Who’s #1?

The Top 3

(For all remaining slides, click to advance)

All 12 D-I Programs

Based On What?THE CRITERIA

(in order of importance)

RPI NCAA Tournament Bids & Success Attendance & % Arena Filled Program budget NBA Draft Picks & All-Americans Produced NIT Bids & Success

For the exact system, see the end of this presentation

What About Just 2011-12?Still VCU…by a nose

All 12 D-I Programs (2011-12)

Why Does VCU Win?Over the last five years, the Rams

have been consistently the best (or tied for the best) in…

NCAA Bids

RPI

NCAA Success

Filling Their Arena

% Arena Filled

NBA Draft

All-Americans

In other words, 7 out of 11 categories.

The ProofWhy does our system work?

The U.Va. jump. Virginia jumps from No. 3 to No. 2 in going from the five-year to one-year rankings…but still just trails VCU. Why? The Rams 1) won a Tournament game, 2) filled their arena better, and 3) had a better RPI. That sensibly matters slightly more than Virginia’s 1) Bigger budget, 2) Slightly higher attendance, 3) All-American and NBA draft pick.

The Proof (Cont’d) The Norfolk State jump. Norfolk State

jumps to fifth from a tie for ninth after making the NCAA Tournament and getting an upset. Should NSU be higher? Consider this – put some of the teams ranked close to or higher than the Spartans in the MEAC. Would they win the MEAC tournament and get an NCAA bid? We think there’s a good chance they would. The NCAA Tournament upset win bolstered Norfolk State to the middle of the pack…but no further. We think that’s sensible.

Eliminated CriteriaOther criteria we considered…but didn’t include Conference championshipsReason: Difference in conferences makes this an unreasonable comparison. Coaches’ tenureReason: Coaches can leave for other, better opportunities, and that shouldn’t be penalized. NCAA violationsReason: To much variation to measure. Plus, punishment should effect performance…and that is already measured.

The Exact System 1. RPI: 20 points for RPI of 1-10, 18 for 11-20, 16 for 21-30, and so

on until getting to 0 for 91-100. Then it's negative-5 for 101-150, negative-10 for 151-200, negative-15 for 201-300 and negative-20 for anything over 300.

2. NCAA Tournament: A bid is worth 10 points. First round win is worth 10 more, then 5 points for each win after that. 5 more points for Final Four.

3. Raw attendance: Using the average attendance for the season, 1 point per thousand people. (Cumulative over five years.)

4. Filling the arena: Average out the attendances over five years, then divide by the arena's capacity. Subtract that number from 0.5, multiply it by 100, and there are your points for this category. It works such that a half-filled arena gives zero points, a full arena 50 points, zero attendance is minus-50, and it’s linear in between).

Exact System (Cont’d) 5. Budget: 1 point per every $100,000 of expenses. (Obtained from the

Department of Education website listing for 2010-11, the most recent year available.)

6. NBA draft picks: 20 points for a lottery pick 12 points for a non-lottery first-rounder, 6 for a second-rounder.

7. All-Americans: 12 for first-team, 6 for second-team, 3 for honorable-mention.

8. NIT: 1 point for a bid, then 1 point each for every win.

NOTE: Two of these criteria are not cumulative: budget (only 2011-12 was available) and filling the arena (this was an average). Therefore, in going from the five-year ratings to the one-year ratings, the point values for these criteria were divided by five so that they were weighed the same amount for both time spans. For example, if budget netted 20 points for the five-year span, that translated to 4 points for the one-year span.

ContributorsThis blog was put together by the sports staff at the Daily News-Record newspaper in Harrisonburg, Va. Contributors included:

Paul Montana, Sports Writer Mark Selig, Sports Writer and James

Madison men's basketball beat writer Chris Simmons, Sports Editor

ResourcesHere's where we got some of our

information: Men's basketball budgets:

U.S. Department of Education Website Attendance: NCAA Attendance Figures RPI: Real Time RPI