NPI Rankings 2026

[Kuiper]

The first official drop of the NCAA NPI Rankings, which determine NCAA tournament selections for at large teams and seedings for all teams that qualify has dropped.

NPI Top 25 Rankings as of 10/5/2026

1. St. Lawrence (59.396)
2. Middlebury
3. Williams
4. St. Olaf
5. Chicago
6. Wash & Lee
7. Rowan
8. Lynchburg
9. Hobart
10. Conn College
11. Tufts
12. Kenyon
13. Cortland
14. Case Western
15. DePauw
16. North Park
17. Messiah
18. SUNY Oneonta
19. Catholic
20. Montclair State
21. Calvin
22. Johns Hopkins
23. Babson
24. Saint John's (MN)
25. Christopher Newport

[Kuiper]

NPI Top 25 as of 10/7

1. St. Lawrence (59.265)
2. Middlebury
3. Williams
4. Washington & Lee
5. Chicago
6. St. Olaf
7. Rowan
8. Conn College
9. Lynchburg
10. Tufts
11. Hobart
12. DePauw
13. Case Western
14. Calvin
15. Kenyon
16. North Park
17. Bowdoin
18. SUNY Oneonta
19. Montclair State
20. Catholic
21. Salisbury
22. Saint John's (MN)
23. Cortland
24. Messiah
25. Redlands

[SimpleCoach]

NPI Top 25 as of 10/7

1. St. Lawrence (59.265)
2. Middlebury
3. Williams
4. Washington & Lee
5. Chicago
6. St. Olaf
7. Rowan
8. Conn College
9. Lynchburg
10. Tufts
11. Hobart
12. DePauw
13. Case Western
14. Calvin
15. Kenyon
16. North Park
17. Bowdoin
18. SUNY Oneonta
19. Montclair State
20. Catholic
21. Salisbury
22. Saint John's (MN)
23. Cortland
24. Messiah
25. Redlands

This list makes me wonder if I am just watching a different game altogether.

SC.

[jknezek]

This list makes me wonder if I am just watching a different game altogether.

SC.

You are watching games. This list is watching math

[Kuiper]

This list makes me wonder if I am just watching a different game altogether.

SC.

You are watching games. This list is watching math

I wonder whether the rankings would change if the new 2027 NPI dials for men's soccer were in place.  I suspect the 20/80 change isn't significant enough to make that big a difference, but I'm not sure about the decreased QWB and how it would combine with the slightly bigger emphasis on wins.  What distinguishes the top 52 schools in the current NPI rankings from the schools that are below 52?  Those above have some QWB and those below have zero.  In fact, the NPI ranking of the top 52 exactly tracks the ranking of QWB points.  Those who simulate these things (e.g., D3 Datacast) could probably run a few numbers, but it would be interesting to see if the increased value of wins and decreased value of SoS and QWB would change that at the margins.

[jknezek]

There's still a lot of games to be played this year. I think the NPI has done a decent job the last couple years, though I do like the upcoming tweaks. But the fewer data points it has to work with, the weirder it will be. Most teams are 10-ish games in and still have 6-ish games to go before the conference tournaments begin. So we are only 2/3rds of the regular season finished, more or less.

But yeah, it's a bit wonky right now. Kuiper's discovery is pretty interesting. NPI = QWB right now. It's a perfect correlation until you hit 0 QWB. Tells me QWB might be way over-weighted!

[jsr]

I think the QWB column refers to the quality win bonus a team gets for beating that team. It's not a measure of the quality win bonus points that the team has received so far this season.

For example, SLU's listed QWB is 3.948, which is equal to their NPI (59.265) minus 54 (the quality win base) x .75 (the QWB multiplier). 59.265-54=5.265, 5.265x.75=3.948.

It does look like you need to go all the way down to Messiah, at #24 to find the highest ranked team without any QWB points. The only team they have played so far with an NPI >54 is Scranton (a loss in their first game of the season).

[Kuiper]

I think the QWB column refers to the quality win bonus a team gets for beating that team. It's not a measure of the quality win bonus points that the team has received so far this season.

For example, SLU's listed QWB is 3.948, which is equal to their NPI (59.265) minus 54 (the quality win base) x .75 (the QWB multiplier). 59.265-54=5.265, 5.265x.75=3.948.

It does look like you need to go all the way down to Messiah, at #24 to find the highest ranked team without any QWB points. The only team they have played so far with an NPI >54 is Scranton (a loss in their first game of the season).

Thanks.  That would make sense, but it also seems odd that they wouldn't display the information as to how many Quality Win Bonus points a team has received.  I feel like that they did have a column for that in previous years, but I could be mistaken.  It also makes the column for QWB rank completely redundant, which is odd.

[stlawus]

I think the QWB column refers to the quality win bonus a team gets for beating that team. It's not a measure of the quality win bonus points that the team has received so far this season.

For example, SLU's listed QWB is 3.948, which is equal to their NPI (59.265) minus 54 (the quality win base) x .75 (the QWB multiplier). 59.265-54=5.265, 5.265x.75=3.948.

It does look like you need to go all the way down to Messiah, at #24 to find the highest ranked team without any QWB points. The only team they have played so far with an NPI >54 is Scranton (a loss in their first game of the season).

Thanks.  That would make sense, but it also seems odd that they wouldn't display the information as to how many Quality Win Bonus points a team has received.  I feel like that they did have a column for that in previous years, but I could be mistaken.  It also makes the column for QWB rank completely redundant, which is odd.

Click on a team's NPI rank number, it takes you to their resume and shows you all the NPI numbers. Shows you what the NPI value of a win and loss is for every result along with the quality win bonus received for a win against a team, if any.

[CentPA]

The NCAA NPI rankings updated this morning: through games 10/11/2026

[Kuiper]

The NCAA NPI rankings updated this morning: through games 10/11/2026

Here is the Top 25

1. Middlebury (59.480)
2. St. Lawrence
3. Williams
4. St. Olaf
5. Rowan
6. Lynchburg
7. Wash. & Lee
8. CWRU
9. Hobart
10. Connecticut Col.
11. UChicago
12. Kenyon
13. SUNY Oneonta
14. Montclair St.
15. Messiah
16. Tufts
17. Salisbury
18. Calvin
19. Catholic
20. Redlands
21. Bowdoin
22. North Park
23. Cortland
24. Scranton
25. Carnegie Mellon

[ziggy]

There's still a lot of games to be played this year. I think the NPI has done a decent job the last couple years, though I do like the upcoming tweaks. But the fewer data points it has to work with, the weirder it will be. Most teams are 10-ish games in and still have 6-ish games to go before the conference tournaments begin. So we are only 2/3rds of the regular season finished, more or less.

But yeah, it's a bit wonky right now. Kuiper's discovery is pretty interesting. NPI = QWB right now. It's a perfect correlation until you hit 0 QWB. Tells me QWB might be way over-weighted!

I liken mid-season NPI to looking at a puzzle being put together with half the pieces still in the box. It's not always going to be pretty or look "right" but it isn't supposed to because it isn't done. There are more pieces to put into place. Every time another game is played, all the pieces get thrown back and the picture is remade using one more piece.

[CentPA]

The NCAA NPI rankings just updated again this morning: through games 10/14/2026

[CORRECTED]

[Kuiper]

The NCAA NPI rankings just updated again this morning: through games 10/14/2026

That was the link for the Women's NPI rankings, here is one for the Men's NPI rankings as of 10/14

One thing you're starting to see is that teams are reaching the 10+ win threshold (with ties added as half wins) and some smaller NPI jumps are occurring just from the ability to drop half or all of a "bad win" (against a low NPI ranked opponent that drags down their SoS score)

Big wins and losses are also affecting NPI score significantly (which hurts teams that played them previously too)

Some of the biggest risers in the top group

Scranton from 24 to 18
Cortland from 23 to 19
Wesleyan from 36 to 26
Hamilton from 52 to 37
Hampden-Sydney from 48 to 39
Salem St. from 59 to 44
Randolph Macon from 90 to 52

Some of the biggest fallers from the top group

Wash & Lee from 7 to 15
Calvin from 18 to 27
Saint John's from 26 to 34
Rutgers-Newark from 35 to 54
Babson from 38 to 47

Here's some examples that show the dramatic effect of one game

Randolph-Macon beat W&L 2-1 on Wednesday

Randolph-Macon rose from 90 to 52
W&L dropped from 7 to 15

Hampden-Sydney beat Mary Washington 2-1 on Wednesday

Hampden-Sydney rose from 48 to 39
Mary Washington dropped from 67 to 84

Haverford beat Manhattanville 3-1 on Tuesday. 

Haverford rose from 83 to 66
Manhattanville dropped from 44 to 69

Swarthmore beat Stevens 4-1 on Tuesday

Swarthmore rose from 126 to 108
Stevens dropped from 82 to 112