Governing body of high school sports, which already seeds boys and girls basketball tournaments via RPI, could use similar system in all sports starting in 2018-19
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association could be using an RPI system for all of its team sports to fill out state tournament brackets as early as next school year.
The state’s governing body of high school sports started using a Ratings Percentage Index for boys and girls basketball last school year, and is now studying how such a system, or a similar system, would work in all other team sports.
This fall, for example, all schools are sending results for their football, volleyball, and girls soccer teams to the WIAA, and the association is charting the RPI for each team, according to Mike Colbrese, the executive director of the WIAA.
“It’s totally under the radar,” he said, adding that the RPI results for those sports will not be available on the WIAA’s website. “It’s a dry run.”
It is just a way for the WIAA to see what an RPI bracket would look like in comparison to the brackets that will be used next month in the state playoffs.
A committee dealing with RPI for all sports will meet again in December. Colbrese said the WIAA’s executive board will meet in January and could vote then on any future changes. If changes are made, they could be implemented as early as the 2018-19 school year.
“The bottom line is this year everything stays the same as it was last year,” Colbrese said. “RPI in other sports is being examined. We’ll know more as the year goes on.”
Colbrese does not see any change to the current format of 16 teams in the state tournaments.
Most of the districts use Week 10 in football for elimination games in order to get to 16 teams for state. However, Week 10 is not part of the state playoffs. So if an RPI system were to be implemented next football season, it would not seed the teams until after Week 10.
The Week 10 football games are similar to district or bi-district tournaments in basketball, Colbrese added. In basketball, the WIAA seeds the teams into brackets once the 16 teams have qualified for state.
The RPI for each basketball team can be found on the WIAA’s website throughout the second half of the season. RPI is not used to determine the teams that qualify for state; only where to put those teams into the brackets once they make it to state.
In theory, this is to keep the best teams from playing each other in early rounds.
There were many critics of the system last year in basketball, but also some praise from coaches, players, and fans who preferred an upgrade from the traditional draw.
If other sports do adopt RPI, it does not necessarily mean all sports will use the exact system. Colbrese said the WIAA wants input from each sport’s coaches association.
