NCAA Tournament: Predicting the Bracket, Interim Ranking Reports

Updated March 2023

The purpose of this page is to provide some guidelines, based on what has happened since 2007, for using teams' weekly RPI ranks to see which teams are in a range within which they reasonably might get at large selections and seeds in the NCAA Tournament.  Information about the weekly RPI rank reports is at this website's "NCAA Tournament: Bracket Procedure" page under the caption "RPI Publication Dates."

Basic Information

Using data from years since 2007, following completion of each week starting Week 6 of the season, I have identified the following:

1.  The RPI rank of the team with the best and poorest rank that ultimately got an at large selection to the NCAA Tournament;

2.  The RPI rank of the team with the best rank that ultimately did not get an at large selection to the Tournament; and

3.  The RPI rank of the team with the best and poorest rank that ultimately got a #1, #2, #3, and #4 seed in the Tournament.

Guidelines

This basic information results in the following table of guidelines for using the weekly rank reports to see the teams that have a reasonable chance of getting an at large selection to the Tournament; the teams that are at risk of not getting an at large selection; and the teams that are potential #1, #2, #3, and #4 seed candidates.

In this table, using Week 6 as an example and reading down the Week 6 columns:

For #1 Seeds, for all the years since 2007, the poorest ranked team to get a #1 seed was ranked #22.  The best ranked team to get a #1 seed was ranked #1.  Thus for this week’s ranks, the rank range for teams that ordinarily reasonably would considered as potential #1 seeds is teams ranked #1 through #22.  For Week 7, however, the poorest ranked team to get a #1 seed was ranked #28, so the realistic #1 seed group is #1 through #28.

For #2 Seeds, the poorest rank to get a #2 seed was #50 and the best was #1.  Thus the potential #2 seed group is teams ranked  #1 through #50.

For #3 seeds, the poorest rank to get a #3 seed was #85 and the best was #1.  Thus the potential #3 seed group is #1 through #85.

For #4 seeds, the poorest rank to get a #4 seed was #64 and the best was #1.  Thus the potential #4 seed group ordinarily would be #1 through #64, but since the potential #3 seed group is through #85, the realistic #4 seed group is #1 through #85.

For at large selections, the poorest rank to get an at large selection was #148 and the best was #1.  Thus the potential at large group is #1 through #148.

For teams not getting at large selections, the best rank not to get an at large selection was #11.  Thus teams that might reasonably be considered as at risk of not being in the tournament is teams ranked #11 or poorer.

It is worth noting that these data, for 2007 through 2021, are for years when there were overtime games; and for 2022 are for a year when there were no overtime games except during conference tournaments.  Based on the limited experience of the 2022 season, it seems likely the change to no overtimes will not significantly affect these numbers.