It's still rather early to expect meaningful results (and besides, I still
have to tidy up the presentation), but I thought it would be interesting
to show how KRACH has handled the differing schedule strengths amongst
teams.
 
The "executive summary": Minnesota #13, Quinnipiac #44, but Niagara #17.
In the results below, "RRWP" stands for "round-robin winning percentage":
the winning percentage KRACH thinks each team would get if they played all
the other teams once. (A large RRWP relative to actual winning percentage
means that the team has had a tough schedule.) Calculations are based on
games through Sunday.
 
Rank Team                                Pct   RRWP   Rating  Group
   1 Colgate (7-2)                     0.778  0.900      877      1
   2 Harvard (4-1)                     0.800  0.879      678      1
   3 North Dakota (8-1-1)              0.850  0.877      664      1
   4 Rensselaer (8-2)                  0.800  0.873      633      1
   5 St Lawrence (7-2)                 0.778  0.868      605      1
   6 Maine (9-0-2)                     0.909  0.846      479      1
   7 Colorado College (8-3)            0.727  0.835      431      1
   8 Cornell (4-2)                     0.667  0.827      397      1
   9 Wisconsin (10-2)                  0.833  0.824      387      1
  10 MSU-Mankato (4-2)                 0.667  0.799      310      1
  11 New Hampshire (8-2-1)             0.773  0.766      235      1
  12 Minnesota-Duluth (4-4)            0.500  0.750      207      1
  13 Minnesota (4-7-1)                 0.375  0.726      171      1
  14 Michigan State (10-3)             0.769  0.669      113      1
  15 Boston University (6-3-2)         0.636  0.667      111      1
  16 Michigan (10-3)                   0.769  0.660      106      1
  17 Niagara (4-2)                     0.667  0.647       96      1
  18 Miami (7-4-2)                     0.615  0.626       83      1
  19 Lake Superior (5-5)               0.500  0.595       67      1
  20 Yale (3-3-1)                      0.500  0.594       66      1
  21 Merrimack (5-5-1)                 0.500  0.585       63      1
  22 Boston College (5-5)              0.500  0.582       61      1
  23 Alaska-Anchorage (6-6)            0.500  0.580       60      1
  24 St Cloud (3-7)                    0.300  0.574       58      1
  25 Denver (5-7)                      0.417  0.571       57      1
  26 Providence (4-6)                  0.400  0.568       56      1
  27 Northern Michigan (10-3-1)        0.750  0.551       49      1
  28 Ferris State (6-6)                0.500  0.540       46      1
  29 Clarkson (2-6-2)                  0.300  0.537       45      1
  30 Northeastern (3-5-2)              0.400  0.512       37      1
  31 Vermont (3-5-1)                   0.389  0.480       30      1
  32 Western Michigan (5-5-2)          0.500  0.477       29      1
  33 Princeton (1-3-2)                 0.333  0.466       27      1
  34 Notre Dame (4-6-2)                0.417  0.459       25      1
  35 Union (3-7)                       0.300  0.437       21      1
  36 Nebraska-Omaha (2-4-4)            0.400  0.429       20      1
  37 Dartmouth (1-2-2)                 0.400  0.414       17      1
  38 Mass Lowell (2-8-1)               0.227  0.410       17      1
  39 Bowling Green (3-8)               0.273  0.380       13      1
  40 Alaska-Fairbanks (3-9)            0.250  0.346        9.1    1
  41 Ohio State (2-11-1)               0.179  0.334        7.9    1
  42 Mass Amherst (2-5-1)              0.312  0.297        4.8    1
  43 Air Force (4-2)                   0.667  0.189      100      2
  44 Quinnipiac (8-2-1)                0.773  0.157      686      3
  45 Holy Cross (2-4-1)                0.357  0.139      272      3
  46 Sacred Heart (3-1-2)              0.667  0.112      100      3
  47 Brown (0-6)                       0.000  0.104      100      4
  48 Michigan Tech (0-12)              0.000  0.104      100      5
  49 Canisius (3-4)                    0.429  0.102       73      3
  50 Iona (3-4-1)                      0.438  0.092       53      3
  51 American Int'l (2-3-2)            0.429  0.082       39      3
  52 Army (2-5-1)                      0.312  0.067       24      3
  53 Fairfield (0-7-2)                 0.111  0.052       14      3
  54 Connecticut (1-6)                 0.143  0.047       12      3
 
(The details of the "Rating" and "Group" columns will be explained next
week.)
 
Minnesota, 4-7-1, nonetheless get ranked 13th because of a strong
schedule so far (consisting of teams ranked 3, 6, 7, 9, 12 and 22). A .500
record against that kind of schedule would be good enough for top 10.
 
Quinnipiac, 8-2-1, get ranked 44th. This is because of a much weaker
schedule: losses against #4 and #17, then a bunch of games against teams
ranked below 44th, all of which were won except for a tie against Iona.
In fact, the teams in the ranking above split into three groups: the top
42, Air Force and the rest (including Quinnipiac); the upshot of this is
that Quinnipiac can win all they like against MAAC opposition, but they
won't rise above #44 until a MAAC team defeats someone from out of
conference (and not Army!).
 
I'm not picking on Quinnipiac especially; it's just that even a large
number of wins against weak opposition doesn't make a strong team.
Compare Niagara, for instance: this team is ranked #17, on a schedule
consisting of losses to #5 and #23, and wins against #15, #33, #43 amd
#44. If you think of the win against BU and the loss against UAA
"balancing out", #17 seems to be a fair ranking.
 
--
Ken Butler, Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics, Dalhousie University
      [log in to unmask]  /  http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~butler
                 Tants caps, tants barrets.
 
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