The Perfect NPI Schedule?

In my schedule analysis series, I’ve asked the question what is the perfect NCAA Power Index (NPI) schedule? My theory is that it’s a schedule that doubles the spread each iteration and avoids low NPI matches. Here is the current table that covers the teams we’ve looked at in this series.

(Loss n = Simulated losses against NCAA Tournament teams above the at-large cut-line.) (Max L = Maximum number of losses to their best opponents and stay above the at-large cut-line.) (oNPI = Theoretical opponent NPI in 2025.)

By spread, I mean the third through the sixth column. I theorized that having 4 opponents in the 60+ range (elite teams) while playing 8 in the 55 to 60 range and 16 in the 50 to 55 range might be the way to go. You’ll notice that I magically avoided playing any low NPI teams. That would be 28 total matches, which is very doable over 22 play dates. Avoiding every low NPI team, however, would only be possible for an independent team (or a C2C team) because they do not play a conference schedule or a team in the UAA. (A UAA team, however, would probably play too many elite programs just in conference for this to work.)

I’ve grown tired waiting on a team to match my theory so I created my own program. Welcome to Flipping University where our mascot is the Tigers. That’s right, the FU Tigers are here to show you how a (maybe) perfect schedule would look compared to what we’ve already got in the books. (By the way, I am taking interviews for the Flipping Tigers mascot. This person should have a gymnastic background.)

Here is their spread of opponents across the NPI range:

• 60+…4 opponents

• 55-60…8 opponents

• 50-55…16 opponents

• Less than 50…0 opponents

To get the numbers I’m about to reveal, I just used the St Olaf schedule as a basis because it was the one loaded in my simulator. My elite opponents were the first four St Olaf plays in La Verne, CMS, Millikin and Chicago. None of those were Top 8 last year so this won’t be skewed by a Juniata (for instance). I then removed their last three teams they played in the 55 to 60 range and kept their first 8. I then added in teams in the 50 to 55 range by just duplicating Wisconsin-Stout’s numbers. Their NPI last year was 52.96 so that shouldn’t skew things, either. Remember, NPI doesn’t care about teams, it just cares about numbers.

This left me with a schedule that had an Opponent NPI of 0.552. That’s a good number compared to the table above, with one caveat. Since FU doesn’t play any low NPI teams that (hopefully) won’t be used in my NPI calculation, this Opponent NPI is a true indication of schedule strength in my opinion. If I compare that number with CMS and their 0.548 number, you could say that FU plays a tougher schedule. But, if you remove the 5 low NPI matches CMS has on their schedule, their “true” schedule is tougher. Still, not too bad for my Flipping Tigers.

The FU maximum NPI with this schedule was 69.78. This makes the fourth schedule that didn’t achieve a 70 NPI or higher. I think it’s safe to say that any schedule with a maximum NPI between 67 and 70 is an NPI schedule. My “Loss n” number is 61.70, which makes it the second highest of our teams. Calvin beats me out for top honors there. “Loss n”, to me, is the landing zone for a team that’s around a true 59 NPI in quality. If my Flipping Tigers play to a 59 level with this schedule, it would result in a 61.70 NPI. I think this is another indication of an NPI schedule. I would even go so far as to say any schedule that results in a “Loss n” of 61 or higher is probably one where NPI played a huge role in its development. The FU maximum loss is 6, which means I can lose to all four of my elite opponents and still take 2 losses in the 55 to 60 range. In fact, taking a 7^th loss would drop FU down to 59.28 so that’s not too far from the anticipated cut-line.

I just wanted to do this exercise to see how it plays out with the teams we’ve done so far. I think it does give us some nice rule-of-thumbs in that schedules that finish in the 67 to 70 maximum NPI range and with a “Loss n” of 61 or higher were done by some NPI savvy people. Now, that doesn’t mean it will work out but it seems like the best guess for now. Right now, only Calvin (and FU) ticks off those two boxes although I do know of another program that also satisfies those two rules. (I was not given permission to release their schedule, yet.) My final caveat to all of this is that the specific numbers within the spreads will matter. Replace the FU elite opponents with the top 4 from last season and the numbers change. Of course, when I go through this exercise, we always need to remember that the 2025 numbers will not match the 2024 numbers. (“Past performance doesn’t necessarily equal future success.”)

This article is just under 1000 words and I like to give everyone their money’s worth so I’ll leave you with this additional thought. Conferences are so important to NPI. One of the selling points of NPI was that it didn’t matter if your conference was poor because those matches wouldn’t count towards NPI. Well, the problem is that the more-low NPI matches you play, the less play dates you have to get a proper NPI schedule. We just saw that FU needed all 22 dates to get 28 matches with no low NPI opponents. If 10 of your play dates are removed because you have to play home and away against 5 low conference NPI teams, you are starting behind the 8-ball really quickly. The more isolated your region is (say “hello” Region X), the more of a problem this becomes. With NPI, programs in this boat really can’t only think of their team and their NPI number. They also need to think about how to raise the conference NPI number up, overall. Yes, increased travel budgets can act as the magic bullet but coordinating the local tournaments to be inclusive is huge. It probably also means getting into partnerships with other teams/conferences in other regions to ensure some sort of participation between your tournaments and theirs. Bottom line, we have a new selection system but most of the old selection biases related to region density still exist. Couple that with reduced funding for sports after the pandemic and some interesting haves and have nots are shaping up to pose some fascinating questions. I guess my favorite is do we get to a point that the “have” programs have to leave a conference simply because there is never a hope of an at-large bid? In some respect, the defection of Southwestern and Trinity to the SAA (not done for this purpose but for a really stupid one, instead) will be a testing ground. By moving to the SAA, it opened up all of Texas to pick and choose out-of-conference opponents without additional flights. If the SAA proves stronger overall than the SCAC, then this defection could really help those program’s NPI numbers. Of course, I don’t think schools switch conferences just because of potential at-large bids and especially not for volleyball.

In closing, welcome to DIII, Flipping University. Remember our school motto, “Study occasionally, party hard, and always remember…FU Tigers!”

Update – Hey Ricky, FU will be independent their first year while we weigh our conference options. Please update your DIII Teams/Conference page.