On the bubble: NU’s Tournament chances

Average RPI: 48.1; NU RPI: 66A team’s RPI (rating percentage index) is one of the most significant

factors in determining its tournament chances. RPI is a combination of a team’s weighted winning percentage and that of its opponents.

Currently, the Cats are well below the average RPI for bubble teams, mainly because they lack high-end wins. A victory over Purdue, who has the 11th-best RPI, is NU’s only win against a top-50 team. One positive is the Cats don’t have any embarrassing losses to teams with low RPIs —all their defeats are to teams with an RPI of 72 or better.

Average Record: 19.7-11.7NU Record: 16-7

This is where the Cats can make up ground. If they win the games they’re sup-posed to against the likes of Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota and Penn State, they will be 23-8 going into the Big Ten Tournament.

It’s rare for a team from a major confer-ence to be left out of the Tournament with that many wins—Florida, who went 23-10 last season, is the most notable exception. While the Gators’ situation was largely a product of the weak SEC, the Big Ten fea-tures four teams currently ranked in the Top-15 of the AP Poll.

Average Strength of Schedule: 29.3

NU Strength of Schedule: 72Though the strength of the Big Ten helps

NU, its weak nonconference slate is weighing this part of the equation down. This affects

the Cats’ RPI since their opponents have such low winning percentages—they have played seven teams out of conference who have an RPI worse than 200, and Chicago State will be the eighth. NU did beat four teams from

major conferences (Notre Dame, North Caro-lina State, Iowa State and Stanford), but only

the Fighting Irish have a realistic chance of getting a Tournament berth.

ConclusionNU doesn’t have many opportunities left to notch a quality win. A home matchup

with Minnesota and trip to Wisconsin are the only two games against teams that might go dancing. That means the Cats need to avoid stumbling against the Big Ten’s bottom-

feeders. It would also help NU if some of the better teams it beat (like Purdue, Illinois and Notre Dame) finished strong, because the winning percentages of those teams

would increase and thus raise NU’s RPI. The Cats’ path to their first-ever NCAA Tour-nament appearance is clear—now they need to continue to take care of business.

With eight games to go in the regular season, Northwestern is on the verge of earning its first NCAA Tournament bid in program history. The Daily’s Danny Daly crunched the numbers from the last four years, looking at the profiles of the five lowest-seeded at-large teams invited from major conferences to see how the Wildcats stack up.