Pool C

[Greek Tragedy]

I have a headache.

[Hugenerd]

Right, but someone facing two batters back to back isn't going to be more likely to give up a hit to the person who had more at-bats.

Thing is, that just isn't what we're measuring here. We're measuring a team's batting average, akin to what sac said:

I'm not sure I see the horribleness, when you figure out a baseball teams batting avg you don't avg the percentages, nor do you average the percentages of a player to find the career average.

We're not predicting how a team would do when playing Adrian (like we would predict this pitcher facing two batters), we're measuring how a group of teams performed (a group of batters). And if one team happened to play more measurable games than the other, so be it. It should count more.

If I play a 20 game schedule, some games should count for more then 1/20th and some less than 1/20th? That is exactly what happens when the SOS calculation depends on the total number of games each individual opponent has played. And that is my issue.

You have to remember the home and away weighting also, an away game is already weighted 2/3 higher than a home game, so your argument about each game counting toward 1/20th of the SOS doesnt make sense to begin with. 

I tend to like the new system better because it takes each of your opponents games as an individual event.  Therefore, for every game your opponent plays (that counts according to the NCAA criteria) you get either 1.25, 1.0, or 0.75 points (Home, Neutral, Away) towards your OWP statistic in either the Win or Loss column.  Then, you average over all events to give the OWP statistic.  In the previous method, whether your opponent played 4, 10 or 20 games, they were all treated the same.  As the number of events increase, the certainty of the statistic also increases.  Meaning that I have more confidence that a 12-12 team is a 0.500 team, than a 1-1 team, a 2-2 team, or even a 5-5 team, because we just dont have a lot of information on those teams yet.  The same analogy can be drawn to baseball as has already been discussed.  Do you have more confidence in someone who has gone 1-3 on the season to get a hit or someone who has gone 33-99?  The same thing is true here. When you have such small samples of data, your certainty in that team's WP is low. Thats why I have a problem with the previous batting average examples, you are never going to get 600 observations in basketball games for a single team in a season.  By averaging the WP for each opponent, you collapse the number of observations to the number of regional games played. Conversely, by doing it this way, you approximately square the number of observations.    As the number of events increases, your confidence in the true OWP of that team increases.  Scaling linearly with the number of events is the easiest way of doing this (which the NCAA has incorporated) and it could be debated whether it is the best way.  For example, in statistics, critical values for a t-stat are not linear, above 20 or 30 events you begin to approach the infinite observation t-stat.  However, for this purpose, I have absolutely no problem with what the NCAA is doing and think it is definitely an improvement on the alternative that is being debated.

I doubt these points are being expressed over on the D1 message boards.

You dont have the same criteria in D1.  Also, it is much easier to handle the D1 situation, because there are less teams, they play more games, and there is more interaction between teams from different regions.  Therefore, the problem of applying an appropriate RPI metric is better defined.  The D3 problem is ill-defined, especially on a national level, which necessitates breaking the country up geographically and defining more strict criteria in order to allow for a better comparison between teams.

[Gregory Sager]

You dont have the same criteria in D1.  Also, it is much easier to handle the D1 situation, because there are more teams

You mean more teams in the D1 tourney than in the D3 tourney, right? Because, in terms of divisional membership, D1 has 347 teams and D3 has 412.

[Hugenerd]

You dont have the same criteria in D1.  Also, it is much easier to handle the D1 situation, because there are more teams

You mean more teams in the D1 tourney than in the D3 tourney, right? Because, in terms of divisional membership, D1 has 347 teams and D3 has 412.

I actually meant to write less teams, and more games, but wrote more for both accidentally.

Of course more tournament teams (less teams overall).  Sorry for the confusion.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

In other words, the old way was based on the assumption a 9-3 team was going to like a 15-5 team should the 9-3 team have played 20 games. You can't base SOS numbers on assumptions... they should be based on hard numbers.

And if you decide to play Nebraska Wesleyan or the like, that is a decision that coach has made. It isn't like we have teams who all of the sudden change their minds and only play half their games in region. NW and others have long stranding track records or scenarios which everyone knows... and rewarding a team for playing a 3-3 NW the same as playing a 10-10 team doesn't make any sense.

If all games count when the committee looks at selecting Pool Bs and Cs and bracketing the teams, then the SOS should count all games and not the average.

Right, and the hard numbers say a 9-3 team is a .750 team, just like a 15-5 team. Both teams have achieved equally in their opportunities.

Now, there is no equality here... let's put it another way... the 9-3 team would be 4 games back of the 15-5 team if they were in the standings. If the 9-3 team wants to equal the 15-5 team with the later not playing any games, they will have to win six of the next eight games - THEN they will be equal.

[7express]

Win your conference tournament and you don't have to worry about a Pool C.

[ronk]

Win your conference tournament and you don't have to worry about a Pool C.

But you do have to worry about seeding and hosting.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Well this year hosting really isn't as big a concern at all (and seeding doesn't happen in Division III, remember). With 30 teams hosting the first week, 16 the next and 8 the following... the hosting is probably going to be pretty obvious.

[Pat Coleman]

Or at the very least, the schools we'll be talking about as bubble hosting teams will be 8 and 9 seeds instead of 4 and 5 seeds.

[AO]

Win your conference tournament and you don't have to worry about a Pool C.

The ultimate "I know you're right, but it doesn't matter" argument.  Nebraska Wesleyan and Calvin are not scheduling non-d3 teams because they would rather fly off to California or Florida and miss class time.  Their decision of who they play seems entirely within the philosophy of D3, and as such should not be penalized.  Their student athletes should have a fair shot at earning at-large bid.

Dave: you still haven't admitted you were wrong about the different calculations also affecting the women.   No idea if the women even realized the difference, but it might be worth the effort to make a correction to your blog.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

AO... how does the calculation affect the women? They don't use the multiplier! So there is no influence on any games!

In a men's game a 9-4 record for a team you played on the road would have a record of 11.25 and 5. A women's game on the road has no multiplier so that team is still 9-4.

Tell me how the new calculations actually affect the women?

[ziggy]

Right, but someone facing two batters back to back isn't going to be more likely to give up a hit to the person who had more at-bats.

Thing is, that just isn't what we're measuring here. We're measuring a team's batting average, akin to what sac said:

I'm not sure I see the horribleness, when you figure out a baseball teams batting avg you don't avg the percentages, nor do you average the percentages of a player to find the career average.

We're not predicting how a team would do when playing Adrian (like we would predict this pitcher facing two batters), we're measuring how a group of teams performed (a group of batters). And if one team happened to play more measurable games than the other, so be it. It should count more.

If I play a 20 game schedule, some games should count for more then 1/20th and some less than 1/20th? That is exactly what happens when the SOS calculation depends on the total number of games each individual opponent has played. And that is my issue.

You have to remember the home and away weighting also, an away game is already weighted 2/3 higher than a home game, so your argument about each game counting toward 1/20th of the SOS doesnt make sense to begin with. 

The WP weighting is an entirely different issue and one I agree with.

Is it harder to beat a .500 team on the road than at home? Yes, so weight the game appropriately.
Is there any difference in playing a .500 team whether they are 10-10 or 8-8? I say no, so why should it count differently towards SOS?

We've gone around and around on the philosophy behind the whole thing but none of the supporters of this calculation method have been able to adequately respond to the real life examples KnightSlappy  has posted. Since those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still, I'm more interested in looking at the application of the calculation method in such examples as KS has presented.

[Titan Q]

Thoughts on CCIW Pool C situation...

Q

With the likely conference seeds set, what is the pool C picture for CCIW teams and what does each team have to do/avoid between now and selection Day?

Usee, I think it's first important to put some context around the numbers required to be a competitive Pool C candidate.  Last year, after the bracket was announced, I tried to project the order the Pool C's were taken.  Post #3866 here...

http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=4232.3855

There were 19 Pool C's picked (same as this year).  I guessed that the last 7 in were...

(in-region winning %/in-region SOS/in-region results vs regionally ranked)

Round 13 - St. Mary's, .739/.557/1-3
Round 14 - Illinois Wesleyan, .708/.541/3-6
Round 15 - Randolph-Macon, .783/.515, 3-2
Round 16 - Gustavus Adolphus, .731/.526/2-2
Round 17 - New York U., .800, .494, 2-2
Round 18 - St. Joseph's, .875, .470, 0-2
Round 19 - Birmingham-Southern, .920/.443/0-0

I projected that the teams left sitting at the table when the music stopped were:

(Atl) St. Joseph's (LI): 21-3 (.875), .470, 0-2
(E) Nazareth, 18-7 (.720), .549, 0-4
(GL) John Carroll: 15-7 (.682), .491, 1-1
(MA) Keystone: 21-6 (.778), .504, 0-3
(MW) Lake Forest: 19-4 (.826), .516, 0-1
(NE) Wesleyan: 20-5 (.800), .515, 3-3 - I think we later guessed that some other NE team was ranked higher in the region
(W) Puget Sound: 15-7 (.682), .513, 3-3
**********

So now to where the CCIW teams stand.  Here are updated in-region records, w/ SOS that is a week old...and I've added results vs regionally ranked...

MW #1 - Illinois Wesleyan, 17-3 (.850)/.560 /5-2
MW #3 - Wheaton, 15-5 (.750)/.577/4-3
MW #5 - North Central, 18-3 (.857)/.525/3-2 
MW #7 - Augustana, 15-7 (.682)/.549/1-7

Minimum each needs to be in good Pool C shape (4 possible games left)...

- Illinois Wesleyan: 1-2 would leave the Titans 18-5 (.782)

- Wheaton: 2-1 would leave the Thunder 17-6 (.739)

- North Central: 1-2 would leave the Cardinals 19-5 (.792)

- Augustana: I don't see a realistic Pool C chance...3-1 leaves the Vikings 18-8 (.692)


Heading into the final two regular season games, it looks to me like IWU, North Central, and Wheaton are in very good shape for Pool C.   Augustana needs the AQ to get in.

[ziggy]

AO... how does the calculation affect the women? They don't use the multiplier! So there is no influence on any games!

In a men's game a 9-4 record for a team you played on the road would have a record of 11.25 and 5. A women's game on the road has no multiplier so that team is still 9-4.

Tell me how the new calculations actually affect the women?

But if another team is 19-4 then the 9-4 team counts 36% towards the SOS (13 games/36 total games) while the 19-4 counts 64% (23 games/36 total games) instead of 50-50.

(19+9)/(23+13) = .778
[(19/23)+(9/13)]/2 = .759

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

But ziggy... there is no change there. The original calculations have always had 2/3 OWP and 1/3 OOWP... that has been the case for men and women... so there is no change in that calculation!

The only change we are talking about here involves the multipliers... the 1.25, 1.0, and 0.75 for road, neutral, and home games respectively. Since the women do not use those multipliers... their calculations do not change.

Again... the multipliers are now calculating on the individual records not the percentages in the men's results... and since the women do not use the multipliers the calculations of their numbers will not change.

Since the QOWI was done away with, I believe the OWP and OOWP have always been calculated as 2/3 + 1/3... and never 50-50.

Am I missing something in your argument?