The Schwach Indicator: March 10

This is the ninth week of the Schwach Indicator standings. For those of you who missed the explanation of this new evaluation tool, here's a quick recap.

As the NCAA tournament approaches every March, one starts 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. 

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 number 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 at 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). 

Check out Mosang Miles's latest slideshow articlegrouping teams by conferences and ranking the leagues based on the Schwach Indicator.

Without further ado, let's get to the rankings through action on Monday, March 9.

1	Connecticut	7951.75
2	Pittsburgh	7816.50
3	North Carolina	7749.00
4	Memphis	7450.75
5	Michigan State	7358.00
6	Duke	7198.50
7	Oklahoma	7122.00
8	Louisville	6874.00
9	Villanova	6301.00
10	Wake Forest	6214.75
11	Kansas	5985.00
12	Xavier	5874.25
13	Florida State	5737.25
14	Clemson	5620.00
15	UCLA	5600.25
16	Washington	5518.00
17	Illinois	5496.00
18	Siena	5468.75
19	Butler	5412.50
20	Gonzaga	5387.00
21	Missouri	5296.25
22	Marquette	5213.75
23	Brigham Young	5210.50
24	Creighton	5182.00
25	West Virginia	5176.00
26	Syracuse	5080.25
27	Arizona State	5077.00
28	LSU	5052.00
29	California	4951.00
30	Purdue	4864.50
31	Dayton	4856.50
32	Utah	4820.50
33	Tennessee	4639.00
34	Ohio State	4579.25
35	Texas A&M	4562.75
36	Niagara	4536.00
37	Texas	4432.25
38	Boston College	4311.00
39	Minnesota	4281.25
40	Oklahoma State	4251.75
41	Wisconsin	4211.75
42	Saint Mary's	4208.75
43	Utah State	4185.00
44	Illinois State	4126.75
45	Northern Iowa	4104.00
46	Penn State	4103.50
47	UNLV	3935.00
48	New Mexico	3903.50
49	Temple	3893.00
50	UAB	3769.75
51	South Carolina	3763.50
52	Rhode Island	3746.25
53	Michigan	3725.50
54	Virginia Commonwealth	3717.50
55	Florida	3644.75
56	Arizona	3643.25
57	Georgetown	3592.00
58	Tulsa	3564.25
59	USC	3515.00
60	Virginia Tech	3485.50
61	San Diego State	3411.25
62	Maryland	3397.00
63	Davidson	3366.50
64	Auburn	3361.00
65	Kansas State	3336.00
66	Providence	3234.00
67	Miami (FL)	3182.50
68	Mississippi State	3141.00
69	George Mason	3125.00
70	Western Kentucky	3115.00
71	Vanderbilt	3111.75
72	Northwestern	3068.00
73	Cincinnati	3062.00
74	Cleveland State	3058.75
75	Kentucky	3054.25
76	UTEP	2967.00
77	Washington State	2837.00
78	Notre Dame	2813.00
79	Nebraska	2753.00
80	Wisconsin-Green Bay	2728.75
81	Stanford	2603.00
82	Vermont	2486.00
83	Old Dominion	2481.50
84	Northeastern	2463.50
85	Duquesne	2448.50
86	La Salle	2436.75
87	Hofstra	2382.25
88	Houston	2361.50
89	Baylor	2319.00
90	Wright State	2233.25
91	Arkansas-Little Rock	2228.50
92	Mississippi	2161.00
93	Nevada	2159.50
94	Seton Hall	2148.25
95	Bradley	2139.00
96	Saint Joseph's	2129.25
97	North Carolina State	2088.50
98	Binghamton	2018.00
99	Charleston	2006.25
100	Buffalo	2005.50
101	Iowa	1986.75
102	Alabama	1902.25
103	American University	1900.50
104	Evansville	1846.00
105	Fairfield	1803.00
106	Miami (OH)	1658.25
107	Wyoming	1632.75
108	Rider	1557.25
109	North Dakota State	1542.75
110	St. John's	1490.25
111	Weber State	1441.50
112	Boise State	1388.00
113	Drake	1381.25
114	Saint Louis	1354.25
115	Stephen F. Austin	1321.00
116	James Madison	1203.00
117	Richmond	1193.50
118	Drexel	1187.00
119	UCF	1147.50
120	Virginia	1139.50
121	Arkansas	1078.50
122	Oakland	1024.50
123	Texas Tech	1022.00
124	North Texas	998.75
125	TCU	998.25
126	Virginia Military	978.50
127	Milwaukee	973.75
128	Iowa State	973.00
129	Robert Morris	970.00
130	Portland	952.00
131	Wichita State	927.75
132	Akron	879.00
133	Troy	834.25
134	Oregon State	828.00
135	Cornell	809.50
136	Portland State	701.50
137	Manhattan	700.00
138	Kent State	679.25
139	Idaho	663.00
140	New Mexico State	656.50
141	Georgia Tech	650.50
142	Massachusetts	616.00
143	San Diego	599.25
144	Bowling Green	589.75
145	Southern Illinois	564.50
146	Illinois-Chicago	557.00
147	Liberty	488.00
148	St. Bonaventure	477.00
149	South Alabama	466.50
150	Radford	448.50
151	East Tennessee State	422.75
152	Southern Miss	420.50
153	Mount St. Mary's	328.00
154	South Florida	311.25
155	Texas A&M-CC	300.00
156	Marshall	268.00
157	Pacific	203.00
158	Boston University	200.50
159	Georgia	147.75
160	Tennessee-Martin	139.00
161	Citadel	111.75
162	Charlotte	60.50
163	Oral Roberts	46.75
164	Oregon	44.25
165	Morgan State	40.00
166	Middle Tennessee State	21.00
167	Sam Houston State	5.50
168	Long Beach State	-8.00
169	Albany	-26.00
170	Rutgers	-116.50
171	Morehead State	-132.75
172	Nicholls State	-166.50
173	Santa Clara	-168.50
174