UC Irvine celebrating another win.

Ranking The West: Oregon State leads, but UCI is surging

I know the RPI is still a little too janky to put all our trust in it (then again, should we ever put trust in that formula?), but judging solely by the RPI rankings, if the season ended today the West would only have six teams within the Top 50 and three of those teams sit precariously in the 40s. So in terms of at-large possibilities, that’s only three for-sure slots for occidental programs. That’s pretty shoddy.

Of course, as you know there will be four slots saved for conference champions. And maybe a fifth with the WAC having a few[…]