One metric labels Gophers baseball the Big Ten's top team after three weeks

New head coach Ty McDevitt and Gophers baseball has shown flashes throughout the first three weeks of the season. Their 4-5 record doesn't jump off the page, but a challenging nonconference schedule has warranted a No. 11 ranking in the NCAA's RPI (rating percentage index) ratings.

The RPI ranks all 307 teams in Division I college baseball based on their strength of schedule. There are different values for a home game, away game and neutral site game. A 10-4 win over No. 7 Oregon State and close losses against No. 2 Virginia and Oklahoma on a neutral site in Round Rock, Texas have seemed to impress the algorithm.

Latest RPI ratings (via NCAA.com)

Latest RPI rankings | Picture via: NCAA.com

Only three weeks into the season, it's an incredibly small sample size to analyze teams, but it's clear that McDevitt has brought some energy back to a program that hasn't been more than two games over .500 since 2018.

The Big Ten ranked six teams in its preseason baseball poll, and the Gophers were not one of them. Oregon was the preseason favorite in the conference, and they're the only team ranked in the latest Associated Press (AP) Top 25 at No. 10. The conference is relatively wide open, so the fact that Minnesota is the top-ranked team in the RPI shouldn't go without mentioning.

The Gophers will have their first conference game this weekend against Purdue at U.S. Bank Stadium on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They will first have a nonconference game on Tuesday night against Milwaukee after winning two of three games on the road last weekend against Arizona State.

The Gophers are likely not the best team in the Big Ten, but they've shown that they have the talent and energy to make some noise in the conference this season.

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