Posted by dahsdebater on 6/4/2013 4:16:00 PM (view original):
I'd be careful with that last paragraph.  I'm probably smarter than you, and while you're probably a better programmer since other people typically do my theory for me, I'm probably better at algorithm development.  Based on this last post alone I'd probably say I must have more friends, too, but based on years of experience - in spite of your initial persona as a forum dick - you seem like a guy that would be fun to hang out with.  In fact, if you're ever around the bay area I'd be happy to grab a beer with you.

Honestly, I used to think about it more the way that you do.  But I've come around.  In the real world, the purpose of seeding isn't to reward teams for their regular season performance.  It's to create a tournament that will A) be fun to watch and B) determine the best team in the country AT THE TIME OF THE TOURNAMENT.  That's really the best it can do.  The third priority would probably be fairness to the teams and players in the tournament, and maybe a distant fourth rewarding regular season performance.  I used to hate it when teams got bumped or docked a few seeds when a key player got injured or came back from injury late in the season.  Didn't seem fair.  But at the end of the day it's the most fair for the rest of the tournament.  Are you screwing over a team's players, who worked hard all season, by dropping them from a 3-seed to a 6-seed after their star gets hurt?  Sure you are.  But it protects the integrity of the bracket.  Imagine if Jordan had been injured for most of a season and came back to help Carolina win an ACC tournament.  Maybe your ranking system would call that team a 7-seed.  Is it fair to the 2-seed that's going to hit them in the 2nd round to actually make them a 7?  Not really.  In the same way you don't want to reward a team TOO much for having a schedule with a bunch of teams that aren't exactly cupcakes, but don't pose a real challenge or prove very much about the strength of a top-10 program.

At the top of the bracket in paritcular you seed based on the apparent relative strengths of the teams.  Obviously that's really the goal everywhere.  Games against teams in the 30s and 40s don't really speak to relative strengths of top 10 teams.  They just don't.  It's a pretty good bet that most of the time both of our teams would beat those teams.  Games against top teams demonstrate the actual talent level of the teams involved.

Here's another way to look at it.  Looking at our schedules, just try to guess how each team would have done against the other's schedule.  My team was 4-1 against the top 25.  I would tend to guess, based on my results alone, that I probably would have won about 2 more games than they did against their schedule.  OTOH, they were 1-6 against the top 25, so it's unlikely that with 3 top 10 opponent games in conference and a road game against a team they lost to at home they would have won any more than 22 games against my schedule.  Obviously that's conjecture, particularly since to the best of my ability I'm taking team talent out of the equation aside from it's obvious influence on results.  But unless you think that my guesses are wrong - and I'm guessing you don't, since they seem fairly reasonable to me and I think I'm looking at this fairly objectively - it seems hard to say that based on the balance of play they seem better based on the schedules, even though if we switched I would have done ~2 games better against their schedule than they did and they would have done ~2 games worse against mine.
Wow!  You tell Colonels to be careful with what he posts, then you drop this gem of an opening paragraph.....
6/4/2013 4:46 PM
He basically came out telling me I can't understand why his ranking system is better, and that's bullshit.  He just won't even try to look at any point of view that suggests that it isn't.
6/4/2013 5:05 PM
The goal should be to put the better team higher.  Colonels' argument is that they've had a better SEASON.  There is room for argument there, I can see that point of view.  Frankly it's extremely close.  But if you look at the two resumes alone, as I alluded to in an earlier post, I think most people would assume based on our seasons that my TEAM is better.  So I guess it's a philosophical difference in which he just wants to seed based on who had the better season, and I'd rather give the higher seed to the better team, at least within the constraints of tangible results.  At the end of the day, I don't want scheduling to trump talent.  You can reward smart scheduling to an extent, but I'd rather see that be limited.  It's one thing if you go 29-0 with your best opponent being RPI 87.  At that point you might have to seed based on something close to Trevor's system because there isn't any real indication from the schedule how that team would stack up against either Methodist or Wooster.  But in this case I think we both played enough good teams to have a very good idea who would be the favorite if we played.  And it's not the team that would have been seeded higher at the time I started the thread.  I haven't even looked at their players, I don't know if I would actually pick myself against them or not.  But that's not the point.  The resumes certainly imply to me that I would.  That should mean I get the higher seed, at least from my perspective.  If there's enough information in the resume to give a significant indication of a probable favorite in a head-to-head matchup, the favorite should be a higher seed.  Period.
6/4/2013 5:13 PM
When you started this thread, you were looking at being the first 3 seed and Wooster the last 2 seed.  Both of  you would have been placed in the same half of the same region and would have met in the Sweet 16 had the chalk held.  Not much difference there, no?  Certainly not enough to get all worked up over.
6/4/2013 5:41 PM
fwiw I read colonels statement as saying that people in general are stupid and that's why a system like his would never fly in real life.  I don't think he was referring to you at all dahs.

Also I'm smarter than all you guys.

6/4/2013 5:44 PM
Lol, yes I meant simpletons/idiots in general, that was never meant towards you, dahsdebater.  The media/analysts and consequently those who follow them get too hung up on 1/35th, 2/35th, 4/35ths, 8/35ths of schedules and don't view the "entire body of work" as they claim they do...they're suckers, it's like believing a stripper that says she loves you.

And that's right, my rankings are meant to determine which team had the best season given the schedule it played, so yes it eliminates all conjecture.  If you played Wooster's schedule and if they played your schedule doesn't matter, because that didn't happen.  Again my rankings aren't about what if, rather what happened.  Everyone may not agree with my formula, my logic, my premises, etc., but my ranking system does everything I think a ranking system should do and doesn't what it shouldn't.

It would/will probably never be used in real life because non-cons are used more as a pre-season than as a proving ground, thus a lot of teams don't want to schedule tough competition early, they just want their easy home wins...smaller schools get their big paydays through these away games with the powerhouses, it's pretty cut and dry.  Conversely, I think my rankings try to highlight the essence of competition, try to go undefeated against the best 27 teams in the game.  You control your destiny with how you schedule, but you have to succeed (win) to make it payoff.

6/4/2013 6:48 PM (edited)
Oh and btw...

Rank W L Team T10
1
24 2 Methodist 296.439923076923
2
19 7 Wooster 294.811192307692

and just to note, if I didn't use point margin, Wooster would be ahead of you by a smidge.
6/4/2013 6:54 PM
Posted by tarvolon on 6/4/2013 4:23:00 PM (view original):
I agree that they shouldn't be double-counted, but I do think the best system rates quality wins very highly (and doesn't have arbitrary cutoff points. A win over #25 shouldn't be worth significantly more than a win over #26). Not that I know what the best system is, just that this should be a feature. Last year, I'd rather have wins over Duke (RPI #1), Austin Peay (323), and Presbyterian (332) than Stony Brook (77), LSU (92), and Loyola-Maryland (98). 
I'll be honest, the second trio reads better in my system, but to give a better example...

A win over #1 and #324 is significantly better than a win over #162 and #163

6/4/2013 7:05 PM
trevor, you know I admire you for speaking your mind (at any cost) but I really do think it might behoove you (and lead to less pointless dick measuring contests in the forums) if you would perhaps take an extra second or two to choose your words more carefully. It might even avoid things like your since deleted rampage against people with cancer or heart attacks or whatever it was...

Free advice, worth at least twice the price
(and no, I won't try to claim I always follow my own free advice, but I do try...)
6/4/2013 7:05 PM
Posted by colonels19 on 6/4/2013 7:05:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tarvolon on 6/4/2013 4:23:00 PM (view original):
I agree that they shouldn't be double-counted, but I do think the best system rates quality wins very highly (and doesn't have arbitrary cutoff points. A win over #25 shouldn't be worth significantly more than a win over #26). Not that I know what the best system is, just that this should be a feature. Last year, I'd rather have wins over Duke (RPI #1), Austin Peay (323), and Presbyterian (332) than Stony Brook (77), LSU (92), and Loyola-Maryland (98). 
I'll be honest, the second trio reads better in my system, but to give a better example...

A win over #1 and #324 is significantly better than a win over #162 and #163

I expected the second would read better in your system, but I would still take the first. It was what I figured would be a point of contention where I sided more with dahs over you. Not to say you don't have a great system, but I haven't run into any system that didn't have its counterintuitive results. But you get the idea. 
6/4/2013 7:13 PM
Posted by dacj501 on 6/4/2013 7:05:00 PM (view original):
trevor, you know I admire you for speaking your mind (at any cost) but I really do think it might behoove you (and lead to less pointless dick measuring contests in the forums) if you would perhaps take an extra second or two to choose your words more carefully. It might even avoid things like your since deleted rampage against people with cancer or heart attacks or whatever it was...

Free advice, worth at least twice the price
(and no, I won't try to claim I always follow my own free advice, but I do try...)
It's a fair point and thank you.  I was a bit/a lot out of line about the mygeneration thing and that's why I deleted it...it got out of hand.  As for people (not necessarily anyone here) analyzing 10% of a schedule and calling it a season, I don't apologize for calling them simpletons/idiots.  If I happen to catch a selection show and all I hear about are "good wins" and "bad losses", I might hurl a word or 2 at the TV.  To me, the national media pitches crap/not even close to the entire story/picture and people just eat it up because it's in the national conscience, and I come to resent it.  I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm a nobody when it comes to a national view of all of this, but again, I've literally broken everything down from a ranking standpoint, piece by piece, to come up with something that I'm completely happy and satisfied to do battle with on any level...so when I hear some "bracketologist" talking about stuff, it kinda gets me going...those guys don't really look beyond what RPI and SOS says, and while they're good tools, people don't realize how much they leave to be desired either.
6/4/2013 7:16 PM
Posted by tarvolon on 6/4/2013 7:13:00 PM (view original):
Posted by colonels19 on 6/4/2013 7:05:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tarvolon on 6/4/2013 4:23:00 PM (view original):
I agree that they shouldn't be double-counted, but I do think the best system rates quality wins very highly (and doesn't have arbitrary cutoff points. A win over #25 shouldn't be worth significantly more than a win over #26). Not that I know what the best system is, just that this should be a feature. Last year, I'd rather have wins over Duke (RPI #1), Austin Peay (323), and Presbyterian (332) than Stony Brook (77), LSU (92), and Loyola-Maryland (98). 
I'll be honest, the second trio reads better in my system, but to give a better example...

A win over #1 and #324 is significantly better than a win over #162 and #163

I expected the second would read better in your system, but I would still take the first. It was what I figured would be a point of contention where I sided more with dahs over you. Not to say you don't have a great system, but I haven't run into any system that didn't have its counterintuitive results. But you get the idea. 
Understood.

I used to not have an adjustment for this so back in the day a 1 and a 324 was worth the same as a 162 and 163, and that's pretty ridiculous.  A couple guys beat me up about that and I eventually made the change...they were right.  I really do appreciate the people that have told/suggested to me what's wrong/could be improved about my system, and that's why it is the way it is today.
6/4/2013 7:21 PM
I think your BPI rankings are interesting, and I'm guessing more people would take a critical (in the analytic sense, not the negativity sense) view of it if it weren't for built-in/existing impressions they've made of you over the years. Not sure what to do with that now, and I've seen you express contrition numerous times, but its quite the hurdle to jump over. 

Have you ever considered publishing BPI style rankings for the worlds/divisions you play in? It might get people more interested in debating the actual model rather than the man behind it? 
6/4/2013 7:23 PM
And again, I will admit, the biggest shortcoming of my system is that it DOESN'T tell who the best team is.  There are a lot of good, predictive systems out there whose rankings basically say that #1 would beat all teams, #2 would beat all teams except #1 and so on, and you would certainly want to take them to Vegas with you...Sagarin, the Andrade rankings I publish, WIS' power rankings I guess.

6/4/2013 7:28 PM
Dacj501, to be honest, I think my system has been getting a nice run here in the forums lately, and its gotten a fair shake despite who I am, though I feel my negative aura isn't as bad as it used to be, but then again I probably wouldn't be the best judge of that either lol.  To be honest, I'm not really smart enough to do this large scale...I know a bit about computers but I don't/wouldn't know how to create anything to automatically glean information into a spreadsheet/database so I could "rank" an entire world, or division even.  I've asked WIS to send me a particular divisions info previously (even offering to pay for it) and they said that they would be unable to do it, though I think it's more that they don't want to than they can't...and that's fine, it's their business I suppose.

I suppose I could make a pitch to WIS about using my rankings instead of the PR, but there would be a lot of caveats to that though...I'd want to be paid, would it deserve a vote from HD users?, and it's a rather simple formula so I wouldn't want to show WIS what it is (no one knows the formula but me, again not taking myself too seriously, but everyone who has a ranking system keeps the specifics close to their chest), have them say that they don't want to use it, then secretly go behind my back and implement it because they'd seen the entire formula in practice...that'd be a no-win situation for me.  So in the meantime, I enjoy doing the small scale comparisons and I don't think WIS would really have any interest in my "product".  Big picture, my rankings will probably never mean anything more than what they do now, but by the same token, don't count me out until I'm dead either...you can't really convince a dreamer like me that anything is impossible ;)

6/4/2013 7:42 PM
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