There are several problems with our rankings at this point in the season including teams having played very different number of games, the starting number of points for each team in 2019 picks up where we left off in 2018 and 2019 isn’t 2018, tabulating strength of schedule with so few games, and more. Bottomline, our system’s good especially because we have good adjusters and, currently, these adjusters aren’t optimal. e.g. If we normalize the number of games played for each team so UMD doesn’t have an advantage because they played 5 games while others, including Towson with 4, played less games, then Towson is #1. Which seems more than deserving for Towson. I won’t torture you with the details but we need more games to implement this normalization.
With this said, when we get more games under our belt, we’ll be in much better shape and… There’ll still be valid differences. Where there’s always going to be a discrepancy is how we rate the teams pre-season. You can have equality in that all the teams start at the same starting line but you can’t have the equality of beating NJIT is equal to beating Maryland. Pre-season, you have to set values for each time and then run the system. But that initial ranking means something. For obvious reasons, it’s easier to set the pre-season rankings at the end of the season but two games in is less easy. (e.g. Recently, someone was flabbergasted by a team having a higher rating than a perennial power. But if you look at last season, it’s 100% valid to rank them higher than the perennial.)
Hopefully, in the near future, we’ll set up the system online so each individual can set their own pre-season ranking (and then change it when necessary) and then let the system do what it does. i.e. Better to have our irrationalities and prejudices in our pre-season rankings and then let a rational system do it’s job than have our irrationalities directly connected to our actual rankings. Anyway… We’ll get there.
