DefenseBB
Snark is always appreciated!
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Something @Plebe mentioned to me yesterday had me thinking about the "voter perception" vs. the NET and Massey analytical approach. Mostly Plebe was trolling me on comments by Deb Antonelli (who he knows I despise) where she wondered how NC State went from "unranked" to the #3 team in the country and picked to finish 8th in the ACC where she wasn't sure if that is an indictment on the lack of knowledge of the voters or just how good the ACC is. Well, pretty much 95% of this forum would agree it isn't that the ACC is good so it has to be the perspective that the voters are not that knowledgeable. I decided to test that hypothesis by assessing Warren Nolan (WN) NET and their RPI strength of schedule (SoS) vs. Massey rating and their analytical SoS (not RPI) ranking vs. the AP Voters. and there are at least 18 of the 36 schools the AP Voters listed that I assess as the voters "mis-ranking" them. My definition of "mis-ranked" is where NET or Massy are 4 or more places different than the voters for the top 10 teams and 5 or more places different for rankings 11-36. Again, the voters listed a total of 36 teams this week and based on WN/Massey two of them had NO business being listed-Davidson (W/L of 11-1, #40/#74 with SoS#258) and Vanderbilt (13-1, #58/#45 with SoS #186). There are so many other teams closer to a #25 ranking by using any other metric that these voters should really not be voting for these schools. Washington State with a NET of #22 and Massey of #29 is clearly more worthy and did not get any votes. In the SEC, Alabama at #25 NET and #32 Massay warrants more consideration than Vandy.
Analytics only looks at past data and not the "perception" of what injuries will do to a team. 4 schools have significant injuries that do resonate in voters minds. Texas, while 13-1 and #2 NET and #4 Massey lost Harmon for the year and Taylor Jones is out so the voters dropped them down to #10 despite the analytics saying #3/#7. Utah, who has played well despite losing Gianna Kneepkens, is NET #4 but yet the voters have them #15. ND is playing without Miles and Citron and the loss at Syracuse yesterday caused voters to really penalize them to #16 despite their NET #7. Obviously UConn with their Azzi and Caroline injuries weigh in the voters minds as well as our NET is #10, Massey #8 while our AP is #12.
Overall, the good news to me is the voters really only screwed up 1 of the top 21 teams- listed Stanford at #8 whereas they probably belong #3. Everyone else is within my tolerance of or 3 or 5.
NET does have its issues-as noted above, NET has Utah at #4 which given their 1-3 Quad 1 record and then their Massey rating of #16, this ranking seems way too low. I think NET is weighing their close game against SC far too much. Given the injury to Gianna, the voters have them at #15 which seems about right. NET has Colorado at #19 while the voters have them at #5. Both seem wrong. The voters are giving too much credence to their win over LSU while the NET seems to penalize their loss to NC State in the Virgin Islands. I think they belong #8 which is within the +/- 3 Tolerance.
Where the voters really go astray is the #22-36 teams. They seem to have ignored Washington State, Duke (yes @triaddukefan I am sticking up for you!) Michigan State, Alabama and Nebraska who all warrant votes over the aforementioned Davidson and Vanderbilt.
For the data, I started with the Top 30 Warren Nolan NET ranking, then the Top 30 Massey rankings and I had to add 8 teams (4 each who were missing from the other). I then looked at the 36 teams who received votes in this weeks poll. Again, there were two outliers among Warren Nolan (Vandy at #58) and Massey (Davidson #74) that were in the AP poll that should not have been considered. I did my own adjusted ranking that I also looked at the SoS and the Quadrant wins to parse teams (and determine why Davidson and Vandy really should never have received votes).
Analytics only looks at past data and not the "perception" of what injuries will do to a team. 4 schools have significant injuries that do resonate in voters minds. Texas, while 13-1 and #2 NET and #4 Massey lost Harmon for the year and Taylor Jones is out so the voters dropped them down to #10 despite the analytics saying #3/#7. Utah, who has played well despite losing Gianna Kneepkens, is NET #4 but yet the voters have them #15. ND is playing without Miles and Citron and the loss at Syracuse yesterday caused voters to really penalize them to #16 despite their NET #7. Obviously UConn with their Azzi and Caroline injuries weigh in the voters minds as well as our NET is #10, Massey #8 while our AP is #12.
Overall, the good news to me is the voters really only screwed up 1 of the top 21 teams- listed Stanford at #8 whereas they probably belong #3. Everyone else is within my tolerance of or 3 or 5.
NET does have its issues-as noted above, NET has Utah at #4 which given their 1-3 Quad 1 record and then their Massey rating of #16, this ranking seems way too low. I think NET is weighing their close game against SC far too much. Given the injury to Gianna, the voters have them at #15 which seems about right. NET has Colorado at #19 while the voters have them at #5. Both seem wrong. The voters are giving too much credence to their win over LSU while the NET seems to penalize their loss to NC State in the Virgin Islands. I think they belong #8 which is within the +/- 3 Tolerance.
Where the voters really go astray is the #22-36 teams. They seem to have ignored Washington State, Duke (yes @triaddukefan I am sticking up for you!) Michigan State, Alabama and Nebraska who all warrant votes over the aforementioned Davidson and Vanderbilt.
For the data, I started with the Top 30 Warren Nolan NET ranking, then the Top 30 Massey rankings and I had to add 8 teams (4 each who were missing from the other). I then looked at the 36 teams who received votes in this weeks poll. Again, there were two outliers among Warren Nolan (Vandy at #58) and Massey (Davidson #74) that were in the AP poll that should not have been considered. I did my own adjusted ranking that I also looked at the SoS and the Quadrant wins to parse teams (and determine why Davidson and Vandy really should never have received votes).
| Team | Rec | NET Rk | Non-SoS | Rat | SoS | RK | PTS | Adj |
| South Carolina | 12-0 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 874 | 1 |
| UCLA | 12-0 | 5 | 24 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 839 | 2 |
| Stanford | 12-1 | 2 | 13 | 4 | 18 | 8 | 630 | 3 |
| Iowa | 13-1 | 6 | 10 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 754 | 4 |
| Baylor | 12-0 | 8 | 180 | 3 | 14 | 6 | 689 | 5 |
| North Carolina State | 13-0 | 11 | 5 | 5 | 19 | 3 | 784 | 6 |
| LSU | 13-1 | 16 | 317 | 11 | 102 | 7 | 674 | 7 |
| Colorado | 11-1 | 19 | 36 | 10 | 17 | 5 | 692 | 8 |
| Kansas State | 13-1 | 9 | 72 | 14 | 40 | 11 | 519 | 9 |
| Texas | 13-1 | 3 | 164 | 7 | 29 | 10 | 585 | 10 |
| Connecticut | 9-3 | 10 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 12 | 469 | 11 |
| USC | 10-1 | 12 | 74 | 18 | 33 | 9 | 601 | 12 |
| Notre Dame | 9-2 | 7 | 47 | 12 | 10 | 16 | 309 | 13 |
| Utah | 8-3 | 4 | 114 | 16 | 22 | 15 | 409 | 14 |
| Virginia Tech | 10-2 | 13 | 159 | 20 | 43 | 13 | 435 | 15 |
| Indiana | 11-1 | 18 | 64 | 9 | 27 | 14 | 425 | 16 |
| Gonzaga | 13-2 | 15 | 6 | 23 | 9 | 18 | 246 | 17 |
| Ohio State | 9-3 | 17 | 25 | 19 | 7 | 20 | 181 | 18 |
| Creighton | 10-2 | 20 | 18 | 22 | 11 | 21 | 157 | 19 |
| West Virginia | 12-0 | 21 | 185 | 15 | 138 | 24 | 106 | 20 |
| Louisville | 12-2 | 26 | 21 | 13 | 13 | 17 | 306 | 21 |
| Michigan State | 11-2 | 14 | 168 | 26 | 58 | 31 | 9 | 22 |
| Oregon State | 12-0 | 28 | 240 | 17 | 113 | 28 | 19 | 23 |
| Washington State | 11-3 | 22 | 56 | 29 | 42 | 0 | 24 | |
| Duke | 9-4 | 29 | 9 | 27 | 12 | 0 | 25 | |
| Maryland | 9-4 | 38 | 4 | 21 | 4 | 0 | 26 | |
| TCU | 13-0 | 23 | 238 | 36 | 224 | 23 | 120 | 27 |
| Marquette | 12-1 | 34 | 158 | 24 | 47 | 19 | 189 | 28 |
| Alabama | 13-2 | 25 | 183 | 32 | 107 | 0 | 29 | |
| Texas A&M | 12-1 | 24 | 199 | 35 | 147 | 29 | 16 | 30 |
| Washington | 11-1 | 30 | 279 | 30 | 106 | 27 | 36 | 31 |
| Nebraska | 10-3 | 27 | 166 | 33 | 35 | 0 | 32 | |
| Michigan | 11-3 | 35 | 182 | 31 | 48 | 33 | 8 | 33 |
| Syracuse | 11-1 | 42 | 250 | 25 | 60 | 25 | 56 | 34 |
| Florida state | 11-3 | 41 | 65 | 28 | 25 | 22 | 154 | 35 |
| Miss State | 13-2 | 32 | 204 | 41 | 118 | 35 | 3 | 36 |
| North Carolina | 9-4 | 46 | 59 | 34 | 24 | 26 | 49 | 37 |
| UNLV | 11-1 | 31 | 118 | 44 | 98 | 30 | 15 | 38 |
| Miami | 10-2 | 44 | 132 | 38 | 79 | 32 | 8 | 39 |
| Vanderbilt | 13-1 | 58 | 186 | 45 | 122 | 36 | 3 | 40 |
| Davidson | 11-1 | 40 | 258 | 74 | 182 | 34 | 6 | 41 |
Is there a Cliff Notes version of this?