3/10 Polls

[DeltaOne81]

Ah, had we only waited a bit, all our ratings problems would have been solved, presenting the latest from INCH:

Nine fun factors the committee should add to the selection process

1. Award points for universities ranked in Playboy's Top 20 party schools.

2. Have head coaches compete in American Idol-style talent show.

3. Cross off any team that doesn't offer free Internet Broadcasts of its games.

4. Bonus points for teams whose mascot can skate.

5. Multiply PWR by total inches of snow received since October 1.

6. Captains write essay: "Why my team deserves an NCAA bid."

7. Team buses gather at centrally located stock car track on "Run What You Brung" Night.

8. Supplement selection committee with tribunal of Judge Judy, Judge Ito and Judge Reinhold.

9. Ever see that Seinfeld episode "The Contest"?

[Greg Berge]

> Conversely, you'd have trouble applying straight Bradley-Terry to world chess rankings, since you'd have to recalculate everything every time a game was played.

And I would build a time machine, beat Garry Kasparov when he was 5 (probably the latest possible age I could beat him at), and then 30 years later I'd be 1-0 against 2900 players.  ;-)

How do tennis rankings work?  Similar to ELO or RPI?

[kingpin248]

Another problem with ELO, completely unrelated to hockey - it's one of the computer rankings used in the BC$ (under the auspices of Jeff Sagarin). :-P

[CrazyLarry]

I've always been curious where the BCS finds 7 different rating systems that don't account for scores.  Is a Bradley-Terry computation among them?

The object of a sports contest is to win the game.  In calculating the performances of teams (and we're talking about evaluating their performance during the season, NOT their potential or whatever else) wins and losses are the important thing.  A rating system should restrict itself to those variables.  Everything else is just somebody's opinion and subject to manipulation.  So, the best thing to do is avoid that sort of thing.

I've always loved that I could evaluate college hockey and the NCAA selection probabilities with an analytical approach.  That's what makes it far superior than listening to that loud, obnoxious bald guy make **** up.