Final Four teams have more in common than simply being No. 1 seeds                                                For first time ever, all Final Four teams won both their conference regular season championship and were conference tournament champs 

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. 

 
			

Bracket Bits from The RPI Report/Women's RPI
Tidbits from recent issues of The RPI Report and The Women's RPI Report

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


Teams with No. 1 schedule strength rankings can usually look forward to an NCAA tournament invitation
Kentucky has No. 1 regular season schedule strength in 2007 but falls in 2nd round of NCAA tournament

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



Several conferences use CBN's RPI data to break tournament seeding ties
Administrators have complete confidence in CBN's Weighted RPI

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


AP carries the Men's RPI Ratings for 14th consecutive year during the 2007-08 season
2007-08 is the 11th season that AP distributes the Women's RPI Ratings

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


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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