
What is RPI? Explaining softball rankings system ahead of NCAA Tournament bracket reveal
What is RPI? Explaining softball rankings system ahead of NCAA Tournament bracket reveal
Show Caption
Hide Caption
Legally blind pitcher Jenica Matos to play D1 softball
The Cheshire High School star in Connecticut can't see home plate but threw three no-hitters last year and will play Division I for the Red Storm.
It's here. Welcome to Selection Sunday for the 2025 NCAA Softball Tournament.
With half of the field already completed by automatic bids from conference tournaments, the remainder of the 64-team field for the NCAA Softball Tournament will be announced at 7 p.m. ET, signaling the official start of the sport's marquee tournament.
And for those that miss out on playing for a spot in the Greatest Show on Dirt, that is the Women's College World Series, one of the more notable questions that will be asked is, what was that team's RPI ranking? Not how that team did in their respective conference tournament. But instead, their respective RPI ranking.
As it has for much of the season in the national polls, the SEC has a rather healthy showing in the top 10 of the RPI rankings going into Selection Sunday, as Greg Sankey's conference holds eight of those 10 spots — perhaps a foreshadowing of who will be having home field advantage until Oklahoma City and the WCWS.
But what exactly is the RPI ranking system and how does it impact a softball team?
Here's what you need to know about the NCAA's RPI rankings and more ahead of Selection Sunday for the NCAA Softball Tournament:
What is RPI? Explaining NCAA softball ranking system
The RPI ranking system in softball – Rating Percentage Index – is a data-driven sorting system used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee when considering the field.
Similar to baseball, the RPI ranking system is based on a team's strength of schedule. The RPI ranking system is used for the majority of the NCAA's sports, such as volleyball, soccer and baseball, but not men's and women's basketball, which use a NET ranking system.
There are three key factors that are used in RPI rankings:
Team's own winning percentage
Opponent's winning percentage
Opponent's opponent's winning percentage
Softball RPI rankings on Selection Sunday
Here's a list of the top 16 teams in the country per the NCAA's RPI rankings, which theoretically would result in the top 16 regional host site locations:
Ranking reflective of games through Thursday, May 8
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


USA Today
25 minutes ago
- USA Today
CBS Sports' latest NBA mock draft has Walter Clayton Jr. going to this team out west
CBS Sports' latest NBA mock draft has Walter Clayton Jr. going to this team out west Former Florida basketball guard Walter Clayton Jr. is officially getting first-round buzz ahead of the 2025 NBA draft, with CBS Sports projecting him at No. 29 overall to the Phoenix Suns. Clayton, who averaged 18.3 points per game and shot 38.6 percent from three last season, was named Most Outstanding Player of the 2025 Final Four. His draft stock soared following a scorching NCAA Tournament run, where he averaged over 22 points and shot 43.5 percent from beyond the arc. CBS Sports' Gary Parrish called him "a skilled and unique shotmaker" and noted that while scouts have concerns about his decision-making and defense, his ability to score at all three levels make him a valuable late-first-round target. If selected, Clayton would become Florida's first NBA first-round pick since Tre Mann in 2021 when the Oklahoma City Thunder selected him with the 18th overall pick. Clayton's rise caps off a remarkable career transformation under head coach Todd Golden and solidifies the Gators' place back among college basketball's elite programs. What CBS Sports said about Clayton "Clayton was the star of Florida's national title run while averaging 22.3 points on 43.5% shooting from beyond the arc in those six NCAA Tournament games. There are concerns about his decision-making and approach to defense, but the Most Outstanding Player of the 2025 Final Four is such a skilled and unique shotmaker that he's worthy of a serious look this deep in the first round by a Phoenix franchise that probably needs to hit the reset button." Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.


New York Times
44 minutes ago
- New York Times
Wait, isn't this a college sports salary cap? What to know about House-NCAA for now
Until Saturday Newsletter 🏈 | This is The Athletic's college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox. Today in college football news, the 28-minute electronic album 'Revelation' by The Knocks and Dragonette is on loop. 'We crafted the term student-athlete, and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations as a mandated substitute for such words as players and athletes.' That was Walter Byers, writing in his 1995 book 'Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes.' Forty-four years prior, he'd been named the first executive director of the rapidly expanding NCAA. (Obviously, his mind had changed along the way.) Why'd the NCAA concoct 'student-athlete'? Because those are just college students who happen to play sports, not people employed by athletic departments as revenue generators … your honor. ('South Park' was all over this in 2011, months after an Auburn student named Cam Newton paused his studies to seek full-time employment.) Years later, Byers' confession remains one of the starkest reasons to mistrust the NCAA's favored jargon. And lately, another term has appeared a lot in college sports contexts. It strikes me as curious, the way it's being used right now: 'Revenue sharing.' The term has emerged as the most important part of the long-awaited legal settlement that will greatly reshape college sports, following its approval late last week. This is that House v. NCAA thing that'd been drip-dripping in the news forever, the Colleges Can Now Pay Their Athletes Actual Money thing. Except technically, according to the people who define what 'technically' means, these transactions amounting to as much as $20.5 million per school aren't payments. Technically, they're merely revenue being shared. The term 'revenue sharing' makes total sense to me when we're talking about 32 teams in a professional league pooling their money as veritable equals. But when we're talking about powerful humans passing portions of money along to the less powerful humans who are doing the heavy labor that is the core attraction? That's 'sharing'? Jeff Bezos 'shares' with delivery workers? To make a little more sense of this, let's turn to The Athletic's Justin Williams, who's been on the House beat for a long time now. He will maybe soon be free to write about things besides courtrooms. But not yet, because for now, he has been turned to by us. Why is this called 'revenue sharing,' and who was it that decided 'salary cap' is a dangerous pairing of words that must never be uttered? Was it the NCAA? The courts? Doctor Strange? The answer, as usual: lawyers. It's helpful to remember that the House settlement was born out of the NCAA and power conferences attempting to avoid yet another high-profile defeat in court — and the financial ruin that could have come with it. Some of this is about progress, sure, but a lot of it is about the top stakeholders in college sports trying to mitigate the onslaught of legal battles in recent years. It's 'revenue sharing' because the pool of money that can be paid directly from colleges to athletes under the settlement is calculated using the revenue that power conference athletic departments generate through television contracts, ticket sales and sponsorships. The reason it's a 'revenue cap' and not a 'salary cap' is because 'salary' would imply that the athletes are being paid for their services — or as employees — which remains taboo for the leaders of college sports. The settlement has ripped away the facade of amateurism, but the NCAA and power conferences still want to classify athletes as students, not employees. Got it, thank you. I'll keep calling it a 'salary cap' until I am sued. (Since, after all, the NFL's salary cap is also calculated based on that league's revenue.) Speaking of lawyers, surely this was the last court battle on the subject of college athlete compensation, right? Unlikely. Even the settlement's most ardent supporters acknowledge that it is not a fix-all. There are still plenty of unresolved questions about things like Title IX, conflicting state laws, athlete employment status and whether the settlement's efforts to curb third-party NIL deals violate antitrust laws. This is why the NCAA and power conferences continue to lobby Congress for antitrust exemptions and federal legislation that will preempt state laws and help set the settlement terms in stone. What that congressional intervention looks like — or whether it's even a realistic option — remains to be seen. Until then, expect more lawsuits. Billable hours remain undefeated. Thank you to Justin. For more from him, try out his full story on how college sports money works now, which is packed with details like this: 'The top (football) teams are going to cost $40-50 million a year,' said one power conference personnel director. 'That's where this is going. Anyone who thinks different is nuts.' Okie dokie. Below, we have plenty more House ramifications, after a quick break for non-House news. (Side note. Now that I think about it, the term 'revenue sharing' feels OK, on one condition: The NCAA's most powerful member schools admit the sharing of revenue is exactly how employer-employee relationships have worked since many thousands of years ago, when one caveperson first paid another caveperson in berries to go trade an axe for a hammer.) 💎 Women's sports just keep cooking: 'A record 2.4 million watched Texas' win over Texas Tech in Game 3 of the Women's College World Series.' 📺 TNT will keep paying ESPN in order to air some ESPN-produced College Football Playoff games. Need to keep this going until your good friends at The CW are airing a thoroughly fried meme of a burned DVD-R of the Fenway Bowl. 🦬 From this newsletter's poll late last week, the first in our 2025 season countdown: Reader Sarah R. proclaims, 'I'm going to go out on a limb and say a team from the Dakotas without the word State in their name,' while Joe believes in 'Villanova's pope-fueled title run.' (And yes, the mysterious figure who always casts one vote for Thanasis Antetokounmpo in every poll by our NBA newsletter wrote in to reveal Giannis' brother will somehow cause South Dakota State to win it all.) One: The Power 4 conferences suddenly have their own mini-NCAA in addition to the NCAA that is basically already theirs. Two: Prepare for 'the NIL clearinghouse' to be a non-stop punchline. Three: Politicians. Four: After one of the biggest changes in college sports history, college sports will remain college sports. Ready, break! Friday, we'll talk about things that might happen on actual football fields. Email me at untilsaturday@ Last week's most-clicked: Never any doubt about this one: Grace Raynor's ranking of every No. 1 recruit since 2000. Travis Hunter, No. 2!

NBC Sports
an hour ago
- NBC Sports
NCAA says online abuse related to sports betting declined during this year's March Madness
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Online abuse related to sports betting decreased during the NCAA's March Madness basketball tournaments compared with the prior year, but people involved in the competition still received more than 3,000 threatening messages, the NCAA said Tuesday. The NCAA hired Signify Group to monitor messages directed at athletes, coaches, game officials, selection committee members and others with official roles in the tournament. Signify used both artificial intelligence and human analysts to confirm the threats and, when necessary, report them to law enforcement. Overall, abuse related to sports betting was down 23%, the NCAA said in a news release. The men's March Madness bracket was notable this year for the scarcity of upsets, with all four No. 1 seeds advancing to the Final Four and Florida, a popular pick to win it all, claiming the national title. On the women's side, three top seeds made the national semifinals and No. 2 seed UConn, among the pre-tournament favorites, won the championship. The NCAA's analysis found that overall, abusive statements directed at people involved in the men's tournament increased by 140% — much of it directed at the selection committee and coaches — while abuse related to sports betting was down 36%.