What is the problem with RPI?
Unfortunately, RPI fails to work as designed sometimes. If a team plays a weak opponent and wins, their RPI can still go down because the reduced strength of schedule hurts more than the improved winning percentage helps. This should not happen. The NCAA tried to address this by increasing the weight of winning percentage in the RPI formula for hockey to 35 percent, but this just brought out RPI’s other flaw: teams which play very weak schedules can inflate their RPIs by racking up impressive winning percentages. Because the strength of schedule component to RPI is influenced by winning percentage (KRACH does it differently), if all of a team’s weak opponents play each other a lot, they can maintain a respectable winning percentage and make that team’s schedule look stronger than it is. (This was the problem with the MAAC and CHA). In response to this, the NCAA went back to the original formula for the hockey RPI, but now teams are once more dropping in the RPI when they beat weak oppo
