Quote from: jknezek on October 08, 2026, 12:41:47 PMThere's still a lot of games to be played this year. I think the NPI has done a decent job the last couple years, though I do like the upcoming tweaks. But the fewer data points it has to work with, the weirder it will be. Most teams are 10-ish games in and still have 6-ish games to go before the conference tournaments begin. So we are only 2/3rds of the regular season finished, more or less.

But yeah, it's a bit wonky right now. Kuiper's discovery is pretty interesting. NPI = QWB right now. It's a perfect correlation until you hit 0 QWB. Tells me QWB might be way over-weighted!

I liken mid-season NPI to looking at a puzzle being put together with half the pieces still in the box. It's not always going to be pretty or look "right" but it isn't supposed to because it isn't done. There are more pieces to put into place. Every time another game is played, all the pieces get thrown back and the picture is remade using one more piece.

Quote from: Flying Dutch Fan on October 13, 2026, 01:40:42 PMCalvin's roster is posted:

https://calvinknights.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster

All 13 of the known recruits/transfers (10 FR and 3 transfers) are included in the 22 man roster.  One additional FR that was not on our recruit list is 6-0 guard Kade Clayton from Vancouver BC. 

6 underclassmen from last years roster did not return (5 who logged less than 40 minutes total), most notably Brady Ewing who appeared in all 27 contests.

Michael DeKuiper, Bryce O'Mara, Luke Riebel, Andy Spoelman and Tuna Teksen are the guys who were listed on last season's varsity roster who do not appear on the new roster. DeKuiper is playing football now while the other four were seldom-used sophomores a year ago with Riebel, Spoelman and Teksen also appearing on the listed JV roster.

You can't lose if the other team doesn't score - but you could still mostly lose! 

Quote from: CentPA on October 05, 2026, 12:30:28 PMThe first official NCAA NPI rankings are out: through games 10/04/26

Huge differences at this point in the year between the USC top 25 and the NPI rankings!

Comment I made on the men's soccer board applies here:

FYI, the NCAA erroneously included Azusa Pacific and Saint Francis in these rankings (a problem common to other sports NPIs released today). As first year provisionals, there is no question they should not appear in the rankings and they should not be a countable opponent. Second year provisionals JWU Charlotte and Regent were correctly excluded.

Quote from: jknezek on October 05, 2026, 12:42:01 PMNPI through 10/4. It's still real early, but interesting to look at:

https://stats.ncaa.org/selection_rankings/nitty_gritties/52809

FYI, the NCAA erroneously included Azusa Pacific and Saint Francis in these rankings (a problem common to other sports NPIs released today). As first year provisionals, there is no question they should not appear in the rankings and they should not be a countable opponent. Second year provisionals JWU Charlotte and Regent were correctly excluded.

Quote from: lmitzel on October 01, 2026, 04:05:34 PMHere's the thing with this though as far as I can tell: Chicago can't declare this a forfeit win because NCAA rules don't allow it.

Quote from: NCAA Soccer Rule 7.6.1When a scheduled game is terminated before it begins, it is recorded as "no contest." Neither team is credited with a win or loss, regardless of the reason why the game was terminated.

This will certainly be a no contest and the only way this ends as anything else is if they actually make up the game. Rules are clear on that.

This forfeit stance makes UChicago look silly in a situation that, from all I have heard, I think NCC is the bigger transgressor.

I can't imagine it helps having a startup program in your conference as a comparison point and getting blown out at home in that program's second year of competition.

Just to add some clarity for anyone who sees the word "simulator" used here and thinks this includes any forward-looking projection, that is not the case.

We are simply providing a daily tracker of how the NPI calculation stands as of current games played (with the necessary caveat that even though we are pulling results from the NCAA, errors and omissions can and do occur and may at times require cleanup on our end to correct the data set.)

Obviously, there are no real AQs until they are actually awarded but you can't get a view of the at-large cutline without first accounting for the AQs. What we have set up simply allows for identifying around where the cutline will be, which will make more sense and be more helpful later in the season.

Quote from: Ron Boerger on September 02, 2026, 08:11:38 AMRealizing that early-season NPIs are pretty meaningless, the D3Datacast crew is now calculating NPIs daily for many sports including soccer.  They use the NCAA formula and their results have historically matched the official ones when officially released.  Find men's soccer NPIs here:  https://d3datacast.com/npi/msoc/

Edit: oh hell, @Ziggy beat me to this.  That's OK seeing as he's one of the crew. 

Always appreciate when others help spread the word, especially someone like you who has been a great supporter of our work!

Quote from: BlueJayBrigader on September 01, 2026, 07:03:25 PMJust getting back into the flow of the new season (no pun intended now that I was finally forced into the Flo Sports machine), keeping an eyes on scores around the country and number 4 Emory is down 2-1 against Sewanee at halftime. Preseason rankings are inherently flawed I understand, but how does NPI calculate a win like that if Sewanee manages to hold on? Still plenty of game but going to put my multi-TV setup to use and keep an eye on that one the rest of the way out

When everyone has only played one game, all the 1-0 teams have the same NPI and all the 0-1 teams have the same NPI.

D3 soccer fans will no longer be tied to the NCAA's schedule as it relates to seeing where NPI rankings stand. We have expanded our abilities to track NPI beyond basketball and football and have announced our launch of a new NPI landing page (https://d3datacast.com/npi/) and additional sport-specific pages for NPI rankings.
Men's soccer: https://d3datacast.com/npi/msoc/
Women's soccer: https://d3datacast.com/npi/wsoc/

Quote from: oldknight on November 04, 2025, 07:31:38 PM

Quote from: calvin_grad on November 02, 2025, 03:45:13 PMI don't know anything about D3 football, but with Calvin's 50-20 win over Olivet yesterday, they have guaranteed themselves a winning season in just their second year of football.  This seems like a pretty big accomplishment.  Long ways to go before they are challenging the teams at the top of the league, but win 1 of their last 2 games, and they will finish 4th with a 7-3 record, 4-3 in conference.

When Calvin announced the beginning of football at the school, I asked a knowledgeable person at Calvin how long it would take for one of its teams to have a winning record in a season. "Five years" was the answer I got. Both Trent Figg and the Calvin community should be delighted to see this prediction was far too pessimistic.

Pessimistic indeed, as we learned from Trent Figg in our preseason chat with him ahead of the program's third season that his goal was for his first class to leave the program with a winning record. The success of year two has them on track to meet that goal. Full conversation available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5fA4Koa7ic

Quote from: Inkblot on August 27, 2026, 04:27:56 PMManchester is following Defiance's lead and going NAIA. https://crossroadsleague.com/general/2026-27/releases/20260827odmtxb

There is a slight southward shifting of the conference's footprint when you consider the departures of Defiance and Manchester combined with the addition of Berea. It also leaves Bluffton, a sub-1000 student/low endowment institution for which the current climate in higher education has been particularly difficult, as the northern-most outpost.

That is all the more interesting with rumors that Centre could be considering their options with uncertainty surrounding the SAA.

Brennan Elling has flipped from Kalamazoo to Calvin.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DcRpS9JPO2K/?igsi=MTZydmg3cG9rajlmYw==

Quote from: Patrick Coleman on August 17, 2026, 10:15:22 AMI guess -- I didn't follow that you were talking about someone only enrolled for one year.

You would figure that player would be there if we continue talking about year six, but at that point Player C would be replaced by Player D.

So we're still ever only talking about one seat per year, the only thing that changes is how long a student athlete might occupy that seat. One seat = one tuition payment, regardless of who is "sitting" in that seat.