49ers may have to earn their way to tournament

Many players' only chance to go would be to win their respective conference tournament. Still others are hoping to win one of 34 at-large berths.

The Long Beach State men have a chance to win an automatic bid or an at-large berth. However, winning an at-large berth may be difficult since the Ratings Percentage Index, or RPI, does not look too kind on the 49ers.

As of Sunday the 49ers RPI was 70. The lower a school's RPI is, the better chance it has of getting a berth.

The NCAA selection committee also looks at other factors to determine their at-large bids.

With this in mind, lets look at the 49ers season in review.

To start the 49ers record is 23-4. In the selection committee's eyes the record is in reality 21-4 since CS Dominguez Hills and CS Monterey Bay are not Division I schools, so LBSU victories against them don't count. Still a 21-4 record is impressive enough.

The problem is that of the 25 games that count, 17 of them were played against teams with RPIs of 151 or higher which is the lower half of Division I. 

This gives LBSU strength of schedule rank of a 272 out of 319 Division I schools, which counts for 50 percent of LBSU's RPI. The selection committee tends to stay away from schools with an easy schedule.

If there is anything positive about the 49ers 17 games against the lower half of Division I teams it's that they didn't lose any of them.

Another category that the committee looks at is how the team has done in their last 10 games. So far the 49ers are 9-1 which is a good thing.

There are also categories called good wins and good losses. A good win is an upset win against a team with a better RPI that plays tougher opponents. A good loss is almost beating such a team.

The 49ers good wins were against Southern Illinois and USC. So far Southern Illinois has an RPI of 47 and if they don't win their conference tournament, they will probably receive an at-large bid. As for USC, after Trojans lost the LBSU in  December, they went on and defeated Stanford and UCLA during the Pac-10 regular season.

Their best loss of the four was against Pepperdine. The Waves won the West Coast Conference regular season title over Gonzaga, which played a tough, non-conference schedule. Pepperdine's RPI is 49.

With all that in mind, if the 49ers fail to win the Big West conference tournament, an at-large bid may be a stretch. 

To start getting to the Big West Conference Final is a must. If the 49ers advance that far and lose, their record will stand at 23-5 and they will have an overall winning percentage of .821. 

Since the 1993-94 season when the RPI formula was changed, only one other school has had a higher winning percentage without receiving an at-large berth. The College of Charleston had a winning percentage of .880 in 1996 and was left out. If the 49ers advance to the conference final and lose they may have the second spot.

After this weekend the 49ers RPI will definitely change. Since 1993-94 the lowest rated RPI team ever to make the field of 64 was New Mexico with a 75 last year. This gives hope to the 49ers but New Mexico came from the then-very competitive Western Athletic Conference before they broke into two different conferences.

The 49ers do have a good chance to win the Big West tournament and win the automatic bid, but if they don't, can you say National Invitational Tournament?

Andres Cardenas is sports editor of the Daily Forty-Niner.