Counting Wins vs. Top 25 Competition in the MCLA-1

[Zamboni_Driver]

Due to positive feedback from last year, I plan on posting weekly results for the MCLA-1 Top 25 every Monday. I hope to make this weekly posting as useful as possible for the MCLA community, and thus I'd like some input.

1. Please vote on whether you think wins/losses vs ranked opponents should be frozen at the time of the game or adjusted as the season goes on, or if a 2 poll retro-fit then frozen would be better.

A few hypotheticals to get the thought juices going before you vote:

Hypothetical #1: Team A is ranked #16 and beats a #9 ranked Team B. Team B thus falls outside of the top 15 in the next poll and never re-enters the top 15. Does Team A get credit for beating a top 10 team or have they yet to beat a top 15 ranked team?

Hypothetical #2: Team C is missing their starting All-American goalie for the first 4 games of the year. During that time Team D beats Team C. Both teams ranked between #20-25 in the subsequent poll. Team C regains it's goalie and goes on to beat several Top 10 teams, landing them in the Top 10 by the last poll of the season. Does Team D get credit for beating a Top 10 Team? or a Top 20 team?

Hypothetical #3: Team E is ranked #10. They beat the #1 team in the nation this week. New poll comes out with new #1. Team E then beats that new #1 the next week. New poll comes out and new team is #1. Does team E claim they've beat two #1's or no #1?

2. The new format is proposed, please post any thoughts or additions that you may like to see.

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#1. Duke (Overall Record, T25 Wins/T25 Losses/Non Ranked Losses)

W.....#10 North Carolina.....14-12
W.....Penn State.................20-7

T25 W: 3 [#8 Maryland, #18 Ohio State, #10 NC]
T25 L: 0
NR L: 1 [Presbyterian]
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[WCLLPREZ]

I like the new format, somewhat like I have been doing to track teams for my poll votes.

If not too much trouble, would like to see the "other teams receiving votes" group from each poll tracked as well, in order to determine who moves up as others drop out.

Just my $ .02

[Zamboni_Driver]

I like the new format, somewhat like I have been doing to track teams for my poll votes.

If not too much trouble, would like to see the "other teams receiving votes" group from each poll tracked as well, in order to determine who moves up as others drop out.

Just my $ .02

I might be able to do that for the 3 next receiving votes and run it together with very little information. Example:

Denver (W: UPENN, L: ND)...Towson(W: Loyola, W: UMBC)....

[Zeuslax]

Hypothetical #3: Team E is ranked #10. They beat the #1 team in the nation this week. New poll comes out with new #1. Team E then beats that new #1 the next week. New poll comes out and new team is #1. Does team E claim they've beat two #1's or no #1?

They take credit for beating 2 #1 ranked teams.

To be honest I'm not sure how to give any input with the poll questions. One and two seem essentially the same. I'm not sure if you're trying to match up the hypotheticals with the poll questions?

[Zamboni_Driver]

Hypothetical #3: Team E is ranked #10. They beat the #1 team in the nation this week. New poll comes out with new #1. Team E then beats that new #1 the next week. New poll comes out and new team is #1. Does team E claim they've beat two #1's or no #1?

They take credit for beating 2 #1 ranked teams.

So if I interpret your response you believe in frozen rankings?

[Ryan Hanavan]

Hypothetical #1: Team A is ranked #16 and beats a #9 ranked Team B. Team B thus falls outside of the top 15 in the next poll and never re-enters the top 15. Does Team A get credit for beating a top 10 team or have they yet to beat a top 15 ranked team?

Yes (in my opinion), Team B was ranked 9th in the nation when they lost to Team A.

Hypothetical #2: Team C is missing their starting All-American goalie for the first 4 games of the year. During that time Team D beats Team C. Both teams ranked between #20-25 in the subsequent poll. Team C regains it's goalie and goes on to beat several Top 10 teams, landing them in the Top 10 by the last poll of the season. Does Team D get credit for beating a Top 10 Team? or a Top 20 team?

Team D beat a 20-25 team and I would call it that. Team C made a run and broke the top 10 by winning after a loss to Team D (in my opinion).

Hypothetical #3: Team E is ranked #10. They beat the #1 team in the nation this week. New poll comes out with new #1. Team E then beats that new #1 the next week. New poll comes out and new team is #1. Does team E claim they've beat two #1's or no #1?

Same trend for me here, I call it 2 wins over the #1 in the nation. Both games happened at separate times, under different conditions and potentially different locations and Team E had a top 10 ranking and beat the #1 team's in the nation.

Any number of things can happen to a team in a year but it is the teams performance that (I believe) ultimately earns them the place that they end up.

So I'm a frozen rankings guy. I would say that Appalachian State beat the DI #5 team in the nation.

[bullhighutewoozgriffclam]

throughout the season i like the idea of wins/losses vs ranked opponents staying frozen at the time of the game. until the last poll. since the second to last poll has the most complete information in this league with somewhat insufficient OOC play, it's a good quanitfier of quality wins and upset losses.

that barely makes sense to me. hope anyone else gets it.
i notice my ideas is somewhat hypocrytical though. It's tough.
I just think it's important for the voters to be on the same page. there needs to be some sort of rubric for pollsters to agree on. this way there wouldn't be discrepancies on how to handle certain cituations. I guess that's what this poll is for and I'm positive all the important people are dicussing these exact points. rough one.

either way, good luck this season to all.

here's a poll

farve out on a good note
or
witnessing the best season ever

[Zamboni_Driver]

I know it is early in the voting, and don't want to do what the pollsters did in New hampshire, but I'm kinda surprised more people haven't picked the retro-fit then freeze idea.

I figured this was a great way to give pollsters a chance to see teams in action and re-calibrate the polls before we start giving anyone credit for wins or condem them for losses. Just surprised? Anyone's else have thoughts on why this hasn't been selected more?

[Zamboni_Driver]

I also can't believe no one has mentioned that in my example format that I had Duke losing to Presbyterian....

[Beta]

I also can't believe no one has mentioned that in my example format that I had Duke losing to Presbyterian....

Heckling is illegal.

[Aaron Myers]

Zamboni,

First off may I say that your Top 25 breakdowns from last year were a big help, as well as your preseason analysis of who graduated who and who was coming back to the MCLA.

Just my ten cents but I think that each team must be evaluated at each poll and that a win against a ranked team warrants some sort of jump in the polls. How much of a jump should be predicated upon the following conditions/considerations.

#1 How has that top ten team faired since losing to a team outside the top ten, if they have not faired well then the win against them should not carry as much weight in future polls since the top ten team may have been overrated a bit. But if they keep winning and are steadily racking up wins against ranked opponents then maybe a win over them should carry additional weight in future polls.

#2 Injuries- It is sometimes difficult to weigh the impact of injuries in this league, especially with film not being available to all coaches. This is where communication between coaches and the private poll voter forum comes in handy. If a team's starting goalie and or best player on offense or defense is out for 4 weeks and they drop a game of two then this must be a consideration for poll voters. However, depth is an important factor when considering bids for nationals so a loss shouldn't simply be written off due to injuries.

#3 Schedule- If team A has three games in a week against ranked opponents and wins the first two but loses the third the last loss shouldn't carry as much weight as a loss to a ranked opponent if that was the only game that week. Once again depth is important when considering the overall strength of a team so a loss should never be written off entirely but I believe their schedule must be taken into consideration.

Maybe that's 50 cents....