It seems incredibly unfair to use a "top 25" cutoff to downgrade Akron, whose wins included #26 South Florida, #27 Michigan, and #30 Michigan St, as well as plenty of other good teams. Akron also got a draw away to Creighton, which is a better result than a lot of home wins.
Akron actually won the game but was denied the winning OT goal by one of the worst offsides calls i have ever seen.
... and unfortunately Akron has never gotten a call in their favor the whole year which means that somewhere it didn't even out.
OT goals called back for offside after the goal scorer had enough time to take his shirt off and run to the bench with both video and picture evidence to back up that at LEAST 2 opponents were keeping him onside, and possibly a 3rd, not including the goalie? No, that has not happened. This was not a blown call in the third minute. This was a game deciding goal called off by a terrible call. Huge difference.
All I have to say is that Ray Reid is serving his last year on the NCAA committee (members serve 2 years). How UConn got a top 4 seed over Akron after losing 2 of their last 3 games is beyond me.
Massey is far from the law, but it is instead the one credible objective ratings system we have for college soccer. Do you seriously believe the RPI rankings are not flawed?
We could if it were played at Akron. But even though Akron is forced to play at UConn, Akron will probably win.
Remember, so-called big wins and big losses are based on flawed RPI number. As a result the Uconn loss to Providence is losing to a 74 ranked team according to the RPI instead of a ranking of 120 which is more in line with Central Arkansas or Virginia Tech according to Massey. Only the true believers and the NCAA will continue to deny the RPI for men's soccer is seriously flawed.
Bad calls happen and there is no reason to justify your ranking based on a call. However, referees are a big factor in games and have been known to make more calls in favor of the home team. This is one reason why raw RPI calculations for men's basketball and men's baseball value away results much more than home results. College soccer is still using the more antiquated version that leads to a tainted tournament because it under ranks certain teams like Akron and better teams from the west year after year.
Actually, NCAA committee members serve four years, so Reid has two more years to exert his disingenuous perspectives in a manner that conveniently benefit himself and his Huskies.
"The one"? Despite your objections, RPI is still credible. The Massey ratings may have flaws as well, since the underlying algorithms are kept secret by Massey.
I've said multiple times the RPI is flawed. That doesn't mean Massey is perfect. Any system not specifically designed for college soccer is going to have a flaw. Both RPI and Massey fall into that category. What I do know is that there are four polls that are followed by you, me and everyone else. Those four polls all picked the same team as #1 in the country. Do you think those polls took into account that Akron hadn't beaten as many top 25 teams? That the Big East is a tougher conference? I do. And then they remembered that you can't quantify soccer by looking just at numbers. I believe in and wholeheartedly support the trend towards the use of advanced statistics in sports, but soccer isn't anywhere near as conducive to it as football, basketball and especially baseball. One second of magic (or ineptitude) can win a team a game that they were being thoroughly outplayed in. The same can't be said in football or basketball, and even baseball is a real stretch. I also know that the NCAA Committee is supposed to take two rankings into account, the NSCAA coaches poll and the (admittedly flawed) RPI. Akron was ranked #1 in the NSCAA and #2 in the RPI. Built into the RPI is a variable that takes into account strength of schedule. The committee's stated reason for UConn getting a four seed was that even though they had more bad losses, they had more top 25 wins (and a whopping 6-5 advantage in top 50 wins with USF and Michigan clocking in at 26 and 27). Say what now? Wins against teams above an arbitrary cutoff are indicative of a teams performance level, but not any of the losses? Even if they were delusional enough to rationalize how absurd that is, does RPI not matter? That's the funny thing. It apparently does. It mattered for every top four team except Akron. Is Akron the best team in the country? I certainly think they are, but that's also because it's the team I root for. Would I be as vocal if I wasn't an Akron fan? Probably not, but I can recognize an injustice when I see one. Maybe they didn't deserve a top four seed. Maybe the committee got it right and Akron really is only the 5th best team. I don't know. What I do know is that according to the established procedures that the committee is supposed to follow, a team ranked #1 in every poll and #2 in the NCAA created RPI deserves home field until the College Cup, no matter the name on the front of the jersey.
What? There were plenty. Too many to count. None of them anywhere near as impactful as calling back an OT goal against a top 5 team on the road. There are bad calls both ways every game, but if you're trying to imply that all calls carry an equal weight, you're insane.
Well I remember seeing a PK at Akron a few years ago against Michigan State that was an awful call that won the game for Akron. Just saying that these things usually even out over time. Part of the game.
Your referee comments reminded me of the infamous AR Walk Off 2 years ago in the Zips v Cal qtr final. Let's hope all the refs in the remaining matches leave their egos in the locker room.
I would normally agree with both of you, I really would. But Akron getting knocked for not beating enough top 25 teams when they should have beaten Creighton if not for the horrendous offside call is a tough pill to swallow, especially when that is apparently the criteria used for them not getting top four seed. Fully admit the aroma of sour grapes emanating from my posts. That particular call just had so many ramifications outside of just that one goal.
Every system will have situations where it well perform less well that its counterparts since they are all simplifying the real world. However, these minor in magnitude compared to RPI. From what I understand almost every other mainstream ranking system will use a network to relate each team to every other team. In contrast the RPI doesn't do that. This is a fatal flaw This is why if you look at the RPI explained thread, I showed how the west could have the top 20 teams in the country, win every game from outside the region and still have teams from other regions that could rank higher than one or two of them. The fact that the underlying algorithms are kept secret have little to do with validity. You can test the validity of a system by comparing its outputs with the expected outputs.
The issue isn't in flaws but instead the level of the flaws are a different order of magnitude(s). Clearly there are not enough samples compared to the level of chance to get anything close to perfect ranking for soccer. However, even with something as limited as a soccer season you can see the large statistically significant error in the RPI. Just look at the difference in results between men's and women's soccer between RPI and Massey. If you have a reasonable understanding of statistics it is easy to see the difference between the two are due to the flaws in the RPI calculations. You can prove it to yourself with a deck of cards which is much simpler than soccer. If RPI fails miserably at ranking cards, you can be sure it is even worse for ranking soccer teams.