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QWI (2022)
Once again “Ned” from New England has produced his Quality Win Index (QWI) that attempts to give us a different viewpoint into Strength of Schedule (SOS). As you all know, I love looking at schedules and giving you my opinion of their strengths so here is an independent formula-based model that gives you a different viewpoint. Ned keeps up with the results and changes in rankings during the year and adjusts his numbers during the season.
QWI works from a basis or starting point that attempts to rank each team. We all know every ranking system is flawed so QWI uses three in an attempt to normalize the flaws. They are Pablo (Rich Kern), HuskerGeek and Massey. Each school will get a basis value from 1 to 4 based on these rankings. Without getting into the specific formula, a school that is ranked 36th, 24th and 28th will get a basis value of 2.93.
QWI then adds in two factors – home and away and region (or travel). If you beat a Top 100 team away, you get a 0.25 bonus. Home or a neutral site offer no bonuses. If you beat a Top 100 team out of region or in-region non-conference, you get a bonus of 0.2 to 0.5 depending on distance. I think this last bonus is a little controversial but QWI attempts to reward teams that take trips and spread their love (as it were) to other parts of the country. Ned explained that he doesn’t offer out of region bonuses to Regions I and II within those regions or Regions III and IV withing those regions. These are really the old New England and New York Regions that were split up in an effort to give them more power when it comes to at-large selection. (That wasn’t the stated goal, but it was the obvious fallout that was “ignored” by the realignment committee.) Ned also explained that conference play doesn’t get a travel bonus.
Ned gave an example of how much a match is worth but showing me the Southwestern at Wesleyan match that will happen in a couple of weeks. Wesleyan was the ranked team mentioned above so they have a basis point of 2.93. This is an away match that required a flight by Southwestern (Ned knows how to talk to me) so with all of that considered, the match is worth 5.13 points to Southwestern. Being a home match for Wesleyan and requiring no travel, the match is worth less to Wesleyan. (Also, the basis points for Southwestern are different than Wesleyan.)
Let’s take a look at some of the output. Here are the Top 5 toughest schedules according to QWI:
Chicago, according to QWI, has the toughest schedule by a large amount over the rest of the DIII nation. Their QWI points are over 10 higher than NYU and we can see that 23 of their 28 matches schedule are against Top 100 teams. Quite impressive.
I wanted to give a look at each region to see if there are inherent differences to scheduling so here are the top five from each region with a look at the worst schedule, too.
I may have jumped the gun on looking at the worst schedules because there are a lot of schools that are getting a zero. This means they are not playing any schools in the Top 100. There are 18 in this region alone.
The first 11 spots in this region all go to the NESCAC schools. Johnson & Wales comes in 13th at 11.35.
Region II has nine teams with a zero QWI. Region II has the NEWMAC but it doesn’t dominate like the NESCAC did in Region I because we have some teams outside that conference that are traveling. Brandeis plays in the UAA and face some good teams in that conference. (Remember, they don’t get a travel bonus for conference play.) Endicott always seems to find a way to travel, which is so very unlike a New England team. They will play at Cal Lutheran during the third weekend. They also got Hope to come to them this season. The other three in this top 5 are NEWMAC schools. The worst NEWMAC schedule goes to Wellesley at 8.30. What will be interesting in these first two regions is that most of the schools in these regions will have great SOS numbers at the end of the year. The reason is that these schools have so many teams to choose from in building a winning percentage while QWI looks at rankings and these rankings systems don’t always appreciate the wins they accumulate.
Regions III and IV are the New York Regions and they historically don’t have good schedules or good at-large bid teams. Ithaca always does well scheduling and they are certainly respectable here. There were eight teams with QWI of zero in this region (all from the Skyline Conference).
Obviously, a nice schedule for NYU coming out of the UAA Conference. Stevens does a nice job as they will head over to Juniata but no really big trips. It just shows what you can do if you try, which no one else in the region really did. Seven teams in this region ended with a zero QWI.
For no one in particular, Marymount was 6th in this region at 26.37. There were 12 programs with a zero QWI score. Nice numbers from the Top 5. No one jumping out but good consistency.
Ned has UC Santa Cruz in Region X. Crazy thinker that Ned. They came in with a 34.95 score. This is the old South Region that stretches up the east coast a bit. Tough travel for some of these schools but nice scores. Only four schools in this region had a QWI of zero.
We get some really good teams in this region and the schedules are helped by that. The Top 5 in this region surpass all but three teams from what we’ve seen so far. There are only four teams in this region with a QWI of zero. Just because I’m interested in it, Denison was 6th (49.01) and Hope was 7th (48.86) in this region.
Yikes! Far and away the best region for schedules so far. The WIAC is insane with the worst schedule from the conference being UW-Platteville at 40.86! Only Tufts and NYU out of the New England and New York Regions are better. Eight teams have QWI scores of 60 or better. In 6th there was UW-La Crosse followed by IWU and Millikin. Only one school in this region had a QWI of zero (Maranatha Baptist).
Another solid region and the first not to have any school with a zero QWI. Knox is the lowest at 3.46. Augsburg is 6th in this region and Wartburg is 10th.
Our final region is also solid and, like Region IX, has no team with a zero QWI. Ned still has Belhaven in this region although I think they will move to Region VI with their conference switch. That leaves our lowest rated schedule to Mary Hardin-Baylor at 11.45. The team picked to win the ASC has the worst schedule in Region X according to QWI. I told you this would be an independent viewpoint. I just didn’t tell you that it wouldn’t differ from my opinion! Some other schools around the nation that are around this 11.45 score (but higher) are Gettysburg (Region V), Shenandoah (Region VI), Grove City (Region VII), Franklin (VIII) and Beloit (Region IX). These are the schools that UMHB is scheduling like.
At the bottom of this article, I’ll paste all of the Region X teams (and UC Santa Cruz) in order of their QWI score. Colorado College is interesting to me but they don’t get conference travel bonuses and their first couple of tournaments at home aren’t really that exciting this season.
Looking through the regions and using QWI, we can see the inadequacies of scheduling in the first four regions and how the NCAA Selection Criteria is flawed in the way they use/calculate SOS and value it come selection time. The regions are not built equally so the criteria are not built equally and, therefore, can’t be evaluated equally. QWI is also flawed but I like additional input outside of the criteria and I think the NCAA owes it to itself to figure out why something like this won’t match up with the SOS at the end of the year. Bottom line to me, is that there are teams that are scheduling such that they should not be eligible for an at-large. What if we said you need to have a QWI number of at least 30 to get an at-large? Remember, QWI changes throughout the year based on rankings so it is fluid. These won’t be the final numbers. Right now, however, only nine teams in the first four regions would even be eligible for an at-large. This will never happen but some out-of-the-box thinking needs to happen.
Before I go, I looked at some of the highest rated individual matches QWI had and here were the “perfect 7” matches (highest score possible):
Babson at CMS
Berry at Trinity
Edgewood at Trinity
Finlandia at UW-Whitewater
Millikin at CMS
NYU at CMS
Transylvania at Trinity
UW-Eau Claire at Trinity
Scranton at Trinity
Susquehanna at Trinity
You can see all of these are away matches that required travel against a Top 10 team. The highest home or neutral matches got a score of 6. A number of these are happening at the East/West Challenge at Emory.
Region X QWI Scores
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