2024 top 20

[Chousnake]

I just can not understand this logic. There is a huge difference between losing to ND by 1 and beating BU by 1. Rankings are all about relative performance. Ignoring that is just wrong

Yeah, the "huge difference" is that one is a win and one is a loss.

Simple view. Try answering this scenario.
Team A loses to ND in OT
Team B beats BU in OT..
Team A plays Team B next week. what’s your line?

Do you really think Team A is worse than Team B?

First, its never as simple as evaluating one game versus one other when making a poll.

Second, as a rough measure, any team in the top 30 (lets use RPI despite its flaws) is capable of losing by 1 to any team in the top 10 on a given game day.

Third, good teams find a way to still win despite a bad day or extenuating circumstances. And beating a team in the top 20 (BU) on any given day is not easy for any team.

Losses can never be a positive. They can only be more or less of a negative. Given other data points, I might not take anything away from a team for losing to ND in OT, but it wouldn't add to their resume. They need to prove themselves through wins.

figured you wouldnt answer the question. Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isnt going to play either to a goal. Nobody has said losses were a positive, merely that you need to judge every performance for what it was. Its impressive to take a top 3 team in the country to OT. It gives you a glimpse to the ceiling of the team. Beating a middle of the pack team in OT, doesnt tell you much. Beating them by 10 actually may give you some insight. MOV is important.

Your question is irrelevant because we are talking about ranking teams in a poll, not gambling. If I had to rank those two teams in your scenario, and I had no other data, I would rank team B above team A.

Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isn't going to play either to a goal.

This is good-ole boys logic, that sets certain teams apart based on history and tradition and not results. We can't know how Quinnipiac will do until they play those teams. 1-7 Brown lost to then #3 Maryland by 1. Unranked Colgate beat Penn State. Unranked Georgtown beat Notre Dame. Top 20 Penn beat Duke.

Nobody has said losses were a positive

You did, in your scenario.


Losses are not irrelevant. They are useful to evaluate after you evaluate the strength of wins. But losses should be evaluated against another teams losses. Never against another teams wins, IMO.

No, i did not. I stated it is a data point for performance. This is you throwing up a strawman fallacy. If you you just answered my original question, I doubt we would still be discussing this

Strawman? Your scenario. One team lost, the other team won. You said the team that lost is better than the team that won. How is that not using a loss as a positive?

It does not mean the loss was good. It simply judges the performance of both teams on that day. Based on your refusal to answer the scenario, I am guessing you agree.

Read again. I answered your scenario as it relates to this conversation. I'm not a betting person. Betting wouldn't exist if it wasn't easy to lose.

And yes, you are judging the performance of both teams on that day. And you are judging the loss as better than the win. Are we now talking about the semantics of "good"?

Betting and ranking are essentially the same thing. Vegas has some of the best models out there. Not the semantics of good. Its about relative performance. Generally speaking it takes a better performance to take the #1 team to OT and lose, than to take the #20 to team to OT and win. I dont think that is controversial statement. It is just logical. (we can come up with injuries and conditions that can mitigate that, but it holds true on the majority of games)

Beting and ranking are not the same thing. Betting odds/lines are set by betting houses in an attempt to entice the public to bet an equal amount on each team. That assures the betting house makes money with the 11-10 vig on each bet. Therefore, the lines/odds are based on public perception of each team, not the actual chances one team or another has to win the game. Rankings are subjective listings of teams in order of best to worst (polls) or a list of best to worst based on some formula.

Your advocacy of giving credit for good losses over wins is the system that lax used until recently that gave an unfair advantage when awarding bids and seedings to ACC teams and Hopkins. Under that system, you could almost predict bids based on the schedule. I won't list them here, but it resulted in numerous undeserved bids and some absurd seeding in the 2000s and early to mid 2010s. It was thankfully and deservedly done away with a few years ago. I know many ACC and B10 fan boys want to go back to this, but I don't see it happening.

[Farfromgeneva]

I just can not understand this logic. There is a huge difference between losing to ND by 1 and beating BU by 1. Rankings are all about relative performance. Ignoring that is just wrong

Yeah, the "huge difference" is that one is a win and one is a loss.

Simple view. Try answering this scenario.
Team A loses to ND in OT
Team B beats BU in OT..
Team A plays Team B next week. what’s your line?

Do you really think Team A is worse than Team B?

First, its never as simple as evaluating one game versus one other when making a poll.

Second, as a rough measure, any team in the top 30 (lets use RPI despite its flaws) is capable of losing by 1 to any team in the top 10 on a given game day.

Third, good teams find a way to still win despite a bad day or extenuating circumstances. And beating a team in the top 20 (BU) on any given day is not easy for any team.

Losses can never be a positive. They can only be more or less of a negative. Given other data points, I might not take anything away from a team for losing to ND in OT, but it wouldn't add to their resume. They need to prove themselves through wins.

figured you wouldnt answer the question. Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isnt going to play either to a goal. Nobody has said losses were a positive, merely that you need to judge every performance for what it was. Its impressive to take a top 3 team in the country to OT. It gives you a glimpse to the ceiling of the team. Beating a middle of the pack team in OT, doesnt tell you much. Beating them by 10 actually may give you some insight. MOV is important.

Your question is irrelevant because we are talking about ranking teams in a poll, not gambling. If I had to rank those two teams in your scenario, and I had no other data, I would rank team B above team A.

Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isn't going to play either to a goal.

This is good-ole boys logic, that sets certain teams apart based on history and tradition and not results. We can't know how Quinnipiac will do until they play those teams. 1-7 Brown lost to then #3 Maryland by 1. Unranked Colgate beat Penn State. Unranked Georgtown beat Notre Dame. Top 20 Penn beat Duke.

Nobody has said losses were a positive

You did, in your scenario.


Losses are not irrelevant. They are useful to evaluate after you evaluate the strength of wins. But losses should be evaluated against another teams losses. Never against another teams wins, IMO.

No, i did not. I stated it is a data point for performance. This is you throwing up a strawman fallacy. If you you just answered my original question, I doubt we would still be discussing this

Strawman? Your scenario. One team lost, the other team won. You said the team that lost is better than the team that won. How is that not using a loss as a positive?

It does not mean the loss was good. It simply judges the performance of both teams on that day. Based on your refusal to answer the scenario, I am guessing you agree.

Read again. I answered your scenario as it relates to this conversation. I'm not a betting person. Betting wouldn't exist if it wasn't easy to lose.

And yes, you are judging the performance of both teams on that day. And you are judging the loss as better than the win. Are we now talking about the semantics of "good"?

Betting and ranking are essentially the same thing. Vegas has some of the best models out there. Not the semantics of good. Its about relative performance. Generally speaking it takes a better performance to take the #1 team to OT and lose, than to take the #20 to team to OT and win. I dont think that is controversial statement. It is just logical. (we can come up with injuries and conditions that can mitigate that, but it holds true on the majority of games)

Beting and ranking are not the same thing. Betting odds/lines are set by betting houses in an attempt to entice the public to bet an equal amount on each team. That assures the betting house makes money with the 11-10 vig on each bet. Therefore, the lines/odds are based on public perception of each team, not the actual chances one team or another has to win the game. Rankings are subjective listings of teams in order of best to worst (polls) or a list of best to worst based on some formula.

Your advocacy of giving credit for good losses over wins is the system that lax used until recently that gave an unfair advantage when awarding bids and seedings to ACC teams and Hopkins. Under that system, you could almost predict bids based on the schedule. I won't list them here, but it resulted in numerous undeserved bids and some absurd seeding in the 2000s and early to mid 2010s. It was thankfully and deservedly done away with a few years ago. I know many ACC and B10 fan boys want to go back to this, but I don't see it happening.

I think and maybe I’m wrong and certainly don’t need to speak for coda but…

I think his initial point wasn’t actually necessarily about conflating the two system concepts (betting/ranking) rather that a good model would
Incorporate some Margin to victory variable input that when iterated with the ranking system even based on pure W/L is superior and therefor there is value in using the scores of games as a way of improving a ranking system. But it reductively migrated to this “judging quality of losses” framing for debate, losing the initial point of contention which was more about whether anything matters beyond W/L in creating a ranking system.

Or in way off base…

[Ezra White]

Cornell at 5 is laughable

Quint has 'em at 6 and IL at 7. Maybe it's your opinion that's "laughable."

GBR
He is welcome to his opinion, BUT when you beat the #1 RPI team, have the #2 SOS, and are #6 RPI, I don't think my ranking them #5 is complete homerism.

I think Quints and the IL rankings kind of proved that.

Penn, Cuse, and ND next 3. I would think that are SOS would go to #1 after this gauntlet.

Gobigred
Joewillie78

Cornell is 10th in SOS. https://lacrossereference.com/stats/str ... le-d1-men/

I'm not sure what metric this is as when you type in Laxreference Rpi, it shows a chart that has Cornell #6 RPI and #2 SOS. Is this a different metric?

Gobigred
Joewillie78

Examining the table, it appears to be sorted in decreasing order by LaxRef SOS. This is how Cornell comes out #10. But the table is poorly documented. We don't know exactly how LaxRef SOS is calculated, or the other metrics for that matter. There are 3 SOS rankings plus NCAA Rank. The three SOS rankings seem to be correlated, but not identical.

[coda]

I just can not understand this logic. There is a huge difference between losing to ND by 1 and beating BU by 1. Rankings are all about relative performance. Ignoring that is just wrong

Yeah, the "huge difference" is that one is a win and one is a loss.

Simple view. Try answering this scenario.
Team A loses to ND in OT
Team B beats BU in OT..
Team A plays Team B next week. what’s your line?

Do you really think Team A is worse than Team B?

First, its never as simple as evaluating one game versus one other when making a poll.

Second, as a rough measure, any team in the top 30 (lets use RPI despite its flaws) is capable of losing by 1 to any team in the top 10 on a given game day.

Third, good teams find a way to still win despite a bad day or extenuating circumstances. And beating a team in the top 20 (BU) on any given day is not easy for any team.

Losses can never be a positive. They can only be more or less of a negative. Given other data points, I might not take anything away from a team for losing to ND in OT, but it wouldn't add to their resume. They need to prove themselves through wins.

figured you wouldnt answer the question. Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isnt going to play either to a goal. Nobody has said losses were a positive, merely that you need to judge every performance for what it was. Its impressive to take a top 3 team in the country to OT. It gives you a glimpse to the ceiling of the team. Beating a middle of the pack team in OT, doesnt tell you much. Beating them by 10 actually may give you some insight. MOV is important.

Your question is irrelevant because we are talking about ranking teams in a poll, not gambling. If I had to rank those two teams in your scenario, and I had no other data, I would rank team B above team A.

Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isn't going to play either to a goal.

This is good-ole boys logic, that sets certain teams apart based on history and tradition and not results. We can't know how Quinnipiac will do until they play those teams. 1-7 Brown lost to then #3 Maryland by 1. Unranked Colgate beat Penn State. Unranked Georgtown beat Notre Dame. Top 20 Penn beat Duke.

Nobody has said losses were a positive

You did, in your scenario.


Losses are not irrelevant. They are useful to evaluate after you evaluate the strength of wins. But losses should be evaluated against another teams losses. Never against another teams wins, IMO.

No, i did not. I stated it is a data point for performance. This is you throwing up a strawman fallacy. If you you just answered my original question, I doubt we would still be discussing this

Strawman? Your scenario. One team lost, the other team won. You said the team that lost is better than the team that won. How is that not using a loss as a positive?

It does not mean the loss was good. It simply judges the performance of both teams on that day. Based on your refusal to answer the scenario, I am guessing you agree.

Read again. I answered your scenario as it relates to this conversation. I'm not a betting person. Betting wouldn't exist if it wasn't easy to lose.

And yes, you are judging the performance of both teams on that day. And you are judging the loss as better than the win. Are we now talking about the semantics of "good"?

Betting and ranking are essentially the same thing. Vegas has some of the best models out there. Not the semantics of good. Its about relative performance. Generally speaking it takes a better performance to take the #1 team to OT and lose, than to take the #20 to team to OT and win. I dont think that is controversial statement. It is just logical. (we can come up with injuries and conditions that can mitigate that, but it holds true on the majority of games)

Beting and ranking are not the same thing. Betting odds/lines are set by betting houses in an attempt to entice the public to bet an equal amount on each team. That assures the betting house makes money with the 11-10 vig on each bet. Therefore, the lines/odds are based on public perception of each team, not the actual chances one team or another has to win the game. Rankings are subjective listings of teams in order of best to worst (polls) or a list of best to worst based on some formula.

Your advocacy of giving credit for good losses over wins is the system that lax used until recently that gave an unfair advantage when awarding bids and seedings to ACC teams and Hopkins. Under that system, you could almost predict bids based on the schedule. I won't list them here, but it resulted in numerous undeserved bids and some absurd seeding in the 2000s and early to mid 2010s. It was thankfully and deservedly done away with a few years ago. I know many ACC and B10 fan boys want to go back to this, but I don't see it happening.

Betting and ranking are the same. Betting is no different than the stock market. They try to find the middle ground of opinions, though they occasionally take positions on their own. They set lines with models and some strategic calls.

There is no unfair advantage. It gives an advantage to programs that schedule. It is simply logical. You rank the wins and the losses. Makes no sense to ignore losses, as I have been over.

[OCanada]

Betting can also fluid as the spreads are adjusted to react to events and hedge risk tes?

You had me until you used betting and hedging int he same sentence. Unless your in prime brokerage sales…

My bad

[OCanada]

I will be surprised if the selection criteria is not changed in the not too distant future to a multi-factor formula that encourages a strong schedule, scoring margins, other records like the .500 mark, conference title winners etc

[coda]

I will be surprised if the selection criteria is not changed in the not too distant future to a multi-factor formula that encourages a strong schedule, scoring margins, other records like the .500 mark, conference title winners etc

The funny thing about models is that college has traditional opposed anything that involved a scoring margin, based on the idea that would encourage teams to run it up. Taking that out tends to limit the value of models.

[a fan]

I just can not understand this logic. There is a huge difference between losing to ND by 1 and beating BU by 1. Rankings are all about relative performance. Ignoring that is just wrong

Yeah, the "huge difference" is that one is a win and one is a loss.

Simple view. Try answering this scenario.
Team A loses to ND in OT
Team B beats BU in OT..
Team A plays Team B next week. what’s your line?

Do you really think Team A is worse than Team B?

First, its never as simple as evaluating one game versus one other when making a poll.

Second, as a rough measure, any team in the top 30 (lets use RPI despite its flaws) is capable of losing by 1 to any team in the top 10 on a given game day.

Third, good teams find a way to still win despite a bad day or extenuating circumstances. And beating a team in the top 20 (BU) on any given day is not easy for any team.

Losses can never be a positive. They can only be more or less of a negative. Given other data points, I might not take anything away from a team for losing to ND in OT, but it wouldn't add to their resume. They need to prove themselves through wins.

figured you wouldnt answer the question. Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isnt going to play either to a goal. Nobody has said losses were a positive, merely that you need to judge every performance for what it was. Its impressive to take a top 3 team in the country to OT. It gives you a glimpse to the ceiling of the team. Beating a middle of the pack team in OT, doesnt tell you much. Beating them by 10 actually may give you some insight. MOV is important.

Your question is irrelevant because we are talking about ranking teams in a poll, not gambling. If I had to rank those two teams in your scenario, and I had no other data, I would rank team B above team A.

Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isn't going to play either to a goal.

This is good-ole boys logic, that sets certain teams apart based on history and tradition and not results. We can't know how Quinnipiac will do until they play those teams. 1-7 Brown lost to then #3 Maryland by 1. Unranked Colgate beat Penn State. Unranked Georgtown beat Notre Dame. Top 20 Penn beat Duke.

Nobody has said losses were a positive

You did, in your scenario.


Losses are not irrelevant. They are useful to evaluate after you evaluate the strength of wins. But losses should be evaluated against another teams losses. Never against another teams wins, IMO.

No, i did not. I stated it is a data point for performance. This is you throwing up a strawman fallacy. If you you just answered my original question, I doubt we would still be discussing this

Strawman? Your scenario. One team lost, the other team won. You said the team that lost is better than the team that won. How is that not using a loss as a positive?

It does not mean the loss was good. It simply judges the performance of both teams on that day. Based on your refusal to answer the scenario, I am guessing you agree.

Read again. I answered your scenario as it relates to this conversation. I'm not a betting person. Betting wouldn't exist if it wasn't easy to lose.

And yes, you are judging the performance of both teams on that day. And you are judging the loss as better than the win. Are we now talking about the semantics of "good"?

Betting and ranking are essentially the same thing. Vegas has some of the best models out there. Not the semantics of good. Its about relative performance. Generally speaking it takes a better performance to take the #1 team to OT and lose, than to take the #20 to team to OT and win. I dont think that is controversial statement. It is just logical. (we can come up with injuries and conditions that can mitigate that, but it holds true on the majority of games)

Beting and ranking are not the same thing. Betting odds/lines are set by betting houses in an attempt to entice the public to bet an equal amount on each team. That assures the betting house makes money with the 11-10 vig on each bet. Therefore, the lines/odds are based on public perception of each team, not the actual chances one team or another has to win the game. Rankings are subjective listings of teams in order of best to worst (polls) or a list of best to worst based on some formula.

Your advocacy of giving credit for good losses over wins is the system that lax used until recently that gave an unfair advantage when awarding bids and seedings to ACC teams and Hopkins. Under that system, you could almost predict bids based on the schedule. I won't list them here, but it resulted in numerous undeserved bids and some absurd seeding in the 2000s and early to mid 2010s. It was thankfully and deservedly done away with a few years ago. I know many ACC and B10 fan boys want to go back to this, but I don't see it happening.

Betting and ranking are the same. Betting is no different than the stock market. They try to find the middle ground of opinions, though they occasionally take positions on their own. They set lines with models and some strategic calls.

There is no unfair advantage. It gives an advantage to programs that schedule. It is simply logical. You rank the wins and the losses. Makes no sense to ignore losses, as I have been over.

Disagree. Ranking losses take the power away from the players playing the game, and hands it to the schedule-maker.

And ignoring losses has the logic benefit of mirroring how the Tournament works: do teams advance from a "good loss"? Of course not.

So why should we reward teams that schedule, and lose to, good/great teams, while punishing those who, instead, schedule a team they beat?

If all you do is look at Qw's (rankings defined in any way you choose....Coaches Poll, media poll, a combination of polls), now you are rewarding winning, and ignoring losses. Who cares if you put a team on a schedule, and lost to them?

The Ranking of teams is where you get what you are looking for: a Human hand that uses whatever metric a pollster (including looking at "good" losses) wants to define who is #1 and who is #20. Suddenly, except for in rare events, picking the NCAA field because really simple.

This discussion is all in fun, because what I know to be 100% certain, is that our sport will NEVER use the above method of mine. But I have never understood why Americans like to rank losses in an effort to give teams that lost games unearned credit. It's what puts you on the merry go round, imho.

[coda]

I just can not understand this logic. There is a huge difference between losing to ND by 1 and beating BU by 1. Rankings are all about relative performance. Ignoring that is just wrong

Yeah, the "huge difference" is that one is a win and one is a loss.

Simple view. Try answering this scenario.
Team A loses to ND in OT
Team B beats BU in OT..
Team A plays Team B next week. what’s your line?

Do you really think Team A is worse than Team B?

First, its never as simple as evaluating one game versus one other when making a poll.

Second, as a rough measure, any team in the top 30 (lets use RPI despite its flaws) is capable of losing by 1 to any team in the top 10 on a given game day.

Third, good teams find a way to still win despite a bad day or extenuating circumstances. And beating a team in the top 20 (BU) on any given day is not easy for any team.

Losses can never be a positive. They can only be more or less of a negative. Given other data points, I might not take anything away from a team for losing to ND in OT, but it wouldn't add to their resume. They need to prove themselves through wins.

figured you wouldnt answer the question. Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isnt going to play either to a goal. Nobody has said losses were a positive, merely that you need to judge every performance for what it was. Its impressive to take a top 3 team in the country to OT. It gives you a glimpse to the ceiling of the team. Beating a middle of the pack team in OT, doesnt tell you much. Beating them by 10 actually may give you some insight. MOV is important.

Your question is irrelevant because we are talking about ranking teams in a poll, not gambling. If I had to rank those two teams in your scenario, and I had no other data, I would rank team B above team A.

Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isn't going to play either to a goal.

This is good-ole boys logic, that sets certain teams apart based on history and tradition and not results. We can't know how Quinnipiac will do until they play those teams. 1-7 Brown lost to then #3 Maryland by 1. Unranked Colgate beat Penn State. Unranked Georgtown beat Notre Dame. Top 20 Penn beat Duke.

Nobody has said losses were a positive

You did, in your scenario.


Losses are not irrelevant. They are useful to evaluate after you evaluate the strength of wins. But losses should be evaluated against another teams losses. Never against another teams wins, IMO.

No, i did not. I stated it is a data point for performance. This is you throwing up a strawman fallacy. If you you just answered my original question, I doubt we would still be discussing this

Strawman? Your scenario. One team lost, the other team won. You said the team that lost is better than the team that won. How is that not using a loss as a positive?

It does not mean the loss was good. It simply judges the performance of both teams on that day. Based on your refusal to answer the scenario, I am guessing you agree.

Read again. I answered your scenario as it relates to this conversation. I'm not a betting person. Betting wouldn't exist if it wasn't easy to lose.

And yes, you are judging the performance of both teams on that day. And you are judging the loss as better than the win. Are we now talking about the semantics of "good"?

Betting and ranking are essentially the same thing. Vegas has some of the best models out there. Not the semantics of good. Its about relative performance. Generally speaking it takes a better performance to take the #1 team to OT and lose, than to take the #20 to team to OT and win. I dont think that is controversial statement. It is just logical. (we can come up with injuries and conditions that can mitigate that, but it holds true on the majority of games)

Beting and ranking are not the same thing. Betting odds/lines are set by betting houses in an attempt to entice the public to bet an equal amount on each team. That assures the betting house makes money with the 11-10 vig on each bet. Therefore, the lines/odds are based on public perception of each team, not the actual chances one team or another has to win the game. Rankings are subjective listings of teams in order of best to worst (polls) or a list of best to worst based on some formula.

Your advocacy of giving credit for good losses over wins is the system that lax used until recently that gave an unfair advantage when awarding bids and seedings to ACC teams and Hopkins. Under that system, you could almost predict bids based on the schedule. I won't list them here, but it resulted in numerous undeserved bids and some absurd seeding in the 2000s and early to mid 2010s. It was thankfully and deservedly done away with a few years ago. I know many ACC and B10 fan boys want to go back to this, but I don't see it happening.

Betting and ranking are the same. Betting is no different than the stock market. They try to find the middle ground of opinions, though they occasionally take positions on their own. They set lines with models and some strategic calls.

There is no unfair advantage. It gives an advantage to programs that schedule. It is simply logical. You rank the wins and the losses. Makes no sense to ignore losses, as I have been over.

Disagree. Ranking losses take the power away from the players playing the game, and hands it to the schedule-maker.

And ignoring losses has the logic benefit of mirroring how the Tournament works: do teams advance from a "good loss"? Of course not.

So why should we reward teams that schedule, and lose to, good/great teams, while punishing those who, instead, schedule a team they beat?

If all you do is look at Qw's (rankings defined in any way you choose....Coaches Poll, media poll, a combination of polls), now you are rewarding winning, and ignoring losses. Who cares if you put a team on a schedule, and lost to them?

The Ranking of teams is where you get what you are looking for: a Human hand that uses whatever metric a pollster (including looking at "good" losses) wants to define who is #1 and who is #20. Suddenly, except for in rare events, picking the NCAA field because really simple.

This discussion is all in fun, because what I know to be 100% certain, is that our sport will NEVER use the above method of mine. But I have never understood why Americans like to rank losses in an effort to give teams that lost games unearned credit. It's what puts you on the merry go round, imho.

this makes 0 sense. Why should we reward teams based on SOS? Because is completely logical. Winning 8 games vs a top 5 schedule is more impressive than winning 8 games with the 60th best schedule.

My argument is very simple and based on logic. You should use every data point you can to rank teams. If a team plays 15 games, you should look at all 15 games. It is just bizarre that people want to throw out the losses, like those are not valid data points on performance. Arguing that you should use 70% of the available data is just wrong. Just amazing to see people trying to twist the obvious into a bad thing.

[wgdsr]

the diversity of opinion here probably gives a clear lens on why the nc$$ selection process has been so whack in the last forever years. no one can agree on what it should look like.
- "good losses" are used in comparison to "worse losses". they do not help other metrics other than being less damaging than worse losses. which makes sense. if you lose to worse teams, it should matter.
- mov should have no place anywhere in a world where the objective is to win, not come close. but we have net and other metrics for hoops, so here we are. nc$$ = big horseshoe fans.

[Farfromgeneva]

Betting can also fluid as the spreads are adjusted to react to events and hedge risk tes?

You had me until you used betting and hedging int he same sentence. Unless your in prime brokerage sales…

My bad

All good, most folks who know math reasonably well know that the hedging models, volatility models etc that measure enterprise risk are basically kabuki theater and decoration much like TSA. So they kind of become the same thing just hidden behind the veneer of analytical rigor when it’s really just something for the file.

[Farfromgeneva]

the diversity of opinion here probably gives a clear lens on why the nc$$ selection process has been so whack in the last forever years. no one can agree on what it should look like.
- "good losses" are used in comparison to "worse losses". they do not help other metrics other than being less damaging than worse losses. which makes sense. if you lose to worse teams, it should matter.
- mov should have no place anywhere in a world where the objective is to win, not come close. but we have net and other metrics for hoops, so here we are. nc$$ = big horseshoe fans.

It shouldn’t be that hard when the overriding mandate of an AQ system is equal access. Then it’s just make a mathematical system and call it a day. But they don’t really want the equal access that’s just the few low mid league AQs
Like welfare .

[wgdsr]

the diversity of opinion here probably gives a clear lens on why the nc$$ selection process has been so whack in the last forever years. no one can agree on what it should look like.
- "good losses" are used in comparison to "worse losses". they do not help other metrics other than being less damaging than worse losses. which makes sense. if you lose to worse teams, it should matter.
- mov should have no place anywhere in a world where the objective is to win, not come close. but we have net and other metrics for hoops, so here we are. nc$$ = big horseshoe fans.

It shouldn’t be that hard when the overriding mandate of an AQ system is equal access. Then it’s just make a mathematical system and call it a day. But they don’t really want the equal access that’s just the few low mid league AQs
Like welfare .

i should say in edit that losing to a better team than a worse team is better for sos, of course, and there's little that a team has accomplished there on the field in that instance..
con: it's already reflected in rpi
meh: not definitive it's been any kind of a game changer

system of points for rpi wins, deducted by rpi losses, no hard and meaningful cutoffs, teams 1-75. everyone gets a point total.

[a fan]

this makes 0 sense. Why should we reward teams based on SOS? Because is completely logical. Winning 8 games vs a top 5 schedule is more impressive than winning 8 games with the 60th best schedule.

You just explained it: you have to WIN those 8 games, do you not. This is captured by the QW metric.

And guess what the QW's says about those 8 wins vs. a weak schedule? It says: you didn't beat any quality teams (QWs), so you don't get a bid.

Simple. Easy. And best of all? Teams actually WIN their way to a bid. Imagine that?

Current system? Two of the three metrics rewards losing: RPI and SOS. If you lose to a top team? Both your RPI and SOS goes UP.

I don't like that, and am annoyed to see teams lose their way to a bid. Doesn't happen every year, but it has happened several times in the past 24 or so years we've been discussing this topic.

You like rewarding good losses. And that's fine. So does the NCAA committee. We all have opinions, and that's all this forum is made of....opinions.

My argument is very simple and based on logic. You should use every data point you can to rank teams.

The committee is most certainly not trying to rank teams 1-16, that may be what you're missing. I'd guess you know, but in case you don't, they rank the top 8 teams, yes...but their selection of who these 8 teams play----and where----- in the 1st round is all over the place, rendering ranking from 8-16 using logic, moot. They throw the "system" out the window, and basically handpick who plays whom, and where. Travel is a consideration, among other things, in past years' selections.

https://www.ncaa.com/news/lacrosse-men/ ... ected-mens

[coda]

the diversity of opinion here probably gives a clear lens on why the nc$$ selection process has been so whack in the last forever years. no one can agree on what it should look like.
- "good losses" are used in comparison to "worse losses". they do not help other metrics other than being less damaging than worse losses. which makes sense. if you lose to worse teams, it should matter.
- mov should have no place anywhere in a world where the objective is to win, not come close. but we have net and other metrics for hoops, so here we are. nc$$ = big horseshoe fans.

Disagree on MOV.. It is valuable information, in the context that you just want to know the type of victory (nail biter or comfortable win). Assume Team A and Team B share 8 common opponents and both went 8-0, but dont play each other. Team A won by average of 8 goals and Team B won by 1.5 goals. There are multitude of factors you can point to explain the difference, but you are still going to favor Team A over Team B.

[Chousnake]

I just can not understand this logic. There is a huge difference between losing to ND by 1 and beating BU by 1. Rankings are all about relative performance. Ignoring that is just wrong

Yeah, the "huge difference" is that one is a win and one is a loss.

Simple view. Try answering this scenario.
Team A loses to ND in OT
Team B beats BU in OT..
Team A plays Team B next week. what’s your line?

Do you really think Team A is worse than Team B?

First, its never as simple as evaluating one game versus one other when making a poll.

Second, as a rough measure, any team in the top 30 (lets use RPI despite its flaws) is capable of losing by 1 to any team in the top 10 on a given game day.

Third, good teams find a way to still win despite a bad day or extenuating circumstances. And beating a team in the top 20 (BU) on any given day is not easy for any team.

Losses can never be a positive. They can only be more or less of a negative. Given other data points, I might not take anything away from a team for losing to ND in OT, but it wouldn't add to their resume. They need to prove themselves through wins.

figured you wouldnt answer the question. Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isnt going to play either to a goal. Nobody has said losses were a positive, merely that you need to judge every performance for what it was. Its impressive to take a top 3 team in the country to OT. It gives you a glimpse to the ceiling of the team. Beating a middle of the pack team in OT, doesnt tell you much. Beating them by 10 actually may give you some insight. MOV is important.

Your question is irrelevant because we are talking about ranking teams in a poll, not gambling. If I had to rank those two teams in your scenario, and I had no other data, I would rank team B above team A.

Team like Quinnipiac is not playing UVA or ND to 1 goal, most the top 20 isn't going to play either to a goal.

This is good-ole boys logic, that sets certain teams apart based on history and tradition and not results. We can't know how Quinnipiac will do until they play those teams. 1-7 Brown lost to then #3 Maryland by 1. Unranked Colgate beat Penn State. Unranked Georgtown beat Notre Dame. Top 20 Penn beat Duke.

Nobody has said losses were a positive

You did, in your scenario.


Losses are not irrelevant. They are useful to evaluate after you evaluate the strength of wins. But losses should be evaluated against another teams losses. Never against another teams wins, IMO.

No, i did not. I stated it is a data point for performance. This is you throwing up a strawman fallacy. If you you just answered my original question, I doubt we would still be discussing this

Strawman? Your scenario. One team lost, the other team won. You said the team that lost is better than the team that won. How is that not using a loss as a positive?

It does not mean the loss was good. It simply judges the performance of both teams on that day. Based on your refusal to answer the scenario, I am guessing you agree.

Read again. I answered your scenario as it relates to this conversation. I'm not a betting person. Betting wouldn't exist if it wasn't easy to lose.

And yes, you are judging the performance of both teams on that day. And you are judging the loss as better than the win. Are we now talking about the semantics of "good"?

Betting and ranking are essentially the same thing. Vegas has some of the best models out there. Not the semantics of good. Its about relative performance. Generally speaking it takes a better performance to take the #1 team to OT and lose, than to take the #20 to team to OT and win. I dont think that is controversial statement. It is just logical. (we can come up with injuries and conditions that can mitigate that, but it holds true on the majority of games)

Beting and ranking are not the same thing. Betting odds/lines are set by betting houses in an attempt to entice the public to bet an equal amount on each team. That assures the betting house makes money with the 11-10 vig on each bet. Therefore, the lines/odds are based on public perception of each team, not the actual chances one team or another has to win the game. Rankings are subjective listings of teams in order of best to worst (polls) or a list of best to worst based on some formula.

Your advocacy of giving credit for good losses over wins is the system that lax used until recently that gave an unfair advantage when awarding bids and seedings to ACC teams and Hopkins. Under that system, you could almost predict bids based on the schedule. I won't list them here, but it resulted in numerous undeserved bids and some absurd seeding in the 2000s and early to mid 2010s. It was thankfully and deservedly done away with a few years ago. I know many ACC and B10 fan boys want to go back to this, but I don't see it happening.

Betting and ranking are the same. Betting is no different than the stock market. They try to find the middle ground of opinions, though they occasionally take positions on their own. They set lines with models and some strategic calls.

There is no unfair advantage. It gives an advantage to programs that schedule. It is simply logical. You rank the wins and the losses. Makes no sense to ignore losses, as I have been over.

Disagree. Ranking losses take the power away from the players playing the game, and hands it to the schedule-maker.

And ignoring losses has the logic benefit of mirroring how the Tournament works: do teams advance from a "good loss"? Of course not.

So why should we reward teams that schedule, and lose to, good/great teams, while punishing those who, instead, schedule a team they beat?

If all you do is look at Qw's (rankings defined in any way you choose....Coaches Poll, media poll, a combination of polls), now you are rewarding winning, and ignoring losses. Who cares if you put a team on a schedule, and lost to them?

The Ranking of teams is where you get what you are looking for: a Human hand that uses whatever metric a pollster (including looking at "good" losses) wants to define who is #1 and who is #20. Suddenly, except for in rare events, picking the NCAA field because really simple.

This discussion is all in fun, because what I know to be 100% certain, is that our sport will NEVER use the above method of mine. But I have never understood why Americans like to rank losses in an effort to give teams that lost games unearned credit. It's what puts you on the merry go round, imho.

this makes 0 sense. Why should we reward teams based on SOS? Because is completely logical. Winning 8 games vs a top 5 schedule is more impressive than winning 8 games with the 60th best schedule.

My argument is very simple and based on logic. You should use every data point you can to rank teams. If a team plays 15 games, you should look at all 15 games. It is just bizarre that people want to throw out the losses, like those are not valid data points on performance. Arguing that you should use 70% of the available data is just wrong. Just amazing to see people trying to twist the obvious into a bad thing.

It really depends on who the team that plays a top schedule beat to get those 8 wins. Let's assume the 8 win team also loses 5-6 games. If it only has 1 or even no wins vs any top 10 or 20 teams and has 5 losses to top 10 teams, what has this team really accomplished other than making a tough schedule? They didn't beat anybody. And in the past 20-25 years or so, some teams have received bids with records like this. 8 mediocre wins and 5 "good" losses to top teams.

[wgdsr]

this makes 0 sense. Why should we reward teams based on SOS? Because is completely logical. Winning 8 games vs a top 5 schedule is more impressive than winning 8 games with the 60th best schedule.

You just explained it: you have to WIN those 8 games, do you not. This is captured by the QW metric.

And guess what the QW's says about those 8 wins vs. a weak schedule? It says: you didn't beat any quality teams (QWs), so you don't get a bid.

Simple. Easy. And best of all? Teams actually WIN their way to a bid. Imagine that?

Current system? Two of the three metrics rewards losing: RPI and SOS. If you lose to a top team? Both your RPI and SOS goes UP.

I don't like that, and am annoyed to see teams lose their way to a bid. Doesn't happen every year, but it has happened several times in the past 24 or so years we've been discussing this topic.

You like rewarding good losses. And that's fine. So does the NCAA committee. We all have opinions, and that's all this forum is made of....opinions.

My argument is very simple and based on logic. You should use every data point you can to rank teams.

The committee is most certainly not trying to rank teams 1-16, that may be what you're missing. I'd guess you know, but in case you don't, they rank the top 8 teams, yes...but their selection of who these 8 teams play----and where----- in the 1st round is all over the place, rendering ranking from 8-16 using logic, moot. They throw the "system" out the window, and basically handpick who plays whom, and where. Travel is a consideration, among other things, in past years' selections.

https://www.ncaa.com/news/lacrosse-men/ ... ected-mens

your... rpi... does... not.... go... up... with... a loss.

rpi evaluates the totality of your record against the totality of your schedule. qw's as constituted does not do that.

[wgdsr]

the diversity of opinion here probably gives a clear lens on why the nc$$ selection process has been so whack in the last forever years. no one can agree on what it should look like.
- "good losses" are used in comparison to "worse losses". they do not help other metrics other than being less damaging than worse losses. which makes sense. if you lose to worse teams, it should matter.
- mov should have no place anywhere in a world where the objective is to win, not come close. but we have net and other metrics for hoops, so here we are. nc$$ = big horseshoe fans.

Disagree on MOV.. It is valuable information, in the context that you just want to know the type of victory (nail biter or comfortable win). Assume Team A and Team B share 8 common opponents and both went 8-0, but dont play each other. Team A won by average of 8 goals and Team B won by 1.5 goals. There are multitude of factors you can point to explain the difference, but you are still going to favor Team A over Team B.

sure, we don't agree. but in particular about your last point. YOU are going to favor team a, not me. i just don't think it matters at all re: tourney selection.

for rankings? have at it, not really in my wheelhouse.

[a fan]

your... rpi... does... not.... go... up... with... a loss.

It can only go in three places after a game: up, down, or stay the same.

You're telling me that RPI doesn't go up with a loss against a quality team? I'd buy that if your'e #1, and lose to...well....anyone, but are you sure this is a hard and fast rule?

I'm seeing "new RPI's" that NCAA sports have adopted of late where the weight on outcomes moves around, so maybe we're not talking about the same RPI?

rpi evaluates the totality of your record against the totality of your schedule. qw's as constituted does not do that.

Yes. RPI and SOS are there to quantify losses. QW ignores losses, as well as wins against weak teams.

Which is what the NCAA tournament does. We've discussed this LONG ago: I want teams to WIN their way to a bid. I don't care who a team lost to.

And I completely understand that I'm alone on an island with this view.

[HopFan16]

It is absolutely possible for your RPI to go up after a loss.