With only one contest on the docket today, scheduled to start in a couple hours, I figured I would put the T100 together a little earlier than usual – No disrespect intended to Augustana or Illinois Wesleyan by not waiting for their result. I could never disrespect Augustana with their ascension into the MORE Top 25 last week, and now into 20th on the T100 after a well earned sweep of last year’s National Runner-up, North Central, the middle of the week. That victory avenged a 3-2 defeat at the hands of the Cardinals on the Viking’s home court earlier this season. I was thinking about suggesting a significant bump for IW’s chances today because they are at home. Until I just reminded myself Augustana’s win on Wednesday was also away at the North Central gym. One has to wonder if IW’s Senior Day could offer enough inspiration in combination with what could very well be an Augustana hangover (literal or figuratively?) coming off the high emotions. Could it be a trap game? Some may think so, but I checked with Vegas to see the money-line is still -650 for Coach Ducey’s squad this afternoon, so smart money doesn’t think that at all. Sign me up for an Andrew Jackson to bring home a $3 profit Mr. Vegas-Insider-man! For those of you either running to your computers or opening Draft-Kings on your phone right this moment to get action on something other than March Madness, I am just having some fun in my attempt to say IW has their work cut out for them because the T100 model forecasts just a 1 in 6 chance they get it done. It might happen, though. I rolled a 6 just the other day on my third attempt to get Yahtzee. That is why they play the game! I am glad these two teams will get some attention from the D3 Volleyball crowd later today, as it seems they are the least talked about CCIW teams. At least until I just spent something like 300 words “talking” about them.
Alert the media! Southern Virginia lost … (pause here for dramatic effect) … Wait for it … – “A SET.” And then they followed that up by taking a squeaky 31-29 game to get it back to “deuce.” The T100 model had Juniata in that match as a 3-1 dog – Nothing to do with the fact they ended up succumbing by a score of 3-1. Well maybe in a round about way, considering that meant a 75% chance for a Knights win, and many teams with a 75% chance do ultimately win by a 3-1 margin playing this game we love so much. What all this means is that Southern Virginia is moving closer to clinching a #1 seed in the CVC tourney, but Marymount could still catch them on April 3rd. I am certain the Juniata folks are hoping for this, particularly if the Eagles can take care of business at home next Friday against Marymount to possibly set the stage for a 3-way tie scenario: NEWS FLASH! – CVC Tie-break Info:
| If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used: 1) Match record – total conference competition 2) Match results – head-to-head 3) Set record – head-to-head 4) Set record – conference competition 5) Point differential of match(es) between tied teams 6) Point differential based on total competition 7) Record vs. common opponents 8) Coin flip. |
And now for what many of you came here for, as the 12th edition of the T100 in 2024 is unveiled in the space below:
For those that read my Conference Corner – Tres (#3) a couple days ago, I introduced a MNF graphic. No, nothing to do with Roger Goodell’s greedy enterprise – My New Favorite graphic. The x axis is the team strength as determined by a composite z-score of 4 different computer experts while the y axis is the team’s Strength of Schedule (SOS) determined by a similar composite z-score of the same 4 experts. Keep in mind the horizontal axis is not an independent axis because a portion of a team’s strength rating was undoubtedly determined by knowing how good the teams they played were. Nonetheless, it sure does allow a human to merge these two ideas together into a single mindful image, doesn’t it?
That’s it until “Tuesdays with MORE” in 48 hours. I will be introducing the top 25 of the KPI into the MORE ranking, but to this moment, I am still balking on whether it will be a part of the AZR metrics moving forward. Waiting for a response from its maker to see how it deals with SOS differently than the NCAA’s RPI before I can have enough confidence for it across the whole landscape beyond its top 25. (KPI is one of six models used for March Madness’ at-large determination, but they only utilize it to differentiate teams better than the 80th percentile, which just so happens to be what the top 25 represents in D3 Volleyball, too.) For those that missed it before, I will offer the same question, as it pertains to SOS, I asked a couple days ago. It seems pertinent since there is going to be a lot of SOS discussion going on very soon, I think.
“Does anything peculiar happen to a SOS metric for teams in a conference, the top half extremely skilled who play a non conference schedule winning less than 50% of the time, when simultaneously, the lesser skilled bottom half’s non conference schedule allows it to win considerably more than 50% of the time?”
Eringer
SOS is a BEAR! I noticed Wentworth’s SOS ranks varied from 3rd up to 25th by two of the models with the other two sitting at 8th and 13th. That is very telling! I know my interest in SOS, particularly for NCAA Tournament bid candidates, revolves around the middle 50% of opponents played in a schedule because every team in the top 25 of the country is undefeated playing against the weakest quarter of it’s opponents, so who really cares if Team A goes 8-0 against a group of teams that was in the 80th to 100th ranked spots, while Team B did their 8-0 against 60th to 80th ranked teams? There is very little difference between a team having a 99.9% chance to win compared to another having a 99.2% chance of winning against an inferior opponent ranked 20 spots better. I care about the skew in a distribution of opponents, but only determined by the middle 50%, not its latter end, for the reason just stated. Those who use the concept of means rather than medians as a premise to compute SOS might be a little like that teacher some of us had in high school who says something like, “You must be a C student because you earned a 95% for 3 consecutive quarters followed by that most recent 4th quarter grade of 10% when you got a zero on the last test and missed all those homework assignments. This gives you a 74% final grade for the course.” PLEASE! Don’t lie like that!
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