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Username Post: rankings        (Topic#430)
The Lion King 
Senior
Posts: 394

Reg: 11-21-04
01-14-05 03:29 PM - Post#2345    

As the conference schedule begins, the RPI, Sagarin, and Pomoroy rankings have converged fairly closely for most of the league. The main exceptions are Princeton (28 RPI, 69 Sag, 77 Pom) and Yale (151, 212, 196).

In his butt-kicking appearance on WKCR the other night, Jake suggested that in Princeton's case, it may have to do with the new RPI formula, which gives added weight to road wins. And the Tigers do have three road wins, though all of them came against so-so competition (Lafayette, Holy Cross, and Monmouth). Yale, however, has only two, against Quinnipiac* and Santa Clara.

I guess both teams are getting justified credit for playing good opponents. I can sort of see putting Yale ahead of the rest of the non-P herd, though 151 seems a bit high. As for Princeton, somewhere in the 60s or 70s sounds a lot more plausible to me than 29. I guess both will drop back in RPI once they start playing their Ivy League brethren.


* This is as good a place as any to mention that while we all like to rank out on Quinnipiac (I've certainly done my share), their point guard, Rob Monroe, has been named as one of 18 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award. No, I don't know why they announce the finalists in the middle of January.

 
YaleEli 
goober
Posts: 62

Loc: Greenwich, CT
Reg: 12-07-04
Re: rankings
01-14-05 08:12 PM - Post#2346    
    In response to The Lion King

Just a few corrections re: your rankings analysis.

Yale did not play Quinnipiac this season; their road wins included Santa Clara (169 Sag.), Hartford (291 Sag.), and Sacred Heart (326 Sag.). Additionally, Yale's strength of schedule ("SOS") is currently third in the Ivy League according to Sagarin (74th in Division I), while Princeton's SOS schedule is ranked 18 and Pennsylvania's SOS is ranked 6.

Yale's losses during their non-conference stretch included close games with Boston College (ranked #13 in country) and UNC Charlotte. Yale also got spanked by some very good teams as well (Wake Forest, UMass and Niagara).

Given these schools' RPI, Sag. and Pom rankings, Yale's rankings to date seem to be appropriate.

Finally, I guess a better question is this: Should Ivy BB teams "pad" their won/loss records by playing inferior opponents during the non-conference portion, or is it better to play games against upper echelon teams so that the Ivy league schedule seems like a cakewalk?

Curious to get anyone's thoughts. My own view is that Princeton and Penn have traditionally played really tough non-conference schedules which ultimately makes the regular Ivy season seem much easier. There is also 40 years of the 2Ps dominance to show that a tougher schedule is the best preparation for league play.

 
The Lion King 
Senior
Posts: 394

Reg: 11-21-04
Re: rankings
01-14-05 08:32 PM - Post#2347    
    In response to YaleEli


You're right about Quinnipiac. I don't know why I said them instead of Sacred Heart; perhaps I had the name stuck in my head after reading the item about the Cousy award.

If I interpret the Yale schedule on this site correctly, the Hartford game was at a neutral site. So it was a road win for Yale, but they didn't beat Hartford on Hartford's home court, which I believe is the type of road win the new RPI formula emphasizes.

I have nothing against Yale's rankings so far; I'm just saying that I would put them closer to the Sagarin/Pomeroy end of the range than to the RPI end. A ranking of 150 would mean that they are slightly better than the average Division I team, and 200 would mean that they are slightly worse. We'll see.

As for scheduling, I think a team should play one or two easy games (against lower divisions, if necessary), one or two against top-class opponents, and the rest against teams that they're roughly equal with. That's what Columbia has done this year--somewhat fortuitously, since you can't always know in advance how good your opponent will be.

Princeton and Penn have done the same thing, at a somewhat higher level of course. If Columbia had played Princeton's schedule, I don't think the Ivy schedule would have seemed any easier; I just think they would have lost confidence. They can take consolation from playing NC State tough, but if they had played half a dozen teams of comparable ability, it would have gotten pretty old. I hope that in a year or two, Columbia will be able to play a Penn/Princeton type non-league schedule with reasonable aspirations of winning most of them. We'll see about that too.

 
SFlaQuaker 
Postdoc
Posts: 2427

Reg: 11-21-04
Re: rankings
01-14-05 09:24 PM - Post#2348    
    In response to The Lion King

I think it all depends on what you get out of playing that schedule. The 01-02 Penn team got a huge boost by beating GT and hanging with Illinois, as well as going 4-1 against Big 5 teams, in a year when the Big 5 was pretty solid.

This year, as I see it, Penn hasn't gotten anything positive from its schedule. 30+ point losses do nothing, no matter who they're against, and neither do close losses to equal/worse teams, especially when it doesn't contribute intangibles like experience.

 
Anonymous 

Re: rankings
01-15-05 03:11 PM - Post#2349    
    In response to The Lion King

The divergence in Princeton's rankings is between those rankings that include margin of victory and those that don't. Low scoring games lead to lower rankings when margin of victory is included.

RPI (no MoV) 28th
Sag (no MoV) 41st
Pom (MoV) 77th
Sag (MoV) 94th

 
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