CHS senior Tia Wurzrainer plays for the #17 girls basketball team in 1A. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
The basketball overlords like us, sort of.
With the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association now posting RPI numbers, the Coupeville High School girls basketball team is trending upwards.
The Wolf boys, however, are still looking for their fair share of love.
As of Monday morning, the CHS girls sit at #17 out of 65 schools in 1A, while the boys are #57 among 63 teams.
RPI, or Rating Percentage Index, is used by the WIAA to seed teams in the postseason, beginning when the final 16 teams in each classification advance to regionals – the first round of the state tourney.
You still have to make it to regionals on your own, advancing through districts and/or bi-districts, and finishing the regular season in the top 16 in the RPI rankings guarantees nothing.
But, advance to regionals, as the Wolf girls last did in 2016, and then the WIAA takes the survivors and plugs them into games based on where the system has them ranked.
Until we get to that level of play, RPI is just for bragging rights.
The system looks at each team’s winning percentage, their opponents winning percentage, and their opponents’ opponents winning percentage.
It does not take into consideration whether a school played against opponents from higher or lower classifications, and puts no emphasis on point differential.
The biggest stumbling block to RPI is it depends on schools accurately reporting scores to MaxPreps, which … think of something tactful to say … has been … problematic at best.
But ignore all that! Cause the WIAA would like you to do just that.
So, under this flawed, but improving, system, the Coupeville girls, who boast a 6-2 record, are holding up well.
Cashmere (9-0) holds the #1 spot on the girls side, with Warden (9-0), Lynden Christian (8-1), Connell (8-0), and Freeman (7-2) rounding out the current top five.
Coupeville’s fellow North Sound Conference teams sit at #7 (King’s), #19 (Cedar Park Christian), #49 (Sultan), #50 (South Whidbey), and #58 (Granite Falls).
Nooksack Valley, the only 1A school to beat the Wolves (their other loss was to 3A Oak Harbor), is nestled in at #8.
On the boys side, where the Wolves are 3-5, big-timers Seattle Academy (8-1), Medical Lake (8-1), Zillah (10-0), Meridian (7-1), and Cashmere (5-2) are the current top five.
NSC teams King’s (#23), South Whidbey (#25), Cedar Park Christian (#28), Granite Falls (#51), and Sultan (#58) get a mixed reaction.
The Knights benefit a bit from the whole “inaccurate reporting to MaxPreps” issue, as they’re currently ranked on a 5-5 record, yet are really 5-7.
Add in those two losses, which came at a tournament in Arizona, and it’s quite possible King’s dips, and South Whidbey, at 8-2, gets a boost.
Either way, it’s just RPI – a good way to start an argument and give bloggers something to ramble on about, if nothing else.
