John Whelan raises a couple of points regarding ranking systems. His
thesis is that the PWR's are dominated by the RPI, and the RPI is fatally
flawed this year since it cannot account for the MAAC's schedule which has
little connectivity with the schedules of the establishment teams. I think
he used the term "state of stress" or "stress test" for this situation.
Last week he argued for subtraction of all the MAAC league games from their
PWR calculations. This week he is pushing for the use of the KRACH ranking
to have some influence.
 
        Gosh, how convenient. While the PWR had Quinnipiac at 8th (I think I
recall) going into this weekend, KRACH had QC at 41st. Yeah, that's where
intuitively they must belong. Let's use the KRACH.
 
        Well, in that case, why not use the HEAL ranking? That ranking had QC at
10th. But of course, using the HEAL would not be consistent with the
unstated agenda. Nonetheless, the HEAL does have one thing going for it
that the KRACH does not. It is in use by the Maine high school system while
we are unaware that the KRACH is in use anywhere in an official capacity.
 
        Actually, I am not sure that I am comfortable with any of the computer
rankings. In particular, there is the issue of the subjective biases built
into them: KRACH, HEAL, and I forgot to mention CHODR as well. Each starts
off with a set of historically based team strength influence coefficients
(or similar) to get them started. Thus, the results they produce are path
dependent. Yet another catch twenty-two. The new teams don't have a history
so they are arbitrarily rated low initially by an arbitrary amount. Without
connectivity in their NC schedules, that produces, in some cases, a low
final ranking which is what certain of us have been looking for.
 
        But let's get back from the forest to see the trees here, folks. All we
are doing is playing with numbers. The more we do it, the more the counter
argument (that playing with numbers can be done ad naseum with no meanin
gful result) is reinforced. Similar to the joke I heard from an economist
today: you can take all the economists in the world and lay them end to end
... and they still wouldn't reach a conclusion.
 
        Is QC not of the same caliber of Mankato? I'll take on that argument the
more traditional way. QC is better than UConn. True? Well, some question
from us Huskies fans, but as of today they are; and, if they win the MAAC
tournament they certainly will be. UConn beat Army on a Tuesday night then
flew out to Mankato for a Friday night game. First time on big ice all
year. They were back on their heels and got hammered 8-2. The next night I
got several E-mails from Mankato saying that UConn outplayed the Mavericks,
they outshot them, and were extremely unlucky not to win. Had it not been
for a GWG which never went over the goal line and the subsequent opening up
of play to pull the goal back they probably would have won. Maybe UConn is
not as good as Mankato, but from the common opponent history I would have
to say that QC is certainly at least in their class. And Mankato is doing
themselves proud this weekend. Good for them. I hope they do the
"impossible" tonight.
 
        -- Dick Tuthill
 
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