2019 D1 Women's Soccer Tournament Prediction Contest

Discussion in 'Women's College' started by cpthomas, Nov 12, 2019.

  1. Soccerhunter

    Soccerhunter Member+

    Sep 12, 2009
    Hi CPT..

    Below two entries for the non-human division. I didn't have tome to assemble these until now, but rest assured they are based on the published poll of the United Soccer Coaches and published rankings of Top Drawer Soccer.

    Ignore or do as you think best with these entries. I personally think that they are interesting just to compare with the machine/statistical division. In my mind the individual entries are assumed to contain bias, hunches, and partisan wishful thinking while the poll (especially as conducted by the USC) is an amalgam of the informed views of local and regional coaches. Such an amalgam should be pretty close to how a statistician would devise a method to calculate a ranking, it would seem. The Top Drawer Ranking is an enigma in that we do not have any idea of how it is concocted. It could be a single employee in his booth to a gang at a weekly party at the bar. Who knows?

    The USC entry is fundamentally based on Poll #12 published on 11/12/19. All but two games wins are simply a product of which team was ranked higher by the USC coaches. The two games that had to be based on an earlier version of the USC poll (in that there was no mention of the teams involved in poll #12) were St Louis-Notre Dame and Arizona-TCU. (The higher ranking in a previously published poll determined the winner.)

    The same method is used for the Top Drawer Rankings #13 published 11/13/19. However in this case, 3 of the 32 winners had to be dug out from previously published TDS rankings, and one entry (AZ vs TCU) had to be fudged (AZ) in that neither of these teams had ever been mentioned in the TDS rankings this year.

    So do with these as you see fit!

    Cheers!

    United Soccer Coaches Poll

    First Round
    Stanford
    Hofstra
    TCU
    PSU
    Askansas
    NCSU
    Louisville
    BYU
    UCLA
    Vanderbilt
    Duke
    Wisconsin
    Washington
    Florida
    Brown
    FSU
    Virginia
    Memphis
    Georgetown
    Rutgers
    Kansas
    Xavier
    St Louis
    South Carolina
    USC
    TAMU
    Santa Clara
    Oklahoma St
    Texas Tech
    Michigan
    Colorado
    North Carolina

    Second Round
    Stanford
    Penn State
    Arkansas
    BYU
    UCLA
    Wisconsin
    Washington
    FSU
    Virginia
    Rutgers
    Kansas
    South Carolina
    USC
    Oklahoma St
    Texas Tech
    North Carolina

    Third Round
    Stanford
    BYU
    UCLA
    PSU
    Virginia
    South Carolina
    USC
    North Carolina

    Fourth Round
    Stanford
    FSU
    Virginia
    North Carolina

    Semi Final
    Stanford
    North Carolina

    Champion
    Stanford

    ***********
    Top Drawer Soccer

    First Round
    Stanford
    Hofstra
    Arizona
    Penn State
    Arkansas
    NCSU
    Louisville
    BYU
    UCLA
    Clemson
    Duke
    Wisconsin
    Washington
    South Florida
    Brown
    FSU
    Virginia
    Memphis
    Georgetown
    Rutgers
    Kansas
    Virginia Tech
    Notre Dame
    South Carolina
    USC
    TAMU
    CAL
    Oklahoma St
    Texas Tech
    Michigan
    Colorado
    North Carolina

    Second Round
    Stanford
    Penn State
    Arkansas
    BYU
    UCLA
    WIsconsin
    South Florida
    FSU
    Virginia
    Rutgers
    Kansas
    South Carolina
    USC
    Oklahoma St
    Texas Tech
    North Carolina

    Third Round
    Stanford
    BYU
    UCLA
    PSU
    Virginia
    South Carolina
    USC
    North Carolina

    Fourth Round
    Stanford
    FSU
    Virginia
    North Carolina

    Semi Finals
    Stanford
    North Carolina

    Champion
    North Carolina
     
    Mills repped this.
  2. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    They're in!

    I put them in a "groups" group with the Committee, since they're group predictors supposedly with some expertise.

    Altogether now we have 27 humans, three groups, and four machines, for a total of 34 contestants.

    At the moment, Mills continues in sole possession of first place, by 1 point!:thumbsup:
     
    Mills repped this.
  3. Mills

    Mills Member

    Aug 23, 2019
    @cpthomas I just realized that I forgot to add the winner of the Virginia vs Rutgers winner in the 3rd round. It should be Virginia.
    You can verify by looking at the rounds above the 3rd, and by looking at my pick in the 4th round. I picked Virginia to advance in the 4th in the match between Virgnia and South Carolina.
    You can also verify by looking at my exact same bracket on the November Madness website (which is locked to any changes): http://www.novembermadness.com/bracket.php?u=7770
    Thanks.
     
  4. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    No problem, I saw who you had in the next round when I entered your predictions and put Virginia in where you had intended it.
     
    Mills repped this.
  5. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Here are the standings after today's (Saturday's) Round 1 games, with the last Round 1 game set for tomorrow (Notre Dame v St Louis). Mills continues to lead the Human Division by a point and also has the all-Division lead. The Committee leads the Group Division. The machines are tied in the Machine Division.

    Crane 65, Playsimple, the Committee, and all of the machines are a point behind Mills.

    [Tomorrow, I'll change the programming for the Rank column so it shows those tied for second as ranked #2, and so on. That will make it easier to interpret.]

    upload_2019-11-16_20-48-7.png
     
    Mills repped this.
  6. Sam Miami

    Sam Miami Member

    Bayern Munich
    Germany
    Sep 11, 2019
    Only 1 entry better than NCAA selection committee and the coaches poll not looking so good after round one.
     
  7. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Thanks to Crane65, I see that I had not entered an actual game result into the data base. It was Virginia's win, which everyone predicted, so it doesn't affect the standings. Here are the correct numbers, with the standings format revised so that #2 means tied for second, etc. Thus 2 humans, 1 group, and all 4 machines tied for second.

    upload_2019-11-17_10-36-27.png
     
  8. sweepsit

    sweepsit Member

    Oct 25, 2016
    SF, California
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    On average, the selection committee should perform well since their selections confer an advantage to the selected teams with seeding placement and home field advantage. No other selectors get that luxury.
     
  9. Soccerhunter

    Soccerhunter Member+

    Sep 12, 2009
    #84 Soccerhunter, Nov 17, 2019
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2019
    Just a note to all the contestants.... At this point everyone entered has a shot at winning the contest. The present 8 point differential represents only one different pick in the last three rounds. It is these next two rounds that really start to separate the sheep from the goats and put about a third of the contestants in a possible position to win. Past winners have also included those to who took risks by bucking the conventional wisdom, and in some cases the last in the first round shall be first! (But no promises.)

    Keep watching!
     
  10. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    And, here are the standings after completion of the first round, with no changes at the top. In the second round, correct predictions are worth 3 points each, so maybe a little movement coming up?

    upload_2019-11-17_12-56-39.png
     
    McSkillz and Mills repped this.
  11. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I was going through the predictions to see which games we all missed and how often, and I discovered three data entry errors that cost predictors some points, most notably costing dmthomas49 2 points. I've made those corrections, so here are the corrected standings with dmthomas49 moving up into the second place tie.

    upload_2019-11-17_23-10-20.png
     
  12. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Looking through the 1st Round scores, here are the games that had incorrect predictions, with the number incorrect listed with the game. Amazingly, there were 22 games with at least 1 missed prediction, which seems like a lot.

    Rutgers (Home, Loss) v Central Connecticut - 34 misses (every body and group and machine)
    Georgetown (H, L) v West Virginia - 29
    Florida (H,L) v South Florida - 24
    Virginia Tech (H, L) v Xavier - 21
    Washington State (H,W) v Memphis - 14
    Clemson (H,W) v Vanderbilt - 11
    Texas Tech (H,W) v Pepperdine - 11
    Arizona (H,W) v TCU - 10
    Brown (H,W) v Monmouth - 8
    Washington (H,W) v Seattle - 5
    Kansas (H,W) v Iowa - 5
    Notre Dame (H,W) v St Louis - 5
    Duke (H,W) v Utah - 5
    Southern California (H,W) v CS Fullerton - 4
    Santa Clara (H,W) v California - 4
    Hofstra (H,W) v Loyola Chicago - 3
    NC State (H,W) v Navy - 3
    Arkansas (H,W) v North Texas - 2
    Wisconsin (H,W) v Milwaukee - 2
    Louisville (H,W) v Lipscomb - 1
    Oklahoma State (H,W) v South Dakota State - 1
    Texas A&M (H,W) v Texas - 1

    The 4 most missed games all were games the home team lost. In all the other games with missed predictions, the home team won.:geek:
     
    McSkillz and Mills repped this.
  13. uncchamps2012

    uncchamps2012 Member

    Jul 9, 2011
    Anyone who didn’t pick UNC should really consider quitting smoking crack.
     
  14. uncchamps2012

    uncchamps2012 Member

    Jul 9, 2011
    I predict Stanford will not win Another game 15-0.
     
  15. derbarkasmann

    derbarkasmann Member

    1.FC Koeln (Cologne, Germany)
    United States
    Oct 27, 2008
    Grand Junction, Colorado
    Club:
    FC Köln
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    For people with airline miles on American and United, short-notice domestic round-trips are available for as little as 10,000 miles on American and 15,000 (I think) on United. Must be a slow week for air travel.

    In my case, Grand Junction, Colorado to Raleigh, North Carolina to watch the Buffs and Tar Heels was $717 minimum, which means I’d be watching it on line. But I got the round trip for 10,000 miles on American.

    Just a thought, for anybody who would like to support your team in person but can’t or doesn’t want to pay the high short-notice airfare.
     
    Mills repped this.
  16. derbarkasmann

    derbarkasmann Member

    1.FC Koeln (Cologne, Germany)
    United States
    Oct 27, 2008
    Grand Junction, Colorado
    Club:
    FC Köln
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    But UNC lost to Colorado 6-0 !!

    Sorry. I will leave now.
     
  17. Mills

    Mills Member

    Aug 23, 2019
    I thought the minimum miles needed to book a round trip domestic trip with American was 25K?
     
  18. derbarkasmann

    derbarkasmann Member

    1.FC Koeln (Cologne, Germany)
    United States
    Oct 27, 2008
    Grand Junction, Colorado
    Club:
    FC Köln
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It is. And it can be a lot more. But it must be a slow air travel week.

    I could leave as late as Sunday and return as late as Monday for 10K round trip. Returning Tuesday bumped it to 11K. After that, Thanksgiving.

    It could be more from other locations, but Grand Junction is usually kind of costly to fly out of or into.
     
  19. dmthomas49

    dmthomas49 Member

    Portland Thorns
    Oct 29, 2008
    Vancouver, WA
    Thanks CP. Was it my data entry or yours? I know we are not related with same last name. But I think I have met you at Pilot matches some years ago.
     
  20. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It was my error -- I take each predictor's list and enter it manually into a spreadsheet for that predictor. I have team name conventions, so when I'm entering predictions, I translate the name the predictor used to the name that fits my convention. One of the things I have to do is spell correctly when I'm entering it. I made some misspellings for a couple of predicted winnings, including on your spreadsheet. (There's a way to avoid that happening, but I didn't use it this year, I'll probably add it next year.) This may sound tedious, but I do so much data entry that I'm used to it and it goes pretty quickly.

    The benefit of the way my predictions workbook functions is that once I have all the predictions entered, I simply enter the actual game winners into an Actual Results worksheet and hit f9 (the caluclation command). That immediately fills out the results table that I've been posting after each round. So, once Tournament play actually begins, everything else I do is very easy.
     
  21. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Woo Hoo, we have 7 humans who correctly picked NC State over Arkansas! It looks like we may have some significant standings changes by the end of the day.
     
    soccersubjectively repped this.
  22. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    lovethegsme and soccerhunter have taken over the lead in the human category, getting both games tonight, and Mills is in 3rd, with a whole bunch tied for 4th. The Committee leads the group category and is tied for 4th overall. All of the machines are tied and together sit within the bunch tied for 4th. Fourteen games coming tomorrow!

    upload_2019-11-21_19-9-57.png
     
    McSkillz repped this.
  23. Crazyhorse

    Crazyhorse Member

    Dec 29, 2007
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Tom and I are bringing up the rear!
     
    NilamCA, Mills and soccersubjectively repped this.
  24. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Really banking on FSU, I guess!
     
    Crazyhorse repped this.
  25. McSkillz

    McSkillz Member+

    ANGEL CITY FC, UCLA BRUINS
    United States
    Nov 22, 2014
    Los Angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It's okay, I'll catch up, I am the only one that went all UCLA so we will see how that goes
     

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