I see two answers to Doug's query about the current RPI and strength of
schedule. First, it is early enough (most teams are about or just under
halfway through the season) that a few games against opponents with a lower
winning percentage look much bigger than they are.  Second, because the best
teams cannot play themselves, their "OWP" is lower because they are forced
to play teams below them.

I will use Minnesota (OWP #23) and Alaska-Anchorage (OWP #1) as an example.

UAA has played 18 games and Minnesota 21-

10 of these games were against common opponents (Michigan, Michigan State,
Wisconsin, North Dakota, St. Cloud and Denver).

4 games have been between the Gophers and Seawolves.

The other games match up as follows:

UAA- 2 games against Fairbanks (.444) and 2 against Mankato State (.550).
Minnesota has played Quinnipiac (.617...that this is MAAC is not relevent
here), Union (.469), Lake Superior State (.417) and three teams that have
turned in veyr bad first halves- Bemidji State (.071), Notre Dame (.239) and
MN-Duluth (.227).

For the record, St. Cloud has also played UMD twice and Bemidji twice.  In
the final analysis, at 18-20 games played, strength of schedule can diverge
radically on a few games.