Posters' Poll

[magicman]

Is it faux pas to discuss our preliminary ballots?

Why should it be? Discussion is healthy and informative. If you know something that I'm not aware of, that would influence my ballot, then I'd love to hear it.

MIT is the best team in the country

A Red Kool Aid drinker.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I'd like to re-extend an invitation to Hugenerd to join us as a voter this year (unless you follow ONLY the northeast).  While I suspect you may not be alone anyway (no, that is not a guarantee that I'm voting for MIT, though I'll consider it , you could assure that MIT gets at least one first place vote.

(Of course, if they somehow go on a 5-game losing streak and you STILL put them #1, your ballot will be disallowed!)

[sac]

I was fishing through some efficiency calculations this afternoon and Whitewater is probably underrated along with CMS.  Franklin and Marshall is probably way overrated.

I know people are a little down on the CCIW as a whole (rightfully actually) but like Q has said on the top 25 board, Augustana, IWU and Wheaton are very good teams.  IWU and Wheaton both fall solidly in the top 20 in efficiency.

MIT is the best team in the country

I actually don't think he's far off.

[KnightSlappy]

MIT might not be in my top 25 right now. And by might not, I mean isn't.

[KnightSlappy]

An under-the-radar team could be Adrian. It would be a tall, tall task, but if they knock off Hope on the road on Saturday, they'll be in my Top 25.

[Hugenerd]

I'd like to re-extend an invitation to Hugenerd to join us as a voter this year (unless you follow ONLY the northeast).  While I suspect you may not be alone anyway (no, that is not a guarantee that I'm voting for MIT, though I'll consider it , you could assure that MIT gets at least one first place vote.

(Of course, if they somehow go on a 5-game losing streak and you STILL put them #1, your ballot will be disallowed!)

I follow the whole country, I played in the UAA a few years back and I know the Coach at Caltech, so I have some rooting interests across the country, but dont have time to work on a poll currently. Thanks for the offer, though, I will try to contribute in the future if time allows.

MIT might not be in my top 25 right now. And by might not, I mean isn't.

Thats your choice, but outside of their first game, MIT has had more impressive performances against common opponents when compared to Middlebury.  If you look at Massey, MITs SOS is similar to VA Wesleyan, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, F&M, and so on.  In addition to that, they lead the country in scoring margin, last I checked.

Other than being stubborn, I dont know how you cant see them as a top 25 team, considering they won an NCAA game last year (and nearly beat Rochester to make the round of 16) and this year they return their 1st team AA, with all 5 of their starters having at least 3 years of experience together.  Your opinion also does not appear to be shared by the voters who actually count.

[KnightSlappy]

MIT might not be in my top 25 right now. And by might not, I mean isn't.

Thats your choice, but outside of their first game, MIT has had more impressive performances against common opponents when compared to Middlebury.  If you look at Massey, MITs SOS is similar to VA Wesleyan, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, F&M, and so on.  In addition to that, they lead the country in scoring margin, last I checked.

Other than being stubborn, I dont know how you cant see them as a top 25 team, considering they won an NCAA game last year (and nearly beat Rochester to make the round of 16) and this year they return their 1st team AA, with all 5 of their starters having at least 3 years of experience together.  Your opinion also does not appear to be shared by the voters who actually count.

Good thing none of those others are currently in my top 25 either then!

Massey has MIT at #17, and he uses MOV. My system (which is significantly more flawed than his in all likelyhood) doesn't use MOV, so it's not all that surprising that I'd have them on the outside.

No voters actually count. This isn't FBS Football.

[smedindy]

Of course he uses MOV. It's a legit data point. He also uses the law of diminishing returns, so pounding some hapless foe by 79 won't help.

[KnightSlappy]

Of course he uses MOV. It's a legit data point. He also uses the law of diminishing returns, so pounding some hapless foe by 79 won't help.

I'd love to use MOV, but I'm not set up for that right now. Maybe in the future. Actually, I'd like to use a tempo-free MOV that's adjusted for quality of opponent, but that will take significantly more work. I Massey has Grinnell highly overrated because his MOV is not adjusted for tempo. A 10 point win for them isn't the same as a 10 point win for everyone else.

My #1 objective is to pick criteria and apply it equally to everyone, even if I know it has some obvious flaws.

[smedindy]

A. I wish Pomeroy did D-3 as well.
B. If Grinnell is the only real outlier (unless someone is playing a total stall game), then I think it's a pretty nifty system.
C. I use power rankings, but also my own intuition, so I'm not chained to the numbers.

[Hugenerd]

MIT might not be in my top 25 right now. And by might not, I mean isn't.

Thats your choice, but outside of their first game, MIT has had more impressive performances against common opponents when compared to Middlebury.  If you look at Massey, MITs SOS is similar to VA Wesleyan, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, F&M, and so on.  In addition to that, they lead the country in scoring margin, last I checked.

Other than being stubborn, I dont know how you cant see them as a top 25 team, considering they won an NCAA game last year (and nearly beat Rochester to make the round of 16) and this year they return their 1st team AA, with all 5 of their starters having at least 3 years of experience together.  Your opinion also does not appear to be shared by the voters who actually count.

Good thing none of those others are currently in my top 25 either then!

Massey has MIT at #17, and he uses MOV. My system (which is significantly more flawed than his in all likelyhood) doesn't use MOV, so it's not all that surprising that I'd have them on the outside.

No voters actually count. This isn't FBS Football.

I meant people whose vote count for the official poll, I agree that NCAA selection has different criteria than the Top 25 poll, but since we are talking about a poll on this board, those who 'count' are those who vote on the official poll.

[augie_superfan]

Of course he uses MOV. It's a legit data point. He also uses the law of diminishing returns, so pounding some hapless foe by 79 won't help.

I'd love to use MOV, but I'm not set up for that right now. Maybe in the future. Actually, I'd like to use a tempo-free MOV that's adjusted for quality of opponent, but that will take significantly more work. I Massey has Grinnell highly overrated because his MOV is not adjusted for tempo. A 10 point win for them isn't the same as a 10 point win for everyone else.

My #1 objective is to pick criteria and apply it equally to everyone, even if I know it has some obvious flaws.

Massey has 2 ratings listed on his site.  One doesn't take winning into account, only MOV and the other adds in some value for winning the game.  I'm not 100% sure that either uses any type of dimishing returns.  He does, however, make an adjustment for the game score, similar to what a tempo adjustment would do.

My system has a score related adjustment also.  This was primarily added to combat Grinnell-type teams but also works in favor of teams that play at a very slow pace.  Now, I only had last year's data with which to determine what magnitude of an adjustment there should be so after this year, hopefully I'll have a better feel for that.  For example, a 20 point win would give these different "credits" to a winner depending on the total score of both teams:

Total   "Credit"

100       21.5   
140       18.6
180       17.1
220       16.0

This should not be confused as a diminishing return because if that margin was 40 instead of 20, all of these numbers would just about be doubled.  Diminishing returns wouldn't scale like that directly.

My system has Grinnell ranked 15th as of today.  Maybe they are a bit overrated in my system but I'm pretty comfortable with them being in that range.

I've been working on a Pomeroy-style ranking system but unfortunately getting the box scores for every game is just not feasible for me.  I've just been playing around with my system with the CCIW conference games only to see if I can get anything useful.

[KnightSlappy]

Massey definitely does use diminishing returns.

You can tell that his system has a hard time with Grinnell because they have the #1 offense and #410 defense. That's probably not really true (perhaps it is though), I'll go get some numbers.

Not knocking the Massey system at all, it's the best that's out there IMO (love augie_superfan's rankings as well). I love any ranking/ratings that attempts to look at teams by applying consistent criteria across the board. I don't usually love top 25 polls so much.


... OK so Grinnell's Offensive Efficiency Rating is 121.9 That's probably up there with the better teams in the country. Their Defensive Efficiency Rating is 101.5 which isn't so bad. Probably a touch below average (no adjustment here for quality of competition). +20.4 in efficiency margin is very, very good. I did some work on efficiency margin and winning percentage correlation for MIAA games in the offseason. +20 in margin would net a team about 25 wins in a 28 game season.

[augie_superfan]

What are people's take on a team like Williams?  Obviously a good team but they have had a lot of injuries early on which most likely has affected their results.  Do you rank the team based on how they would've performed without those injuries or do you make them first prove that they are back at that high level before moving them back up in the rankings.

I myself want to see them prove that they are healthy and back performing at a top 10 level before I'd put them there.  What are people's feelings on that?

[smedindy]

Grinnell's always been a tough nut to crack, because of how they play. Certainly they've been successful but Top 25 voters don't seem convinced right now that they're all that and bag of three-pointers. Most rating systems aren't designed to really accommodate their unique style, since it's such an outlier. Normally that won't matter much but they're a team that deserves to be in the consideration for rankings, so everyone needs to reckon with them.