Pool C

[gordonmann]

Ha. Fair enough.

All eventual champs were Northwestern (Minn.). All Eagles, all the time.

[Greek Tragedy]

CENTRAL REGION

CCIW
Only IWU went 2-0 last week to improve to 17-5, and they lead the standings. Everyone else went 1-1. Augustana is 18-4 with Elmhurst (17-5) and NCC (16-6) both on thin ice. IWU's SOS is slightly better than Elmhurst's (18 to 24). I don't see all four getting in.

NACC
Its Pool A or bust for Aurora, who is now 17-6 and with a 200+ SOS.

MWC
Despite a bad (200) SOS, St. Norbert should be safe for a Pool C at 19-1.

SLIAC
MacMurray leads and the conference tournament winner will be the only rep.

UAA
Chicago (14-6) leads Washington U. (16-4) and will look for the season sweep on the last day of the regular season. Washington U. has a better SOS, but that head to head will take precedence.

WIAC
Whitewater is safe at 19-2. Point is 18-4 and plays Whitewater Wednesday.  Point is close to being a Pool C lock.

[KnightSlappy]

CENTRAL REGION

CCIW
Only IWU went 2-0 last week to improve to 17-5, and they lead the standings. Everyone else went 1-1. Augustana is 18-4 with Elmhurst (17-5) and NCC (16-6) both on thin ice. IWU's SOS is slightly better than Elmhurst's (18 to 24). I don't see all four getting in.

NACC
Its Pool A or bust for Aurora, who is now 17-6 and with a 200+ SOS.

MWC
Despite a bad (200) SOS, St. Norbert should be safe for a Pool C at 19-1.

SLIAC
MacMurray leads and the conference tournament winner will be the only rep.

UAA
Chicago (14-6) leads Washington U. (16-4) and will look for the season sweep on the last day of the regular season. Washington U. has a better SOS, but that head to head will take precedence.

WIAC
Whitewater is safe at 19-2. Point is 18-4 and plays Whitewater Wednesday.  Point is close to being a Pool C lock.

Using Massey SOS ranks isn't bad for a quick-and-dirty look, but it should be used as probably +/- 50 spots. It's not calculated in the same way, and anyone with D1/D2/NAIA game(s) are going to have that number altered.

[Greek Tragedy]

WEST REGION

MIAC
Bethel lost twice last week so their slim Pool C changes vanished, IMO. St. Thomas (19-1) looks like a lock and St. Olaf (17-3) is getting close (SOS 25). Because of the relatively weak region, St. Olaf could be the #2 team in this week's rankings.

UMAC
Northwestern leads the one bid league

IIAC
Buena Vista leads (15-6) with Dubuque at 17-4, but both have bad SOSs. Another one bid league.

SCIAC
Chapman (19-2) but their SOS is near 100, while Cal. Lutheran (15-4) and CMS (14-5) trail with worse SOSs. This could be a one bid league as well.

NWC
Whitworth (18-3) leads Whitman (16-5) and they split the season series. Whitman's SOS tops Whitworth's 88-135. Could the West get one Pool C bid?

[Greek Tragedy]

I'm definitely using it as a quick and dirty look. I'm going to have to shower after this.

[KnightSlappy]

IIAC
Buena Vista leads (15-6) with Dubuque at 17-4, but both have bad SOSs. Another one bid league.

I have Dubuque's SOS rated highly: .559 (#41). They look good for Pool C contention right now.

Just looking into their schedule right now and, wow, they didn't play a single D3 non-conference home game. To date they've played 5 home games, 5 neutrals site games, and 10 away games. That's how you take advantage of the SOS multiplier.

[Greek Tragedy]

Massey had them at 143. I just went by that since I like 'em quick and dirty!   

[AO]

IIAC
Buena Vista leads (15-6) with Dubuque at 17-4, but both have bad SOSs. Another one bid league.

I have Dubuque's SOS rated highly: .559 (#41). They look good for Pool C contention right now.

Just looking into their schedule right now and, wow, they didn't play a single D3 non-conference home game. To date they've played 5 home games, 5 neutrals site games, and 10 away games. That's how you take advantage of the SOS multiplier.

Forgive me if I've not been paying attention, but did they fix the multiplier?  Scheduling so many away games could be terrible for the SOS if the easier games are on the road and the tough ones at home. 

[KnightSlappy]

IIAC
Buena Vista leads (15-6) with Dubuque at 17-4, but both have bad SOSs. Another one bid league.

I have Dubuque's SOS rated highly: .559 (#41). They look good for Pool C contention right now.

Just looking into their schedule right now and, wow, they didn't play a single D3 non-conference home game. To date they've played 5 home games, 5 neutrals site games, and 10 away games. That's how you take advantage of the SOS multiplier.

Forgive me if I've not been paying attention, but did they fix the multiplier?  Scheduling so many away games could be terrible for the SOS if the easier games are on the road and the tough ones at home.

Here's how they're doing the SOS (with OWP as an example):

vs. Opponent A (9-1) -- Win -- (adjusted record: 9-0) -- mult: 0.75 -- (wins with multiplier: 6.75)
at Opponent B (11-0) -- Loss -- (adjusted record: 10-0) -- mult: 1.25 -- (wins with multiplier: 12.5)
vs. Opponent C (4-12) -- Win --(adjusted record: 4-11) -- mult: 0.75 -- (wins with multiplier: 3)
at. Opponent D (7-9) -- Loss -- (adjusted record: 6-9) -- mult: 1.25 -- (wins with multiplier: 7.5)

Total opponents' wins with multiplier: 29.75
Total opponents' adjusted games played: 49

OWP = 29.75/49 = .607

I don't love, love this. But it's not the worst.

[sac]

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/p/division-iii-mens-regional-rankings.html

Using Knightslappy's rankings
This weeks Top 19  Pool C  (the number next to the school is his national rank)

1.  Stevens Point 18-4
2.  Richard Stockton 18-4
5.  Augustana 18-4
7.  Bates  17-4
8.  Williams  13-8*
11. Bowdoin  15-6
13.  Dickinson  18-3
14.  Washington U 16-4
15.  Dubuque  16-4
16.  North Central  14-6

20.  Virginia Wesleyan 17-3
21.  St. John's  10-8*
25.  Rhode Island Coll.  15-6
27.  Springfield  15-6
28.  Amherst  17-5
29.  WPI  17-4
30.  Louisiana College 11-5
31.  Elmhurst  17-5
32.  St. Olaf  17-3
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------19
33.  Wooster 16-5
34.  Colby  12-9*
35.  Rutgers-Newark  15-7
37.  Scranton 17-4
39.  Brooklyn  18-5
40.  Case Western 12-5


*--I put asterisks by the 8 and 9 loss teams that probably won't get official rankings equal to where slappy has them ranked.  So move Wooster, Rutgers-Newark and Scranton into the top 19 if you want. 

I'd flip North Central and Va. Wesleyan and call that the bubble line.  There are 6 current Pool A leaders above Va. Wesleyan that would be good for a C selection without worry.

Anyone who can get through the next two weeks without losses is significantly improving their Pool C position.

[AO]

IIAC
Buena Vista leads (15-6) with Dubuque at 17-4, but both have bad SOSs. Another one bid league.

I have Dubuque's SOS rated highly: .559 (#41). They look good for Pool C contention right now.

Just looking into their schedule right now and, wow, they didn't play a single D3 non-conference home game. To date they've played 5 home games, 5 neutrals site games, and 10 away games. That's how you take advantage of the SOS multiplier.

Forgive me if I've not been paying attention, but did they fix the multiplier?  Scheduling so many away games could be terrible for the SOS if the easier games are on the road and the tough ones at home.

Here's how they're doing the SOS (with OWP as an example):

vs. Opponent A (9-1) -- Win -- (adjusted record: 9-0) -- mult: 0.75 -- (wins with multiplier: 6.75)
at Opponent B (11-0) -- Loss -- (adjusted record: 10-0) -- mult: 1.25 -- (record with multiplier: 12.5)
vs. Opponent C (4-12) -- Win --(adjusted record: 4-11) -- mult: 0.75 -- (record with multiplier: 3)
at. Opponent D (7-9) -- Loss -- (adjusted record: 6-9) -- mult: 1.25 -- (record with multiplier: 7.5)

Total opponents' wins with multiplier: 29.75
Total opponents' adjusted games played: 49

OWP = 29.75/49 = .607

I don't love, love this. But it's not the worst.

At least you can say the road games are tougher rather than just more important.
Is this new calc in the championships manual?  We still have the problem of that 9-0 game being worse for the SOS than playing mediocre teams who play more eligible games.

[KnightSlappy]

IIAC
Buena Vista leads (15-6) with Dubuque at 17-4, but both have bad SOSs. Another one bid league.

I have Dubuque's SOS rated highly: .559 (#41). They look good for Pool C contention right now.

Just looking into their schedule right now and, wow, they didn't play a single D3 non-conference home game. To date they've played 5 home games, 5 neutrals site games, and 10 away games. That's how you take advantage of the SOS multiplier.

Forgive me if I've not been paying attention, but did they fix the multiplier?  Scheduling so many away games could be terrible for the SOS if the easier games are on the road and the tough ones at home.

Here's how they're doing the SOS (with OWP as an example):

vs. Opponent A (9-1) -- Win -- (adjusted record: 9-0) -- mult: 0.75 -- (wins with multiplier: 6.75)
at Opponent B (11-0) -- Loss -- (adjusted record: 10-0) -- mult: 1.25 -- (record with multiplier: 12.5)
vs. Opponent C (4-12) -- Win --(adjusted record: 4-11) -- mult: 0.75 -- (record with multiplier: 3)
at. Opponent D (7-9) -- Loss -- (adjusted record: 6-9) -- mult: 1.25 -- (record with multiplier: 7.5)

Total opponents' wins with multiplier: 29.75
Total opponents' adjusted games played: 49

OWP = 29.75/49 = .607

I don't love, love this. But it's not the worst.

At least you can say the road games are tougher rather than just more important.
Is this new calc in the championships manual?  We still have the problem of that 9-0 game being worse for the SOS than playing mediocre teams who play more eligible games.

This is apparently not new, it was how they've done it the last few years (apparently), but it wasn't communicated very well what they were doing. The handbook doesn't really make it clear how to calculate the number, and the example contains errors.

I'm looking forward to seeing the data on Wednesday to make sure mine matches up.

[sac]

Here's how they're doing the SOS (with OWP as an example):

vs. Opponent A (9-1) -- Win -- (adjusted record: 9-0) -- mult: 0.75 -- (wins with multiplier: 6.75)
at Opponent B (11-0) -- Loss -- (adjusted record: 10-0) -- mult: 1.25 -- (record with multiplier: 12.5)
vs. Opponent C (4-12) -- Win --(adjusted record: 4-11) -- mult: 0.75 -- (record with multiplier: 3)
at. Opponent D (7-9) -- Loss -- (adjusted record: 6-9) -- mult: 1.25 -- (record with multiplier: 7.5)

Total opponents' wins with multiplier: 29.75
Total opponents' adjusted games played: 49

OWP = 29.75/49 = .607

I don't love, love this. But it's not the worst.

Maybe you've covered this before in one of your 'ncaa math is hard' expose's but why isn't the multiplier applied to losses as well?

[Greek Tragedy]

All four results add up to 29.75

[KnightSlappy]

Here's how they're doing the SOS (with OWP as an example):

vs. Opponent A (9-1) -- Win -- (adjusted record: 9-0) -- mult: 0.75 -- (wins with multiplier: 6.75)
at Opponent B (11-0) -- Loss -- (adjusted record: 10-0) -- mult: 1.25 -- (record with multiplier: 12.5)
vs. Opponent C (4-12) -- Win --(adjusted record: 4-11) -- mult: 0.75 -- (record with multiplier: 3)
at. Opponent D (7-9) -- Loss -- (adjusted record: 6-9) -- mult: 1.25 -- (record with multiplier: 7.5)

Total opponents' wins with multiplier: 29.75
Total opponents' adjusted games played: 49

OWP = 29.75/49 = .607

I don't love, love this. But it's not the worst.

Maybe you've covered this before in one of your 'ncaa math is hard' expose's but why isn't the multiplier applied to losses as well?

Multiplying by the losses as well is what we thought they were doing last year (turns out they were doing this). What that does is scale the OWP/OOWP by 1.25/0.75 giving more weight to road games, and less weight to home games (rather than making road games more difficult).

What they're doing is weighting each opponents' components (OWP/OOWP) by the respective number of games played. So, an opponent with 25 D3 games played is going to weigh into the OWP 25% more than an opponent with 20 games played.

The way RPI is usually calculated, you turn each team's OWP into a percentage (and then apply a HAM) and then average the resulting percentages for each opponent on schedule (doing the same as well for OWP). The NCAA doesn't want to do this because some teams can play a varying number of games. A Nebraska Wesleyan could go 4-0 (or UMPI 0-4) in their D3 games and that 1.000 or 0.0000 OWP component could really skew the SOS. I understand this thinking and it probably works OK, but it's by no means perfect.

A reason I don't like this is a given opponent won't necessarily input the same proportion of OWP and OOWP into your SOS number.

Team A: 0-4 OWP, 8-8 OOWP (each of Team A's opponents have played 4 games)
Team B: 6-0 OWP, 8-10 OOWP (Each of Team B's opponents have played 3 games)

In the above example, the 0-4 from Team A makes up 40% of your OWP, but the 8-8 makes up 47% of your OOWP. So OOWP isn't "supporting the OWP" like it should because the numbers don't necessarily match up.