2015 D3 Season: NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

[Brother Flounder]

Conn College not even receiving votes and Tufts only receiving 4 votes where Wesleyan receives 2 votes. Nescac gets hammered in the poll but that won't matter a lick as they will be rewarded with Pool C's.

This is true..... and why is Loras, the only 4 loss team, listed then?

[Mr.Right]

i just realised Kenyon SOS is .489...

Does that include the win at OWU?    They cannot possibly garner a Pool C with that SOS...Not gonna happen

[lastguyoffthebench]

loras is a 3 loss team, technically

[lastguyoffthebench]

i just realised Kenyon SOS is .489...

Does that include the win at OWU?    They cannot possibly garner a Pool C with that SOS...Not gonna happen

no, but the Wabash game brings it back down

[chelseafc30]

i just realised Kenyon SOS is .489...

Does that include the win at OWU?    They cannot possibly garner a Pool C with that SOS...Not gonna happen

no, but the Wabash game brings it back down

How would a win vs a 11-5-2 Wabash team offset a win @OWU?

[lastguyoffthebench]

Not offset, but SOS will drop when playing Wabash

[Mr.Right]

I do not think that is true either. The Wabash game would bump it up a bit if anything

[TennesseeJed]

Not offset, but SOS will drop when playing Wabash

Wabash game should have a positive effect on Kenyon's SoS.  Even though they played at home, Kenyon's home-adjusted OWP for Wabash will be .600  (OWP of .706 * .85 = .600), which is obviously significantly higher than their previous SoS.  The OWU game will contribute an OWP of 1.042 for Kenyon.  I have not calc'd the OOWP's--too time consuming--but I think they will be directionally similar.  Net should be positive for Kenyon's SoS and I'm guessing it will go above .500 this week.

[Flying Weasel]

Don't forget that the Wabash game was at home for Kenyon.  BUT . . ., the Ohio Wesleyan game was away.  So that helps more than the home multiplier hurts the Wabash contribution to Kenyon's SOS.

After removing Kenyon's head-to-head win over Wabash, Wabash's win pct. is .705.  Wabash's SOS last week was .487.  Let's take that as their OOWP just to see how the numbers come out.

2/3(.705) + 1/3(.487) = .633 x 0.85 (home multiplier) = .537

Since Kenyon previously had a SOS of .489, Wabash won't hurt them.

And what about Ohio Wesleyan helping their SOS.  Doing the same approximation (using SOS in place of OOWP):

14-3-2 >> remove hed-to-head result >> 14-2-2 = .833 win pct. >> 2/3(.833) + 1/3(.580) = .749 x 1.25 (away multiplier) = .936

The average of Kenyon's two games last week: (.537 + .936)/2 = .737.   So Kenyon's SOS should definitely rise.

[Ryan Harmanis]

Just to reiterate FW's point, if Kenyon's old SoS was .489 (14/16 games played) and their SoS from last week was 0.730 (2/16, underestimated to be safe), that would bump their SoS up to 0.519:

(14/16)*.489 + (2/16)*.730 = 0.519.

[PaulNewman]

I was afraid of this and had predicted this outcome in my head.....Dominican "upsets" Concordia (Wis) 3-2.  The latter is now the kind of team that has had a dream season (and beat some very good teams like UW-W) who will almost certainly be denied a Pool C. 

[PaulNewman]

Just to add on to that last post....and I offer this with no personal decision/opinion (at least not yet) on how things should fall....when folks start saying Tufts or RPI or whoever must get in or deserves to get in there are going to be at least a handful of teams like Concordia, Endicott, W&L, etc who will not get bids as a result.  Sort of like in the NCAA bball tourney when a mid-major is 24-2 and gets snubbed.  And the idea that some of these teams haven't really played anyone or aren't really deserving because of SoS or RvR is really deceiving regarding the quality of some of these teams.

[blooter442]

And the idea that some of these teams haven't really played anyone or aren't really deserving because of SoS or RvR is really deceiving regarding the quality of some of these teams.

Agree with this. Upon reflection, I have been highly critical of MIT all year long, but now I'm starting to think they're legit. Looking at it, 15-1-1 doesn't happen by accident. And while they've been leaking goals more than they were earlier in the season, they were the better team in the draw against Brandeis and were unfortunate not to win on Brandeis' turf. Still think they won't be as battle-tested as a team with a better SOS, which could come back to haunt them in NCAAs where it pays to have prepared against NESCAC/UAA/etc. schools. However, I think they're a good side, and perhaps better than I've given them credit for.

[PaulNewman]

Two more complaints to add to the current criteria....this is sort of like the need for "once ranked, always ranked," but a little different.  There are obviously good wins that a team has, even a team that doesn't get ranked, like, let's say wins over W&L, Randolph, etc PLUS teams that drop out of the rankings after being ranked that apparently the cmte can't look at any differently than wins over genuinely weak teams.  This whole notion that you want a ranked team but by beating them you might knock them out of the rankings and then not get that benefit just seems crazy.

The other thing that I'm sure I should have been aware of long ago is that earning home field for your conference tournament actually hurts you for SoS.  There should be an adjustment for that too or at least a neutral rating for games like that which have been earned based on performance.

[Dark Knight]

Who's Hot?

As we get close to tournament time, it's interesting to see which teams have been doing best in the last few games. Here's a list of top teams, sorted by who has done the best in the last seven games.

                SoS     aMoV    Sum
Haverford       1.46    2.57    4.03
Amherst         1.7     2.29    3.98
Calvin         -0.34    4.00    3.66
Ohio Wesleyan   0.44    3.00    3.44
Trinity TX     -0.49    3.86    3.36
Middlebury      1.76    1.57    3.33
Montclair St    1.04    2.29    3.32
Frank & Marsh   1.28    1.86    3.14
Oneonta         0.94    2.14    3.08
Kenyon          0.54    2.29    2.82
Thomas More    -1.56    4.29    2.72
MIT             1.42    1.14    2.57
Lycoming        0.48    1.86    2.34
Whitworth      -0.28    2.43    2.15
Amherst         2.29    3.98    2.14
Elizabethtown  -0.12    2.00    1.88
Brandeis        0.66    0.43    1.09


The SoS column is the average Massey power of the last seven teams each team has played. The aMoV is the average margin of victory.

This kind of comparison pays no attention to won/lost record, just how many goals were scored compared to how many an average team would score. A SoS figure one point higher means the same team would win by one less goal per game on average against that schedule.

This kind of comparison is less useful for comparing how teams have done, but it's more accurate for predicting future performance. Note that Massey seems not to have every game recorded, so it may not be the actual last seven for each team, but close.

Amherst still does very well even though they lost a game and tied a game, but Haverford is doing even better. Ohio Wesleyan shows up higher than Kenyon because they had some big wins in that stretch. Some highly ranked teams really aren't doing all that well lately by this measure, e.g. Brandeis.