Region X Rankings (10/25/22)

Time to see if I can mimic/predict the Region X RAC and their rankings that will come out Wednesday. As a reminder, here were the teams they included last week:

• Cal Lutheran

• Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

• La Verne

• Pomona-Pitzer

• Texas-Dallas

• Trinity

• UC Santa Cruz

I had predicted Whitworth instead of La Verne, but I’ll go through additional teams just to make sure I’ve got this right. Just for the record, I’m using the SOS numbers estimated from Ned. They were off but were consistently off.

First off, let’s put CMS in the first position. No one is beating them out of that spot.

I’m pretty sure Trinity gets the second spot and UC Santa Cruz the third so let’s start with that comparison.

Trinity: 0.875 Record, 0.607 SOS, 7-3 Ranked Record, 2-1 Common OpponentUCSC: 0.810, 0.577, 7-2, 2-2

UC Santa Cruz has the Head-to-Head.

The simple score card would have Trinity up 3-2 (Trinity has Record, SOS and Common Opponent). I would actually put it 4-1 as I would give Trinity the edge in Ranked Results based on the teams they beat and the teams they lost to.

I had UT-Dallas (or Texas-Dallas) in fourth so we’ll compare them to UCSC.

UT-Dallas: 0.750, 0.573, 1-3, 2-0UCSC: 0.810, 0.577, 7-2, 1-1

There is no Head-to-Head. The simple score card has this UCSC 2-1-1 as SOS is too close to call. The same was true with the official SOS numbers from last week. I’m comfortable taking UCSC here.

My next team last week was Whitworth (using Ranked Results while the RAC did not), so I’ll use them here.

Whitworth: 0.700, 0.544, 2-2, 1-0UT-Dallas: 0.750, 0.573, 1-3, 1-0

There is no Head-to-Head here, either. Simple score card has this 2-1-1 in favor of UT-Dallas. I’m not going to dive into the Ranked Results if they won’t swing the comparison so this one is done. A quick check between UCSC and Whitworth shows UCSC has the advantage.

Next team up is Cal Lutheran and I think things start to get interesting here.

Cal Lutheran: 0.636, 0.609, 4-8, 1-0Whitworth: 0.700, 0.544, 2-2, 2-0

There is no Head-to-Head. Simple score card has Whitworth ahead 3-1. Ranked Results is intriguing. Whitworth has wins over Chicago twice with losses to Transylvania and St Olaf (with 4 bad losses). Cal Lutheran has wins over Pomona (twice), La Verne and Endicott. Their losses are all to ranked teams (Babson, NYU, UT-Dallas, Tufts, WashU, CMS (twice) and UC Santa Cruz). Do we reward Cal Lutheran for playing a tougher group of teams even though they get rewarded with SOS. Or, do we reward Whitworth for two better wins (I think Chicago is a better win) but less overall quality although that should be reflected in their Record? My determination is that Cal Lu has shown to have a higher floor than Whitworth. Whitworth has shown to have a slightly higher ceiling. I probably give this criterion to Cal Lutheran, although there is no way to know what the RAC will do. I should also note that I’ve given the Common Opponent to Whitworth just because they’ve played Whitman twice. That seems unfair. Put it all together and I give this to Cal Lutheran. My score card would be Cal Lu 2-1-2 (ties are in H2H and Common Opponent). A quick check between Cal Lu and UT-Dallas results in a 2-2-1 tie. Cal Lu has SOS and Ranked Results while UT-Dallas has Record and H2H. Common Opponent is tied at 0-2. I have UCSC ahead of Cal Lu 3-2. I’m going to leave UT-Dallas ahead of Cal Lu for now. The last 25% record is even, by the way.

Just to refresh, we’ve got CMS, Trinity, UCSC, UT-Dallas, Cal Lutheran and Whitworth so far. We now factor in Pomona-Pitzer.

Pomona-Pitzer: 0.636, 0.556, 2-7, 1-0Whitworth: 0.700, 0.544, 2-2, 1-1

There is not H2H. The simple score card goes to Whitworth 2-1-2 (ties are SOS and H2H). Our first issue is the SOS. The RACs will use a tolerance and I believe this difference will be considered equal. The second issue is Ranked Results and just like the Cal Lutheran/Whitworth comparison, it’s tricky. To save time, I’m going with Whitworth and their 2 Chicago wins. That’s better than what Pomona-Pitzer has as their two Ranked Wins are both La Verne who may not even be ranked this week. So, I’m sticking with Whitworth here. Comparing Pomona-Pitzer to both Cal Lutheran and UT-Dallas results in them losing both rather easily.

That’s seven teams and all we can rank (publicly), but we now need to look at some other teams and see if anyone can break into the mix. First up is La Verne, who the RAC had ranked last week.

La Verne: 0.652, 0.563, 0-7, 11-3Pomona-Pitzer: 0.636, 0.556, 2-7, 9-6

Pomona-Pitzer has beaten La Verne twice for the H2H advantage. The simple score has this as a tie with La Verne getting Record and Common Opponent while Pomona-Pitzer gets H2H and Ranked Results. The SOS is within tolerance so it’s a tie. What’s interesting with this comparison is that it’s really only the two La Verne wins that give Pomona-Pitzer any of their score card wins as their two Ranked Wins are the two La Verne wins. The last 25% looks to be a tie as both are 3-2 in their last 5 matches. If we take Pomona-Pitzer and not rank La Verne then Pomona-Pitzer will lose their Ranked Wins for next week. Bottom line, there isn’t much sense to worry about this comparison because neither team is getting an at-large but whatever the RAC decides will tell us a bit about what their process is this season. Maybe the tolerance is lower this year. Maybe they favor one criterion over another. For me, the Ranked Results don’t play for La Verne so I’m taking Pomona-Pitzer.

Looking at La Verne against Whitworth and we get a 2-2-0 score card with La Verne taking Common Opponent and SOS. There is no H2H in this comparison. Cal Lutheran wins the comparison against La Verne.

QWI still likes Southwestern so we should look at them, too. Compared with La Verne, they are even. La Verne has H2H and Record with SOS being too close. There is no H2H with Pomona-Pitzer and the score card is 2-2 with Pomona-Pitzer taking Common Opponent and Record. Southwestern loses to both Whitworth and Cal Lutheran. Not sure there is enough there for them to break into the mix.

QWI likes George Fox next and then PLU but neither has the Record or SOS to challenge these teams.

The next team and the last I want to look at is Colorado College. The Tigers are pretty close to La Verne but I think La Verne still wins the comparison (Common Opponent and SOS). I have Pomona-Pitzer winning the comparison 3-2 as they have a head-to-head win. I also have Whitworth taking the comparison as they have Common Opponent, Record and Ranked Results.

I really think the 7 ranked teams come down to 8 teams total. The seven ranked last week plus Whitworth. Here is what I have:

1. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

2. Trinity

3. UC Santa Cruz

4. UT-Dallas

5. Cal Lutheran

6. Whitworth

7. Pomona-Pitzer

This is almost what I had last week using Ranked Results. The only difference was that I had Whitworth ahead of Cal Lutheran. Where things get murky is the 4 through 6 spots and then who claims the 7^th spot. Could the RAC have Cal Lu ahead of UT-Dallas? They could and it will depend on what they are looking at to break ties. They could also have Whitworth ahead of Cal Lu. A lot will also depend on the official SOS numbers. Just a couple of digits in that number could move that criterion from a tie to a clear win. As far as the last spot, they could go either way. I’ll take Pomona-Pitzer secure in the knowledge that it really doesn’t matter and that they beat La Verne twice. On the court, Pomona-Pitzer is better. It’s just that the criteria don’t always agree.

As far as at-large bids, I think only the first three teams have a chance at them and their hope, of course, is that they won’t need them.

I could end the article here but let’s pick at the open wounds a bit. Where UTD could have been helped was with a win over Augsburg (they lost in 4-sets). They also lost to WashU in 4-sets and then didn’t look good against Tufts. Just winning one of those could have changed their at-large picture. Winning two probably would have made them locks. Cal Lutheran had the schedule that will get you a bid but they just couldn’t win one of the important matches. Losing to Babson in 5-sets after being up 2-0 really hurts. They also lost in 5-sets to UC Santa Cruz and Tufts. A few points here or there and Cal Lu would be a lock. I often say that teams can’t win an at-large bid early in the season but they can lose them. Here are two examples of where that happened.

Regional Rankings come out tomorrow and we’ll have an ordering. You have to remember that the rankings really don’t normalize until the third week because of the Ranked Results criterion. Most of the time, where there is some movement, it won’t matter because the teams aren’t getting the bids. It will matter in the deeper regions where the order is key.

Alright, I’m going with my order and hoping I’m correct. It will be interesting to see if there is a difference and figure out where I messed up or where the RAC favored something I didn’t.