NPI Rankings (9/29/25)

Big thanks to the Latvians for the NCAA Power Index (NPI) data. The NPI Rankings have been updated through Sunday.

We had two teams move into the protected Top 8 with Dubuque returning from 9^th and Tufts jumping in from 18^th. Otterbein and Gustavus Adolphus were bounced. We have 65 teams sitting at 55.5 or higher. That is the Quality Win Bonus (QWB) threshold. We typically will see around 100 higher by the end of the year so NPIs will continue to increase. Our at-large cut-line sits with Bridgewater (Va) at 57.127. Interesting note is that Bridgewater was also our last at-large team at this time last season.

ETBU has a healthy NPI lead right now over La Verne. La Verne is sitting in kind of a second tier with (maybe) Lynchburg before a gaggle of teams start to bunch up in the low 63s.

The highest Strength of Schedule (SOS) team that is not currently in the tournament is Chris Newport. They have an SOS of 0.652. I like to follow SOS in relation to NPI because SOS was so important in our previous selection system. The lowest SOS from teams above the cut-line is Hiram at 0.479. They are currently the high NPI team in their conference and are the favorites to win their automatic qualifier. The lowest SOS for a team that would need an at-large bid is North Park at 0.507.

Looking at the rankings from last season at this time, the at-large cut-line was 57.96 so we are still lagging a bit with our current cut-line being 0.84 points behind. Last year there were 19 teams above 60 NPI and this year we are at 20 so in that area we are doing better.

I’m still presenting uoNPI in the NPI Rankings page. This is the average NPI of the opponents played that actually count in a team’s overall NPI. It basically removes the bad wins, which can cloud how good the schedule a team has. When looking down the teams towards the cut-line, this is really a double-edged knife. Teams with a lower uoNPI are getting by without really playing a lot of quality teams. It also means that these teams have the best chance at really jumping up the rankings if their schedule improves and they win because they have more bad wins to remove from the calculation. Teams to mention here are Virginia Wesleyan (uoNPI of 50.11), St John Fisher (49.73), Kean (50.27), Washington & Lee (50.51), North Park (49.56), Lasell (48.44), St Thomas (49.10) and Hiram (47.79). Of course, the big “if” there is that they have to win those matches. Now the dirty little NPI secret is that if they don’t have better teams scheduled and win out then they could get in without really proving they are worthy (in my opinion).

Here are the teams with at least 3 QWB matches played to date:

Chris Newport is the only team in this group that would not qualify for the NCAA Tournament today.

Now, here are your NPI tidbits:

• The lowest ranked undefeated team is Virginia Wesleyan at 61.96.

• Maine-Presque Isle is our highest NPI winless team at 38.39.

• The Top 5 uoNPI teams are ETBU, UW-Oshkosh, Johns Hopkins, Trinity and Dubuque.

• The Top 5 oNPI teams are Northwestern, Wittenberg, Ithaca, Hope and Scranton.

• There are five teams in the Top 50 with 5 or more losses.

• The lowest ranked team with a win is Norwich at 33.43.

• Thiel was the highest rated team from last week that fell out of the Top 100. They now sit at 111^th.  

Last week we had 413 teams and this week we have 415. Welcome Principia and Agnes Scott. I have to believe that will be our final number.

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