Institutions competing in Division II women's basketball will see a change in the criteria used to determined which teams are invited to compete in the national tournament for the 2005-06 season.

The Division II Women's Basketball Committee, which met June 1-4 in Fort Myers, Florida, will factor the opponents' winning percentage into the equation when determining the participants for the championship.

In the past, the committee viewed the strength-of-schedule index as one of the criteria, but that will no longer be a part of the system.

The rationale behind the change is that the strength-of-schedule index was an applied number to a winning percentage, while the opponent's average winning percentage is a real number.

"We feel it is closer to measuring what should be measured," said Kathy Turpin, committee chair and associate athletics director at Barry University. "It will encourage teams to play good teams. If they are playing good teams that have good records, the opponent's winning percentage will show that. The other way was almost a quality of wins."

The committee considered the change a few years ago in anticipation of a Rating Percentage Index (RPI), but those plans were put on hold when the Division II Championships Committee decided to review the feasibility of an RPI for all sports.

"The Championships Committee wanted to study the consistency in all sports with the way championship criteria is formulated," Turpin said. "While one particular sport might be ready for an RPI, others may not. As we all find, every sport has its uniqueness. There has been a lot of conversation about an RPI. We felt we were moving toward that as a possibility, and certainly an opponent's winning percentage is closer to that."

Committee members also continued a division-wide debate on regionalization in all sports (see story, page 1). As it awaits the direction Division II will take on the issue, the committee is trying to develop the best scenarios to reduce the likelihood that deserving teams are left out of the championship.

"The committee is dedicated to looking behind the numbers and at all categories," Turpin said. "We try to make sure that the numbers tell us all we need to know. We want to make sure we send the best teams to the national tournament. We spend a lot of time talking about that. We must continue to do that. We have criteria, but each of the numbers needs to be valid to us each time we're looking at teams."