Columnist Dean Juipe: Rebels’ RPI has Bayno feeling blue

Dean Juipe

Monday, Jan. 12, 1998 | 5:43 a.m.

IT'S A SECRET mix of raw data and statistics, scrambled in a formula no one can explain or figure out.

It's the Ratings Percentage Index and if it wasn't integral to the NCAA and its basketball Tournament Selection Committee it would be nothing more than a lighthearted curiosity. But the RPI -- whatever it is and whatever it represents -- has become a factor in determining which teams advance to the postseason gold mine.

There are times it doesn't seem to have a rhyme or a reason. Likewise, there are times when the RPI comes across as nothing more than the poor-man's version of the New York Times basketball ratings, which at least adhere to a certain semblance of predictability.

But the RPI? Only dandruff has caused more head scratching.

UNLV head coach Bill Bayno is among the perplexed.

"I'm a little disappointed by our computer rating," he said. "I know we should be higher than where we are."

The RPI changes daily and fluctuates wildly. Teams can win and drop 20 spots in the ratings, which happened to Utah last week. In UNLV's case, the latest RPI indicates the Rebels are the 74th best team in the country any given day.

They gained little in the ratings with Saturday night's 88-77 victory over Air Force at the Thomas & Mack Center, as the Falcons were not highly regarded and UNLV didn't blow them out.

Fact is, the Rebels haven't been rewarded or penalized beyond the minimum following any of their games this season. That's because UNLV, at 8-5, has won the games it was expected to win and has lost the games it was expected to lose.

Yet it isn't quite that simple and Bayno, for one, believes the teams that stockpile victories against lesser opponents are given more than their just due by the RPI. As a result, he's constantly weighing the value of playing a difficult schedule.

"I might need to soften our schedule," he said. "We could take the five games we lost and substitute lesser teams and come out ahead on the RPI. Maybe we need to do something like play a bunch of soft teams (as TCU did to open the current season) and jump out to an 11-1 record."

He was serious in that UNLV's RPI could be the factor that keeps the Rebels from being invited to the 64-team Big Dance in March. Yet he also realizes UNLV fans aren't interested in seeing their team play too many Chaminades and Woffords -- two softies on the Rebels' schedule within the next month.

Bayno knows rebuilding basketball at UNLV means scheduling high-profile games against the best opponents available. He would feel better about it, however, if the RPI were either downgraded in significance by the NCAA or if it more accurately reflected the Rebels' status within the country.

"I know there are teams we're 20 points better than, and yet we're 30 spots behind them in the RPI," he said with more than a hint of unhappiness.

Here's what would cheer him up: A surprising win, an RPI bonanza. Like Thursday, for instance, at New Mexico.

DEAN JUIPE is a Las Vegas SUN sportswriter.