Griffins' basketball schedules released

Kayla Ivicak and the MacEwan Griffins will match up against cross-town rival Alberta on Jan. 25 and 27 of the 2017-18 Canada West women's basketball season (Chris Piggott photo).

Posted: Jun 23, 2017

MacEwan Athletics

A week after MacEwan's volleyball teams open the 2017-18 season on the road in Kamloops, the Griffins basketball teams will make the same trip.

With re-tooled rosters following the graduation of several key seniors, both Griffins hoops squads will visit Thompson Rivers University on Oct. 27-28 to lift the lid on the new Canada West campaign.

MacEwan's men's basketball team is coming off a 7-13 campaign that ended a game shy of the 8-12 WolfPack, who claimed the final playoff spot. The MacEwan women's squad made the playoffs with a 7-13 mark, well ahead of last-placed TRU (2-18), but were bounced in the first round by Victoria.

While the Griffins and WolfPack didn't meet during the 2016-17 season, MacEwan's home opener opponent is a familiar one: the Lethbridge Pronghorns will visit City Centre Campus Gym on Nov. 3-4.

Both squads kicked off their 2016-17 seasons in Lethbridge with the women coming away with a split against their 5-15 counterparts and the men falling twice to the 13-7 'Horns.

Other scheduling highlights for the Griffins in 2017-18 include a second-half home-and-home with cross-town rival Alberta (Jan. 25 at CCC and Jan. 27 at Saville Centre) and they'll close out the regular season by hosting Trinity Western on Feb. 2-3.

Following that, the top 12 teams in both the men's and women's ranks will qualify for the playoffs and the top four in RPI (ratings percentage index) will earn first-round byes. While the RPI system will again be used to determine playoff seeding once the teams with the top 12 records have been established, how it's calculated is changing in 2017-18.

Alterations have been made to the RPI formula, following review by Canada West's sport committee. The new formula, listed below, has been amended to both increase the value of a team's win/loss record, while reducing the value assigned for away wins and increasing the value for home wins.

In addition to the altered RPI formula, a new playoff format is also coming to CW basketball this season, as the conference eliminated the CW Final Four tournament in favour of a one-game championship hosted by the highest remaining seed.

The conference quarter-finals (best-of-threes) are set for February 15-18, the CW semis (best-of-three) February 22-25, and finally the CW Finals (and bronze medal games if necessary to determine national tournament berths) March 2 or 3.

U SPORTS nationals are slated for March 8-11, with the women's event being held by Regina – for the fourth time in school history – while the men's event returns to Halifax again for a second consecutive year.

Fans will have access to every conference game on the road to nationals this season on Canada West TV – the conference's official streaming platform – as every men's and women's conference regular season and playoff game will be streamed in 2017-18.

A full list of package options will be available mid-August, when the conference unveils its new streaming platform, as part of the conference's rebrand.

New RPI formula

The formula used in 2016-17 was as follows:

RPI = 25% team winning percentage (WP) x 1.2 away win + 0.8 home win, 50% opponents' average winning percentage (OWP), and 25% opponents' opponent's average winning percentage (OOWP).

The formula that will be used in 2017-18, with changes in bold, is as follows:

RPI = 35% team winning percentage (WP) x 1.1 away win + 0.9 home win, 40% opponents' average winning percentage (OWP), and 25% opponents' opponent's average winning percentage (OOWP).