I said it in 2021, I said it in 2022, I said it in 2023, and I’ll say it again. All the mainstream rankings for D3VB men’s volleyball (AVCA Coaches Poll, T100, KPI, Massey, etc) are meaningless measurements used for bragging rights between programs. These rankings have no intrinsic value when it comes to your post season chances, but the ones released by the NCAA Wednesday do!
Ramius – The Editor & Chief at Frog Jump
Never were more truthful words ever written! However, I would like to at least share the mainstream AZR-Strength/AZR-SOS Grids for each region below to see how well they can forecast the mindful thinking of committee members? According to the metrics produced by the 4 computer models available, there are only two of 28 squads so far having disagreed. Those contrary to the published teams last week to start this process are denoted by an “X.” The two teams that the AZR Grid Model would have chosen instead are in red with their ordered pair representing (AZR-Strength Rank, AZR-SOS Rank). So, if most interested in a team’s strength then scan right. If the SOS according to these models matter more, then scan up. Personally, I gravitate more to the right because it presumably has already baked in the SOS to some degree to arrive there. If two teams are nearly equivalent when scanning right, then I will look up to see if one’s SOS was significantly above another.
Teams which ultimately get the nod for a Regional Ranking distinction will most likely be from QUAD 1 with a strength rating AZR > 0.4 and would also be expected to carry an SOS AZR > 0. What that means is that any team good enough to merit making any of the 4 regional rankings lists is going to have a strength rating at least .4 standard deviations better than average and should be better than average in its SOS component indicated by a positive z-score for it. Based on this criteria, I thought it might be interesting to see which teams seem closest to breaking into relevancy. i.e. Making their way on to one of these lists. (The 28 teams designated by the NCAA Committee to start on these four lists of seven teams each have their data points plotted for comparison, only, but only those not on their Regional Rankings list yet have been labeled.)
Baruch is an interesting test case when it comes to SOS determination. The NCAA has its metric at .580, good for the 32nd best value of all reported last week. The 4 computer models produce an average Z-Score-SOS good for ranked 78th best. (You can see it above on Baruch’s ordered pair as its “y value” on the first graph.) That is a very large discrepancy! One saying almost among the top quarter and the other conjuring up a notion of below average relative to 124 teams in the landscape.
One would hope the 2nd of 5 criteria (NCAA SOS Metric) for the critical decisions to be made by the NCAA Selection Committee would have a high degree of reliability. Does it, though?