[Cactus Jack]

When I looked at the RPI ratings today wondering which regions were at the bottom, I was surprised to see Larue County ranked 27th as the top 5th Region team. I haven't seen anyone in that region play, so I can't say if it's true, but it did seem odd.

I don't think any of us would say that the RPI is perfect, but when I looked at it earlier it seemed to reward teams with few losses. I thought it might be leaving something to be desired when it comes to rewarding tough losses and scaling back the ratings for teams who've collected plenty of wins regardless of who those came against. Also might not be the best indicator of regional rankings if you are isolating a single region.

A good example of this would be the 13th Region.

1. Harlan Co.  - .66229
2. Harlan - .65470
3. Corbin - .61903
4. South Laurel - .61657
5. North Laurel - .60162

Harlan County is 21-5 overall, 8-0 in region, 5-0 in district, and 3-0 vs. out-of-state;
Harlan is 22-5 overall, 11-2 in region, 4-2 in district, and 0-0 vs. out-of-state;
Corbin is 16-5 overall, 10-1 in region, 5-1 in district, and 2-1 vs. out-of-state;
South Laurel is 18-7 overall, 9-6 in region, 4-2 in district, and 3-0 vs. out-of-state;
North Laurel is 17-10 overall, 9-0 in region, 7-0 in district, and 2-4 vs. out-of-state;

Found it interesting that North Laurel was so low when one of the teams above them (South Laurel) had lost six regional games, including two decisive losses to North.

South Laurel's worst RPI loss is to Madison Southern (.571). North's worst RPI loss is a blowout against Madison Central (.595) and their next worst is to Covington Catholic (.669).

I'm wondering how the out-of-state components are weighted. Some rankings systems will exclude opponents with small sample sizes. Based on the 13th, I'm thinking that these are probably included, which leaves me wondering how heavily weighted the opponent's record against in-state teams is.

The 1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th, and 14th regions each has a really large gap between the first place and second and third place teams compared to others, which may also give some insight into the formula.