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On the other hand.....
Published: 2/9/2010 3:29 PM
Last Modified: 2/9/2010 4:01 PM

This newspaper published a story today about how the Big 12 owns the best RPI (it's a power ranking used to select and seed NCAA Tournament teams) in college basketball.

Some coaches believe that going 8-8 -- or even 7-9 -- in Big 12 games could be enough to merit consideration for the NCAA Tournament.

Now for the bad news:

UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero, chairman of the Division I men's basketball committee, participated in a teleconference Tuesday. Asked a question about whether the RPI has been de-emphasized in recent years, Guerrero answered "no." But he also said conference RPI is something that the committee has decided to remove from the equation.

"It's no longer on the team sheet," he said. "We don't look at conference affiliation. That is not a factor for us."

The committee does not look at any given conference and say that conference deserves x-number of teams in the tournament.

So, the Big 12 may not reap any windfall from owning the best hoops power ranking in the land -- unless playing in the league just happens to boost the RPI of each team that is trying to piece together a resume.

"As we look at each and every team, we look at them on their own individual merits," Guerrero said.

"Obviously the quality of competition certainly comes into the fray. If, in fact, a particular team plays in a conference where there are a lot of good teams, then certainly that has a factor, but it's not necessarily reflective of an entire season because we're still looking at the body of work. There are a number of teams that play outstanding schedules in non-conference, as well."

P.S.: Regardless of what the company line is, people on the committee will go into the meeting knowing the difference between the power rankings of the Big 12 and the Mid-South Peninsula League. And, barring a mind-wipe, they will select and seed teams accordingly.



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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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