Polls, rankings and ratings They're fun to watch, debate, compare and criticise. Often they're crazy, especially the polls. I hope the Jones ratings come out soon. There are a couple of good examples of what's wrong with polls in the first couple of weeks of the season. (there are always examples, but these are really obvious) Look at the NSCAA poll. Santa Clara is back up to #3 (from #14 last week). I'd argue that they should never have fallen to #14 in the first place (on the basis of a single loss) But that's what polls do - they over-react to the most recent result. One big advantage of the Jones rating is that it doesn't do that. If you want another example of something crazy, look at Emory in the DIII poll. Last week, if you recall, Emory jumped from #23 to #6 by virture of beating #14. Check out where they are this week - they're unranked!! LMAO As I said last week, it was nuts to have Emory at #6, in light of the fact that they lost quite a few of their best players to graduation. One argument in favor of polls (as opposed to a computer rating) is that, in theory, a poll can take things like graduation or injury in to account while the Jones ratings can't. But, in practice, the polls stink at taking such things in to account. It just doesn't happen, quite simply because the voters aren't well enough informed. That's an excellent point. And I agree, although I might move some of the dividing lines between the groups a little. (the divisions might move a little with time) I'd probably draw the line between the 3rd and 4th group higher than #25. I'd also point out that group #4 is a huge group so that, even though the teams are tightly bunched, there's a big difference between the top of the group and the bottom. In past seasons I've graphed the Jones ratings. (It's an interesting exercise, especially when you graph all three divisions.) What the DI graph shows is pretty much what you describe. The curve is quite flat from about #20, all the way out to about #200. Of course, #20 is a much better team than #200, but there's not much difference between #20 and #40 (or #200 and #220). The curve is very steep at the top. You really don't need a graph to tell you that - the graph simply confirms it. There's more difference between #1 and #5 than there is between #20 and #50. (I wrote that without checking - having checked, using last year's final ratings, that is literally true) So yea, once you get past the top 15 or 20 teams, there's a lot of parity. At the top, parity is hard to come by. The number of teams that are consistently on the same level as UNC is very small. (I'm thinking of a number less than 1) The number of teams that are competitive with UNC is a slightly larger number, but the top teams are huge favorites when the play any of the teams in the 'pack'. And, as David points out, there's hardly such a thing as an upset within the 'pack'. There is a ton of parity once you get past the top 15 or 20 teams. As someone once told me regarding teams below the top 20: "There's no choosing between them. Those teams are all the same." - not entirely true, but the point is well taken.
Sooo, if a young player has a scholarship offer from a team ranked 22 and from one ranked 192, she should make her visits and decide which school appeals to her more, rather than which coach and team?
Albyn Jones is out! The Jones power rating are available--thank you very much. Top 5: North Carolina Santa Clara Stanford UCLA Portland This look to be the truest of the rankings so far. We'll see after today. www.soccerratings.com/W02D1.html
Jones's ratings Hooray! Good eye, MoHeelFan. Thanks for posting this. I just had to put it to use to figure out our (UNC's) match today with Texas. Since there's a difference of over 300 points between us, I believe AJ would agree with me that Texas has one chance in 8 of defeating us today. Is that how you all read it? By the way, his explanation is not immediately accessible from the tables. Here is the site for the explanation of his system. Link
Rankings for Sept. 16: NSCAA: 1 North Carolina 2 Stanford 3 UCLA 4 Texas 5 California 6 Portland 7 Notre Dame 8 Wake Forest 9 Texas A&M 10 Santa Clara 10 Nebraska Soccer America: 1 North Carolina 2 Stanford 3 Texas 4 UCLA 5 Portland 6 California 7 Santa Clara 8 Texas A&M 9 Notre Dame 10 Penn State
Ok, it's official, the NSCAA poll is a joke just like all the others! Nebraska gets pounded by Portland 4-0, but they move up 5 spots to a tie for 10th. Santa Clara loses by 1 goal to the #7 team and they fall 7 spots to 10th? What is that all about? West Virginia goes from unranked to #11, yet the team they lost to, Auburn, is undefeated and not ranked? That is some wacky stuff going on. Just doesn't make much sense to me.
Sept 16 Rankings Results seem to be full of contradictions this year. If it came down to playoffs right now I could see the top 3 teams coming through. Also think Portland would be in there as long as Sinclair was in the game. The rest are close...can't justify ranking amongst them. As for the rest of the rankings further down the list...who knows? 1 North Carolina 2 Stanford 3 Texas 4 Portland 5 Santa Clara 5 UCLA 5 Texas A&M 5 California
Soccer Times - Sept. 16 Code: [font=courier]1 North Carolina (11) 5-0-1 395 1 2 Stanford (5) 4-0-0 389 2 3 UCLA 4-1-0 360 4 4 Portland 5-2-0 329 7 5 California 4-1-1 324 9 6 Santa Clara 3-2-0 315 3 7 Texas 3-2-0 307 6 8 Penn State 3-1-1 277 5 9 Notre Dame 4-2-0 245 15 10 Texas A&M 3-3-0 209 13 [/font]
Soccerbuzz Rankings Sept 16 1 North Carolina 2 Stanford 3 UCLA 4 California 5 Texas 6 Penn State 7 Portland 8 Santa Clara 9 Auburn 10 Wake Forest 11 Michigan 12 Notre Dame 13 Pepperdine 14 West Virginia 15 Duke 16 Virginia 17 Texas A&M 18 Connecticut 19 Tennessee 20 Purdue 21 Boston College 22 Washington 23 Princeton 24 Florida 25 Nebraska
NSCAA/adidas National Rankings 2002 NCAA Division I Women September 23, 2002 Code: [font=courier]1 North Carolina 7-0-1 1 2 Stanford 6-0-0 2 3 UCLA 6-1-0 3 4 Texas 5-2-0 4 5 California 5-1-1 5 6 Portland 7-2-0 6 7 Wake Forest 8-0-0 8 8 Texas A&M 5-3-0 9 9 Notre Dame 6-2-0 7 10 West Virginia 7-1-0 11 [/font] NSCAA/adidas National Rankings September 23, 2002 2002 NCAA Division II Women Code: [font=courier]1 Northern Kentucky 8-0-0 1 2 UC San Diego 6-0-0 2 3 Franklin Pierce (N.H.) 6-0-0 3 4 Christian Brothers (TN) 4-1-0 4 5 Nebraska, Omaha 7-0-0 7 6 Barry (Fla.) 6-0-0 8 7 Adelphi (N.Y.) 6-0-0 10 8 Presbyterian (S.C.) 6-0-0 15 9 Central Oklahoma 8-0-0 16 10 UC Davis 6-0-1 11 [/font]
Again, the NSCAA baffles me. Florida goes on the road, loses to the #2 team and ties Santa Clara(who was #10) and they fall out of the top 25, after being 16 last week. Ok, fine, but they went from 4th in the southeast region to out of the top 10! Sure, they are 3-4-1, but find me a team that has played a tougher schedule than they have through 8 games? Can't do it. To drop them out of the top 10 in the southeast behind teams like Auburn(who lost to Rhode Island and only dropped 1 spot), South Carolina, Miami and Alabama is just absolutely ludicrous. Granted, I'm a biased Gator fan, but even a casual observer can tell that it's just plain stupid to drop a team 7+ spots in the regional poll for playing tough teams. If they played the fluff schedules half the country plays, they'd prob. be undefeated, but what good does that do? They should be rewarded for playing top competition, and I know they will when it comes selection time, but I just don't understand the polls and what goes on with the coaches when coming up with the top 25. So, can someone explain to me what the pollsters were thinking? Soccer Times and Soccer America, two polls I used to laugh at, are actually making some sense. Florida dropped 2 spots in the Soccer Times poll from 19 to 21 and moved up 2 spots in the Soccer America poll to 22. I think that is about where Florida should be ranked about now. It just baffles me that they aren't even ranked in the top 10 in the Southeast. IMO, they should be #3 in the SE right now, behind Carolina and Wake(of course Wake hasn't really played anyone), in fact, no one ahead of Florida, save for maybe Auburn(who beat W.Va) has played and beaten anyone good out of conference. Oh well, ok, I'm done ranting now.
Soccer America Top 25 (Sept. 23) Code: [font=courier]1 North Carolina (7-0-1) 1 2 Stanford (6-0-0) 2 3 Texas (5-2-0) 3 4 UCLA (6-1-0) 4 5 Portland (7-2-0) 4 6 California (5-1-1) 6 7 Texas A&M (5-3-0) 8 8 Penn State (5-1-1) 10 9 Wake Forest (8-0-0) 15 10 Santa Clara (4-2-1) 7 [/font]
Florida Ranking - NSCAA I root for another team...no bias for/against Florida. I also have a hard time figuring out the negative bias of NSCAA towards Florida....seems blatant. Beat Nebraska and Connecticut Tied Santa Clara Lost to Michigan and Duke So far, even record against top 25 ranked teams Lost to Stanford....so did Santa Clara, Texas A&M and Texas. Must be the early loss to Cincinnati...that alone must account for dropping out of the top 25. Yeah right.
NSCAA/adidas National Rankings NCAA Division III Women September 23, 2002 Code: [font=courier]1 Ohio Wesleyan 8-0-0 1 2 TCNJ 7-0-0 3 3 WI, Stevens Pt 6-0-1 4 4 Trinity (TX) 6-1-0 6 5 Nazareth (NY) 7-0-1 5 6 Wheaton (MA) 6-1-0 7 7 Puget Sound (WA) 3-1-0 10 8 Wheaton (IL) 5-0-2 8 9 Messiah (PA) 7-0-0 11 10 Willamette (OR) 4-1-0 2 [/font] A fairly large drop in the poll for Willamette, based on losing in overtime to UC-Santa Cruz. UC-Santa Cruz is once again natioally ranked (at #25). Interestingly, the Banana Slugs lost 0-2 last week to the definding NAIA champion, Westmont.
I know. It seems that if a team plays a tough schedule and loses close games to top teams--or ties them -then they should be considered fairly close to those teams in the rankings. And in the real world they probably are of the same caliber. Instead tho' they get dumped while teams that play weak teams and keep decent records get ranked (Alabama, South Carolina and Auburn to name a few). Let's face it--I don't think there are too many teams UF couldn't take on and beat. Look at Stanford--I admit I'm biased--but why not give them a #1. I think they've earned it--as of this week. Let's look forward to the SEC season--some of these teams ranked in the southeast better watch their backs when they play UF. I'm still putting my $$ on Georgia also--they're a H*E*L*L of a lot better than their record shows.
Albyn Jones update Here is the latest results from Albyn Jones: http://www.soccerratings.com/W02D1.html
NSCAA/adidas NCAA Division I Women - National September 30, 2002 Code: [font=courier]1 Stanford 8-0-0 2 2 North Carolina 8-0-2 1 3 UCLA 4-3-2 3 4 Texas 6-2-1 4 5 Portland 8-2-1 6 6 California 6-2-1 5 7 Wake Forest 9-0-1 7 8 Texas A&M 7-3-0 8 9 West Virginia 9-1-0 10 10 Connecticut 8-1-1 12 [/font] Stanford is #1, and Notre Dame is unranked (following losses to Villanova and Georgetown - ouch!)
Soccer America Rankings: 1 Stanford (8-0-0) 2 2 North Carolina (8-0-2) 1 3 UCLA (7-1-0) 4 4 Portland (8-2-1) 5 5 Texas (6-2-0) 3 6 Texas A&M (7-3-0) 7 7 Penn State (7-1-1) 8 8 Santa Clara (6-2-1) 10 9 West Virginia (9-1-0) 6 10 California (6-2-1) 6
Combination Rankings Combination of all 4 Ranking Systems (NSCAA, Soccer America, Soccer Times, Soccer Buzz) Rank NCAA - DIV I 1 Stanford University 2 University of North Carolina 3 UCLA 4 University of Portland 5 University of Texas 6 University of California, Berkeley 7 Wake Forest University 7 Santa Clara University 7 Penn State University 8 Texas A&M University 8 West Virginia University 9 University of Connecticut 10 Pepperdine University 11 University of Washington 12 University of Michigan 13 Princeton University 14 Tennessee 15 Marquette University 16 University of Nebraska 17 Florida State University 18 Charlotte 19 Arizona State 20 Virginia 20 Southern California 21 University of Denver 22 Purdue University 23 Notre Dame 24 Clemson University 25 Villanova
03 Oct Albin-Jones Ratings Albin-Jones Top 10 as of 10-30-02 NCU Stanford UCLA Portland SCU PSU A&M Conn Cal NDU http://www.soccerratings.com/W02D1.html
Can't be Serious Albin Jones rankings are seriously out of synch with the real world. Texas is way too far down. TAM, Notre Dame, Clemson and Nebraska too far up.
Rankings for Oct. 7. NSCAA: 1 North Carolina 10-0-2 2 2 Stanford 9-1-0 1 3 Texas 8-2-1 4 4 Portland 10-2-1 5 5 California 7-2-1 6 6 Texas A&M 9-3-0 8 7 Wake Forest 10-1-1 7 8 Connecticut 10-1-1 10 9 Michigan 10-2-0 13 10 Santa Clara 7-3-1 11 Soccer America: 1 North Carolina (10-0-2) 2 2 Stanford (9-1-0) 1 3 Portland (10-2-1) 4 4 Texas (8-2-1) 5 5 UCLA (8-2-0) 3 6 Texas A&M (9-3-0) 6 7 California (7-2-1) 10 8 Santa Clara (7-3-1) 8 9 Connecticut (10-1-1) 11 10 Wake Forest (10-1-1) 13