T100 ratings produce functional win probability forecasts. With just a difference of .25 points between North Central (#7) and Nazareth (#13) in the T100 at this moment, the probability for either team winning is almost commensurate to a “coin-flip.” Not to say the outcome is due to chance. No player or coach alive ever wants to hear such poppycock. The work they put into their craft makes what you or I might refer to in key moments as “dumb luck”, something to them they rightfully have earned. As one prominent college hoops coach recently said, “We aren’t looking for breaks, we make our own!” No one investing so much will ever accept any narrative suggesting there exists anything outside of their locus of control, nor should they, even if sometimes it is. So, when I liken the probability of an outcome like this, one with significant ramifications for whom is selected to compete at the National Tournament, to be on par with the toss of a coin, no malice is intended to anybody’s sport-minded sensibilities.
I know some have raised brow for T100’s Naz placement at #13 and North Central at #7, while the coaches have the undefeated 10-0 Golden Flyers at #9 to NC’s #10 in the latest AVCA poll but consider these things regarding the present state in this rating system.
This contrasts to humans, for example the AVCA coaches, who often tilt heavier toward wins with lesser consideration for opponent strength, even though they would never believe it. The reason computer rating systems were invented in the first place. For example, in the last two weeks there have been 3 teams who have secured 3-2 wins with either 13- or 14-point deficits over the entirety of a match, their play characterized by lower hitting efficiency. Computer systems will give fair credit for these wins, even being outscored and playing less efficient, but nothing remotely close to the credit humans reward in their collective mindsets for these victories. And these 3 matches to which I refer are the highest point differential deficits in 3 years for a team to have overcome and still win. As Bruce Hornsby and the Range suggested, “That’s Just the Way It Is.”
A Golden Flyers vs. Cardinals matchup, like this one, is one of the highest rated competitive affairs of the year with a Matchup Metric = 9.4 seen above, certainly one to rival the other two Golden Flyer-Cardinal tilts still to come in the next few weeks. Except those other two will be contested within a 2-mile radius with their neighbor, rather than splitting the difference in Ohio with an opponent half-way across the country! And this one coming up tomorrow happens in prime time on Friday night at 7:30 pm, so it presumably won’t wreck any of your party plans, either, should you tune in. I am Key Largo bound for a few days the morning after but will attempt to add my follow up remarks at the bottom of this Spotlight before I jet off. (For those that didn’t realize the Spotlight posts have a follow up, feel free to go back and read the Spotlight #1 – Misericordia vs. Baldwin Wallace follow up at its end to see the narrative written about it.)
The hitters on both these teams have some moxie, and the serving swings you see in this matchup will no doubt be some of the better ones all year in D3, I think. However, the NC Cardinals serving game this year shows a little more consistency in error avoidance against better opponents. Assuming both these teams pass as good as I have seen before, this might be the linchpin determining who comes out on top. Expect Naz to set Owen “The Shark” Wickens north of 30% in this one, and the size of North Central’s Cooper Lundal (#3) and the rest of his front line to have a chance to alter his swings. The tandem OH’s Scott & Moser of NC are going to keep the frenetic Naz “D” a little busy on this evening, but that is how they wear you down. Consistency and patience by NC are essential for when Naz keeps a ball alive, which otherwise has no business being in the air. This has always been Naz’s modus operandi – No expectation for it to change now. Coach Cal Wickens commented last evening, “We aren’t going to do anything different. We’ll play our game- Serve & Pass, and we can dig a little bit,” as I took to mean, a lotta bit. It was almost Vince Lombardi-esque as I left the conversation thinking, the best game plan in the world never served, received, or dug anybody. (Lombardi used the words blocked or tackled, of course.)
Massey, Inside Hitter & the AVCA Poll all say this one goes in favor of the Golden Flyers by a hair, but ever the contrarian, I must follow the data suggesting a hair to the other side. I do have a little skin in the game this week, so my heart is not immune this time. However, I can’t let it shade my assessment for what I believe will happen tomorrow. Like in my previous Spotlight feature from last week, I either trust the model or pile-on with the other 3 experts thereby disputing Chris Jones’ premise in his book, “The Eye Test – A case for Human Creativity in the Age of Analytics.” The way I am built gives me no choice! I trust models.
The second model attempts to use expected hitting efficiencies to predict live ball differences, and then merge a component for the terminal game. It also suggests a slight advantage to NC. However, the hitting efficiencies produced in the last month, being just in the 2nd quarter of the season right now, leaves quite a bit to be desired in this instance. It forces a more subtle approach to interpret data. Something that should be done when recognizing condition driven flaws in statistics to rear their ugly head that are capable of paradoxically bending the truth. I also learned a hard lesson last week that no model can ever make up for, “When you put together a Spotlight on a Thursday for a Saturday game, you must live with any outcomes from Friday that would potentially alter the analysis.” This comes to mind as I now take note of NC playing the host, Baldwin Wallace, tonight as a precursor to this match I am spotlighting. Ironically, it was Baldwin Wallace’s last Friday night contest against host Hobart that was the very culprit for that lesson learned. What are the chances of that?
Another uncertainty with the capacity to throw a wrench is the health of Max Stuver of Naz who up until now had been out with a torn thumb ligament. It looks like he will be healthy to go, but it still begs the question for what role Coach Wickens has planned for him in this match? The models also don’t consider the merits of busing 275 miles the day of a match rather than the night before, either. All of these uncertainties are capable of throwing a mere 5% win probability around like the Hulk rag-dolls Loki in the Avengers movie.
Two models at work here. The T100 Rating model has it at 54% for NC. The other uses Pythagorean ratios to forecast live-ball probabilities from hitting efficiency forecasts. This second one converges right to about 58% favoring NC as well. What this essentially means is that if either team were playing at home instead of at the neutral court at the Ursprung Gym on the Baldwin Wallace campus, that team would be favored to win this match. Neither is at home, though, and I may not have chosen this contest for a Spotlight feature had they been.
It seems I must commit to a single probability for NC to present Naz their first defeat of the season, which would be just their 2nd since March 11th of last year. It should rationally be between the 54% & 58% offered by these models, so I will go with 55% since I tend to favor the simplicity of the T100 model’s less noisy edge. And before anybody thinks it’s a big deal, consider this. You could take a fair coin right now and flip it 100 times, and the chances of getting any number of heads at least this far from 50% would still be close to about one-third. All of which is a fancy way to say, “I don’t really know because they aren’t playing this match 100 times, and even if they were, it still would be tentative at best!” LOL
Also, maybe consider this, too. If the 16-team National Tournament were to be determined by the AVCA Poll rankings published Tuesday and no #1 seeded teams in their respective conference tournaments were upset, both these teams would not be included. And per chance if just one of Wentworth, Stevens, Southern Virginia, or Vassar were to lose just a single match in their respective conference tournaments, then neither of these two teams ranked 9th and 10th spotlighted here today would be in the 16-team National Tournament, either. This might lend itself to the magnitude for the outcome of this match. It might also lend itself to my detour the other day “Conference Strength …”
Post Match Follow Up:
The serving went pretty much as expected, both teams generating 3 aces, but Naz erred on theirs almost twice as frequently, 14-8. Those 2 additional points per set earned by North Central in the terminal game was more than expected. And though it was conjectured this could be the tipping point in North Central’s favor, it turned out to be just one of many factors leading to a comfortable Cardinal victory this evening.
The spotlighted hitters from both teams did their jobs at a high level tonight. The tandem of OH’s, Moser & Scott producing 19 kills in 45 swings, and Owen Wickens of Naz generating 13 of his own in 27 attempts. The problem wasn’t so much the 15 kills the complementary cast for the Golden Flyers had in their 64 swings, but more-so the 20 errors which came with them. Contrast this with the Cardinals complement to their OH attack earning almost the same number of kills (14 vs.15) in exactly half the attempts (32 vs. 64) with just 4 errors to show for it, and you get the gist. Throw in the fact that NC’s defense was digging and blocking almost 40% more often than the Naz D (46 -33 totals) and it is apparent the Cardinals also defeated them by doing the very thing Naz has made its bones doing to others. I think it would be fair to say the “uncertainties” alluded to in the Spotlight did not amount to the suggested 5% win probability being slung around, but more like 20% or more, as NC was in the role of the Hulk in this match while Nazareth played Loki. The notion that North Central walks away 55 times out of a 100 winning this match is hard to accept now that it has been played, but no more difficult than believing any model which to this point had Nazareth as the more complete team. At the end of the day, it counts just as a single “L,” with what really matters lying directly ahead of them after a good night rest before returning to the scene of the crime, tomorrow. However, in the court of public opinion, this one might linger as much as the Dominican loss NC had almost 4 weeks ago seems to have lingered, too. That is so far in the rearview now, I doubt that lingering effect continues knowing what was seen tonight.
Nazareth would like to present a better accounting of themselves and the UVC in tomorrow’s matches against BW & Messiah before returning home to a backyard “Battle of the Beaks” with St. John Fisher next Wednesday. Meanwhile North Central is gearing up for CCIW play with 10 of their remaining 13 matches this season being those that will determine if they can score the coveted first seed for their conference tournament. I say coveted because doing so avoids having to defeat what could be 2 National Top 10 teams in a row to win the CCIW. That is a tall order for any team not to get to the #1 hole in the bracket!