2025 Women's Soccer Top 25

[deiscanton]

Thanks deiscanton for the recap.  With no access to the video feed, I was thinking it was a fairly defensive battle.  Was there much play inside the 18s or was it all in the middle of the field (there wasn't that many total shots for the game)?

It will definately be interesting to see where the NPI rankings start out this week.  I don't know how closely the USC poll tends to follow the NPI rankings once they begin, but the more I'm thinking about it Case Western may bump ahead of Emory since their tie was to #3 Christopher Newport.??

According to the commentators, the first half was mostly played around the middle of the field with the defenses really active when either side tried to attack into the 18 yard box.  I am going to have to rewatch the video of the second half to see where the ball was mostly played.  The second half had more activity in terms of shots and corner kicks, but the defenses on both sides were up to the task.  Overall, a well played 0-0 game, not really a boring game from how I see it. 

[CentPA]

Emory / Carnegie Mellon game just ended in a tie 0-0.  Stats looked fairly even with Emory having a slight advantage in shots and SOG: 5-3 and 4-2 respectively. I am not sure this tie would be enough to bump Emory out of #2.  So if I had to guess, on Tuesday the top 25 will start out: Messiah (#1), Emory (#2), Case Western (#3), and Wash U (#4).??  There is a chance Emory gets bumped but that would be tough with tying #16 on the road.

I would expect Case Western Reserve and Washington University to move ahead of Emory this week. 

Emory was the only one on the road, but the other two had such lopsided wins at home (and are weeks past their only blemish), I'll be surprised if the committee does not see that.  The latter two play in Cleveland next week.

That game might tempt me to pay the FloCollege ransom fee!   I see it is an early game (12:30pm) on Saturday at Case Western.

[CentPA]

The first NPI ranking for this year just posted: https://stats.ncaa.org/selection_rankings/nitty_gritties/45909

Even with their tie yesterday, Emory is showing as #1 with Messiah #2!

[WUPHF]

The first NPI ranking for this year just posted: https://stats.ncaa.org/selection_rankings/nitty_gritties/45909

Even with their tie yesterday, Emory is showing as #1 with Messiah #2!

Not surprising as the NPI has no recency bias.

[deiscanton]

The first NPI ranking for this year just posted: https://stats.ncaa.org/selection_rankings/nitty_gritties/45909

Even with their tie yesterday, Emory is showing as #1 with Messiah #2!

The NPI reports confirm that the UAA is the top ranked conference on the D3 Women's soccer side in terms of teams ranked in the national NPI.   NESCAC is the top ranked conference on the D3 Men's soccer side in terms of NPI. 

Emory already has the minimum 8 wins that they need to carry on the women's side for NPI purposes, and therefore, can now drop extra wins/partial wins that hurt their NPI   Emory has already dropped their win vs William Peace (#364 in NPI currently) from their NPI calculations, and the tie yesterday vs Carnegie Mellon allowed Emory to drop 1/2 of their win vs Covenant (#230 in NPI currently) from their NPI calculations as well.  This allows Emory to keep their current #1 NPI ranking as of right now.

[Ron Boerger]

Nick Schmieg on the play-by-play, and Kevin Zielmanski on color for that one.  Game produced by the CMU (Carnegie Mellon) Sports Network, a subsidiary of the PAC (Presidents Athletic Conference) Sports Network.  The commentators did not mention that FloCollege was the exclusive streaming partner of Carnegie Mellon's UAA games-- they should be saying "This game brought to you by the CMU Sports Network on FloCollege (or FloSports), rather than just saying "This game brought to you by the CMU Sports Network." 

Game has just gone final, with Emory and Carnegie Mellon playing to a 0-0 draw.    One of the best defensive games that you will see in the regular season this year for DIII Women's soccer.  Well played on both ends.

Due to technical difficulties, the first half of the game had to be followed almost exclusively on live stats.  The FloCollege video feed did not start until the match was in the 41st minute.  If you do have a FloCollege subscription, you can just watch the second half of that match on replay.  Otherwise, the box score will tell it all to you.   

None other than Bill Simmons (formerly of ESPN fame) called out Flo$port$ for their inferior (and infuriating) product after his experience this weekend - see the excerpt from his "BS Podcast":  https://x.com/BQuillmanQcast/status/1975192844592886041

[WUPHF]

Emory already has the minimum 8 wins that they need to carry on the women's side for NPI purposes, and therefore, can now drop extra wins/partial wins that hurt their NPI   Emory has already dropped their win vs William Peace (#364 in NPI currently) from their NPI calculations, and the tie yesterday vs Carnegie Mellon allowed Emory to drop 1/2 of their win vs Covenant (#230 in NPI currently) from their NPI calculations as well.  This allows Emory to keep their current #1 NPI ranking as of right now.

Do you mind elaborating on the logistics of the drop process?

Emory has dropped a win while Washington University appears to have all games counted, though maybe they need to wait in case they lose or draw against Greenville?

[deiscanton]

Emory already has the minimum 8 wins that they need to carry on the women's side for NPI purposes, and therefore, can now drop extra wins/partial wins that hurt their NPI   Emory has already dropped their win vs William Peace (#364 in NPI currently) from their NPI calculations, and the tie yesterday vs Carnegie Mellon allowed Emory to drop 1/2 of their win vs Covenant (#230 in NPI currently) from their NPI calculations as well.  This allows Emory to keep their current #1 NPI ranking as of right now.

Do you mind elaborating on the logistics of the drop process?

Emory has dropped a win while Washington University appears to have all games counted, though maybe they need to wait in case they lose or draw against Greenville?

The idea is that once you have counted the minimum number of wins that you need to count for purposes of your NPI calculations, you can drop extra wins that produce win values that actually hurt your NPI score.  The basic idea is that a team should not be penalized for defeating an opponent that they should beat.

In the case of the WashU women, the Bears are currently ranked #4 in NPI at 64.446, and have an overall record of 10 wins and a tie.  The tie cannot be dropped from the NPI calculations, but a corresponding 1/2 win of a lower ranked NPI opponent can be dropped from the calculations, since just dropping 2 wins would give the Bears 8.5 adjusted wins, when they only need to count the best 8 adjusted wins for purposes of NPI calculations.

By clicking on the NPI ranking of the team, you can get the data of what was used to calculate the team's NPI.

If you find that an opponent is showing a net NPI score of zero for a game that you played, it means that you are no longer counting that game towards your team's NPI value.

For example, WashU is ranked #4 in NPI this morning with an NPI value of 64.446.   On their schedule, the lowest ranked NPI opponent that produced a win value that actually improved WashU's NPI score is Calvin at #68 in NPI with an NPI of 55.728 and a win value of 65.446.   WashU's tie came against Trine, #48 in NPI with an NPI value of 57.089.  The value of getting a tie vs Trine is half of Trine's win value plus half of Trine's loss value.  Trine's tie value right now is 56.444, which hurts WashU's NPI score, but unfortunately, WashU cannot drop the game vs Trine in the NPI calculations, since there is a half loss in that game score.  WashU can drop a half win from a lower ranked NPI opponent than Trine that the Bears defeated once WashU got the 8 actual wins. 

The resume indicates that WashU has dropped the results of wins vs Westminster(MO)-- #317 in NPI with an NPI value of 44.532 and a win value of 55.626, and Millikin, #227 in NPI with an NPI of 48.816 and a current win value of 59.053.  WashU still has to keep half of the win value of defeating Rose-Hulman, which is #183 in NPI with an NPI value of 50.249 and a win value of 60.199.

WashU's next opponent, Greenville, is currently ranked #218 in NPI with an NPI value of 49.126 and a win value of 59.301.   If WashU defeats Greenville, Greenville would be the lowest NPI ranked opponent that WashU defeated that WashU could drop from the NPI calculations, so Greenville would not count in WashU's NPI calculations unless WashU loses or ties vs the Greenville women.

The remainder of the result vs Rose-Hulman has to be kept until WashU gets their next UAA win, which would come as early as Saturday at CWRU. 

Once again, the basic principle is that a team should not be penalized in NPI for defeating an opponent that the team should beat, nor can a team improve an NPI value by losing to a higher ranked NPI team.  To see if a game is counted for purposes of NPI, look at the net NPI of the opponent that your team defeated for purposes of computing your team's NPI calculations.   If the net NPI for the game is zero, it means that the win has been dropped from the calculations. 

 

[CentPA]

Thanks for that explanation deiscanton .. I feel like I should have earned some college credits for reading that! 

[CentPA]

Emory does remain at #2 in the USC poll #5. https://unitedsoccercoaches.org/rankings/college-rankings/ncaa-diii-women/

Case Western and Wash U move up to #3 and #4.