2015 D3 Season: NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

[PaulNewman]

Without getting overly technical can someone explain how Midd has such a high SOS when most here presumed it would be devastatingly low and how there can be so much difference between an OWU and Kenyon when the schedules look so similar, and Kenyon has 1 blemish and OWU 4?

I think TJ is on to something with away and home games.  This is the first year I can recall in the last 5 that Kenyon has more home games than away.  Actually used to drive me crazy that they had so few home games!

[PaulNewman]

Methodist crushed NC Wesleyan 6-0.

[Corazon]

Without getting overly technical can someone explain how Midd has such a high SOS when most here presumed it would be devastatingly low and how there can be so much difference between an OWU and Kenyon when the schedules look so similar, and Kenyon has 1 blemish and OWU 4?

I think TJ is on to something with away and home games.  This is the first year I can recall in the last 5 that Kenyon has more home games than away.  Actually used to drive me crazy that they had so few home games!

That is a very good point, NCAC. Midd had arguably the worst non-conference schedule imaginable. Sure, the NESCAC is a brutal conference, but very surprised their out of conference didn't drag them down.

[TennesseeJed]

Sounds like it's time for 'ol Tennessee Jed to pull out some Jack Daniels for everyone!  Virtual shots are on me, all around!

[TennesseeJed]

Without getting overly technical can someone explain how Midd has such a high SOS when most here presumed it would be devastatingly low and how there can be so much difference between an OWU and Kenyon when the schedules look so similar, and Kenyon has 1 blemish and OWU 4?

I think TJ is on to something with away and home games.  This is the first year I can recall in the last 5 that Kenyon has more home games than away.  Actually used to drive me crazy that they had so few home games!

This is not gonna be totally accurate by any means, but it will be close enough for the purposes of illustration.  Let's just say that Team ABC's SoS (without adjustment for home or away games) is .500 (randomly chosen for the sake of illustration).  If every team that ABC played had the same OWP and ABC played all home games during the season, their adjusted SoS would go from .500 to .500(.85)=.425.  If, on the other hand, ABC played all away games during the season, playing the exact same teams, in the exact same order, their adjusted SoS would go from .500 to .500(1.2)=.600.  You can see in this example, that, while it's an academically exaggerated set of assumptions, the impact to the adjusted SoS's for the same team--simply based on home vs away games--is far too large an adjustment.  Obviously, no team plays all of its games at home or away, but, as CS has pointed out in other threads, there's a roughly 50% difference in SoS potential for home vs. away games.  They are giving teams a very, very strong incentive to only schedule tough games away, as a tough win at home is not worth much.

Back to the real world, teams that play a preponderance of their games at home (like Kenyon in 2015), are severely punished for it, even when they win.  Teams who play a larger % of their games on the road in a given season are significantly rewarded for it.  The difference between a .425 and a .600 is, in my humble opinion, far too great a correction for HFA.  It should not mean the difference in eligibility all by itself and the multipliers are so large that it has the effect of overwhelming other factors.

If FW is correct, that the committees simply look at the raw data as data points but then make subjective decisions about how and where to place teams, then the entire process is more about who's representing your school on the regional committee than anything else, as it's clear to me from the numbers that are out there today, the regional rank has little to do w/ the numbers in several different regions.

[PaulNewman]

Midd had a higher (slightly) SOS than Wesleyan.  They play the exact same in-conference schedule.  The only difference you could note is that Midd has already played Amherst and Wes hasn't yet.  Otherwise, Midd's OOC games were Norwich, Green Mtn, Colby-Sawyer, Castleton, and Plymouth State.  Wes played ECSU, Haverford (away, right, so even more credit), John Jay, WNEC, and Salve Regina.  I'm sure the numbers were all plugged in correctly but which OOC schedule looks tougher, even significantly tougher?

[Ryan Harmanis]

From the general conversation, it seems like the main objection is to the SOS criteria, rather than the rankings using that criteria.  When you look at the criteria, really paying attention to SOS because we have no record versus ranked, the first set of rankings really aren't that surprising.

Looking forward, the record-versus-ranked (RvR) will play a role, but SOS remains a big, big deal.  Here are last year's at-large bids, from highest-to-lowest SOS:

TEAM (W%, SOS, RvR)
Brandeis (0.895, 0.633, 7-2-0)
Rochester (0.618, 0.627, 4-3-1)
Dickinson (0.667, 0.604, 3-3-1)
Emory (0.778, 0.603, 5-2-2)
North Park   (0.711, 0.597, 2-4-0)
Wheaton (Mass) (0.810, 0.597, 2-2-2)
Amherst (0.833, 0.587, 0-1-2)
Coast Guard (0.806, 0.580, 2-1-1)
Tufts (0.750, 0.576, 1-1-2)
Loras (0.842, 0.575, 5-0-2)
F&M (0.889, 0.573, 3-1-1)
Brockport (0.684, 0.568, 1-3-2)
Rutgers-Newark (0.750, 0.557, 2-2-0)
OWU (0.762, 0.556, 4-2-2)
Salisbury (0.763, 0.556, 0-3-1)
Cortland (0.763, 0.547, 3-2-1)
Dominican   (0.714, 0.545, 1-3-0)
Texas-Dallas (0.725, 0.516, 1-0-0)

So Texas-Dallas got in as an outlier with 0.516 SOS, but they were the only at-large from the West Region, and I'd guess most years every region gets at least one at-large.  Outside of that, 0.545 is the lowest SOS out there.

[PaulNewman]

The objection isn't exactly to the criteria, although that is a likely a complaint too.  It's to how the criterion is formulated in a way that doesn't meet even a gross eye test.  How could Midd's SOS be higher than Wesleyan's?  Or OWU's substantially higher than Kenyon's when you look at the 2 schedules side by side.  So how the SOS is reached seems problematic as much as whether or not that criterion is too highly valued.

Denison JUST BEFORE the rankings LOST Allegheny, TIED Wabash and LOST Kenyon. 

Kenyon WON Wooster, WON Oberlin, WON head-to-head Denison.

DePauw also had TWO very weak performances against the two weakest conference teams leading right into the ranking.

There's got to be some basic common sense at some level.  Results have to come into play at some point.  Otherwise, a team could get in being winless as long as they play what by the formulation would consider the strongest schedule in the country.

[PaulNewman]

BTW, Christopher Newport drew with Salisbury tonight and were #8 in the S. Atlantic, the last spot.  Before tonight, would most folks have thought CNU would have to win their AQ?

[PaulNewman]

MIT handling UMass-Bos 3-0.  CMU not out of the woods with Mt Aloysius 1-1 late.

[Off Pitch]

Midd had a higher (slightly) SOS than Wesleyan.  They play the exact same in-conference schedule.  The only difference you could note is that Midd has already played Amherst and Wes hasn't yet.  Otherwise, Midd's OOC games were Norwich, Green Mtn, Colby-Sawyer, Castleton, and Plymouth State.  Wes played ECSU, Haverford (away, right, so even more credit), John Jay, WNEC, and Salve Regina.  I'm sure the numbers were all plugged in correctly but which OOC schedule looks tougher, even significantly tougher?

Wesleyan out of conference opponents' record:  40-31-2    0.562
                                      remaining schedule:  22-3-1      0.865

Middlebury out of conference opponents' record: 38-35-3   0.520
                                        remaining schedule:  14-8-4    0.615

Given that their respective SOSs are roughly equal, one can reasonably assume that Wesleyan's SOS will indeed surpass Middlebury's by the end of the regular season.  They have the same in-conference schedule, but they have not yet played the same in-conference schedule.

[PaulNewman]

Midd had a higher (slightly) SOS than Wesleyan.  They play the exact same in-conference schedule.  The only difference you could note is that Midd has already played Amherst and Wes hasn't yet.  Otherwise, Midd's OOC games were Norwich, Green Mtn, Colby-Sawyer, Castleton, and Plymouth State.  Wes played ECSU, Haverford (away, right, so even more credit), John Jay, WNEC, and Salve Regina.  I'm sure the numbers were all plugged in correctly but which OOC schedule looks tougher, even significantly tougher?

Wesleyan out of conference opponents' record:  40-31-2    0.562
                                      remaining schedule:  22-3-1      0.865

Middlebury out of conference opponents' record: 38-35-3   0.520
                                        remaining schedule:  14-8-4    0.615

Given that their respective SOSs are roughly equal, one can reasonably assume that Wesleyan's SOS will indeed surpass Middlebury's by the end of the regular season.  They have the same in-conference schedule, but they have not yet played the same in-conference schedule.

And your post reveals one of the biggest underlying flaws.  Midd's .520 OOC number, while comparatively lower, is still way too HIGH.  They played teams that play in the weakest conferences in the country, so a team may be 8-6, 6-8, or even 12-3 in that very weak conference and that counts the same as a 7-7 UAA or NESCAC team.

[PaulNewman]

Think about this and then I will try to drop it for a while.

If Kenyon had won vs DePauw (not a stretch since they controlled the game and lost in OT), then leading into this ranking today, their record applicable to the ranking would have been 12-0, they likely still would have been ranked #1 nationally in both polls, and they, by merit according to the criteria as explained, would STILL have landed at #7 regionally.  Now, yes, I'm a partisan, but that sounds downright crazy to me.  And regarding Whitworth, I mean, who exactly are they supposed to play given their geographic location?

[PaulNewman]

William Webb saves CMU, scoring with 4 minutes left to equalize and then again in OT.

Roanoke with big 1-0 win over Lynchburg.

Emory gets good win in OT over Birm-Southern.

Camden loses to Swat.

Rowan handling Kean, up 2-0 late.

RPI and Skid about to start 2nd OT.

[PaulNewman]

OMG!  RPI just won it at the death.  RPI had the better chances from what I saw and missed 3 point blank sitters earlier in OT.