.  Beat them on a neutral site and you multiply that number by 1.25. Beat them on the road and multiply the number by 1.5.

For each loss, a team receives a deduction of the exact number of points equal to their opponent's RPI rank. So you better not lose to the RPI's 300th ranked team, or you'll lose 300 points. Lose to the top team in the country? No sweat, you drop only one point. But lose at home and that number is multiplied by 1.5.

This way teams are rewarded for beating better teams (especially on the road) and punished for losing to worse teams (especially at home). 

Without further ado, let's get to the rankings through action on Tuesday, Jan. 13:

Schwach	Team		Schwach
Rank			Indicator
1	Pittsburgh		4038.00
2	Connecticut		3975.25
3	Oklahoma		3913.50
4	Duke		3911.75
5	Clemson		3836.00
6	Syracuse		3732.75
7	California		3570.50
8	Michigan State		3407.75
9	North Carolina		3367.00
10	Butler		3353.50
11	Xavier		3318.25
12	Memphis		3242.75
13	Saint Mary's		3240.00
14	Marquette		3156.50
15	Wake Forest		3072.25
16	Arizona State		2920.75
17	Louisville		2901.50
18	Minnesota		2890.25
19	Brigham Young		2813.50
20	Wisconsin		2807.25
21	West Virginia		2798.75
22	Illinois		2787.00
23	Florida State		2762.00
24	Villanova		2644.50
25	Georgetown		2581.00
26	Texas		2552.00
27	UNLV		2515.00
28	Ohio State		2466.25
29	UCLA		2466.00
30	Dayton		2405.00
31	Gonzaga		2354.50
32	Kentucky		2316.75
33	Siena		2309.50
34	Oklahoma State		2305.75
35	Michigan		2294.00
36	Florida		2264.50
37	Tennessee		2235.00
38	Illinois State		2191.25
39	Davidson		2174.25
40	Texas A&M		2142.50
41	Creighton		2134.50
42	Utah		2128.00
43	Boston College		2105.25
44	Purdue		2072.50
45	Washington		2067.50
46	Niagara		2035.50
47	Miami (FL)		1985.50
48	Drake		1981.75
49	Kansas		1978.50
50	Utah State		1938.00
51	Maryland		1912.25
52	Missouri		1904.25
53	Notre Dame		1760.00
54	Arkansas		1746.50
55	Boise State		1736.00
56	Miami (OH)		1716.00
57	Arizona		1701.75
58	Penn State		1700.25
59	George Mason		1658.00
60	Stanford		1657.50
62	Temple		1656.50
61	San Diego		1656.50
63	Tulsa		1617.75
64	Cleveland State		1594.00
65	Baylor		1589.50
66	South Carolina		1585.50
67	Rhode Island		1560.50
68	Bradley		1557.75
69	Virginia Commonwealth		1556.00
70	Providence		1532.25
71	Wisconsin-Green Bay		1526.75
72	Virginia Tech		1496.00
73	San Diego State		1478.00
74	Mississippi State		1468.75
75	Northeastern		1466.50
76	Virginia Military		1453.50
77	Vanderbilt		1432.00
78	UTEP		1408.00
79	Houston		1394.25
80	Evansville		1381.50
81	UAB		1380.75
82	Iowa		1369.50
83	Nebraska		1254.50
84	Duquesne		1240.00
85	Northern Iowa		1238.75
86	Kansas State		1233.00
87	USC		1232.50
88	Buffalo		1231.25
89	TCU		1220.00
90	Cincinnati		1209.50
91	Fairfield		1151.00
92	James Madison		1051.75
93	New Mexico		1020.50
94	Washington State		1013.25
95	Charleston		1006.50
96	Western Kentucky		1002.75
97	Texas Tech		997.00
98	Northwestern		992.00
99	Saint Joseph's		944.75
100	Iowa State		928.00
101	Mississippi		916.25
102	Milwaukee		916.00
103	Long Beach State		913.50
104	LSU		847.00
105	St. John's		843.50
106	Navy		835.00
107	Ohio		819.75
108	American University		781.00
109	Lamar		778.25
110	Hofstra		765.50
111	Cornell		749.25
112	Portland State		746.50
113	Alabama		731.25
114	North Carolina State		723.50
115	La Salle		713.50
116	Arkansas State		712.00
117	Nevada		705.00
118	Wright State		686.25
119	Auburn		676.00
120	Southern Miss		660.25
121	Weber State		642.25
122	Middle Tennessee State		636.75
123	East Tennessee State		634.50
124	UCF		607.00
125	Virginia		605.50
126	Arkansas-Little Rock		596.00
127	St. Bonaventure		589.00
128	Wyoming		584.25
129	South Alabama		578.25
130	Stephen F. Austin		558.50
131	Albany		519.00
132	Old Dominion		496.50
133	Georgia Tech		494.00
134	Drexel