Quote from: Ron Boerger on October 09, 2026, 12:23:48 PMUntil you get to minimum wins (8 for women's soccer), NPI is just killed by playing crappy teams as those "bad wins" hurt you so much.  Once you get to 8 in WSOC you start dropping any win result that hurts your overall NPI.  Wins above minimum that help your NPI are retained.   And good or bad, all losses are part of your NPI.

What frustrates me about the dials are that you get no bonus for an away win.  At least it's the same on the men's side; some sports treat them radically differently, such as basketball where the men get a 20% bonus for an away non-conference win, a 10% bonus for an away conference win, while the women get no bonus of any kind for away wins.  If you want to look at all of the dials go to https://www.ncaa.org/championships/general-championship-resources/ncaa-power-index/ under "Division III Championship Resources". 

Ron Boerger - thanks for this link! I read it carefully and now have a much better understanding (though perhaps not fully agreeing)

Looks like the 8 plus wins (that count) kicked in as PP number back up to 49 and hopefully will continue to creep up. Massey has them at 17 now and we will see what the USC is tomorrow (I can't imagine them moving up).

Can't believe there is only 3 weeks to go in the regular season and then its conference and other tournament time!

So crazy! I guess there is nothing they can do - even if they keep winning 5-0 every SCIAC match (which they won't) - I don't know how much that can move.

Here's where I don't quite understand the formula. Let's pick Carleton (a team that I know and has also played CMS) They are at NPI 16.

Loss 0-1 to North Central #3 (vs PP loss to UChicago #10) - would change if they played each other?!
Win 1-0 vs CMS (same)
Wins vs all MIAC teams (4 additional SCIAC wins)
Draw last night vs Wisc Eau Claire #75 (draw vs Cal Lu #78)

I can understand that this is marginally better, but how is this 55 places different? How did the MIAC end up with so much more weight?

Quote from: CentPA on October 06, 2026, 05:53:06 PMHere are the three biggest discrepancies between the USC top 25 and the NPI that I could identify:

#1 Pomona-Pitzer: they are ranked #8 in the USC poll but #51 in the NPI.  Difference of 43 places.

#2 North Central: they are ranked (effectively) #35 in the USC but #1 in the country in the NPI.
      Difference of 34 places.

#3 Messiah: they are ranked #6 in the USC but #33 in the NPI.  Difference of 27 places.

As a PP fan I can tell you that both of those numbers are a bit silly. Number 8 in the country with a 1-0 loss to UChicago and a 1-1 draw with Cal Lutheran. Also, number 51 in the country with 7 wins and those two results. Must be that the NPI number is being dragged down by Cal Lu and CMS's relatively mediocre performances early season out of the SCIAC conference play. Otherwise it makes no sense.

I personally think the current Massey ranking of 18 is probably closer to reality, but the NPI number is a bit scary. It is difficult to know how good they are, even after watching every match this season as they play 22 plus individuals. Last match they played 30. Thus the top 11/starters as unit get about 30-40 min with each other tops. Not sure if that will continue into the 2nd half of the season, but we will see. With the SCIAC teams only playing Santa Cruz as an out of conference opponent it will be difficult to make up the NPI number unless the UAA and NESCAC teams start to knock each other down??

Thanks for the info CentPa. Sciac parent here just to let you know that while live events are behind paywall the sciac network does have replays available. Here is the PP vs Caltech one https://www.sciacnetwork.com/sagehens/?B=2823559
For some reason PP at CMS not up yet but that would be a better one to watch!