There has been discussion about this question on several threads. Here is some fodder for the discussion. The ratings I used are the Adjusted RPI ratings. The 2011 data are from games through Sunday, October 23. Average Goals For and Against of Top Ranked Teams Code: Top 10 Top 20 Top 30 Year For Against For Against For Against 2007 2.2 0.6 2.1 0.7 2 0.8 2008 2.6 0.7 2.5 0.8 2.4 0.9 2009 2.5 0.7 2.2 0.8 2 0.8 2010 2.4 0.7 2.2 0.8 2 0.8 2011 2.3 0.6 2.3 0.7 2.2 0.8 I think it's possible that 2007 was an anomaly. If so, this would seem to suggest that it gradually is getting harder for the top teams to score goals.
Over on the 2011 North Carolina thread, there's been some discussion about whether there's parity that is affecting the Tarheels' results, whether they can return the same dominance they've had in the past, whether alternatively their recent experience is someone's recent fault (with various suggestions as to who is to blame), and so on. Notre Dame, Portland, and Santa Clara, our other NCAA Tournament winners in the last decade, have had somewhat similar experiences. With North Carolina initially in mind, I decided to do some history work to see if this is part of a parity-related trend. One of my thoughts has been that it's been getting harder for good teams to score goals due to the overall improvement in defenders. As Division I women's soccer matures, it has seemed to me this is something one would expect, since at the highest level of world soccer goal scoring is very difficult. And, if it's getting more difficult for teams to score goals, then the possibility of top teams getting knocked off more seems like it would become greater -- the other team manages to score one goal and then spends the rest of the game defending successfully, for example. (Maybe the North Carolina/High Point NCAA Tournament game a couple of years ago had more meaning than we thought?) A good thing about using this decade's four National Championship winning teams as research subjects, besides the fact that they have been strong, is that they have had very stable coaching over time, so that changes in their probably would not be attributable to coaching changes. Thus, they may be a bellwether for what is happening, if in fact their histories demonstrate a scoring trend. With that in mind, I assembled the four teams' goals for and goals against per game data over the teams' entire histories and charted them out, to see if they show a trend. Guess what: They do! The teams' goals against per game numbers, although showing some slight changes, have been pretty stable for a long time. But, their goals for per game numbers have been declining, starting some time in the mid- to late-90s time period. For those interested in the details, I have posted, at the RPI for Division I Women's Soccer website, an Excel workbook with a data sheet and chart for each of the four teams, showing its goals for and goals against history. The workbook is an attachment at the bottom of the RPI Reports page and has the title "Champs Goal History." The trend lines in the charts are based on 8-year rolling averages, which I have found to give the best depiction of the trends. You can get to the page with the attachment using this link: https://sites.google.com/site/rpifordivisioniwomenssoccer/rpi-reports What this suggests to me is that we are seeing the outcomes of an evolution of Division I women's soccer towards greater parity that has been occurring for more than a decade. Although current shortcomings may be mixed in, to some extent, I'm guessing that the evolution toward greater parity, and in particular the trend towards better defending, is the primary driving factor behind what these teams have been experiencing. If you download the workbook, you also will see that the last two pages of the workbook relate to North Carolina's NCAA Tournament history. Since the Tarheels historically have been the gold standard for Division I women's soccer, I did these sheets when I started this project, to see if the Tarheels' NCAA Tournament history also would suggest a trend. It does. Finally, I've updated the 2011 goals for and goals against data in the table I put in the first post on this thread. Here is the revised table: Average Goals For and Against of Top Ranked Teams, 2007 Through 2011 Code: Top 10 Top 20 Top 30 Year For Against For Against For Against 2007 2.2 0.6 2.1 0.7 2 0.8 2008 2.6 0.7 2.5 0.8 2.4 0.9 2009 2.5 0.7 2.2 0.8 2 0.8 2010 2.4 0.7 2.2 0.8 2 0.8 2011 2.2 0.6 2.3 0.8 2.2 0.8
I for one think that cpthomas should be awarded an honorary doctorate in women's college soccer statistics, to be presented by Massey (Elo is deceased) at halftime of the Final on Sunday.
I was thinking more in line with what you said in the second post. Parity I would say is the wrong word for the averages you've shown. Instead it's just that teams are having a harder time scoring 3 or 4 goals a game. So instead of 3-1 wins they're 2-1 wins, but at the end of the day those top 10 and top 20 teams are still winning. Parity I would classify as us starting to see a lot of different faces make the 16 or elite 8 each year, which I don't think is the case ... yet. Some will look at the College Cup and say "this will be no repeat champions to make the CC for the first time in XX years", but that doesn't mean parity if it's the usual top of the ACC and Pac10 teams vying for those four spots, which pretty much was the case. The trend almost bucked with USC and Ohio State but consider this: In the last 10 seasons (including this year), a possible 40 teams could have made the Women's College Cup. You know how many teams have made it? 15! And that is only helped by one-time participants Uconn, USC, BC, Ohio State, Princeton, Wake and Duke. Surprisingly, UNC hasn't had the most college cup trips the last decade. UCLA went 7 times from '02-'12, Notre Dame went 6 times, UNC and FSU went 5 times and Stanford went 4 times. Portland, Penn State and Santa Clara pick up the middle with two trips each. So definitely no parity in college soccer on the national level. At a conference level, most likely.
I agree with uscue that parity isn't here. I don't know if it ever will be. I think, though, that we appear to be seeing an "evolution towards greater parity." What's especially interesting to me is that the effect of a shift, in actual results, may not occur until well after the shift begins. When the results start changing, people tend to say, "Wow, what just happened?" -- when actually it may have begun happening quite a while ago. A team, by the way, that may be bucking the trend is Stanford. I've replaced the previous attachment over at the RPI for Division I Women's Soccer website with a new one that includes Stanford. We need more time to see exactly where they're trending, but it may be towards higher goals per game.
I don't think you can say that we are trending towards parity exactly, but I do see a trend away from UNC dominance. 8 of 9 championships in the 80's, 8 of 10 in the 90's, and 5 of 10 in the 00's. Their upcoming recruits appear good but not out of this world. Stanford is poised to take their place, but we'll see if they can finally take the trophy. But for the top teams there is some parity with the top 25, for the top 25 there is some parity with the top 50-60, and for the top 50 there is some parity with the top 100, but team # 1 has fear against team 101, IMHO.
To add some fun to the discussion, I'll put what I think is happening in "Stephen Jay Gouldian" terms: In the bell curve that represents Division I women's soccer teams, the mean slowly is moving to the right so that the space is decreasing between the mean and the curve's fixed right wall. There always will be a limited number of teams on the curve's right side, but the effect of the mean's movement to the right is that teams on the curve's right side will experience an increasingly reduced ability to dominate. As I've said in my other posts today on this thread, this phenomenon actually appears to have been occurring since the mid- to late-90s. What's interesting today is that the effect of the phenomenon is becoming visible. I'm not aware of any reason the process should not continue in the same direction for the foreseeable future. I'll add one other point: In this environment, for a team to dominate now would be vastly more impressive than dominance was in the past. Gould writes of this as "the consequently greater struggle that must attend the achievement." Similarly, what constitutes very high level performance now, if measured in terms like winning percentages, looks very different than it did in the past.
Thank you CP for actually starting to collect/present real data on this issue! And I agree with your supposition that the trend has begun, although dramatic results may not show up for some time yet. I think that the points made by uscue13 and SCUFANTASTIC about parity not being trended are incorrect. I think that they are incorrect because they are apparently defining "parity" in ways that it will never be. You've seen my argument before. In my opinion, "Parity" in D-I college sports will look like it does at the present time with men's basketball and football (which have reached "parity" as much as we will ever see in D-I sports.) That is to say, there will be a top 25 that will rise to the top year after year with periodic incursions from some of the top 50 and an even rarer occasional interloper from the top 100 every now and then. Additionally, there will also be occasional hot teams which will be in the top 5 for perhaps 4 or 5 years or so before drifting back into the top 25 pack (these being the schools with exceptional coaches who recruit and or coach very well.) In the start-up phase, you will see the the early-adopter teams dominate such as we have seen with UNC (and Kentucky in the Adolph Rupp era, ND in the Knute Rockne era, and Tennessee in women's basketball) but as time goes on such runs will be come harder and harder to maintain as more and more skilled youth/high school players will be recruited into colleges and (as CP has commented earlier) statistically the .400 hitter will, in fact, become rarer and rarer. The kind of "parity" that uscue13 and SCUFANTASTIC are postulating where a mix of top 100 or so will continuously create new faces in the elite 8 or final 4 will NEVER HAPPEN in my opinion. This is because there will always be the "haves" and "have nots" like it or not. We have looked into the future and seen what D-I parity looks like: it is what we have seen with men's BB and pointy ball where the top 25 is fairly stable over the decades (the known "basketball schools" and "football schools"), and so it will soon be with women's college soccer. We'll have to wait and see how soon this pattern will come true. CP's statistics are the bellwether. In the mean time, from those who may disagree with my definition, I'd be interested to see alternate definitions of what D-I "parity" will eventually look like in the Olympic sports.
I think you misunderstood my perception slightly. I don't think we'll ever Consider: Men's basketball tournament Final Four the last decade (same frame I did for women's soccer) has had 40 possible teams and filled that with 24 unique teams in that period. The same time frame (last decade) for women's soccer had 15 unique teams out of 40 possible. Parity definitely exists in men's basketball in that even though every year we still expect the usual suspects to win the title, it's basically been a crap-shoot as to who's going to actually get it (7 different teams have won the title the last 10 years). In women's soccer, it's actually been pretty close to support your argument (with this year, 5 of the last 10 have been unique), but I still think the more accurate determination for real parity would be College Cup participants. I would personally equate a 50% uniqueness rating for CC participants to be a good measure of parity (over a ten year period, 20 of 40 possible teams)
Thanks, uscue13, for your bit of confirming research. 24 unique teams out of a possible 40 slots does, indeed, seem to represent a "top 25" in men's basketball that is fairly stable. And I agree with your note that 15 out of 40 is starting to get there in women's soccer, but 20 or better would possibly be enough to statistically mimic what we see in men's BB with it's "parity" of over 100 years of existence. (Interesting Question: is 30 years therefore about the right time span for a D-I sport to mature to parity? ...or should it be faster --perhaps 15-20 years? How have lacrosse, volleyball, women's basketball, softball,golf, wrestling, etc fared in this regard?) As cpthomas has indicated above, the D-I women's soccer statistics he observes show that it will be much more difficult for a team to "dominate" as we have seen in the "early adopter" phase. From this point forward, any team that ends up in the final 4 more than three years in a row will certainly have to be counted as a "hot team" (in my definition three posts above) with an above average coach and recruiter. Stanford is now the only present candidate.
I did not say that I don't think there is more parity now than previous. I do think there is more parity now. I just think that there are only a few teams who truly compete for a national title.
Any educated guess about what the numbers would be if all the basketball games before the Final Four were played at the court of the team with the higher rating? That might give a better comparable. But, still, DI women's soccer is still young so it has a ways to go to "maximum" parity.
Good point, CP. If men's BB played at the home court of the higher seeded team up until the final four, we might see numbers very similar to women's soccer with regard to "parity" at the final four level. In reference to my last (previous page) post wondering about other D-I sports and the generational time to a stable "parity", it has occurred to me that there will likely be different patterns to eventual eventual stable "parity" depending on the gross numbers of youth/high school players available. In other words, only men's & women's basketball, football, baseball, and women's and men's soccer might show the same D-I parity patterns because they have similar huge pools of youth players coming up and professional leagues beyond to aspire to, and are not elite "Country Club" sports. [Ice Hockey, men's and women's tennis, track & field, golf, lacrosse, and women's softball perhaps occupy a middle ground.] and then... The other D-I sports (wrestling, volleyball, cross country, field hockey, rugby, and especially swimming/diving, gymnastics, fencing, shooting, archery, & rowing) have such small or regional youth programs and no visible professional leagues that "parity" across the D-I spectrum will never occur. In other words, there will always be only a few colleges specializing in one of these sports that will corral the limited national talent, and most colleges will be "also rans" or wannabes.
I find this whole idea of "parity" quite interesting. If it means that the best teams in the country continue to attract great players, and that there are so many other good players still unaffiliated that everyone else's roster gets much better, I say: bring it! I love good soccer. As a result, we should see an abundance of Absolutely Brilliant young players perking up through the ranks and quickly dominating the WNT. On the other hand, if there are 25 good college players each year, and you spread them between twenty rather than ten teams, then I say (as a loyal fan of the women's college game) you gotta be a parent to want to watch that much bad soccer... Yes, I am a snob. I follow women's college soccer because there are a handful of teams that are really excellent. If parity means that the "handful" gets bigger, then I am a happy fan. If parity means that the quality of play regresses toward the mean, then I'll just quit watching. For me, it is the quality of the sport, not some sort of title 9 political statement. The games need to sell themselves.
Don't be such a Debbie Downer, UNC4EVER! Here's the glass-is-half-full way to look at it: If greater parity develops then coaches will have to develop clever schemes, maximizing the use of their talent and really outfoxing their opponents. I'm sure there are several coaches known for their ability to employ clever strategies. How exciting it would be for coaches to actually think about how they can best use the talent at their disposal. Another glass-is-half-full way to look at it is that you basically have what you want: A few teams are able to recruit the majority of the best talent, thereby concentrating the best talent on only a handful of teams. I don't really see that changing. Some programs get hot and figure out how to attract talent and force their way into the soccer elite, but regime changes don't happen all that often.
I think it's more the former than the latter, which, if I'm right, should make you happy. It makes me happy too, because it means a chance to see really excellent women's soccer. (To put it in statistical terms, I don't think the quality of play will regress towards the mean. Rather, I think the mean will move towards excellence.) But also, women's soccer, in its own right, is a great game. I don't compare it to men's soccer or to anything else. It is what it is, which is a great game. I have lots of other sports opportunities, but give me a choice between one of them and a good women's soccer game and I'll take the soccer game every time.
Parity should bring the level of play up not down. What parity means is the top must get better to beat the average teams not drag down the top teams. Did you watch the WWC good soccer is starting to catch the athletic teams. How many on that Japanese roster would have been big time college recruits here in the states not many if any at all. As we get better coaching the top teams will have to be better and play better soccer to keep winning. Anson can see it just look at the top teams they try to play a more attractive style of soccer that puts a premium on technical skill and intelligence over pure raw athleticism. The days of give me an athlete I will turn them into a soccer player are over. Lets not get to excited the talent pool is still geared toward athleticism and athleticism can win you a lot of games quickly. So it will take a while to make that complete 180 degree turn but the shift has started at the top with Japan winning the WWC Stanford winning the college cup. I am for one excited to watch higher quality Women's soccer and I hope with all these college openings these AD's don't hire the same over the top style coaches and bring in some fresh young talent with an eye toward good soccer and the revolution will continue.
I didn't mean to be a Debbie Downer or suggest women's soccer is not a great game. I think we have two slightly different points going here. I would certainly agree that the women's game is vastly improved over what it was (say in the '90s), both nationally and internationally. I would go further and say there are more good players. If player talent in the '90s was a normal bell curve, I'd agree the whole distribution has shifted to the right, and the right tail is getting fatter. Seems we all pretty much agree on that. Schools come and go, and there has always been a subset that are "trendy". A decade ago a player who wanted to go to school in the NE might have played for U. Conn. Now that player might be more likely to go to BC and play in the ACC. Stanford, Wake, Duke, FSU are all now getting more popular with young players, as seen by their recruiting success. I don't think that is necessarily parity; that may be a redistribution of player talent. It would sadden me if a redistribution came at UNC's expense, but I note that several of the schools now in acendancy are private schools not subject to State budget woes, so it might happen . (I guess if UNC falls from favor, in time I could learn to get my soccer fix at Duke?) It seems to me that over the last decade there have been 10~15 schools that have been at the top of the heap nationally. Some schools have come or gone, but the number has been fairly constant. Among these, there has been a fair amount of "parity" among the top five programs in any given year, and reasonable "parity" among teams 6-15. Seems to me that "true parity" will arrive (as others have suggested) when there is not much separation between schools 1-20. If that could occur by bringing everyone up the the level of play in GA last weekend, I'd be all for it! However, if schools like UNC, ND, Portland, Stanford lose their popularity as soccer destinations and are not replaced by other schools able to concentrate the currently available talent, then that talent will be scattered among a large pool of programs and the quality of the best matches will decline accordingly. While I think the number of truly outstanding players is increasing, I don't think it is increasing (yet) at a rate fast enough to populate 15-20 really good programs playing at the level UNC, ND, and Stanford have reached this decade. While I would hate it should UNC decline as a national powerhouse, that would not necessarily imply parity. It might just mean the best players are no longer coming to Chapel Hill. On the other hand, if by parity you mean are there three or four other programs that can give defending Champion Stanford a run for the title next year, then I think we are there and have been for several years.
Great point! Volleyball would be a good sport to compare in that regard as far as if there are just a few teams constantly making the four (which without any researching knowledge I assume it's typically the same bunch every year in Penn State, Nebraska, Florida, etc. but I'd have to actually look it up and see). I'm not sure how many schools sponsor field hockey so I don't know if they would be a good comparison
I think the talent pool to be successful is different. Early on you could go out and recruit these great athletes and have a successful program. With the number of players playing and the quality of youth coaching getting better their really is no option but for the soccer to get better. Will UNC remain a contender yes if AD continues to coach he is a very good coach and will adjust. Will they win 20 more titles not likely. Recruiting the great athlete just wont cut it anymore the problem is the great player often gets lots in the sea of great athletes. You can find them but they are harder to recruit for and harder to coach for. The coaches have to be up to the soccer challenge also and have the background and soccer IQ to coach quality soccer.
A rising tide raises all boats! IMO, it is not just the quantity of the depth it is also the quality of the depth. For example (and these are just example numbers): 10 years ago: 20 - 5 STAR PLAYERS 50 - 4 STAR PLAYERS 100 - 3 STAR PLAYERS Today 40 - 5 STAR PLAYERS 100 - 4 STAR PLAYERS 175 - 3 STAR PLAYERS If this a reasonably accurate illustration of the talent depth then compound that over the 4 year college cycle. Even though that talent is now spread across over 30-40 teams instead of a 10-15, it is easy to spread the wealth. There will always be a handful of teams with a greater number of the top players who annually excel, but the gaps continue to close.
All it takes for a team to make a run is enough three star players that are actually four or five star players. Also easier to flop if your five star players turns out to be duds.
For many years womens soccer was dominated by larger than average women who were athletic as well as had some degree of soccer skill. As womens soccer has become much more widely played and watched at the younger levels the talent pool has grown. Many of the coaches who have been involved in the last 20 years have focused heavily on size over skill . With the Japanese win over the U.S. it has become apparent that size was not a factor but skill definitely was. The Japanese girls were not faster, or bigger, or more athletic but they were more skilled at creating a faster one touch ,two touch game that threaded the ball to the next intended player. Many of the international teams are now recruiting players and sizing them for specific spots with central defenders being larger, while outside defenders being quicker but smaller . Mids small to average size while forwards and attacking mids are a mix of who is more skilled. Because of the shift to skill rather than size the door is opened for more girls to play at the College level as well as pro level. The bigger the pool the greater the likelihood of increased parity. That shift started about 8-9 years ago at the younger levels and will continue as long as girls of all size have an opportunity to compete. If you exclude a player because of size the sport is doomed to stay put and not gain further interest. The broader the talent pool the better the competition. Coaches will have to are becoming more crafty in how they play the game. The College Cup proved that size does not win. Skill has become the dominant factor followed closely by soccer IQ.
Gee, fun with numbers! I'll play. I would think a 5 star player would play in the WUSA/WPS and maybe have a shot at the National Team? If you are saying there are that number of players in the women's college game, well maybe. If you are suggesting these as annual figures, well, we have different definitions of 5 star. Let me slightly reconfigure your numbers to fit my own bias: 10 years ago: 20 - 5 STAR PLAYERS 40 - 4 STAR PLAYERS 75 - 3 STAR PLAYERS Today 30 - 5 STAR PLAYERS 60 - 4 STAR PLAYERS 200 - 3 STAR PLAYERS As shown in the fanciful figure above )), the growth rate of Really Good players (50%) is progressing at a slower pace than the increase in pretty good players, which is expanding be leaps and bounds. The 135 players from the past decade would do a pretty good job of populating 8~10 good teams (some better than others). When you distribute the 290 players from today across 20 teams, you not only have more good teams, you have a slightly improved density of pretty good and really good players on the roster. The problem is that the mix of really good to pretty good players has declined from 60/135 to 90/290. I'm all for an additional ten teams moving from not so good to pretty doggon good. What I consider to be "the risk of parity" is that if the talent does not self-select for specific schools, quality players will get lost in the shuffle. An example is Hagen, who (with no disrespect to her team-mates) was a great player, but not enough to elevate her squad to a level remotely approaching what we saw in GA.
IMO, this is a weird post. I don't think its about parity? It almost sounds like its about soccer eugenics? . I think your premise is incorrect. Hamm, Milbrett, Lilly... there is a substantial list of players who are/were of average stature or smaller, who have had a huge impact on the women's game because they were excellent players. In contrast to the men's game, there are fewer excellent female players, and very few opportunities for women in soccer after college. Coaches and programs select for effectiveness, not size. A large,fast, nimble player is going to be more effective than a smaller, slower player, given that their skill sets and soccer IQ are identical. With so few opportunities, it should be no surprise that the women's game is skewed toward larger, fast players who are also very skilled and smart. With regard to the WWC, really? I thought and still think that was our game to win or lose. We lost it cause we didn't show up. Sometimes that happens in soccer. But I think it is very odd to suggest that we should be taking notes on how to play the game from the Japanese? We had a bad day, and it cost us the WWC.