The Straight Up Index

As I was surveying the college basketball landscape this weekend, I really liked what I saw.  Great teams, players, coaches, and conferences all battling for supremacy.  However, I have one problem: rankings.  The sports world, and specifically college basketball, is overflowing with information about rankings.  By simply tweaking a formula to favor a certain type of win, you can make a case for your team to be number 1.  Human made polls are no better.  Sportswriters and journalists in the AP Poll are often biased towards a certain conference or team, and you can't expect all the coaches in the USA Today Coaches Poll to know what's happening to every team, and watch games to determine who should be ranked where.  These complaints aside, there are some very positive things about the different types of polls out there.  So I came up with the idea to combine them into what I am going to call the Straight Up Index (SUI). This index will take several of the different polls and ranking systems and combine them into one giant composite ranking. Here are the rankings that I will be using:

RPI (Ratings Percentage Index): The RPI system ranks teams based on wins, losses, and strength of schedule. RPI is made up of three factors: the team's winning percentage (25%), its opponents' winning percentage (50%), and the winning percentage of those opponents' opponents (25%).  It is a good system that looks directly at who you beat, and how good they are.  

The Human Polls: I am combining the AP Top 25 and the USA Today Coaches Poll into one category. As mentioned above these polls are subject to bias, but are a good representation of the college basketball landscape, especially because voters can use the "eye test" (how a team appears based solely on the fact that they play a certain way, and they are better/worse than their record).  The AP Poll is probably more widely accepted (it's the one that gives you the number next to the team's name on TV), but both are subject to letting an underrated team fall through the cracks (Oregon), or consistently overrating a team (NC State). 

BPI (College Basketball Power Index): The BPI is a more complex and thorough rating system. but it takes into account many things that matter at the end of year when the tournament starts in March. The BPI takes into consideration several categories: where the game is played (home, neutral, road), pace of game, diminishing returns for blowing out bad teams, scoring margin, strength of schedule, and playing games without key players.  As you can see, it is a much more thorough system than the RPI, which is both a good and bad thing.  

Kenpom (Ken Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings): Ken Pomeroy's (Kenpom for short) rating system is a really confusing formula that crunches a lot of numbers that spits out a really good ranking system.  It has quickly gown to become the number 1 online formula based ranking system over the last few years, even if most people (myself included) don't understand how it works. 

So now you know where I am getting the rankings that make up the Straight Up Index.  My formula is quite simple: Each rankings system is worth 25% of the Index (except the human polls, which I will combine so each one is worth 12.5%).  A team gets 25 points if they are ranked number 1 in a poll, 24 if they are ranked number 2, and so on, all the way down to number 25, who will receive 1 point.  With each poll taking up 25% of the Index, 100 points would be a perfect score (#1 in every poll).  After giving every team the composite score, I will rank them simply based on who scored the most points. 

Here is the first edition of the Straight Up Index college basketball rankings (data is through games of Wednesday, February 6th):

SUI Ranking	Team	RPI	HP	BPI	KP	SUI
#1	Florida	3	2	3	1	95
#2	Duke	1	4	1	5	93
#3	Michigan	4	3	4	4	89
#4	Indiana	12	1	2	2	87
#5	Louisville	8	11.5	5	3	76.5
#6	Syracuse	7	9	6	7	75
#7	Arizona	5	7	7	12	73
#8	Gonzaga	10	6	8	9	71
#9	Miami (FL)	2	9.5	12	10	70.5
#10	Kansas	9	5	9	13	68
#11	Ohio State	17	10	10	8	59
#12	Minnesota	11	18	11	11	53
#13	Michigan State	13	10	17	15	49
#14	New Mexico	6	15.5	19	NR	37.5
#15	Pittsburgh	NR	24	13	6	35
#16	Creighton	NR	14.5	14	18	31.5
#17	Cincinnati	NR	17	15	20	26
#18	Colorado State	15	NR	21	16	26
#19	Butler	14	14	NR	NR	24
#20	Marquette	16	25	20	22	21
#21	Oklahoma State	NR	23	18	19	18
#22	NC State	19	NR	16	NR	17
#23	Kansas State	23	14	NR	NR	15
#24	Wisconsin	NR	NR	24	14	14
#25	VCU	NR	NR	22	21	9

Also receiving points: Belmont (8), Oregon (7), San Diego State (7), Georgetown (6.5), Oklahoma (6), Missouri (5.5), UNLV (5), Ole Miss (4.5), Connecticut (4), Saint Mary's (2), Wichita State (2), Colorado (1), Notre Dame (1)
HP=Human Polls, KP=Kenpom, SUI=Straight Up Index

Analysis: For the inaugural edition of the Straight Up Index, there is not much analysis about who moved where, because, well, it's the first one.  I do think that the SUI ranking is a very fair and equal composite ranking of several major ranking systems. I am going to try to put out new rankings every 7-10 days.  They will be posted on the main page of the blog like this one is.  The SUI rankings will be displayed on the left sidebar of the blog, so you can see who the 10 is at any given time.

Big Game Forecast: Here I will be highlighting the marquee games that are coming up over the next week (all times Eastern, and all rankings AP - the ones you see on TV - as of February 7th):
February 9th:
#3 Michigan @ Wisconsin (12:00 pm), North Carolina @ #6 Miami (FL) (2:00 pm), #23 Pittsburgh @ #17 Cincinnati (6:00 pm), #11 Louisville @ #25 Notre Dame (9:00 pm), #15 New Mexico @ UNLV (9:00 pm)
February 10th:
#1 Indiana @ #10 Ohio State (1:00 pm)
February 11th:
#24 Marquette @ #20 Georgetown (7:00 pm), #13 Kansas State @ #5 Kansas (9:00 pm)
February 12th:
Kentucky @ #2 Florida (7:00 pm), #3 Michigan @ #12 Michigan State (9:00 pm)
February 13th:
North Carolina @ #4 Duke (9:00 pm)
February 14th:
Wisconsin @ #18 Minnesota (7:00 pm), #7 Arizona @ Colorado (10:00 pm), #6 Gonzaga @ Saint Mary's (11:00 pm)

I have always wanted to have my own ranking system.  Now that I have the formula down, I am going to create the Straight Up Index - College Football Recruiting Rankings to recap signing day for the 2013 class. As Dick Vitale would say "Enjoy these hoops BABY! They won't be here forever!" He's right: watch as much as you can, because once March Madness is over you are going to look back and wish you watched more.  So get out there, put that game face on, and watch some great basketball.  And if you miss some games, I'll just fill you in next week.  'Til next time.