First of all, let me preface my statement by saying that I knew I was right on the cut off line for a PI bid should I lose my CT championship game which I did. After seeing my final RPI of 95, I decided to check out some of the lower seeded teams to get selected. I actually expected maybe a team or two a couple of spots below me to sneak in, but what I saw really shocked me. There were 2 SIM teams with RPI's of 118, and 119, with slightly worse records, mediocre last 10 games record and significantly worse SOS ranking with one of those teams having an SOS in the 340 range. Is this typical, or really out of the norm?

Look at the projection report, not RPI, when it comes to postseason standing.

Secondly, ignore total SOS. What's important is the specific teams you played against, not the totals of their records when added together.

Now for my bit of shallow research. You beat ZERO top 100 RPI teams. Kenyon (the 119 RPI team) beat 2 top 50 RPI teams. They should be ahead of you. Wisconsin Stout (118 RPI) actually has a very similar resume to yours. Maybe it makes that big of a difference that their worst loss was to 140 RPI while you lost to a team outside the top 200? I don't think it's crazy that they are ahead of you either. Again, very shallow research though.

Ok, we'll thanks for the feedback.

I think one more win in any of your games instead of a loss would have put you in ahead of stout. Wether by eliminating the loss to 295, or giving you a 'quality win'. But Kenyon has an unquestionably better wins side of the ledger.

yes, RPI and SOS really don't mean anything when projecting postseason, it is all in the projection report now. RPI used to hold a lot of weight in the postseason bids, but the formula was changed and the projection report is the place to see your chances of postseason.

Thanks to all for your perspective, and again I don't think my team was particularly worthy of a bid, but just surprised at those two SIM teams. Let me play devils advocate though. I think 1 or 2 of you mentioned the lack of top 50 or top 100 victories. Isn't that really a component of RPI and SOS, granted on a less direct level.

Well, the problem with the aggregate SOS is that it abnormally punishes you for even playing a bad team. For example you you play all top 50 teams save for fa selection of teams in the three hundreds and end up with a middling SOS, or you played all middling teams and ended up with a middling SOS. Which team had the more difficult schedule? The record vs top 100 and top fifty at least to a degree compensates, meaning that just playing a few bad teams won't sink you(unless you lose to them) and just playing a number of good teams won't put you in(unless you beat them). You can end up with a good RPI and SOS by just playing teams rather than beating them. The projection report system is much harder to game.