Week 3 polls & RPI

Topdrawer is out first again.

We are still #1 (TopDrawer knows his stuff)
and Sophie is this week's Pilot on his Team of the Week.

Akron is the men's #1.


http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer/college-soccer-archives/nid-9708/Piloting-the-Zips

Keelin is also the Photo for the lead-in

Soccer America Rankings:

Soccer America Women's Top 25
Monday, Sep 7, 2009 7:00 AM ET
NORTH CAROLINA, STANFORD AND PORTLAND remain 1-2-3 in the Soccer America Women's Top 25, but there were lots of changes in the rest of the rankings. Nine teams, eight for the first time this season, climbed into the Top 25.

Soccer America Women's Top 25
TEAM (RECORD) LAST WEEK
1. North Carolina (5-0-0) 1
2. Stanford (5-0-0) 2
3. Portland (5-0-0) 3
4. Florida State (5-0-0) 5
5. Boston College (3-0-0) 6
6. UCLA (3-1-1) 8
7. Notre Dame (3-1-0) 4
8. Purdue (4-0-0) 12
9. California (3-1-0) 14
10. Wake Forest (6-0-0) 17
11. Rutgers (4-0-1) NR
12. Indiana (5-0-0) NR
13. Kansas (5-0-0) NR
14. Florida (3-2-0) 7
15. West Virginia (2-1-2) 9
16. Virginia (3-1-1) 11
17. Georgia (4-0-1) 25
18. Maryland (5-0-0) NR
19. Michigan State (3-0-1) 15
20. Illinois (3-1-1) 16
21. Texas A&M (2-2-0) 13
22. William & Mary (3-1-0) NR
23. Penn State (2-3-0) 10
24. UAB (6-0-0) NR
25. Pittsburgh (5-0-0) NR
25. South Carolina (4-0-0) NR
25. Vanderbilt (5-0-0) NR

I'm not so sure BC belongs there yet. They have played a pretty easy schedule so far. But the season is so topsey-turvey so far, It's hard to find fault.


So the other WCC schools dropped completely off....

Portland moves up in the NSCAA Poll.

1 North Carolina (33) 825 1 5 - 0 - 0
2 Portland 781 3 5 - 0 - 0
3 Stanford 756 4 5 - 0 - 0
4 Florida State 726 5 5 - 0 - 0
5 Notre Dame 663 2 3 - 1 - 0
6 UCLA 646 9 3 - 1 - 1
7 Purdue 558 14 4 - 0 - 0
8 Wake Forest 521 17 6 - 0 - 0
9 Virginia 515 8 3 - 1 - 1
10 Boston College 465 16 4 - 0 - 0
11 Illinois 442 11 3 - 1 - 1
12 West Virginia 414 7 2 - 1 - 2
13 Texas A&M 365 10 3 - 2 - 0
14 Florida 340 6 3 - 2 - 0
15 Georgia 294 18 4 - 0 - 1
16 California 293 RV 3 - 1 - 0
17 Rutgers 270 RV 4 - 0 - 1
18 South Carolina 217 RV 4 - 0 - 0
19 Oklahoma State 186 20 3 - 1 - 0
20 Colorado 183 15 3 - 2 - 0
21 San Diego 159 12 3 - 2 - 1
22 Kansas 152 RV 5 - 0 - 0
23 Minnesota 135 19 3 - 1 - 1
24 Penn State 122 13 2 - 3 - 0
25 Indiana 114 NR 5 - 0 - 0

aleppiek wrote:Portland moves up in the NSCAA Poll.

1 North Carolina (33) 825 1 5 - 0 - 0
2 Portland 781 3 5 - 0 - 0
3 Stanford 756 4 5 - 0 - 0
...

Well Stanford's had a couple of squeakers against teams with losing records. It'll be interesting to see how they do this weekend against Purdue and Notre Dame.

eprof wrote:Well Stanford's had a couple of squeakers against teams with losing records. It'll be interesting to see how they do this weekend against Purdue and Notre Dame.

First, (as an outsider) you guys are in total control of your season. Short of a hicup at A&M, to come, which I would be surprised, (and don't underestimate Illinois) you should run the table and remain as the #2 ranked team in the country. (My prediction)Stanford will beat Purdue and ND, handily down in Santa Clara but they do have the toughest road to hoe to get to or stay at #2, with also UCLA to come. Better hope that one of those three, aforementioned teams can beat Stanford thus solidifying your #2 national ranking. Your only worries will be possibly having to travel your first two playoff games as a #1 seed. But the season is young... Good luck

Re WSOC polls . . . NAVY should be ranked . . . . undefeated so far . . had first ever win v. ACC team . . . big '08 event: SCORED a goal v. Stanford, the national #2 (do you realize the difference between the pool of potential recruits for the Navy Mids compared to the pool of potential Stanford recruits?) . . . . . . . . all said, GO PILOTS! . . . take the matches "one at a time" please Ladies . . .

slick wrote:Re WSOC polls . . . NAVY should be ranked . . . . undefeated so far . . had first ever win v. ACC team . . .

This is where the RPI maybe has some value in looking at a team, even this early in the season.

Navy's opponents so far, including Miami whom it beat, have an average winning percentage against teams other than Navy of 0.4611. In other words, Navy's opponents, discounting their losses to Navy, have won less than half of their games. That isn't everything, however, because maybe their losses were to really good teams. To evaluate who those losses were to, Navy's opponents' opponents' average winning percentages were 0.5539. In other words, they won slightly over half of their games. What this suggests -- I say suggests, because we're only about 1/4 through the season -- is that Navy's opponents have been on average quite weak, winning about half their games against teams that have won about half their games. Because of this, the current very early version of the RPI places Navy at #58.

By way of comparison, North Carolina has the same 5-0-0 record as Navy. But, its wins have been against opponents whose winning percentage is 0.8000 against opponents whose winning percentage is 0.6916. This gives UNC an early RPI rank of #2.

UPSF

Who is #1 in early RPI rankings?

Harry Redknapp wrote:UPSF

Who is #1 in early RPI rankings?

Here are the top 50 for games through 9/6 (if my copying and pasting works). These are way early, so you have to know that there will be lots of changes before the end of the season:

1 Pennsylvania U
2 North Carolina U
3 Portland U
4 Villanova
5 South Carolina U
6 UCLA
7 Wake Forest
8 UC Davis
9 UAB
10 Maryland U
11 Charlotte
12 Kansas U
13 Kentucky U
14 Memphis
15 Weber State
16 Arizona State
17 William and Mary
18 Yale
19 New Mexico U
20 Northeastern
21 Vanderbilt
22 UCF
23 Washington U
24 Mississippi U
25 Georgia U
26 Oklahoma U
27 Hofstra
28 Stanford
29 Indiana U
30 Colorado College
31 Sacramento State
32 Arkansas U
33 UNC Greensboro
34 Colorado U
35 Temple
36 Illinois U
37 Georgetown
38 Louisville
39 Denver
40 Washington State
41 Auburn
42 Marquette
43 Pepperdine
44 Florida U
45 Appalachian State
46 Dayton
47 Mercer
48 Mississippi State
49 Florida State
50 Akron

How does Penn get to be #1?

Harry Redknapp wrote:How does Penn get to be #1?

Penn has played two games (both wins), and the two teams they played have undefeated records, except for their losses to Penn. (One of the teams has a tie against another team.)

All teams involved (the teams who played Penn and the teams to played those teams) are unranked teams, mostly with losing records.

eProf wrote:

Harry Redknapp wrote:How does Penn get to be #1?

Penn has played two games (both wins), and the two teams they played have undefeated records, except for their losses to Penn. (One of the teams has a tie against another team.)

All teams involved (the teams who played Penn and the teams to played those teams) are unranked teams, mostly with losing records.

Simply put, small sample size.

eProf wrote:

Harry Redknapp wrote:How does Penn get to be #1?

Penn has played two games (both wins), and the two teams they played have undefeated records, except for their losses to Penn. (One of the teams has a tie against another team.)

All teams involved (the teams who played Penn and the teams to played those teams) are unranked teams, mostly with losing records.

eProf is exactly right. Here's the same explanation with more detail, for those who are interested. I use UNC as a counter-example because I posted this explanation over on BigSoccer and didn't always want to using Portland as an example, although the Portland could be the counter-example just as well as UNC:

You can't take the ratings this early seriously, the teams haven't played enough games. Rather, the benefit of reviewing the RPI reports as they develop through the season is to get a better idea of how the RPI works. To use an example and answer the Penn question at the same time, take a look at the University of Pennsylvania's #1 rank. Penn has played two games, beating George Mason and La Salle. This gives it an RPI Element 1 of 1.0000, the same as for any other undefeated and untied team. George Mason's record against teams other than Penn is 3-0-0 with wins against VMI, Mount St Mary's, and Howard. La Salle's record against teams other than Penn is 4-0-1 with wins against Drexel, Sacred Heart, UMBC, and Lafayette and a tie against Lehigh. That gives Penn an Element 2 (opponents' average winning record against teams other than Penn) of 0.9500. VMI, Mount St Mary's, Howard, Drexel, Sacred Heart, UMBC, Lafayette, and Lehigh haven't done that well, so Penn's Element 3 is only 0.4705 (opponents' opponents' average winning record). Applying the formula to these numbers, Penn comes out at the top of the current RPI heap. Over the course of the season, Penn will play other games and see its own winning percentage drop unless it goes undefeated, and George Mason and La Salle will play more games and almost certainly have their winning percentages against teams other than Penn drop, thus causing Penn's RPI to drop. By comparison, two of North Carolina's opponents (UCLA and Notre Dame) probably will be posting significantly better winning percentages later in the season than they are now, so if North Carolina keeps winning its RPI should rise. Hopefully, this illustration gives a sense of how the strength of schedule elements of the RPI, in particular opponents' winning percentage, works within the RPI framework. The only RPI that really counts is the one at the end of the regular season (including conference tournaments). The reason to watch the RPI before then is to get a sense of how it works -- and have fun watching it evolve.

Lest we not overlook: this thread started out as a discussion of POLLS not RPI.

Apples and oranges!

slick wrote:Lest we not overlook: this thread started out as a discussion of POLLS not RPI.

Apples and oranges!

Fixed

fixed?

slick wrote:fixed?

yeah, read the thread title.

Oh Geez, so tricky...

Miami 1, Washington 0 . . . . . . . hmmmm.

Miami over Washington suggests a tough game Sunday that the Pilots must not take lightly.

Just an observation: Washington's success or failure has a stronger effect on our RPI than any other team because we play at least 8 teams that play Washington (OU, OSU, UW, Cal, plus the four in the two tournaments). They will not only figure into our opponents' record, but into the opponents' opponents' record of nearly half of our opponents.

Am I missing something or should we be rooting for the Huskies?

SoreKnees wrote:Just an observation: Washington's success or failure has a stronger effect on our RPI than any other team because we play at least 8 teams that play Washington (OU, OSU, UW, Cal, plus the four in the two tournaments). They will not only figure into our opponents' record, but into the opponents' opponents' record of nearly half of our opponents.

Am I missing something or should we be rooting for the Huskies?

UPSF might be able to best answer that, but the third element might hinge on the strength of the West vs the strength of the eastern schools. On average, I don't think it has much to do with that one game.

Elements 1 & 2 should balance out, assuming we beat Miami.

SoreKnees wrote:Just an observation: Washington's success or failure has a stronger effect on our RPI than any other team because we play at least 8 teams that play Washington (OU, OSU, UW, Cal, plus the four in the two tournaments). They will not only figure into our opponents' record, but into the opponents' opponents' record of nearly half of our opponents.

Am I missing something or should we be rooting for the Huskies?

I hadn't thought about that particular question, but because Washington's record will find its way into our Element 3 so many times due to the tournaments, it is better for us if they win the games against opponents that we also play. However, it doesn't make a huge difference because the effective weight of Element 3 is only about 10%. Another reason to root for Washington when it plays teams not from Oregon/Washington is that we definitely want another team from those two states to make it to the NCAA Tournament. Plus, in terms of a team like Miami, I always would root for a West Region team against an ACC team; and in terms of Illinois, although I like them I would root for a West Region team against a Big Ten (or Big East or Big 12) team.