The choice of the Colorado High School Activities Association’s new postseason selection format came down to two things: consistency and simplicity.
CHSAA on Wednesday announced a move to a Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) to determine state tournament fields starting with the 2016-17 season.
Though, RPI will determine the playoff fields seeding procedure is still up for discussion.
RPI is a math equation that takes into count a team’s winning percentage, the winning percentage of the team’s opponents and the winning percentage of the team’s opponents’ opponents.
The formula CHSAA will use is 1/4 of a team’s winning percentage plus half of the team’s opponent’s winning percentage plus one quarter of their opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage.
It values not only playing teams with good records but also teams that earned those strong records by playing other good teams.
The new policies will apply to baseball, basketball, football, soccer, softball, field hockey, hockey, lacrosse and volleyball.
“I think it levels the playing field across all team sports. Historically, specific athletic committees have made selections, and there was no similarity sport to sport,” said Durango High School athletic director Dave Preszler. “Volleyball has already been doing it. They’ve used the algorithm the last three years, and the numbers have been solid.”
Those specific athletic committees still will choose their own criteria for seeding and can add other factors into the formula such as the CHSAANow.com coaches poll or a weighting system based on whether a game is played at home, away or a neutral site.
Baseball’s selection process came under fire last season. The wild-card points format allowed Durango High School to host a first-round playoff series despite a 6-13 regular season record.
The move away from wild-card points doesn’t bother Bayfield High School baseball head coach Jonathon Qualls, whose team led Class 3A in wild-card points for most of last season and was the No. 3 seed entering the state tournament.
“We’ve always tried to schedule our non-conference with (the qualify of our opponents) in mind since a lot of the voters in the Denver area don’t get to see us play,” he said. “For us, I think that (RPI is) kind of a good thing since a lot of them don’t get to see us play and we don’t get to play a lot of the Denver schools.”
One of the most locally recognizable impacts will be an increase in the value of playing teams from New Mexico.
“When we were playing Kirtland and Shiprock and those teams, (Ignacio High School athletic director) Rocky (Cundiff) went to the (seeding) meeting they pretty much threw those games out because they weren’t in state,” IHS boys basketball head coach Chris Valdez said.
Out-of-state teams will be treated the same as in-state teams by the formula, which gives area teams reason to play geographically closer teams from the Farmington area.
“It will add some credibility when we play our friends and neighbors to the south. We can play high-quality competition down there and get an RPI number that is positive,” Preszler said. “We are geographically challenged in Durango, and we will still do some traveling, but we are going to be playing a schedule with a good level of friends from the south and live in New Mexico a little bit more.”
Now those games will count just as much to get teams to the postseason.
heraldsports@durangoherald.com
