From:                   John T Whelan <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Strength of Schedule (was Re: PWR Out)

> Doug Peterson writes:
>
> > One interesting thing in the RPI is to notice the weakness (if I am
> > interpreting this correctly) of the opponents schedules for those at
> > the top of the RPI.  As a for instance, I am used to seeing
> > Minnesota have a opponents schedule rating (winning percentage) as
> > one of the hardest.  This year Minnesota's opponents schedule is
> > 23rd and St. Cloud at postion 9 in the RPI is 45th in opponents
> > winning percentage.
>
> On my ranking comparison page (see link above) I've also added a
> "strength of schedule" table to compare the SOS measures used by KRACH
> and RPI; note that Minnesota's schedule is 6th toughest in the country
> and SCSU's 8th by KRACH's standards, but RPI's SOS measure has them at
> 23rd and 42nd, respectively.
>
> I think what this means is that Minnesota and St. Cloud have teams on
> their schedules with losing records against tough opponents.  (E.g.,
> Alaska-Anchorage, who play the toughest schedule in the country by
> either standard.)

Both Minnesota and St. Cloud have played games against Bemidji State,
who I believe currently have the worst winning pct. in D1 (though by
KRACH at least Bentley was the worst team last I looked).  It doesn't
matter much to KRACH, because both teams won those games, but the SofS
in RPI doesn't care what kind of result the teams had in those games.

About the only way to get around those games is the way KRACH does -
discount them heavily in their effect of SofS if they're won and only
make them a factor if they're lost or tied (any sort of mean that's not
weighted by results rather than games played will otherwise be
affected).

--
 Craig Powers                   NU ChE class of '98
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"Good..bad....I'm the guy with the gun." -- "Ash" in *Army of Darkness*