First Round Update

Santa Clara lost 2-0 to Cal. Tough break for the Broncos... a promising season for them (they were #1 for a while) was derailed by injuries, including losing their best player before the season even started.

San Diego is tied 1-1 with Oklahoma State with ten minutes to go. Definitely one to keep an eye on... I think the Toreros could give USC a run for their money if they advance.

There weren't really any major upsets that I saw... I think all the seeded teams are still alive.

Two games went into PKs... Duke over South Carolina and Missouri over Southeast Missouri.

All the top seed rolled too... not surprising, but definitely indicitive that despite increasing parity there is still a major divide between the top programs in the country and the lesser ones.

Come on San Diego!!!

Rats... right after I post this, I see Oklahoma State scored with four minutes to go. Darn!

Well, we're the only WCC torch-bearers now. Defintely a disappointment... it's always nice when the conference posts a good postseason record - it helps legitimize it as one of the majors, which we all know it is.

Yeah, too bad for both SCU and USD.... 2 years in a row (or is it 3?) that SCU has lost in the 1st round. Ouch.

I have just become a big Oklahoma State fan.

Too bad for SD. Albyn Jones had them winning- the only miss he had on the right side of the brackets.

OkSU is a tough team. They beat Notre Dame, Texas, Missou, Oklahoma, Kansas-- nearly Beat A&M

UCLA might have its hands full. Let's hope they have to come here next.



BTW, on the left side, Albyn missed 4. It's not as bad as it sounds, he had given the losers less than a 50% chance of winning in all cases except Boston College. BC had a 57% chance in Albyn's predictor, Uconn was at 27%. Uconn won in a shootout

Well said, Geezer... it's time to root, root, root for the Cowboys! Or wait... Cowgirls. Whatever. Go Oklahoma State.

Though really, there would be a certain beauty in going down to UCLA and giving them payback for last year.

I'd rather give them payback here. There's a symetry to that--

Maybe they'll come play in our pasture next year.

Geezer - what does Albyn have in his crystal ball for the Pilots? Does he go game by game only?
Or does he give farther out predictions? Like, does he predict a Final Four?

FANatic,
Unlike RPI, Jones is supposed to be predictive.

Albyn's main page: http://soccerratings.com/index.php/Main_Page

Has a java widget that makes analysis of his numbers easy. The basic idea is that each team is given a rating number. A home field advantage is also computed ( worth an average of 60 points to the home team) and it is the Difference between two rating numbers that is important. A 100 points in the difference of the points increases the odds of the higher rated team of winning by about 2:1. So a team ranked 100 point's higher should win 2 out of 3 matches.

One caution- there is no allowance in the system for short term influences, like a hurt player or change in composition of the team or its circumstance in the short term. It doesn't care, for example, that we got Schmidt and Lopez back midseason, only the win-loss results over the whole season. I'm unclear if later games are weighted differently than earlier games in the schedule.

Each team is also assessed according to how reliable that data is game-to -game (statistical error), and the relative strengths of schedule is also noted. In Albyn's case, that is expressed as Median strength of opponents -- i.e. half the opponents were better than that number, half were worse.

The Main page has links to pages that hold the data in table form, and to a page that explains the system.
http://soccerratings.com/index.php/Women%27s_NCAA_Division_I_Soccer_Ratings is the page for D1 women.
The rating difference for the two teams in question is 304 points, but colorado is at home, and one piece of information not in the tables is Colorado's Home advantage, so we just have to trust the widget. So if you run the widget for Colorado(College Women) at home vs Portland (College Women) the prediction for who wins in the normal run of play (110 minutes) is :

Portland wins: 80.11% (4.0 : 1 odds)
Colorado wins: 11.18% (1 : 7.9 odds)
tie (or shootout): 8.71% (1 : 10.5 odds) he makes no prediction on shootout results. I see this number as an indicator of uncertainty. split the difference and we have about an 85% chance of winning.
To give you an idea of the influence of home field, a neutral field raises our chances by 5% or so- if we played at home, it increases another 5%. Also, this number doesn't include the results from Friday night.

In the first round of the playoffs, every team that had a chance of wining higher than 57%, won, except 1. No team except Boston College and San diego had a win % Higher than 50% and lost. BC/Uconn (57% BC) went to shootout, so technically it's a tie and falls within BC's win or tie figures, if you use tie as an uncertainty figure. San Diego was a huge upset (69% SD), according to Jones, but I think that game is a poster child for the weakness of the system. They clearly weren't as strong late as they were early. We are the same in the reverse, in my opinion and in the schedule results. Oklahoma State has been up an down all year, sometimes over achieving, sometimes underachieving. I would have thought that would have been reflected in the Statistical error, but that's not what that number apparently shows. Also, the home/away difference is striking. Where they played would have made about twice the percentage difference as UP's. Also, San Diego's chances of winning are a lot higher than the 40 point difference in just the rating number predicts, I'm not sure exactly why.

To really predict for next week, you need to wait for the weekly update (Usually by Wed. night). He only predicts individual rounds, but I suppose someone with a statistical bent could use the accumulated odds to predict a College cup winner.

Go to the website and play with the numbers yourself. Albyn has better explanations, too. Also, other sites have an analysis of how Jones' numbers are derived.

Geez-

Your resources continue to astound me, I spent far too much time on that site once you referenced it.

The numbers won't mean anything on the Pitch tomorrow. They still have to play the game...

SO--

What a great day of soccer tomorrow, 9AM MLS cup, Noon Women on Comcast Net, and then the men solidify their NCAA bid at 3...

Geezer - Thanks for all that hard work regarding Albyn Jones. You do have some excellent resources to work with. It kind of makes it fun to look at things in different and sometimes very interesting ways.

Not just that, but you seem to effortlessly guide us through what everything means. I am no math whiz and would be lost wading through all that data. But you give meaning to the numbers in a way that's relatively easy for "average Joe", (me), to follow.