MBB: NEWMAC

[Mr. Ypsi]

My guess is that results vs. ranked teams doesn't apply to the first rankings (since no one is yet ranked).  And, as you know, score differentials, 'bad losses',  and the like are 'officially' irrelevant.

Still, I was rather shocked just how low MIT and Albertus Magnus got ranked.  I'd strongly recommend winning the conference tourney!

[Hugenerd]

MIT endures what is likely their worst shooting night of the season to defeat Babson 59-47. What they couldn't get done on offense, MIT made up for on D the last 16 minutes of the game. Trailing 40-27 at the 15 minute mark (that's right, MIT scored 27 points the first 25 minutes of the game), the Engineers would hold Babson scoreless for nearly a 10 minute span, closing out the game on a 32-7 run, allowing only 2 FGs in that stretch.

Maybe MIT came out a bit confused because of their regional ranking, which is lower than their national ranking. I understand the OWP/OOWP factor (which isn't that terrible for MIT, essentially 0.50), but MITs only loss is to WPI and every team in front of MIT has at least 1 'worse' loss than that, according to these rankings (Amherst - Brandeis and Wesleyan, Middlebury - Keene St., RIC - East Conn and UMD, West Conn - ALL 4 OF THEIR LOSSES, Albertus Magnus AND Southern Maine AND Plymouth State AND East Conn, WPI - Wheaton and Springfield, East Conn - Keene St and Wesleyan). Where do you draw the line? Does 0.07 on the weighted OWP/OOWP scale make up for 2 losses to under 0.500 unranked teams and 2 additional losses to teams ranked 8-12 in the NE (ie West Conn)? I'm all for playing better teams, but you should probably beat the bad-to-average teams also to deserve a ranking that high. And what about Albertus Magnus, they destroy West Conn by 19 and are ranked 8 spots below them, with their only loss to a team that isn't even in the NE region (I know the game may count due to geography)? You put so much stock into head-to-head that WPI is ranked over MIT, but still put West Conn 4? These are the most puzzling rankings I've seen since they started putting them out. It would be one thing if all the top teams just beat eachother, but they are ranking teams in the top 5-10 with really bad losses, and in some cases multiple ones. I hope this all works itself out in the end, but putting so much stock in playing other regionally ranked teams gives a huge advantage to conferences like the NESCAC and Little East. Compare Middlebury and Amherst's out-of-conference schedule to MIT's, pretty darn similar, but they are getting huge boosts from the several additional games they get from ranked teams in their conference. And, by the way, in terms of top-to-bottom league strength, Massey rates the NEWMAC above the LEC and just 2 spots behind the NESCAC, which goes to show MIT is playing similar strength of teams, on average, in their conference as well. If NCAA D3 wants to go to a more quantitative metric, they should hire someone who knows what they are doing instead of using these simple calculations and broadly applying them as though they are irrefutable evidence of a quality team.

My guess is that results vs. ranked teams doesn't apply to the first rankings (since no one is yet ranked).  And, as you know, score differentials, 'bad losses',  and the like are 'officially' irrelevant.

Still, I was rather shocked just how low MIT and Albertus Magnus got ranked.  I'd strongly recommend winning the conference tourney!

Once they put the list together, you inevitably have ranked teams and they clearly used that and some head-to-head type comparisons (selectively, though, it seems) to make their decisions.  To me, it seems they are also putting a huge amount of stock in their OWP/OOWP number, but is it really that disciminating?  Is a 0.53 or 0.56 that huge a difference than a 0.50?  Are we only rewarding teams for a couple of wins vs. good teams but dont reward others for being consistent and having no bad losses? I honestly cant see a big difference in Middlebury's resume vs. MIT's other than a 0.06 difference in OWP/OOWP, which I reiterate is a very simplistic metric of schedule strength.  Massey, for example, has MIT's strength of schedule ranked about 20 spots higher than Middlebury's (142 in the country vs. 160), and that metric runs an optimized algorithm that takes into account every game throughout the entire season, not just adding wins and losses of the teams you play.

[pjunito]

Hugenerd, where can I find the Massey strength of schedule?

[Hugenerd]

Go figure, 2 of Wheaton's 3 conference wins are against WPI.  Unfortunately for the NEWMAC, however, with the way the NE region ranking committee is running things this year, this result could drag WPI, and all the rest of the NEWMAC teams, out of next week's regional rankings.  I'm sure they will find some teams with what they consider high OWP/OOWP numbers to plug in there, despite multiple bad losses.  Here are some possible candidates to replace the NEWMAC teams in next week's regional rankings:

1) Bowdoin 15-6.  WIth losses to unranked St. Joe's, Southern Maine, and Bates, you may think they didnt have a chance-not true.  Their OWP/OOWP is 0.553, thats right, I said it, 0-.-5-5-3, that number seems pretty impressive, lets pencil them in at 5 in next week's rankings, just behind West Conn who also has 2 losses to ~0.500 or worse teams;

2) Brandeis 12-8.  A logical person may look at the 8 losses and just think 'no way', especially after realizing that 5 of those 8 losses are to teams 0.500 or worse, but those people are just not evaluating the teams within the proper NCAA ranking criteria.  First off Brandeis, has an OWP/OOWP of 0.564, for those of you not familiar with how these numbers work, thats much better than a 0.543 and not even in the same class as a lowly 0.500 (not because the NCAA has conducted any statistical analysis on the sensitivity or precision of these numbers in evaluating a team, but because they said so).  Second, who cares about bad results against sub-0.500 teams when you can ignore those and just look at good wins, and Brandeis definitely has those. They have beaten the aforementioned Bates, NE Region #11 Becker, E Region #3 NYU (which counts as in-region for Brandeis), and the cherry on the cake, a 15-point thumping of the #1 NE ranked team, Amherst (did I mention Amherst has an OWP/OOWP of 0.605. When you see anything over a 0.6, you really have to put them in the top 5, I think its one of those unwritten rules-eg, see WPI's ranking this week).  With that type of resume, I dont see how you can keep this team out of the top 5.  I think the head-to-head result vs. Bates (who we now have at 5) gets Brandeis easily into the #4 spot, but when you look at that 15 point win over Amherst, it really doesnt make sense to put them any lower than a team they beat by 15, right?  I think next week there is a good likelihood that Brandeis could be the #1 team in the NE region.

Now that I had some time to think about it some more, this NCAA ranking committee really nailed this weeks rankings in the vague structure of their official criteria.  I apologize for my earlier critique.  Keep up the good work.

[Hugenerd]

Hugenerd, where can I find the Massey strength of schedule?

http://masseyratings.com/rate.php?lg=cb&sub=11620

Look at the column labled 'Sch' (which I believe stands for schedule).

[Hugenerd]

By the way, with WPI's loss, MIT clinches the regular season NEWMAC crown and home court for the NEWMAC tourney with a win at Clark on Saturday.  They have already clinched at least a share of the regular season NEWMAC crown.

[toooldtoplay]

I believe that Massey has included the game against DI Harvard. So including a 30 point loss against a good opponent is more important in a positive way than a loss to a bad opponent is negative. Seems like they should equal out.

I guess MIT better bear down and win the conference tourney.  They could end up 24-2 and get left out?? Sounds strange.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

FYI - MIT's opponent record is 167-192 and AM's is 165-205... that isn't even getting into the OOWP. And if we are talking about MIT's win over WC being the only one worth mentioning... then you might get an idea of where the committee may have been thinking. AM's strongest win is also WC... along with only five teams in their schedule with records of .500 or better.

Also FYI... here is your regional committee... take note:
Dave Lindberg, Worcester State College, chair
Larry Anderson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Paul Culpo, Castleton State College
Tom Devitt, Wentworth Institute of Technology
Travis Farley, Fitchbug State University
Bill Geitner, Eastern Connecticut State University
David Hixon, Amherst College
Aaron Galetta, Lasell College
Ed Sliva, Elms College

[augie_superfan]

Once they put the list together, you inevitably have ranked teams and they clearly used that and some head-to-head type comparisons (selectively, though, it seems) to make their decisions

There are no ranked teams in week #1.  You can see this by looking at the "Score Reporting Forms" that the NCAA generates.  The final column is "In-region results vs. ranked teams" and is blank for every team.  Next week these forms will have that column populated with all the results vs. teams that were ranked in week #1.  You can find these forms at the bottom of all the rankings on the d3hoops.com regional rankings page.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Right... hard to vote on teams wins over regionally ranked teams if you haven't even ranked them, yet. You then can't go back and rerank the teams based on the first rankings and considering regionally ranked opponents...

[Hugenerd]

MIT never played West Conn, you may be thinking of Tufts.

So you are telling me that a team ranked only in the final week will not count towards record vs. ranked opponents, because they were not previously ranked? That makes absolutely no sense and seems to be in contradiction to the over ranked always ranked mantra.

Also, the committee would not have looked at the numbers you are mentioning, because there are home and away weighting factors. By their own criteria, they should only be looking at the chart they provide the link to.  There, MIT has a 0.494.  My question is, has anyone looked at what a statistically meaningful difference is in that value. In other words, if one team has a 0.50 and another has a 0.53, is that really a statistically significant difference, or is it just noise in the data set? You essentially play a couple really bad teams at home and I'm sure it could affect your value more than that. It just seems  too much attention is being given to this OWP/OOWP value when more value could be put in other metrics, like comparing common opponents (also a primary criteria). And I know its not a primary criteria, but at some point you need to look at the consistency of a team and not just their couple best performances, bad losses should count for something.

[mass_d3fan]

LOL, HN, its been quite a while since you were this 'excited'.

Anyway I'm still on the road, but got a call after the game last night from a friend who attended the WPI-Wheaton game.  From his viewpoint, it was just more of the same old Engineer issues.  He was amazed at the poor defensive play.  He said most of the game the WPI players were just running all over the place ball chasing.  The Wheaton guards had a field day beating their opponents off the dribble then passing out to wide open shooters spotting up on the arc.  He didn't understand why the Engineers were repeatedly coming off the weak-sideWheaton shooters when it was clear their game plan was to penetrate and dish. Sounded to me like the exact same game plan the Lyons used in Worcester earlier this season. My buddy also was surprised that WPI utilized Carr differently in the 2nd half after a first half where Wheaton could not stop him at all. I guess he and Galloway had big back to back dunks to ignite an Engineer rally in the first half. 

This is a crippling loss for WPI.  I can't see them getting at large bid to the NCAAs after this.  Their only hope for post season play now is to run the table in the NEWMAC tournament.  That would seem to be unlikely since that means they would most likely need to beat Springfield & MIT on back-to-back days.  The automatic bid is basically MIT's to lose at this point.

Carr continued his high-level play with 23 points and 9 rebounds.  Shannon put up 19 with 5 assists and Longwell had 11 points to go with 6 boards and 4 steals.

Wheaton got a great game from Weeks with 23 points.  Degnan scored 17 to go with 4 assists, Bayliss had 15 points and 5 assists. Shawn Daily grabbed 8 boards.

Time for a Denny's breakfast!

[Hugenerd]

FYI - MIT's opponent record is 167-192 and AM's is 165-205... that isn't even getting into the OOWP. And if we are talking about MIT's win over WC being the only one worth mentioning... then you might get an idea of where the committee may have been thinking. AM's strongest win is also WC... along with only five teams in their schedule with records of .500 or better.

Also FYI... here is your regional committee... take note:
Dave Lindberg, Worcester State College, chair
Larry Anderson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Paul Culpo, Castleton State College
Tom Devitt, Wentworth Institute of Technology
Travis Farley, Fitchbug State University
Bill Geitner, Eastern Connecticut State University
David Hixon, Amherst College
Aaron Galetta, Lasell College
Ed Sliva, Elms College

I was already aware of this, but you aren't involved on the discussion of your own team.

[BBallers]

LOL, HN, its been quite a while since you were this 'excited'.

He is not the only one who is upset over these clearly misapplied usage of OWP/OOWP in the NCAA rankings.  I am a proponent of using strength of schedule and have always been critical of MIT's weak non-conference foes, but this NCAA regional ranking is absurd and unfair to the players.  I don't want to get off topic, but NCAA does not want to add football championship games because the student athletes to miss school in an extended season, but then allows San Diego State to join the Big East Conference without any traveling concerns.  These illogical college conference moves are the direct result of the NCAA BCS automated conference bids.  Although I believe MIT's non-conference is too weak, it is local, i.e., travel time is limited.  This is necessary for the academic pressures at MIT.  Also, I have been told that MIT has tried to schedule stronger teams without success.  How would that fit into the rankings?  It clearly is shameful.

Getting back into the actual game, MIT has looked poor in most of its recent outings.  The lack of transition defense, giving up offensive rebounds (with their size advantage), poor man defense coupled with too many unforced turnovers has caused MIT loss and recent close games.  I am still hopeful that this can be turned around soon.  If it does turn around like earlier in the season, then I believe MIT will have a long trip trip through the NCAA's and be a legitimate contender for the national championship.  If it doesn't turn around, then they may only win one tournament game.  Even if they continue to play poorly and do not win the NEWMAC tournament, they still deserve to be in the NCAA tournament.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Hugenerd - my reference to rankings was just in week 1 of rankings... the committee can't go and rank the teams... then look at the rankings and say, "oh, so-and-so beat a ranked team, let's move them up" and RERANK the teams again... all in week 1... so thus, results vs. regionally ranked opponents is not considered in the first week.

MIT is the one scheduling, for the most part, weak non-conference games. They are not that far from some NESCAC teams... play a couple of those and their SOS would increase.

BBallers... you are comparing apples and oranges when you talk about San Diego State and the Big East... and Division III. These standards are voted on by the Division III members... all 440 or so. This isn't something the NCAA came up with on its own. The same is true for D1 when it comes to selections and thus why the idea of "how did they do the last ten games of the season" is taken into consideration - D1 member institutions voted for that.

The criteria is out there... it has been the same for a few years with some small tweaks here and there (i.e. changing the formula for home and away games slightly this year)... and if you play a weak non-conference schedule and are in a weak conference to begin with, things are not going to go your way - you have to be careful with your schedule.

Also... remember... this is just the first week. We have two more weeks of rankings... and then the final rankings which determine who is in and who is out and who plays who in the NCAA tournament (though, those rankings will come out AFTER we find out the bracket). These rankings can thus change! However, it does give you the sense that MIT has to be careful with the rest of the season. Too many slip-ups (and they have had far too many close games for as how well they were playing at the beginning of the season) and they could be forced to win the AQ to get in... or be sitting on the sideline.