*If the T100 were making At-Large Decisions, then it would be Loras ahead of Messiah and Vassar.
If the new NPI system had been back-tested against the ‘24 match data, given its current state of 14 automatics and 5 at-large bids, then Carthage would have been the first one out last year. They played Loras 3 times in ‘24. Each time the home team won the match. This year Loras is the first one out having played Carthage 3 times, losing all 3 matches against them. One being played in their home gym on March 1, 2025, the only loss in two years when the away team prevailed in this series. Carthage won that day 3-0 with an overall point score of 75-67 across 3 sets, just 2 points less than the minimal difference possible in a loss. This makes it 5 of the last 6 matches these teams have played across two seasons, the home team has won.
At present, the T100, Inside Hitter, and Massey all have Loras ranked ahead of 2, 3, & 4 non-conference champions the NPI has chosen for its 5 at-large bids in 2025. Messiah & Vassar common to all 3 of these systems found below Loras’ metric. Even the KPI, an NCAA ranking system now being utilized by D1MVB shows Loras ranked better than one of those 5, too. This knowing the KPI is even more biased against the Midwest than the NPI has been shown to be. That is not so easy to do!
A reminder of something I wrote on February 13th about one of my concerns for the NPI:
Double or Triple Win Fallacy?
Is it really new information when Team A defeats Team B a second time in the same season? Whatever leverage obtained for the first of these is then doubled as if it were 2 independent wins over different teams ranked identical in every way? Shouldn’t there be a law of diminishing returns so the second time it counts proportionally less, and then the 3rd time even less than that, if at all. (Those who believe the third ought to not count at all would be hard pressed to say the 2nd should count as much because of contradictory transitive logic!)
Sometimes competition goes beyond the strength of an opponent relative to everybody else in the landscape and falls to familiarity amongst coaches and tendencies between teams. Two wins by an inferior ranked team against a better ranked opponent isn’t the same as having defeated two different opponents each ranked better and of the same ilk. (Also, two or more wins against the same opponent shouldn’t mathematically guarantee multiple ranked spots between them in the absence of other common opponents and similar resumes, otherwise.)
For Darwinian Natural Selection to properly take place (A metaphor for scheduling.) there shouldn’t be arranged marriages between the same royal bloodlines. Something even Europe realized about a quarter century after he published “On the Origin of Species.” It can produce unintended outcomes far more often than it otherwise should. Though the metaphor isn’t perfect, I couldn’t resist it. LOL
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