Washington #1 on Pablo!

[The Bofa on the Sofa]

fortfun said:

There is no "wisdom" in the Pablo -- it's done on numbers. Other than the human factor of setting up the equation or algorithm or whatever, it's just a bunch of numbers.

Actually, I prefer to think of them as "results" as opposed to numbers. Statistics are recorded observation of what has happened.

But your comment about the human factor is interesting. When I first developed the thing, I indeed impose an idea of what the relationship between rating and win% should be. The earliest versions had an empirical function. Later, I discovered that the function I wanted was actually available in excel, so it switched to the more analytical version. Still, my choice for the probability model.

However, this spring, while doing some simulation, I discovered that, in fact, the model I had been assuming was as close to being exact as could be. Thus, there was initially a human factor in developing the algorithm, but nowadays there is actually a theoretical basis and empirical basis for it. Personally, I think I have discovered THE correct model for evaluating volleyball team performance. I would not have made that claim last year, but this year things are much more solid.

I haven't updated the FAQ yet. Should do that sometime...

[Greenie]

Whatever it is, I like it. As a math impaireds stats junkie, I appreciate having a quantitative way to look a the teams.

[The Bofa on the Sofa]

holidayhusker said:

Interesting......... Thank you everyone for the addtional info........... Do not agree with it ...but since I am new to this venue of sharing info the least I can do is reserve judgement until I have more time under my belt to observe

Actually, you can say "I don't agree with it" but that doesn't really do much.

I'm always listening to potential problems, and, on many occasions, there are times when I will say, "You have a point but there isn't much I can do to fix it without causing other problems."

But I really don't see a criticism of the ranking procedure here. That you think Nebraska should be ranked higher than Washington is noted, but 1) you are obviously a husker fan, so I don't know if this is an objective criticism, and 2) you haven't really explained why, _based on what has happened_, Nebraska should be ranked higher.

If you see the comments above, we discuss possible origins of the ordering. The main effect looks to be the common opponent, Hawaii, and that Nebraska beat them on a neutral court, whereas Washington beat them on the road. Do you not agree that road wins are better than neutral court wins?

As we went through last week, it doesn't do any good to evaluate Washington based on the weak teams on their schedule. If they had lost a game, or even had a close game against one of these teams, it might be worth talking about, but they didn't. Therefore, all we know is that they played poor teams, and blew them out. As they should. What that tells us is that they should probably be ranked somewhere above 100, maybe 50. And of course, they are. To get them fine tuned, we have to look at informative contests. The only ones they have are those against Hawaii.

[JT]

pablo said:

... whereas Washington beat them on the road. Do you not agree that road wins are better than neutral court wins?

Did you forget to change computations involving Hawaii to use the home court disadvantage that their fans say they suffer with?

[OverAndUnder]

saltnpepper said:

I'm sure a lot of this is a repeat, but I'll mention some of it again just in case it was missed.

Pablo is the best tool available for rating (then ranking) all of the teams in Division I - not just the top 25 - it isn't a poll. It takes about 3 weeks to get enough data to even come up with its initial rating and each week makes adjustments as more data is available (this week is the first adjustment to last week's initial rating). These adjustments are most dramatic during the early portion of the season and if you looked, you will notice that 49 out of the top 50 teams this week changed position by moving up or down (It was only Nebraska at #2 that didn't change). That means 98% of those teams changed between the first two rankings. This 98% change rate probably holds relatively true throughout the 300+ teams in Division I.

As we go through the rest of the regular season, the number of teams that will be moving up or down should reduce significantly relative to each other, but there will still be changes even when teams seem to play as we've expected. This is because any single teams ranking has as much to do with how other teams have done as it does with how they themselves have played - and logically, that makes sense to me not that it really matters.

Before this season started two teams, Washington & Nebraska, were considered the early favorites to contend for the National Championship. This was based on many factors like last years results, returning starters, incoming recruits, the programs history, etc. During the first 4 weeks of the season, neither Washington nor Nebraska have done anything that would lead us to believe they will not still be two of the top contenders for the National Championship.

If you look at the team ratings (this is the points they were assigned not the numerical ordering of 1, 2, 3 etc. which is their ranking) you'll notice that two teams in Pablo seem to be distancing themselves already from everyone else. Those two teams are Washington and Nebraska. Pablo has done this without any of the information that Nebraska is a perennial power, that Stalls didn't play early in the season, that Jim McLaughlin is one of the top recruiters/coaches in the country, etc. It is based solely on how all the teams have preformed on the court.

Actually that's really pretty amazing.

I sure wish I still had the "Exalt" option, just for this one post. Thank you.

[IdahoBoy]

Nice post SaltNPeppa.

[pineapple]

prosem1 said:

wow, who would have thought two victories over Hawaii would go so far.

This attests to the respect for Hawaii, despite the loses.

[Gorf]

I don't know if Washington is better than Nebraska or if Nebraska is better than Washington, however, from what I've seen of Nebraska so far their defense and hitter coverage have consistently been much better than I expected.

I think both of those aspects of their team have played important roles in how well they've done this season.

Not that Washington doesn't do both of those things very well also, I just didn't expect to see them consistently from Nebraska.

[FreeBall]

gorf said:

I don't know if Washington is better than Nebraska or if Nebraska is better than Washington, however, from what I've seen of Nebraska so far their defense and hitter coverage have consistently been much better than I expected.

I think both of those aspects of their team have played important roles in how well they've done this season.

Not that Washington doesn't do both of those things very well also, I just didn't expect to see them consistently from Nebraska.

Is this possibly the influence that Lee Maes is having on the program and the team this year?

[Gorf]

That certainly could be the case, others have previously mentioned that as being a likely consequence of his joining the Husker program as an assistant coach.

[LanaiBoy]

gorf said:

.... from what I've seen of Nebraska so far their defense and hitter coverage have consistently been much better than I expected.... I just didn't expect to see them consistently from Nebraska.

You are right. Nebraska has always been know for being a "power" team that depended on "tall trees" and intimidating blocking, almost never on floor defense. I remember an article on the Nebraska team about four years ago. The coach ( John Cook?) expressed his delight in what Jennifer Saleaumua brought to his team. She was diving on the floor to make digs in practice, something that was not common on the team then. From her freshman year, Saleaumua has always been one of Nebraska's best back row player. Jordan Larson, as a freshman, also brings immediately to Nebraska considerable back row skills. What I am saying is that Nebraska is still a power team and always puts up formidable blocks. This year they have Saleaumua and Larson in the back row and they are formidable back row players and Nebraska is, this year, a complete, all-around team. Taht is why they are rated number one. However, the Saleaumu and Larson came to the program already great diggers and passers. The Nebraska coaching staff did not have to train them to reach their level of proficiency. They already were when they came into the program. I think that today Nebraska does put more emphasis on floor defense. You cannot be even a halfway decent team without defense and good passing.

By the way, does anyone remember the infamous video of the Japanese Olympic coach (forgot his name) who is shown throwing the volleyball to a player's head because the player lacked hustle on defense? That was 30 to 40 years ago. He made famous the drills that emphasize diving on the floor for digs. The Japanese won an Olympic gold medal with their unbelievable floor play. Of course many other countries soon adopted that style of Kamikaze defense. Hawaii was one of the early college teams to adopt that type of floor defense and ball control. Of course, they had so many short players during their early years that they had no choice but to do so. Now they can afford to recruit, with their national prominence, tall and powerful outsides and middles. Today, they recruit short players only for the libero or defensive specialist positions. Hawaii, of course, will recruit short setters if they are of the caliber of Kanoe Kamana'o.

[stberry50]

Can someone lead me to the place where I can read the description as to how the Pablo rankings were done?

[The Bofa on the Sofa]

stberry50 said:

Can someone lead me to the place where I can read the description as to how the Pablo rankings were done?

A slightly out of date FAQ is here

www.richkern.com/vb/rankings/PabloFAQ.asp

It needs to be updated, as I've changed a little bit of the procedure, but the basics are still there.

[TheRange]

It's still early in the season, does it really matter? They are both tremendous teams and both sides can make valid arguments for their teams, but the only real way that this argument will settled is when and if they face off on the court. Until that time, all this is really pointless. Pablo is providing a wonderful resource to the collegiate volleyball community, let's back up off a brother.

[stberry50]

Thanks p-dub. Interesting process!