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Final Four
teams have more in common than simply being
No. 1 seeds
All college basketball fans know that for
the first time since teams were seeded in
1979, each of the number 1 seeds made it to
the Final Four this season. It took a long
30 years’ worth of NCAA tournaments for that
to finally happen. What you may not know is
that this year’s Final Four teams have
something else in common as well, and it has
never occurred previously in NCAA tournament
history.
North Carolina, Memphis, UCLA, and Kansas
each won both their respective conference
regular season titles and their conference
tournaments. The first three won their
regular season outright, and Kansas tied for
the title with Texas. Kansas was a No. 2
seed in the Big 12 Conference Tournament
based on losing the single head-to-head
regular-season game at Texas via the Big 12
seeding tiebreaker (Texas was the No. 1
seed). Kansas beat Texas in the Big 12
Conference Tournament title game.
Most conferences did not begin conference
tournaments until the mid- to late-1970's,
so it is not surprising that this did not
occur prior to the seeding of teams in '79.
Teams from the Big 10 and Pac-10, which were
long-time conference tournament holdouts,
are common Final Four participants, with the
Pac-10 holding conference tournaments from
1987-1990 and from 2002-present, and the Big
Ten since 1998. However, even if they are
included as having "won" their non-existent
conference tournaments in the years they
made the Final Four since 1979, at least one
of the other Final Four teams did not win
either their conference regular season or
conference tournament. So, this is one more
piece of Final Four history that may not
happen again for some time to come.
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Bracket Bits from The RPI
Report/Women's
RPI
Drake's
resurgence this year into the top 20 of
the RPI and top 25 of the media polls has
put the Bulldogs on the nation's radar.
Drake last made the NCAA tournament in 1971,
and was in the Final Four in 1969, beating
North Carolina 104-84 in the national third
place game. Which other teams
have had long droughts since they were last
in the Big Dance? Three Ivy League schools lead the list which is shown below. Four schools that made it are denoted with an asterisk following the year.
Last NCAA Tournament Appearances (Prior to
1990); * denotes team made NCAA tournament this year
School
Year
Harvard
1946
Dartmouth
1959
Yale
1962
Tennessee Tech
1963
Bowling Green
1968
Columbia
1968
Rice
1970
Drake
1971*
VMI
1977
Duquesne
1977
CS Fullerton
1978*
Furman
1980
Toledo
1980
Mercer
1985
Loyola (Ill.)
1985
Cleveland State
1986
Jacksonville
1986
Brown
1986
Marshall
1987
Idaho State
1987
Marist
1987
Cornell
1988*
Baylor
1988*
Middle Tennessee
1989
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Teams with No. 1 schedule strength rankings
can usually look forward to an NCAA
tournament invitation
Kentucky took top
honors in the final, regular season 2007 RPI
schedule strength. Since 1991,
13 of the 17 teams holding the No. 1
regular-season schedule strength rank have been in the NCAA
tournament. In four of the last seven years, the team
holding schedule strength honors has lost in
the first round of the NCAA tournament. The
listed Division I record is for the final,
regular season. List
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Several conferences use CBN's RPI data to break tournament seeding ties
Nearly all conference offices subscribe
to both The RPI Report and The Women's RPI Report because they know they can count on the most accurate weighted RPI for the men
and the adjusted, or "secret",
RPI for the women anywhere this side of the NCAA tournament selection
committees. CBN first made the Adjusted RPI ratings (which are no longer
used for the men) available to The RPI
Report and The Women's RPI Report subscribers during the 1998-99 season. The
NCAA used the Adjusted RPI ratings from the 1993-94
through the 2003-04 season for the men and
have used the weighted RPI since the 2004-05
season, while the women continue to use the
Adjusted RPI. The weighted RPI gives more credit to
teams that schedule tough opponents and that
beat good teams both at home and on the
road. Story |
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AP carries the Men's RPI Ratings for 14th consecutive year during the 2007-08 season
For the 14th consecutive year, the Associated Press (AP) is carrying the RPI, provided by CBN, for both men's and women's college basketball. In addition, this is the
11th season that the AP has distributed the women's RPI. The final, full season men's and women's RPI ratings will be sent to the AP following the NCAA championship games. Story |
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Statistics updated through games of Tuesday, April 8, 2008 - End of 2007-08 Season. The Final, Full Season issues of The RPI Report and The Women's RPI Report are now online |
Listen to a short radio clip that CBN's Jim Sukup had
on ESPN Radio with Chuck Wilson, Tony Bruno, and Mike Tirico on Sat., March 13, 1993. This was the first national radio interview that Sukup gave regarding
the RPI. Note that the RPI formula has changed several times since then. Listen
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