Sam Houston Men surge to highest RPI ranking in school history

HUNTSVILLE - The season is still young, but the Sam Houston State men's basketball team is already starting to make a name for itself. The Bearkats have jumped out to a 4-0 start including wins over Texas Tech and Fresno State.

The early success has the Bearkats ranked as one of the top teams in the nation in terms of RPI rankings. According to www.realtimerpi.com, as of Sunday's games, the Kats are currently No. 4 in the RPI behind Miami, New Orleans and Texas. Ohio, UCLA, Texas A&M, Seton Hall, George Mason and Texas-Arlington round out the top 10.

The Bearkats hope to notch another win against a Division I opponent Tuesday night when they travel to take on Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Last season the Bearkats won 89-73 in Johnson Coliseum. James Barrett paced the way for the Kats on that night scoring a career high 27 points.

The Sam Houston State vs. Wisconsin-Milwaukee game will be video-streamed on the Horizon League Network live at www.horizonleaguenetwork.tv. All HLN basketball web casts feature a three-camera shoot for quality viewing experience. Registration is required but games are free.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers, who have won three of their first four games of the season, are coming off of a 80-59 loss to Drake Saturday night.

Milwaukee has posted a sparkling homecourt record since returning downtown to the U.S. Cellular Arena for the 2003 Horizon League Tournament. The Panthers are now 45-15 in regular season and postseason contests at The Cell since their return, and UWM had a 19-game homecourt winning streak until back-to-back home losses to UIC and Missouri State spoiled the run in 2005-06. Combining games at both the Klotsche Center and the U.S. Cellular Arena, UWM is now 51-11 in regular season Horizon League home contests over the last eight seasons.

Sam Houston's number four RPI is the highest ranking for the Sam Houston State basketball team.

On Dec. 20, 2001 the Bearkats reached their highest point in team history, earning a ranking of No. 28. That season, the Bearkats had road victories over Texas Tech, Norfolk State, Northern Illinois, Bradley and Nebraska during the non-conference schedule. The highest final season RPI ranking for the Bearkats was No. 91 following the 2003 season that the Bearkats won the Southland Conference regular season and postseason titles and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

The Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) is the formula used by the NCAA to rate men's and women's college basketball teams. Only games against other teams playing a mostly D1 schedule count when computing the RPI. The formula is described below. The RPI is calculated by adding three parts.

Part I (25% of the formula) is team winning percentage. For the 2005 season, the NCAA added a bonus/penalty system, where each home win or road loss get multiplied by 0.6 in the winning percentage calculation. A home loss or road win is multiplied by 1.4. Neutral games count as 1.0. More on the effect of these changes can be found here.

Part II (50%) is average opponents' winning percentage. To calculate this, you must calculate each opponent's winning percentage individually and average those figures. This is NOT calculated from the opponents' combined record. Games involving the team for whom we are calculating the RPI are ignored.

Part III (25%) is average opponents' winning percentage: Basically taking all of the opponents' Part II values and averaging them.

Current RPI Top 25

1 Miami
2 New Orleans
3 Texas
4 Sam Houston St.
5 Ohio
6 UCLA
7 Texas A&M
8 Seton Hall
9 George Mason
10 Texas Arlington
11 Miami OH
12 St. Mary's
13 Boston College
14 Vanderbilt
15 Drake
16 Memphis
18 Texas Tech
19 Illinois
20 Baylor
21 Virginia
22 Xavier
23 Ohio St
24 Villanova
25 Duke

Sam Houston Men surge to highest RPI ranking in school history

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