They can’t play at night on full moons because that’s when the basketballs come alive

There’s something peculiar about the men’s basketball schedule this season. Maybe it was the Friday, 11 a.m. season opener against a Division III school. Could it be the back-to-back games on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving (they lost both games in the final moments by one point)? Perhaps it’s their game on the Monday of reading week, when a Columbia student would rather be caught dead then at Levien Gymnasium. Or maybe it’s the evenly-spread games over winter break to make sure the players aren’t allowed to spend significant time at home. There’s something going on. Does head coach Kyle Smith hate the holidays? Is it a plan from the administration to lower the curve in classes by forcing athletes to play more? Or is the gym just booked every other day by weird pep rallies and elementary school events?

The clear answer is, unfortunately, a legitimate one. Columbia really wants to get into the postseason this year. With Lo, Mullins, Rosenberg, and Cohen all graduating at the end of the season, the Lions feel that this is their year. Entrance to the NCAA tournament is based only on the Ivy schedule. That has its own problems – try travelling in the snow to Dartmouth on a Friday and Harvard on a Saturday while getting any sleep practice, and food in the middle. But if they miss the NCAA’s, they’ll want to get into the NIT, CIT, or another smaller postseason tournament. And admissions to those depend a lot on RPI.

Remember the undergraduate admissions process, when you felt like you had to game the system? If you did, you probably studied for standardized tests harder than you’re studying for your chem midterm now, and you picked up some volunteer position, even though you loved the prospect of college more than the community you were supposed to be helping. Well, Columbia basketball has to game the RPI (Rating Percentage Index) a lot in the same way. Because like the SATs, the RPI is a problematic system that is the number one determining factor for making the postseason.

Here’s how the system works. Your score is equal to your winning percentage, plus twice your opponents’ winning percentage, plus the winning percentage of your opponents’ opponents, all divided by four. What this means is that your strength of schedule matters a lot more than whether or not you actually win. So last year, Columbia (12-15) had an RPI of .4871, while Rutgers (10-22) was 20 ranks ahead at .4961. When you play good teams, even if you’re bad, you look better on this system. The problem for Columbia is that they play in the Ivy League – if you play against Cornell and Dartmouth twice a year, the RPI system isn’t going to treat you well.

So this means a few things for Columbia. First, if you can find a power conference team (e.g. Northwestern and Kansas State this year), play them. The Big Ten averaged a .591 winning percentage last year. That means that beating an average team playing in the Big Ten would a) boost your win percentage, b) boost your opponents’ average win percentage, and c) sharply boost your opponents’ opponents win percentage. If that means you have to go play in the Midwest on a Monday when there are midterms the next day, then that’s what you do, because that’s how you make the postseason and make the other students happy.

So the Friday season opener was to get the team ready for two out-of-conference games that really mattered and will, even with Columbia’s losses, help in the postseason. The Tuesday pre-Thanksgiving day game? Unless head coach Kyle Smith is really against athletes eating turkey, it was probably just because Wofford dominates in a weak conference, which means that, even if the other teams play poorly, if Wofford wins most of their games, that’s a net plus for Columbia. And the games over winter break will help the players stay fresh, sure. But it’s also part of a careful system. And if you have a problem with this and want to change it, try telling a high school senior to stop doing what they think is going to get them into college.