IRC National Rankings: 10/21/07

Monday, October 22, 2007

Week 4 Recap

With the start of the season in the WCRHL, Week 4 saw some major changes to both the DI and DII polls and moved the B rankings to just one week away. With games being played in four regions, there was plenty of action to follow this weekend.

In Division I, the top 10 remained the same, with #10 Buffalo winning all three games, including a come from behind win over unranked RIT. The three wins moved Buffalo to 6-0-0 on the season, but wasn’t enough for them to move up in the standings. #11 Colorado State won both games over the weekend and improved their record to 6-0-1 with wins over Denver and Northern Colorado. Three WCRHL teams moved into the rankings, forcing Towson University to fall out. Cal Poly SLO, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara all finished their weekends 4-0-0, and finished the week ranked 13th, 14th and 15th respectively.

In Division II, Cal Poly Pomona, powered by an impressive 4-0-0 weekend, jumped up three spots to five in the rankings. UCSD fell one spot after posting a 3-1-0 record to number seven. CSU San Bernardino, making the move down to DII this season, started 3-1-0 on the weekend as they debuted at number eleven in the rankings. Louisiana-Lafayette also debuted after an impressive opening weekend in the SCHL, posting a 3-0-0 record. #13 Shippensburg and #14 Slippery Rock squared off this weekend in a highly anticipated game, with Shippensburg holding on for a 4-3 victory. Nevada fell ten spots to #15 after a 2-1-1 weekend to start the season.

Division III remained the same.

B Rankings will debut next week.

Week 4: DI National Rankings

#1 – Lindenwood University
Last Week: 1

#2 - Eastern Michigan University
Last Week: 2

#3 - Michigan State University
Last Week: 3

#4 - University of Florida (3-0-1)
Last Week: 4

#5 - The Ohio State University
Last Week: 5

#6 - University of Michigan
Last Week: 6

#7 – SUNY Stony Brook (3-0-0)
Last Week: 7

#8 – North Carolina State University
Last Week: 8

#9 - University of Missouri-St.Louis
Last Week: 9

#10 - SUNY Buffalo (6-0-0)
Last Week: 10

#11 - Colorado State University (6-0-1)
Last Week: 12

#12 - University of Rhode Island (2-1-0)
Last Week: 13

#13 - California Polytechnic State University, SLO (4-0-0)
Last Week: 15

#14 - University of California, Irvine (4-0-0)
Last Week: NR

#15 - University of California, Santa Barbara (4-0-0)
Last Week: NR

Week 4: DII National Rankings

#1 – Neumann College (3-0-0)
Last Week: 1

#2 – West Chester University (3-0-0)
Last Week: 2

#3 – Truman State University
Last Week: 3

#4 - Emory University
Last Week: 4

#5 – Cal Poly Pomona (4-0-0)
Last Week: 8

#6 - Saint Louis University
Last Week: 7

#7 - University of California, San Diego (3-1-0)
Last Week: 6

#8 – Missouri State University
Last Week: 9

#9 – Washington University (STL)
Last Week: 11

#10 – Elon University
Last Week: 12

#11 – California State University, San Bernardino (3-1-0)
Last Week: NR

#12 - University of Louisiana at Lafayette (3-0-0)
Last Week: NR

#13 - Shippensburg University (8-3-0)
Last Week: 13

#14 - Slippery Rock University (5-1-0)
Last Week: 15

#15 – University of Nevada, Reno (2-1-1)
Last Week: 5

Week 4: DIII National Rankings

#1 – St. Charles Community College
Last Week: 1

#2 – Broward Community College (2-1-1)
Last Week: 2

#3 – Arapahoe County Community College (6-1-0)
Last Week: 3

#4 – Nassau County Community College (5-1-0)
Last Week: 4

#5 – Suffolk County Community College (1-1-1)
Last Week: 5

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Week 3 Recap - Results

All Rankings Listed Are From Week 3:

Division I:

#10 Buffalo 5 Penn State 2
#10 Buffalo 8 Pittsburgh 2
#10 Buffalo 3 Rochester IT 2
#11 Colorado State 8 Denver 3
#11 Colorado State 7 Northern Colorado 2
#15 Cal Poly SLO 7 Chapman 2
#15 Cal Poly SLO 9 California 4
#15 Cal Poly SLO 8 UNLV 6
#15 Cal Poly SLO 5 Evergreen (DII) 1

Division II:
#8 Cal Poly Pomona 10 #5 Nevada 3
#5 Nevada 6 UC Riverside 6
#5 Nevada 4 #10 San Diego 0
#5 Nevada 11 Claremont 0
#8 Cal Poly Pomona 6 #6 UC San Diego 3
#6 UC San Diego 8 CSU San Bernardino 4
#6 UC San Diego 13 Claremont 0
#6 UC San Diego 7 #10 San Diego 3
#8 Cal Poly Pomona 7 USC #3
#8 Cal Poly Pomona 11 CSU Monterey Bay 1
San Bernardino 8 #10 San Diego 7
#10 San Diego 7 CSU Monterey Bay 4
#13 Shippensburg 7 Cornell 0
#13 Shippensburg 4 #15 Slippery Rock 3
Brockport 5 #13 Shippensburg 3
#14 SFA State 7 UT Dallas 6
Sam Houston State 10 #14 SFA State 3
Louisiana at Lafayette 7 #14 SFA State 1
#15 Slippery Rock 4 Brockport 1
#15 Slippery Rock 5 Cornell 2

Division III:
#3 Arapahoe CC 5 Metro State - Denver (DI) 3
#3 Arapahoe CC 10 School of Mines (DI) 1

The Rankings Explained

Since the conclusion of the season both founders set out to find the best solution to answer the age old question, “Who’s #1?” After much search, the answer was to use a mathematical formula to calculate the answer. Removing the human element from the voting would likely result in less biased rankings towards individual teams and regions.

The solution would be found in the ELO chess rating system. They system was created to rank chess players by another means that wins, losses and draws. The system uses a mathematical formula to reward each person for impressive feats and punish them for lesser impressive feats. Because chess and inline hockey are two different animals, the general equation had to be changed to allow for more hockeys related factors into the equation.

Using the FIFA Women’s World Rankings as a guideline (Elo Based), we managed to change the rankings to suit the nature of our sport. The rankings include the importance of the game, the outcome of the game, the expected result of the game, and the goal differential of the game when calculating a result. To better explain the way the rankings work I give you the following examples (all team start with a ranking of 1500):

Lindenwood University (1500) vs. UMSL (1500): If Lindenwood won the regular season game 4-3; they would be awarded 15 points for the victory and UMSL would be docked 15 points. However, if the game was won 12-2, Lindenwood would earn 39.38 points for the victory and UMSL would be docked 39.38 points. Additionally, the importance of the game could change, using the national title game as the example, with both teams having equal ratings Lindenwood would be awarded 52.5 points for a 6-3 win.

However, as you could assume, two teams having the same rating would be rare. Each teams point total carries over from one week to the next and from one season to the next. The following is a example of two teams with different point values and the different results it can produce.

Lindenwood University (1746.38) vs. Illinois State (1360.88): There are a few things that you can determine because of the vast difference in each teams rating (385.5). The first is that Lindenwood is expected to win the game. The second is that Illinois State winning the game would be a much bigger accomplishment that Lindenwood winning the game. The maximum points Lindenwood can earn from this game is 7.72, which would mean they won by at least 10 goals. However, on the flip side, if Illinois State was to win the game by at least 10 goals they could earn as many as 71.03 points. This is based on the projection that Lindenwood would win the match-up 90% of the time.

As the two examples show, there are a bunch of positives when using this system. For starters, once a team has achieved a high rating, it becomes difficult for them to increase it without playing a higher level of competition. This rewards regions that have more competitive teams. It also rewards teams who travel out of the region and win games against other higher rated teams. For example, last season, Towson and Army both played James Madison who would have had a higher rating that both visiting teams. In the games, Army and Towson both won handily and would have increased their ratings while negatively hurting James Madison. But, the hidden bonus is they now can bring those rating points back into their region. Those points then become spread out over the entire region as the season progresses and teams win and lose.

For the ratings system to work, each game has to have a certain amount of value attached to it. In the system we will be using five different levels to rate the importance of any give game. The first level is the lowest level of importance; it contains all pre-season exhibition games. The second level includes all regular-season regional games, as well as cross-divisional exhibition games. Level three includes all cross-regional games and invitational based tournaments, like WinterFest. The fourth level includes all regional playoff games and the fifth and final level includes all national playoff games.