New England Soccer Discussion

Started by Jim Matson, June 09, 2006, 12:25:06 AM

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blooter442

Martinez on UMASS-Boston has the most outrageous hair. I'm genuinely impressed.

Babson is such an enigma. They got a good draw against RPI a couple of weeks back and now have UMB facing their first deficit all season if I am not mistaken, but have lost at home to Wheaton and MIT. They have a tough schedule, but four losses at this point doesn't make for great reading.

TennesseeJed

Quote from: blooter442 on October 07, 2015, 04:14:29 PM
Martinez on UMASS-Boston has the most outrageous hair. I'm genuinely impressed.

Babson is such an enigma. They got a good draw against RPI a couple of weeks back and now have UMB facing their first deficit all season if I am not mistaken, but have lost at home to Wheaton and MIT. They have a tough schedule, but four losses at this point doesn't make for great reading.

Martinez's hair is awesome!  Agreed on the Beavers, but a big upset for UMB if Babson holds the 1-0 lead or better through 2H.  I didn't see any real brilliance on either side from what I saw of 1H (which was not all of it).  Putting aside their NCAA chances this year and their record, I give them high marks for playing a tough schedule all the way through the season.  At least their losses are to Eastern CT, Brandeis, Wheaton and MIT, all of whom are legit match-ups and all 1 pt games except ECT.

TennesseeJed

Babson takes a W vs. UMASS Boston 1-0 after a scoreless 2H.  Hope that Mandel gets credit for the goal, even if a deflected goal, rather than it being an own goal on UMB. 

Normally agree a bit more closely w/ some Massey rankings, but surprised that UMB was second in Massey. 

Congrats to the Beavers for a good W at home.

blooter442

While I've gotta give credit to UMASS-Boston for playing Babson straight up, and while they did get a little unlucky on the goal, Babson did seem to much more "know-how" in terms of slowing the game down, particularly in the second half. They never looked flashy or electric, but they definitely looked the more "solid" of the two sides and never seemed to lose control of the game.

I didn't see the first 40 mins, but I got the impression that Babson were worthy winners. Sure, UMB definitely had more shots and some decent chances, but their athleticism was outdone by composure. Babson would have been battle-tested playing Brandeis, Wheaton, MIT, etc., while UMB was coming in without a real legit win (despite their trip out west.) Just goes to show that playing a tough schedule does help to prepare you for the big games.

I like Beverlin, I think he's done a great job turning that program around, but it just goes to show that UMB has a ways to go, particularly when facing established programs that have the know-how of controlling games - which, while an intangible, is an important factor I think.

ECSUalum

#454
Babson 1 UMB 0

SHOTS             1   2   TOTAL
Mass-Boston     9   7     16
Babson             8   4     12

SAVES             1   2   TOTAL
Mass-Boston    4   2      6
Babson           4    5      9

CORNER KICKS 1   2  TOTAL
Mass-Boston     0   1    1
Babson             3   2    5

FOULS              1   2   TOTAL
Mass-Boston    1    6     7
Babson            5   10   15

ECSUalum

#455
ECSU 0 CT College 1..... final
No video or Live stats so will wait for box score

Does not look like a good day for the LEC!!

NERevs127

Box Score of Conn - ECSU is up. Conn scored in the 53rd minute and handled the game on paper:

SHOTS
Eastern Connecticut   2   4   6
Connecticut College  10   3   13

SAVES
Eastern Connecticut   3   1   4
Connecticut College   1   3   4

CORNER KICKS
Eastern Connecticut   3   1   4
Connecticut College   3   4   7

FOULS
Eastern Connecticut   3   0   3
Connecticut College   8   6   14

Mr.Right

Quote from: blooter442 on October 07, 2015, 05:21:51 PM
While I've gotta give credit to UMASS-Boston for playing Babson straight up, and while they did get a little unlucky on the goal, Babson did seem to much more "know-how" in terms of slowing the game down, particularly in the second half. They never looked flashy or electric, but they definitely looked the more "solid" of the two sides and never seemed to lose control of the game.

I didn't see the first 40 mins, but I got the impression that Babson were worthy winners. Sure, UMB definitely had more shots and some decent chances, but their athleticism was outdone by composure. Babson would have been battle-tested playing Brandeis, Wheaton, MIT, etc., while UMB was coming in without a real legit win (despite their trip out west.) Just goes to show that playing a tough schedule does help to prepare you for the big games.

I like Beverlin, I think he's done a great job turning that program around, but it just goes to show that UMB has a ways to go, particularly when facing established programs that have the know-how of controlling games - which, while an intangible, is an important factor I think.



From what I saw I love the "flair" of UMASS Boston and would much rather watch them than a stoic Babson side for entertainment reasons. I think MIT will physically beat them down as they just need some more physicality with all that skill.

Beverlin has done a nice turn around job but let's not forget this program was elevated to full time status for the coach when they hired him. Obviously, money is pouring into the school like they have not seen before and with more and more boarders more money will be coming in. I mean a trip to the northwest for UMASS Boston would have been unthinkable just 5 years ago. Just pray they do add a cash greedy football program that will suck all resources from every other athletic team. i.e UMASS AMHERST...That is a bit different as that sucks money and scholarships but still

Off Pitch

SOS (opponent's winning percentage) thru 10/7 for top NE teams:

                                         OWP      Current record       Still to play:
1.  Tufts             56-23-9    0.687       5-3-1                  Middlebury, Gordon, Bates, Williams, Bowdoin
2.  Babson          78-35-5    0.682       6-4-1                  Bowdoin, Springfield, Williams, WPI
3.  Brandeis        72-38-6    0.646       9-1-1                  Case Western, Chicago, Washington U, Emory, Rochester
4.  Wheaton        85-51-9    0.617       8-5-0                  MIT
5.  Wesleyan       44-37-6    0.540       6-2-1                  Middlebury, Williams, Amherst, Conn
6.  Amherst         48-41-7    0.536       9-0-0                 Conn, Bates, Wesleyan
7.  Wentworth     69-61-3    0.530       9-3-0                  Endicott
8.  Middlebury     38-34-4    0.526       6-1-1                  Tufts, Wesleyan, Bates, Williams
9.  Gordon          56-53-1    0.514       8-2-0                  Tufts, Endicott
10. Mass-Boston  57-55-2    0.509      10-1-0                 ECSU, MIT
11. Bowdoin        36-35-5    0.507       4-2-2                  Babson, Conn, Tufts
12. Conn             45-45-8    0.500       7-2-1                  Bates, Amherst, Bowdoin, Wesleyan
---------------------------------------
13. ECSU             50-52-7   0.491       9-2-1                  Mass-Boston
14. Bates             39-43-7   0.478       6-2-1                  Conn, Tufts, Amherst, Middlebury
15. WPI               61-67-8   0.449       9-3-1                  Springfield, Babson, MIT
16. Endicott         48-68-4   0.417       9-1-1                  Williams, Wentworth, Gordon
17. MIT               42-62-2    0.406      8-1-1                   Wheaton, Mass-Boston, Springfield, WPI
18. Springfield      41-69-4   0.377      9-2-0                   WPI, Babson, MIT

No team with a SOS below 0.500 received a Pool C bid last year.

Flying Weasel

Quote from: Off Pitch on October 08, 2015, 09:57:58 AM
SOS (opponent's winning percentage) thru 10/7 for top NE teams:

I know that Off Pitch understands this (at least I think he does), but just for people new to all this . . . SOS does not equal OWP.  SOS  = 2/3 OWP + 1/3 OOWP.

QuoteNo team with a SOS below 0.500 received a Pool C bid last year.

Just to reiterate, hardly ever has a team with a sub .500 SOS been ranked, nevermind been selected for an at-large berth. 

In fact, in 2010 the committee had a .500 SOS threshhold in order to be ranked, but that created such a backlash after the first two weekly rankings were released (high flying Dominican having been the most glaring omission) that they relented in the third week of the rankings.
 
Last year Luther dropped from #2 in the first North Region rankings to unranked the very next week despite winning both their games and only one team below them in the first rankings getting a quality win and two actually losing or tying. But Luther's SOS dropped from .519 to .493 due to numerous of their previous opponents having had bad weeks, so draw your own conclusions.

The point is a team with a SOS below .500 can forget about being ranked and thus selected.  And an SOS below .550 means very slim chance of being selected (gonna need a very high win pct. and multiple wins versus ranked teams).  Last year Cortland St. (14-4-1) and Dominican (14-5-2) got in with the lowest two SOS's, which were at .547 and .545 going into the final week, but probably climbed over .500 with their conference semifinal and final opponents being added to the calculation.

P.S.  People tend to point to Salisbury, Dickinson and Rochester when questioning the omission of John Carroll, Brockport St., etc. from last year tournament, but Dominican with five losses, only one win vs. a ranked team, and the lowest SOS of the at-large selections is was questionable as any.

Off Pitch

I presented the SOS formula in replies #236 and #246 in this thread.  It is not that difficult to come up with the OWP data, however the OOWP data is not possible with my simple spreadsheet without literally spending hours (and then it would all change again after the weekend).  Consequently, I just presented the part that I have for informational (not necessarily predictive) and recreational use.

Flying Weasel

Understood, Off Pitch.  Just thought that someone new to the thread/discussion (who wasn't following along earlier) could get the wrong idea they way you wrote SOS (opponent's winning percentage).  No intent to give you a hard time.

Christan Shirk

#462
Just a word of caution and clarification.  Obviously it's next to impossible to do the full SOS calculation on your own.  So, yes, just considering the OWP gives you a ball park feel that's pretty useful.  But (and I'm stealing my own thunder for an article I'm preparing for the website) there's a few other wrinkles in the calculations that effect the OWP that I don't believe anyone is accounting for (and maybe not remembering or even aware of).

So, it's not even "as simple" as just SOS = 2/3 OWP + 1/3 OOWP.

(1) A team's result against each opponent is removed from each opponents W-L-T record before computing their winning percentage.  Now this is relatively minor, so again, for ease and simplicity can be neglected.  (The same thing is done for computing each opponent's opponents' winning percentage, the OOWP).

(2) There are multipliers for home and away games that factor each opponent's winning pct. up (away game) or down (home game).  (The same thing is done for computing each OOWP).  And these factors are not insignificant.

          Factored OWP = opponent's winning pct. x SOS multiplier

          Multipliers:
          0.85 for home games (or -15%)
          1.25 for away games (or +25%)

So there's a 40% value difference between home and away games.  That means that playing a team a little over .500 away is as helpful to your SOS as playing a team a little under .800 at home as can be illustrated as follows:

          Away game: .543 win pct.  x  1.25 home/away multiplier  =  .677 factored OWP

          Home game: .792 win pct.  x  0.85 home/away multiplier  =  .673 factored OWP

Interesting, isn't it?  Two teams with a difference in winning percentages of .249 contribute the same to a team's SOS if the better team is played at home and the lesser team is played on the road.  What does everyone think about that?  The multipliers are pretty drastic, aren't they?  And it can really affect a team's SOS if in a given year by happenstance they host most of the top teams in their conference versus playing them away, or vice versa.

So, I do not want to discourage the simple method of collecting the straight OWP (without removing the head-to-head result and without applying the home/away multiplier), but everyone should be aware that these components of the calculations can make the actual numbers somewhat different that the quick and dirty ones being thrown out there.  How much different will vary of course.  And there's usually going to be some balancing out within each team's calculations.  But it certainly could change who has a better SOS among a group of teams. 

So things to keep in mind.  Maybe the home/away multipliers could be accounted for in the OWP calculations to be a little more accurate without getting too burdemsome.  And I hope you'll all still read my upcoming article on D3soccer.com even though I just gave a good chuck of it away!  ;)
Christan Shirk
Special Consultant and Advisor
D3soccer.com

ECSUalum

#463
My Day, Month, and maybe year has been made today as the Boys in Green, Republic of Ireland just upset Germany 1-0 on a Shane Long break away and clinical finish at the 65' mark.  This puts them tied for second place in point in Group D of the UEFA Euro qualifiers!!!!!!!!!!!  Poland and Scotland played to a 2-2 draw  ;D  Poland on Sunday in Poland!!

Mr.Right

I like it as it gives you more "points" for road wins. Maybe just a little to much as Home should be 1.00 and Away 1.25