MONARCHS 17TH IN R.P.I. RANKINGS

The Old Dominion University Monarchs are rated 17th in the country for success against their strongest opponents, according to rankings released this week.

On the strength of wins against Kent State, TCU and a game against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, the 8-1 Monarchs are ranked ahead of programs including North Carolina and defending champion Connecticut.

The RPI (Rating Percentage Index) calculated by the Web site http://www.collegerpi.com is a measure of strength of schedule and how a team does against that schedule. It does not consider things like margin of victory or where a game is played, only whether or not a team won. It is used by the NCAA as one of their factors in deciding which teams to invite to the NCAA tournament and where to seed them.

It was created in 1981 and is maintained by the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee. They have always placed a premium on schedule strength when selecting teams for the tournament, so they wanted a relatively simple way to measure that and the RPI was born.