2006 Biggest Winners & Losers

[SaltNPepper]

I used the points received in the voting of the AVCA coach's poll and compared each team's final total points versus their preseason point total to come up with a list of the biggest gainers and losers in the voting. (Only those teams with a change of 10 or more points are included)

	2006 AVCA Poll Winners
Rank	Team	Point Change
1	Oklahoma	+814
2	Minnesota	+768
3	UCLA	+535
4	Cal Poly	+513
5	Utah	+433
6	USC	+420
7	LSU	+345
8	San Diego	+285
9	Ohio State	+269
10	California	+254
11	BYU	+228
12	Duke	+201
13	New Mexico St	+161
14	Stanford	+153
15	Colorado	+71
16	Nebraska	+69
17	Texas	+62
18T	Iowa State	+24
18T	St. John's	+24
20	Wisconsin	+17

	2006 AVCA Poll Losers
Rank	Team	Point Change
1	Santa Clara	-1059
2	Tennessee	-779
3	Louisville	-742
4	Ohio	-513
5	Arizona	-491
6	Missouri	-475
7	Pepperdine	-459
8	Notre Dame	-411
9	Florida	-182
10	Penn State	-164
11	Kansas State	-162
12	Purdue	-49
13	UCSB	-33
14	Washington	-31
15	Hawaii	-26

And one team finish with exactly the same number of points in the preseason poll as they did in the final poll: Long Beach State (with 64 points)

[Mix Breed-TEXAS,HI,LBSU]

Yay for LBSU.......!!!!!!!!

[bigfan]

fakabedit said:

Yay for LBSU.......!!!!!!!!

Finally a poll where LBSU is in the clear!

[beachman]

We WILL be better next year! have a couple of very interesting pre-season matches scheduled, unless they CS out on us!

[inomothanu]

While OKIES did well with a dominant Brazilian JC transfer, Cal Poly came from RPI #233 in '04 to TOP 20 in '06 and Big West Championship. Their losses came at the hands of: Pepperdine, Hawaii (whom they also beat), Minnesota, Cal, and Nebraska. They swept Beach and Santa Barbara along with wins over Louisville and Texas. Their (sub) regional vs. Michigan, LSU, and Cal had an average r.p.i. of 18.5. Texas' pod (for example) had an average of 84. Poly played without their own foreign stud transfer (Gabrielle Rivera from Puerto Rican Junior National Team) and with 2nd most productive player (Alicia Waller) with rt. foot stress fracture for last 10 matches.

I don't know what INITIAL numbers are being referred to, but Cal Poly was the biggest winner in 2006!

[BearClause]

inomothanu said:

don't know what INITIAL numbers are being referred to, but Cal Poly was the biggest winner in 2006!

Then it would help to actually read the initial post. Number of points from the preseason AVCA poll compared to number of points from the final AVCA poll. It's fairly simple. There are 60 poll voters who count towards the total. That may include alternates when one of the regular 60 forgets to vote. Each voter ranks teams from 1 to 25. For each voter, #1 gets 25 points, #2 24, down to #25 getting 1 point. Add up up that total. Nebraska got all 60 1st place votes, so they finished with 1500 points.

[inomothanu]

...And if both Oklahoma and Cal Poly have NO POINTS IN THE PRESEASON POLL??? What then? My opinion stands and since the teams in question had no representation in the preseason poll, we can only look at what they did and how the finished...Do you disagree with me?

[Phaedrus]

inomothanu said:

While OKIES did well with a dominant Brazilian JC transfer, Cal Poly came from RPI #233 in '04 to TOP 20 in '06 and Big West Championship. Their losses came at the hands of: Pepperdine, Hawaii (whom they also beat), Minnesota, Cal, and Nebraska. They swept Beach and Santa Barbara along with wins over Louisville and Texas. Their (sub) regional vs. Michigan, LSU, and Cal had an average r.p.i. of 18.5. Texas' pod (for example) had an average of 84. Poly played without their own foreign stud transfer (Gabrielle Rivera from Puerto Rican Junior National Team) and with 2nd most productive player (Alicia Waller) with rt. foot stress fracture for last 10 matches.

I don't know what INITIAL numbers are being referred to, but Cal Poly was the biggest winner in 2006!

Cripes, are you going to turn this into a pissing contest over who was worse?

This was one metric, apretty reasonable one, over one season. Why don't you come up with a metric that shows Cal Poly was the biggest winner in one season so that we can all ooh and ahh about how great they are.

[inomothanu]

Phaedrus - I apologize if I offended you by taking a position that promotes my opinion. I thought that it is what this forum is all about. My bad. I feel strongly enough about the topic (that someone else brought up...by the way) to conclude the following: while Oklahoma did great things in '06, I believe that Cal Poly did superior things. I suggest that you: a. check the scoreboard, or b. turn the channel. The glass is half FULL! Drink up!

[roofed!]

inomothanu, it is natural for a poster to have a different take on things. SaltNPepper just presented an interesting look at how teams have done, whether for better or for worse, compared to preseason expectations. It is by no means a definitive take. Since you mentioned RPI, maybe you can do an alternate table based on RPI data.

Just like the polls/rankings. There are many different polls...AVCA, RPI etc.

Nonetheless, it is clear that Cal Poly has had a great season, and much for that team to be proud of.

[SaltNPepper]

roofed said:

inomothanu, it is natural for a poster to have a different take on things. SaltNPepper just presented an interesting look at how teams have done, whether for better or for worse, compared to preseason expectations. It is by no means a definitive take. Since you mentioned RPI, maybe you can do an alternate table based on RPI data.

Just like the polls/rankings. There are many different polls...AVCA, RPI etc.

Nonetheless, it is clear that Cal Poly has had a great season, and much for that team to be proud of.

Exactly, the reason for this post was intended as nothing more than to look at who ended up getting more (or higher/lower) votes from the panel of coaches after the NCAA tournament as compared to before the season - and hopefully to hear other's opinions of their top 10 (or top 5 or top 20) winners and losers from 2006.

And by its very nature, it will distort who we might think are some of the big winners and losers. Santa Clara and Tennessee had tough acts to follow after their Final 4 appearances in 2005 - and this method of looking at it really kicked them pretty hard. I sure wouldn't rank them as the two teams that were the biggest losers in 2006. For a few of the teams near the top of the preseason poll, there was almost no place to go but down. Like Washington - after everyone they graduated, they still make it back to the Final 4 - pretty tough calling them losers.

Or on the other end, if a team didn't get any (or many) points in the preseason poll, then the only list that they could possibly make was the winners list. However, there were clearly many teams that fell short of expectations this season that aren't listed. How about Texas A&M. Made the NCAA Tournament in 2005 and were actually a regional host (which they didn't advance to). Compare that to 2006's 5-15 Big 12 record and 12-16 overall. A disappointment? You bet. Or how about Pacific. Charlie Wade's first year and a lot of anticipation on how quickly he might be able to turn around one of the former perennial powers - but they end up 8-21 and 3-11 in conference - didn't happen in the first year - a disappointment, of course it was. And Florida makes that top 10 "losers" list because when they got to host a regional, they draw Minnesota (and Nebraska). Minnesota was one of the hottest/best teams at tournament time. But as SEC champions and a 30 win season, you can hardly call it a disappointing year for Florida although they did had reasonable hopes of making it to the Final 4 this year.

So, inomothanu, (or anyone else for that matter) I'd love to see your list of big winners and losers for 2006 and some of the reasons you'd put them on the respective lists.

[Phaedrus]

inomothanu said:

Phaedrus - I apologize if I offended you by taking a position that promotes my opinion. I thought that it is what this forum is all about. My bad. I feel strongly enough about the topic (that someone else brought up...by the way) to conclude the following: while Oklahoma did great things in '06, I believe that Cal Poly did superior things. I suggest that you: a. check the scoreboard, or b. turn the channel. The glass is half FULL! Drink up!

Well, I am still listening and I don't feel you have done a really good job of supporting your claim. What was placed before us was a metric for defining the teams that gained the most from last year and lost the most from last year. You, obviously disagree, and you have your subjective reasons for disagreeing. So, having said that, can you design a metric of this years results to suipport your claims? Tacking on the previously design metric and wiggling about subjectively won't do any good because that is all hand waving. Use the records and make your claim.

[inomothanu]

Tacking? I merely pointed out that those not receiving points in the initial poll is an inherent flaw in this paradigm. I prefer to characterise my perspective as fiddling about (like wicked Uncle Ernie) as opposed to "wiggling". Isn't suipport that rice wine that takes the edge off of wasabi?

[BearClause]

inomothanu said:

Tacking? I merely pointed out that those not receiving points in the initial poll is an inherent flaw in this paradigm. I prefer to characterise my perspective as fiddling about (like wicked Uncle Ernie) as opposed to "wiggling". Isn't suipport that rice wine that takes the edge off of wasabi?

From a practical point of view, there really isn't much else that can show perceived improvement from preseason expectations. A formula such as the Pablo rankings doesn't actually produce anything until teams actually play. Previous year's results often don't make such sense because of player turnover. So - a subjective ranking system from 1 to 25 is all we've got.

I don't really see Cal Poly as being snubbed by this. They were obviously very good least season, and barely missed the postseason.

[inomothanu]

Cal Poly "barely missed the postseason?"