MBB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[hasanova]

thanks narch that took a little work. Simply put HSC has not played well against above 500 teams and thus far has played a weak schedule.

Record against "Above .500 DIII Teams":

Virginia Wesleyan  3-1
Guilford               4-2
Randolph              2-1
Randolph-Macon    4-3
Hampden-Sydney   1-1
Bridgewater           1-2
Lynchburg             0-2
Washington & Lee   0-4

Hampden-Sydney has played a rather weak schedule to date.

Randolph-Macon has played the most games against teams with winning records, but they're not winning but about half of them (57%).

Just curious - how do EMU, E&H and Roanoke fit into this ranking?

[y_jack_lok]

Randolph-Macon has played the most games against teams with winning records, but they're not winning but about half of them (57%).

For what it's worth, even if R-MC had won the games it lost, all three of those teams (Albright, VWC, Guilford) would still have above .500 records

[hsctigers2002]

FWIW, the Massey Ratings have the ODAC school SOSes listed as this:
Roanoke 216
EMU 293
E&H 207
Bridgewater 311
Randolph 275
W&L 152
Guilford 252
H-SC 340
Lynchburg 247
R-MC 118
VWC 241

So basically, W&L and R-MC are about the only school that have scheduled anything resembling a tough SOS, and 118 isn't exactly great by any means. H-SC with such a weak schedule is inexcusable though. Two of the games were part of the annual South Region Challenge, so those were given unless we backed out of it, but the games down in the Alabama classic were worthless. I don't really see H-SC as being a team that needs to have a bunch of "easy wins" on their schedule...

[scottiedoug]

Watched Guilford and Maryville on the computer screen.  Quakers made good adjustments against Maryville and played well in the second half.  Lots of people made good plays and the defensive effort was consistent and good.  Seems like a pretty good team to me. 

[y_jack_lok]

Watched Guilford and Maryville on the computer screen.  Quakers made good adjustments against Maryville and played well in the second half.  Lots of people made good plays and the defensive effort was consistent and good.  Seems like a pretty good team to me.

I saw Maryville play a couple of games out here is Saint Louis on 11/19 and 11/20. They won both and looked good doing it. I'd say this is a solid win for Guilford.

[hasanova]

Watched Guilford and Maryville on the computer screen.  Quakers made good adjustments against Maryville and played well in the second half.  Lots of people made good plays and the defensive effort was consistent and good.  Seems like a pretty good team to me.

I saw Maryville play a couple of games out here is Saint Louis on 11/19 and 11/20. They won both and looked good doing it. I'd say this is a solid win for Guilford.

I was at the game today and Guilford did make some good adjustments.  With that said, Guilford did not shoot well at the FT line - it'll bite you some day when you really need it!

[algernon]

Very interesting ....  Here is a new DIII basketball ranking system that makes some adjustments to Ken Massey's:

https://sites.google.com/site/d3basketballindex/

[algernon]

Thanks, hsctigers2002.  There are 412 teams ranked by Massey Ratings.  I've rearranged the data so that the ODAC teams' strength of schedule ranking is presented below by quartile (with each team's actual rank listed too):

FIRST:

SECOND:
  R-MC 118
  W&L 152

THIRD:
  E&H 207
  Roanoke 216
  VWC 241
  Lynchburg 247
  Guilford 252
  Randolph 275
  EMU 293

FOURTH:
  Bridgewater 311
  H-SC 340

By the way, the University of the South is dead last in SoS.

For more info: http://www.masseyratings.com/rate.php?lg=cb&sub=11620

[HSCDad]

Just catching up on H-SC comments since away for a week - true the 2 H-SC losses should not have happened but they did and hopefully they learned from them - I saw the Methodist game and letting them catch up in the last 3 minutes was not pretty - for the other, the 3 point shooting killed them especailly since their inside game should really be their strong suite - on the plus side with their weak schedule, it allowed their rotation to be worked on so it appears - with 9-11 players in the rotation, the games have allowed the 2 freshman who have started at least one game and two sophomores to get valuable playing time - with their full court pressure, this experience will help them as the season progresses - as the old and new players learn to play together, they will only get better and better  - remember George is moving to the top in several conference catogories even with limited playing time (Player of week last week) - this has to say something about the strength of the overall team - as for the conference, little surprized that of the top 45 teams nationally, Va Wesleyan is the only one in the mix (#2). Time that we change that even though the ODAC strength makes it hard to stand out - it will make H-SC and several others battle tested for the end of season run though and that is not bad!!

[HSCDad]

Rating/Ranking info was very interesting - there are some major differences from the Massey to the Eddy systems - from a SOS standpoint, Eddy shows:

R-MC 55
W&L 84

E&H 138
Roanoke 140
Bridgewater 149
EMU 175

Guilford 201
Randolph 257
VWC 276
H-SC 283
Lynchburg 288

Eddy then ranks the 409 teams.  He indicates that by the 2nd week of Dec that enough D3 games have been played so the data is no longer bias - with this in mind his national rankings for the ODAC are (out of 409 teams):

20th VWC
49th H-SC
73rd Guilford
81st Lynchburg
91st R-MC
96th Randolph
188th W&L
189th Bridgewater
223rd E&H
230th EMU
270th Roanoke

Interesting that our 4 top teams in his national rankings  all have the worst SOS's so maybe this early season play does not really matter!  Time will tell.

[narch]

i understand this is the odac board, but for purposes of comparing these two systems, i'm using usasac schools for illustration

eddy system sos rankings for the top 4 usasac schools:

41. ncwc - 4 d3 games - adjusted d3 opponent winning % (winning percentage in games against teams other than ncwc) is .833
79. averett - 4 d3 games, adjusted d3 owp is .500 (16-16)
98. cnu - 8 d3 games, adjusted d3 owp is .515 (35-33)
108. methodist - 7 d3 games, adjusted d3 owp is .574 (31-23)

massey sos rankings for usasac schools:

34. methodist
87. cnu
281. ncwc
312. averett

the first flaw i see in the eddy system sos rankings is pretty evident...i can't understand why methodist (or cnu, for that matter) would be behind averett, unless averett's oowp is significantly higher...i suspect that the small sample size (4 games) for both au and ncwc contributes bias that still exists, even past the second week of december - while ncwc's d3 schedule has been outstanding, they have 3 games against bible colleges that weaken their overall schedule strength significantly, in my mind - at the very least the order should be ncwc, methodist, cnu, au among those four...

the other thing to keep in mind is that massey is calculating the totality of schedule strength, not just d3 schedule strength - obviously, it isn't uncommon for d3 teams to have games against d1, d2 and naia opponents - if mu, for example, were to replace an 8-3 d1 campbell and an 11-1 d2 west georgia, with a pair of 5-3 d3 teams, their eddy system sos would likely improve, but the schedule wouldn't be stronger - in this way, the eddy system is counterintuitive...replacing a good d1 and a good d2 with two above average d3 programs shouldn't increase your strength of schedule

the eddy system may do a great job of predicting d3 outcomes (70+%, according to the site), but as a measure of overall schedule strength, it has serious shortcomings, especially when you have a small sample size

[y_jack_lok]

I asked "Eddy" about this on the SLIAC board. Here is what he said:

Below is from the ODAC board:

Here is a new DIII basketball ranking system that makes some adjustments to Ken Massey's:

https://sites.google.com/site/d3basketballindex/

According to this system Principia has the 23rd toughest strength of schedule against D3 teams. They have played Girnnell, Rhodes, Wash U, Blackburn, and Eureka. Makes me think there is a flaw in the way these calculations are made. But I'm no statistician.

There is no flaw, usually bad teams will have higher SOS ratings over time because their losses push their opponents to a higher rating.  Here is the combined D3 record of those Principia opponents you've mentioned:  26-11...good for a 70% winning percentage.

Grinnell and Wash U themselves are highly ranked in my system (#8 & #17 respectively). Rhodes and Eureka are also ranked in the Top 150.

Interesting. How does your system differ from Massey, which has Principia at 170 SoS?

Well the most meaningful difference between our two systems is that his includes ALL games whereas mine only includes D3 games.  For most teams, the system will be similar.  However, with Principia, they have played 5 D3 games and 5 other games.  So, if my system included their other 5 opponents, then I would assume a lower SOS rank also.  If you want to read about my system, here is the explanation page:

https://sites.google.com/site/d3basketballindex/explanation-of-ranking-system

[2RMCFans]

RMC 37 AU 27 at the half in Crenshaw.

Sorry we can't be there in person tonight.

GO JACKETS!!

[2RMCFans]

Final:  R-MC-  78
         AU -    67

Giggetts led all scorers with 21

Merry Christmas!

[augie_superfan]

i understand this is the odac board, but for purposes of comparing these two systems, i'm using usasac schools for illustration

eddy system sos rankings for the top 4 usasac schools:

41. ncwc - 4 d3 games - adjusted d3 opponent winning % (winning percentage in games against teams other than ncwc) is .833
79. averett - 4 d3 games, adjusted d3 owp is .500 (16-16)
98. cnu - 8 d3 games, adjusted d3 owp is .515 (35-33)
108. methodist - 7 d3 games, adjusted d3 owp is .574 (31-23)

massey sos rankings for usasac schools:

34. methodist
87. cnu
281. ncwc
312. averett

the first flaw i see in the eddy system sos rankings is pretty evident...i can't understand why methodist (or cnu, for that matter) would be behind averett, unless averett's oowp is significantly higher...i suspect that the small sample size (4 games) for both au and ncwc contributes bias that still exists, even past the second week of december - while ncwc's d3 schedule has been outstanding, they have 3 games against bible colleges that weaken their overall schedule strength significantly, in my mind - at the very least the order should be ncwc, methodist, cnu, au among those four...

the other thing to keep in mind is that massey is calculating the totality of schedule strength, not just d3 schedule strength - obviously, it isn't uncommon for d3 teams to have games against d1, d2 and naia opponents - if mu, for example, were to replace an 8-3 d1 campbell and an 11-1 d2 west georgia, with a pair of 5-3 d3 teams, their eddy system sos would likely improve, but the schedule wouldn't be stronger - in this way, the eddy system is counterintuitive...replacing a good d1 and a good d2 with two above average d3 programs shouldn't increase your strength of schedule

the eddy system may do a great job of predicting d3 outcomes (70+%, according to the site), but as a measure of overall schedule strength, it has serious shortcomings, especially when you have a small sample size

In defense of my system, you obviously understand what the differences between my system and Massey are (D3 only vs. ALL games), however, you have missed the point of my system.  My point is to produce rankings that rank teams in a way which maximizes the prediction ability when looking at a specific game.  When it comes to the schedule strength, it's incorrect to say that my system is "counterintuitive" or has "serious shortcomings".  My system is not ranking a team's OVERALL strength of schedule, it is ranking a D3 ONLY strength of schedule.  I've tried to be very clear on the website and when responding to people's posts about the scope of my system.  If you have questions regarding it's validity, I welcome any and all emails and am glad to discuss the details.  Don't give up on it yet.