West Regional Ranking Prediction (Wk 2)

The regional rankings came out last week and with it we gained insight into the official numbers the RAC used to rank the teams. The SOS numbers were skewed for a number of teams and I have to say that our region seemed to be the worst as far as the NCAA SOS numbers from their website matching the SOS used in selection. Partly for this reason, I’ll use the official SOS numbers from last week because they seem to be closer to anything else I can find. This week’s rankings (due out tomorrow) will include the 5^th criterion, which is Ranked Wins. Ranked Wins allows for the RACs to look at the “results” against regional ranked opponents. Since we now have regional rankings, this criterion can be included. Remember that since the RACs do their rankings in a vacuum, any changes to their rankings will not be rolled into the regional rankings of other regions until the week following.

As a reminder, here are the rankings from the West RAC last week:

1. Colorado College

2. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

3. Trinity

4. Mary Hardin-Baylor

5. Chapman

6. Whitworth

7. UT-Dallas

8. Cal Lutheran

My predictions for this week are at the bottom of this post.

Let’s see how the results from the past week and the inclusion of the Ranked Wins criterion will most likely change the rankings this week. Let’s take a look at the three teams that have a claim at the top spot in the West:

Teams	Record	SOS	H2H	C. O.	R. W.
Colorado College	.893	.574	None	?	6-3
CMS	.880	.584	None	?	6-3
Trinity	.862	.593	None	?	7-3

The last column is Ranked Wins but that criterion is more than just the record so we’ll need to dive into that a bit more. Overall, these three teams are really close when looking at the selection criteria. First off, the records and SOS are inverted. Colorado College has the best record but the worst SOS of the three. If you read last week’s article then you know the RACs will use a standard deviation when comparing SOS and we also know from last week that it has to be 0.024 or less. There is a spread of 0.019 in the SOS numbers from last week so I’m going to assume there is no advantage in SOS for these teams. Unfortunately, the SOS numbers are going to change this week. I believe based on the opponents this past week that Colorado College will see a bump in the SOS while Trinity and CMS should decrease a bit with CMS suffering the worst. Still, let’s assume no advantage in SOS. As you can see from the chart, there are no head-to-head results so that gets eliminated from consideration. Jumping to Common Opponent and there really isn’t an advantage here, either. Common opponents (not for all three) are WUSTL, Juniata, Cal Lutheran, Southwestern and La Verne. When you look at the results, everything pretty much equals out, which means we are left with just record and Ranked Wins. Here is what I have for each team. The codes mean the region (e.g, MW is Midwest) and the number is their regional rank:

• Colorado College

  • Wins – S3, W3, S6, W6, MW7, NE8

  • Losses – NY1, W3, GL4

• CMS

  • Wins – C1, S1, C4, W5, W8, W8

  • Losses – C3, MA4, W5

• Trinity

  • Wins – W1, C2, GL2, MA4, W4, W4, W8

  • Losses – W1, C4, W7, UNRANKED

If you can follow along, you can see that the Colorado College wins are not as impressive as either CMS or Trinity. Their best wins are South and West #3 teams while the other two each have #1 teams they have beaten. Of course, in this example Trinity gets the benefit of beating Colorado College more than Colorado College gets for beating Trinity. Losses are pretty close with maybe Colorado College a little better off than the others. Trinity also has an unranked loss (Pacific Lutheran). Overall, if I’m giving an advantage then it goes to CMS and then Trinity on the strength of their wins.

Lot of work just to get the top three teams, right? It looks like Colorado College, because they have the best record, ties the other two. CMS has the advantage over Trinity. Maybe the RAC goes to the secondary criteria at this point but I probably give it to CMS as my #1 team. With regards to Colorado College and Trinity, I give the edge to Trinity and it’s because of non-criteria items that I do so. First they have the most recent head-to-head win. Second, I believe they have an easier path to an at-large selection through their out-of-region wins. Again, I’ll say it. When things are close, figure out which team is best for your region to put first and justify it however you can to the NCAA. In the case of these three it doesn’t matter but best to stay consistent.

Let’s take a look at the next four teams:

Teams	Record	SOS	H2H	C. O.	R. W.
UMHB	.778	.580	UTD	None	3-6
Chapman	.833	.541	None	None	3-4
Whitworth	.800	.570	None	None	1-3
UT-Dallas	.833	.545	None	UMHB	2-2

Chapman and UT-Dallas are tied with the best record out of these four with UMHB bringing up the rear. Using last week’s SOS numbers and we can see that UMHB and Whitworth are tied (using standard deviation) but have an advantage over Chapman and UT-Dallas (who are tied). These numbers will change but probably not enough to make this change significantly. UMHB does have a head-to-head advantage over UT-Dallas in their comparison. But, when you factor in UT-Dallas’ win over Trinity who beat UMHB twice, you have to give common opponent to UT-Dallas over UMHB! Let’s take a look at the Ranked Wins:

• UMHB

  • Wins – MA5, NE7, W7

  • Losses – C2, GL2, S2, W3, W3, GL4

• Chapman

  • Wins – W2, MW8, W8

  • Losses – C1, W2, C3, W8

• Whitworth

  • Wins – S6

  • Losses – W1, MW3, GL4, UNRANKED

• UT-Dallas

  • Wins – W3, MW5

  • Losses – MW1, W4, UNRANKED, UNRANKED

Best wins go to Chapman and UT-Dallas. Looking at just wins, it’s probably UT-Dallas. For losses it’s UMHB where you can see they’ve had the opportunities but haven’t been able to cash in. Whitworth is probably last on my list for this group of teams. I actually like the unranked losses by UT-Dallas as they are DePauw and Aurora (who could get ranked this week). You have to be worried about wins against 7 and 8 ranked teams because they could be removed from their region’s rankings and you are left with nothing. Overall, I’d go UT-Dallas, UMHB, Chapman and then Whitworth but beauty is in the eye of the beholder in this case. If the RAC sees this differently then the ordering is going to be very different.

Alright, when I take my comparisons that I’ve done I find that UT-Dallas actually wins it against each of the other three teams. This really all comes down to Ranked Wins and whether you give the advantage to the team that beat Trinity and Stevens Point. Nobody else in this group have two wins against Top 5 teams. (I know not all regions’ ranked teams are equal but I find this helpful.) UMHB takes the next spot as I have them with an advantage over Chapman (SOS and Ranked Wins). I actually have them tied with Whitworth but Chapman has that advantage so the ordering works out better. I double-check that UT-Dallas doesn’t have an advantage over the teams ahead of them and they don’t.

Cal Lutheran is still in the 8^th spot for me. There really isn’t another team that is challenging them for that spot. I might even move them ahead of Whitworth as Whitworth has record but Cal Lu has SOS. The recent Whittier loss by Cal Lutheran hurts, however, as Whitworth beat them earlier in the year (common opponent). Ranked Wins is difficult because although I like the two wins by Cal Lu, they also have 8 losses and 2 additional losses to unranked teams. I decide to keep the Regals in 8^th.

Here are my predicted rankings for the week:

1. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

2. Trinity

3. Colorado College

4. UT-Dallas

5. UMHB

6. Chapman

7. Whitworth

8. Cal Lutheran

I’m not real confident about this prediction. I don’t know the new SOS numbers so that hurts me. Will the committee move UT-Dallas ahead of a team that has beaten them? I think the criteria demands that they do if they evaluate Ranked Wins like I did. Will they even look at common opponent (Trinity) in this comparison? They should but I’ve heard that some RACs don’t really use that criterion. We’ll see how I compare tomorrow once the regional rankings are out.

Update – Watch List has been updated.