The following is an exercise in pointless examination of statistical
rankings.  You are forewarned, so don't blame me if your bored.
 
I just took a look at Tim Brule's compilation of the Pairwise Rankings.
For the most part, PWR closely approximates the Ratings Percentage
Index.  All but one of the 22 teams under consideration have a PWR
ranking that is within two places of their RPI ranking.  The exception
is Denver.  By RPI, DU is ranked 15th, out of the NCAA tourney; in PWR,
they're #8.  I took a quick check through the individual team-by-team
comparisons to see if I could figure out what led to the disparity.
There are two categories that really stand out.  First off, Denver is on
fire.  Their Last 20 record is 13-3-4; this ranks them third behind
Michigan and New Hampshire.  By itself, this hasn't let them steal any
comparisons.  The other componentis a 8-6-1 record against teams under
consideration.  There is a real logjam on this stat right around .500,
so Denver managed to jump a number of competitors on thse two stats,
where their early season performance didn't hurt them too badly.
 
The danger for the Pioneers is this: the rest of their schedule
threatens both of the categories they are strong in.  I haven't seen a
breakdown, but my guess is that their RPI is depressed because of a weak
schedule strength to this point.  All four remaining series are against
TUC (Minnesota-Duluth, Colorado College, Wisconsin and North Dakota, in
order) and only a little slippage would allow several others to catch
them in the TUC category and perhaps the L20 one as well.  Either way, I
expect that their PWR and RPI rankings will move back into congruence
before this thing is done.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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