WGP 2007 teams: a ranking

[Ye Olde Dawg]

I've been working with a spreadsheet-based rating system for volleyball teams. I'm hoping to rank the NCAA teams once the season gets started, and to actually try things out rather than simply posting in one of those "wouldn't Pablo be better if...?" threads. After all, why should Pablo have all the fun?

For a prototype, I put together a simplistic version (no weighting or HCA) using data from the first two weekends of World Grand Prix. I don't expect much accuracy from so few games, but....

The ratings are:

Team	Rating
BRA	10000
RUS	9538
CHN	9483
ITA	9379
USA	9315
CUB	9040
POL	8992
JPN	8474
NED	8301
KAZ	7659
DOM	6777
TPE	5928

Using these ratings to look at the pools, it turns out that USA is in the toughest pool all three weekends. However, USA is rated higher than two of the three opponents in the Macau pool.

For what it's worth, this ranking picks the most likely winners of tonight's matches as:

Russia over Poland (which is providing an instant counter-example)
Brazil over Dominican Republic
Japan over Kazakhstan
Cuba over Netherlands
Italy over Taipei
China over USA

For the curious, the spreadsheet (with and without macros, plus macros in a separate file) is here: home.comcast.net/~sankyu3/VBRatings/FIVB-WGP.zip

[pedro el leon]

Is there any streaming video tonight?

[Ye Olde Dawg]

Well,

Russia over Poland
Brazil over Dominican Republic
Japan over Kazakhstan
Cuba over Netherlands
Italy over Taipei
China over USA

Four out of six ain't all bad.

[The Bofa on the Sofa]

sankyu said:

I've been working with a spreadsheet-based rating system for volleyball teams. I'm hoping to rank the NCAA teams once the season gets started, and to actually try things out rather than simply posting in one of those "wouldn't Pablo be better if...?" threads. After all, why should Pablo have all the fun?

Dude, get it to work and I will retire. Remember, I took over from Ballicora.

[Murina]

sankyu said:

Well,

Russia over Poland
Brazil over Dominican Republic
Japan over Kazakhstan
Cuba over Netherlands
Italy over Taipei
China over USA

Four out of six ain't all bad.

I think the system did a decent job. Weighting the second weekend more than the first may have helped pick the Poland win. I would have chosen Poland to beat Russia, and I might have taken USA over China but that would have been a close one for me. I don't think there was any way to account for the Netherlands beating Cuba.