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Barton jumped ahead of one prominent EIVA team and into the top 15 of the RPI.
The defending ConfCarolinas champions edged out Penn State by 0.0002 percentage points to move to No. 15 in the newest RPI rankings that was released Monday.
The Bulldogs are on a conference-best 12-match winning streak and are undefeated in the ConfCarolinas with two weeks remaining in the regular season. Barton in the RPI rankings also is two spots and about 0.01 percentage points behind George Mason, the team currently in first place in the EIVA.
The RPI is one of the criteria categories the selection committee uses to determine the NCAA Tournament field. A team’s RPI ranking is calculated using a mathematical formula that includes its winning percentage, strength of schedule and opponents’ strength of schedule.
The new format for the seven-team NCAA Tournament will feature the No. 6 seed playing the No. 7 seed in a play-in match at an on-campus location.
The champions from the EIVA and ConfCarolinas are projected to play in that play-in match, according to the latest Off the Block bracketology.
There was no movement in the top five of the new RPI rankings. In addition, the only change in top 10 was Lewis moving ahead of Hawai’i to No. 7.
An updated RPI rankings will be released each Monday throughout the regular season and conference tournaments. The final RPI rankings before the NCAA Tournament will be unveiled on Selection Sunday, April 22.
RPI rankings (March 26)
1. Long Beach State — .6538
2. UCLA — .6440
3. BYU — .6400
4. Loyola — .6305
5. UC Irvine — .6147
6. Pepperdine — .6094
7. Lewis — .5990
8. Hawai’i — .5925
9. Ohio State — .5803
10. UC Santa Barbara — .5737
11. Grand Canyon — .5595
12. CSUN — .5569
13. George Mason — .5490
14. Concordia-Irvine — .5344
15. Barton — .5242
16. Penn State — .5240
17. Ball State — .5209
18. Fort Wayne — .5050
19. King — .5031
20. McKendree — .5028
21. USC — .4909
22. Mount Olive — .4751
23. Stanford — .4730
24. UC San Diego — .4692
25. St. Francis — .4625
26. Princeton — .4584
27. NJIT — .4561
28. Lindenwood — .4512
29. Harvard — .4493
30. Charleston — .4490
31. Quincy — .4230
32. North Greenville — .4190
33. Lincoln Memorial — .4108
34. Belmont Abbey — .3946
35. Limestone — .3863
36. Coker — .3858
37. Erskine — .3825
38. Emmanuel — .3804
39. Sacred Heart — .3561
40. Lees-McRae — .3308
41. Alderson Broaddus — .3034