The first week's power rating was...amusing, and week two isn't much better in terms of getting a handle on who the best teams might be. But the inner workings are coming together.
The home court advantage is down from a ridiculous 14.4 to a much more reasonable 4.2 points. This shows that the algorithm is now "figuring out" that good teams are hosting bad ones, rather than a huge home court advantage being the main difference.
Also, the number of teams ranked is down from 391 to 359; as this number falls, the impact of games with these Division II, III, and NAIA teams dwindles as well. Blowouts against these teams inflate a team's rating in the early season, as we can still see in this week's numbers.
Strength power rating for games through Sunday, Nov. 23:
# Team rec Rating
1. Tennessee Tech 3-0 34.84
2. Florida 3-0 33.35
3. Southern Utah 1-2 30.82
4. Utah 3-1 30.74
5. Iona 2-1 29.88
6. Gonzaga 2-0 29.39
7. George Mason 3-1 27.21
8. Lipscomb 2-1 26.86
9. West Virginia 2-0 26.17
10. Wisconsin 4-0 25.82
The early season sees great volatility in this ranking. With only 3 or 4 games per team, that's expected, and in such a wide field, the difference in competition is huge. How is Tennessee Tech #1? Well they beat Lipscomb, of course. Lipscomb? They're #8 essentially due to their 121-54 crushing of Oakland City. Oakland City? They're one of the other-division teams that will fade from consideration as the weeks go on. For now, though, they're considered as legit as any other team. Evansville only beat them by 14 points, which gives Lipscomb a favorable push right now.
Also, 1-2 Southern Utah is #3 despite being 1-2. What gives? More early-season shennanigans, that's what. Being 1-2 doesn't preclude a team from legitimately ranking high, since winning and losing games is of no importance in the Strength rating. Southern Utah beat non D-I Mesa, and lost to Florida by 14, but what really pumps their rating up is their 1-point loss to...Tennessee Tech! Yep, it's all inter-related. In a couple of weeks the real winners and losers will be sorted out. Tennessee Tech already lost again Monday, so even next week things will be re-arranged and should provide a bit of actual insight. Right now it's hard to get through the noise to know if indeed Florida, Gonzaga, West Virginia, and Wisconsin are truly doing well. The computer sees only letters, not a team with an established basketball program.
The Success ratings for the same time period:
# Team rec Rating
1. Clemson 5-0 10.15
2. Georgia Tech 2-0 9.25
3. Duke 6-0 9.23
4. Xavier 5-0 8.93
5. UAB 4-0 8.11
6. St. Bonaventure 3-1 7.88
7. Wisconsin 4-0 6.16
8. Portland St. 3-0 5.54
9. Temple 3-1 5.54
10. Arkansas Little Rock 3-0 5.39
Clemson, #1 last week, adds a couple more wins. #2 Georgia Tech is an odd case: only two wins, one of them over a winless team, and they're #2? The secret is that the algorithm is really giving a premium to road wins right now. In the early season, most good teams host poor teams, and therefore there are few road wins to speak of. Even when "good" teams play each others, it's on a neutral site for a tournament. So at this point, any team that wins a road game is rewarded handsomely.
Georgia Tech beat 3-1 Mercer on the road, and that's where they get almost all their points. Likewise, St. Bonaventure won at Rutgers, and Temple has a road win and two neutral court wins, and only a loss to top-ranked Clemson. Two things—tournament season ending and more games to rank—will mitigate this over-reliance on road wins in the coming weeks. And the two power ratings will start to show more similar results; right now, Wisconsin is the only team common to the top ten in Strength and Success.
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