2022 NCAA Regional Rankings

[PaulNewman]

I'm not complaining and arguing that it should be different but the criteria and selection process is challenging.

Perfect example...Bowdoin.  I still think they are safe but if I'm calculating correctly Bowdoin only has one ranked win.  They could be restored to two if Conn makes the final rankings.  But think about it.  The Polar Bears just won the NESCAC, accepted as the most competitive conference in the country and they are short on ranked wins.

And looking at Hamilton, Vassar, and Skidmore...Hamilton now down to two wins (unless Conn comes back in), Vassar has only one ranked win and it's New Paltz down near bottom of Reg 3, and then Skidmore only has one which is Hobart clinging to the very last Reg 3 spot.  Hamilton's two wins appear far better (Midd and Tufts).  Vassar and Skidmore both needed a win today.  SLU I think is safe, but Vassar and Skidmore are on very shaky ground (unless of course Skid gets the AQ).

[coach analytics]

Paul, i agree with you, its tough for NESCAC to get regional wins outside of conference play since they are limited to 5 out of conference games. Hard to predict ahead of time other than maybe Babson, who would be a lock for a regional ranking.

[PaulNewman]

Paul, i agree with you, its tough for NESCAC to get regional wins outside of conference play since they are limited to 5 out of conference games. Hard to predict ahead of time other than maybe Babson, who would be a lock for a regional ranking.

It's also hard because the regions are equally limited to 7 spots.  Folks were complaining about NESCAC getting all of them in Reg 1.  Bowdoin's big wins (at the time) over Conn and Wes no longer "count."  Bowdoin played plenty enough tough games but they're not all counting for RvR.  On the other hand, Hamilton may get a bid by edging out Vassar and Skidmore. 

Correction...Reg 2 has 6 spots.

[PaulNewman]

I cannot figure out how UWEC is listed with 4 ranked wins.  UW-W shouldn't have counted yet, and Loras is out.  Even allowing for all of them I only get to three (UW-P the other).

[MNBob]

I cannot figure out how UWEC is listed with 4 ranked wins.  UW-W shouldn't have counted yet, and Loras is out.  Even allowing for all of them I only get to three (UW-P the other).

Carthage

[PaulNewman]

I cannot figure out how UWEC is listed with 4 ranked wins.  UW-W shouldn't have counted yet, and Loras is out.  Even allowing for all of them I only get to three (UW-P the other).

Carthage

Wow.  Thanks.  I kept thinking about Carthage and went through all 3 weeks looking but of course I brain lapsed looking in Reg 9.

[coach analytics]

A bunch of stuff will happen that will change the number of bids and some of the regional rankings but I think there are a couple of teams whose seasons have ended and therefore their "resumes" are pretty stagnant.  Let me know how you rank them


SUNY Cortland 12-5-2, rvr 4-4, SOS around .58, wins over

Tufts 7-2-7, SOS around .585, rvr of 2-1-5, wins over regionally ranked 1 and 2

Vassar 9-3-5, sos around .59, rvr of 1-3-5 and wins over #6

Drew 12-2-4, sos around .56 , rr 1-1-1-1 with wins over #6

Alvernia 11-4-5, sos around .53 , rr 2-2,  wins over #1

Lynchburg 11-2-5, sos around, .56 rr 1-0-3, win over #5

[Hopkins92]

Drew played a 4th dimension game. That's higher level and should give them homefield for the entire tournament.

[paclassic89]

Lmao I hope Drew makes it in.  Alvernia is done.  I know that much for sure

[PaulNewman]

A bunch of stuff will happen that will change the number of bids and some of the regional rankings but I think there are a couple of teams whose seasons have ended and therefore their "resumes" are pretty stagnant.  Let me know how you rank them


SUNY Cortland 12-5-2, rvr 4-4, SOS around .58, wins over

Tufts 7-2-7, SOS around .585, rvr of 2-1-5, wins over regionally ranked 1 and 2

Vassar 9-3-5, sos around .59, rvr of 1-3-5 and wins over #6

Drew 12-2-4, sos around .56 , rr 1-1-1-1 with wins over #6

Alvernia 11-4-5, sos around .53 , rr 2-2,  wins over #1

Lynchburg 11-2-5, sos around, .56 rr 1-0-3, win over #5

My guess...Alvernia and Drew out.  Vassar probably out.  Lynch right on the bubble.  The other two are in.

A wild card is how the cmte will treat ranked draws.  If Vassar's 5 draws are, say, worth two wins, then maybe this changes....as that will impact A LOT of teams.

[Hopkins92]

Lmao I hope Drew makes it in.  Alvernia is done.  I know that much for sure

Right?

[paclassic89]

The 4th 1 in their RvR stands for 1 conference playoffs missed.  It's listed as a tertiary criteria in the pre-championship manual

[Christan Shirk]

I cannot figure out how UWEC is listed with 4 ranked wins.  UW-W shouldn't have counted yet, and Loras is out.  Even allowing for all of them I only get to three (UW-P the other).

The NCAA made a mistake in the data sheets they released this week.  The Results versus Ranked Opponents was incorrectly updated after this week's ranking were determined and incorrectly were based on two weeks' rankings--last week (10/26) and this week (11/2).  I discussed that in a post on the previous page:  http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=9348.msg2058451#msg2058451  So, UW-Eau Claire's RvR should have been listed as 2-0-1 for this week's rankings, not 4-0-1.  The ranking committees had the correct data, it's just the data sheets they subsequently released to the public that were in error.  For the fourth/final rankings on Monday, Eau Claire will lose the Loras win, but will gain the wins over Carthage and UW-Whitewater for a RvR of 3-1-0.  They could gain the Loras win back for at-large selection purposes if Loras would get ranked on Monday (defeating ranked Luther in the ARC final could see them nip UW-Whitewater for that 7th spot--close call as Whitewater holds the head-to-head and Loras will have that loss added to their already poor RvR).  But for Eau Claire it doesn't matter as they are locks for the Pool B at-large berth regardless.  No one is close.

But, be wary of the RvR's on this week's data sheets and thus on D3soccer.com regional ranking page.  We haven't have the time to manually revise the RvR data for the NCAA's mistake.

[PaulNewman]

Cristan, any insight or thoughts on how cmte will score or evaluated ranked draws?

[Flying Weasel]

Perfect example...Bowdoin.  I still think they are safe but if I'm calculating correctly Bowdoin only has one ranked win.  They could be restored to two if Conn makes the final rankings.  But think about it.  The Polar Bears just won the NESCAC, accepted as the most competitive conference in the country and they are short on ranked wins.

Well, with more ties overall due to no regular season OT, it's logical that RvR's are going to contain more ties and less wins.  It will be interesting to see the RvR's of the teams thought to be the last one's selected for at-large berths versus the RvR's for the first ones left out to see if it sheds any light on how the committee evaluated and rewarded ties versus wins, and how many RvR wins seemed to almost guarantee selection.

You are correct that Bowdoin's RvR for the fourth rankings contains just one win at 1-1-3 with Conn Col. dropping out of the rankings.  But you could look at it this way: they only lost once in five games against ranked opponents.  Middlebury is also down to 1 RvR win at the moment for the same reason. 

What hurts Bowdoin's resume is that they don't leave Maine in their non-conference schedule which ensures their SOS won't be as high as most others in the NESCAC (only Colby--the other Maine school--has a lower SOS).  Playing Univ. of New England (0-16-2) especially killed their SOS this season.  How much it hurts their SOS is, IMO, unfair.  So indulge me as I explain a solution for this perceived unfairness.

It takes too many good opponents to compensate for that one absolutely bad opponent which is why I continue to say that the SOS formula (which is only relevant for teams in the running for a place in the NCAA tournament) should have a bottom threshold for Opponent's Winning Percentage (OWP).  For example, let's make .375 the bottom threshold.  This would mean that any opponent's winning percentage (OWP) less than .375 is taken as .375 for the purposes of calculating a team's SOS.  This would base the SOS much more on how good the good teams you played were, and less on how bad the bad teams you played were.  To illustrate, two borderline Top 25 teams and contenders for a berth in the NCAA Tournament could play nearly identical 18-game schedules except for two games.  If not for those two games, they both would have a very good SOS of .600.  In those two games that differed, however, Team A's opponents had records of 5-9-4 and 3-12-3 while Team B's opponents had records 4-13-1 and 1-15-2.  None of those games should have been challenging for tournament-calibre teams and more importantly none of those games should be considered relevant to whether a team is worthy of an at-large berth.  Under the current SOS calculation, those two games lower Team A's SOS from .600 to .577 while Team B's SOS decreases from .600 to .566, giving Team A a not-insignificant 11 point SOS advantage all because they played a 5-9-4 team instead of a 1-15-2 team.  The difference between Team A and Team B garnering one of the last at-large berths could be a result of Team A getting lucky that their worst opponent wasn't as bad as Team B's worst opponent.  With a .375 bottom threshold on OWP, the SOS's would come out .581 and .580, respectively, making how bad their worst opponents were virtually irrelevant as it should be, IMHO.

Returning from the hypothetical to Bowdoin's reality, if you remove their game against Univ. of New England, their SOS would be a much more competitive .583 instead of the vastly lower .560 with that game included.  That one game cost them 23 pct. points!!!  Remove the Maine Maritime (5-10-1) game as well and their SOS would be an very good .596, meaning their two weakest opponents cost them 36 pct. points!  But you can't completely ignore that they played weak opponents giving them easy wins to boost their winning pct.  With a .375 bottom threshold on OWP applied to those games, Bowdoin's SOS would be .573 which to me feels much fairer.

The NCAA's SOS will always be flawed because of it's simplicity that results in a game against Husson helping your SOS almost as much as playing Middlebury and more than playing Cortland State.  Not sure how you can remedy that (high win pcts. that disguise a mediocre to weak opponent) with a simple tweak to the formula, but my proposal would at least solve the problem at the other end of the win pct. scale in which the formula makes a irrelevant distinction between how bad teams' very worst opponents are and allows that to impact a team's chances of being selected.

The NCAA's own Regional Rankings point to how flawed their SOS formula is.  The SOS formula says that Husson's contribution to Bowdoin's SOS is .697 while Middlebury's is barely higher at .699 while Tufts' contribution is .644 and Williams' is .617.  If Husson is considered a tougher opponent then Tufts and Williams and just a hair less tough an opponent as Middlebury, they why weren't they ranked 3rd or 4th in Region I. Instead they correctly probably didn't even get a sniff of the regional rankings. The rankings tell us that Husson isn't as good (probably not even close) as most NESCAC teams while the SOS formula that is used in the ranking criteria says that Hussin is a tougher opponent than most of the NESCAC.