The CzarPI Explained

The CzarPI, rhymes with RPI, short for The Czar's Power Index, is an advanced RPI calculation used to evaluate teams across the state of Minnesota.  A team's CzarPI value represents the percentage of their season performance compared to a perfect season.  This allows the CzarPI to be a consistent barometer across seasons for historical comparison.

Some fundamental principles of The CzarPI

• A winless team has a CzarPI of 0.  Wins are ulimately what determines if team A is better than team B so if a team loses, their value cannot be determined.
• Wins against non-MSHSL teams are not counted as the quality of the win cannot be quantified and this is a comparison of teams playing in the state tournament series.  However, based on the first principle, losses are counted.
• Teams with equal wins are ordered by the quality of their wins vs their schedule results.
• The CzarPI is based only on the games played, not games to be played in the future. 
• The CzarPI will not wash your dog, find the lost city of Atlantis, cure world hunger or fix my morbid obesity.  Like all computerized rankings that do not include a human factor, this ranking should only be as 1 tool of many to evaluate a team.

Some fundamental differences between The CzarPI and the QRF

• The QRF only takes into account wins and doesn't account for losses when determining the value for a specific game (iQRF).  The full QRF is an average across all games played so losses do count there.  The CzarPI takes into account wins and losses for an individual game and also averages per game results.
• The QRF only counts opponents wins.  That means a team with 22 wins against a great schedule is treated the same as a team with 22 wins against a weak schedule.  The CzarPI takes into account the opponents record, the opponents opponents record and the opponents opponents opponents record.
• The QRF has a method to include wins/losses from non-MSHSL opponents.  In the CzarPI, wins against non-MSHSL teams are not used as this is a comparison of all teams playing the Minnesota state tournament series.  Also, the data for those teams isn't always available so it would be unreliable to attempt to quantify those wins.  However, since the CzarPI defines a loss as 0 regardless of opponent, all losses to non-MSHSL opponents are included.
• The QRF uses class differential and margin of victory in the calculation (though MOV may have been removed for the 2011-12 season).  I agree that those are valuable criteria when evaluating any game.  However it is my opinion that those factors are unique to each and every game played and are better left to human analysis.  Therefore, I do not include them in the CzarPI.