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Big Ten Ratings after Early Non-Conference Games

PurpleWhiteBoy

Well-Known Member
Feb 25, 2021
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TeamRecordTorvikMiyaKenPomPWB - PtsSched
Illinois6-11017142311
Purdue7-1121515271
UCLA6-11616173814
Ohio State5-2222118306
Michigan6-12514224015
Oregon8-0292019102
Maryland7-13036325617
Michigan St6-2323336373
Wisconsin8-0343129117
Nebraska6-1403747178
Indiana5-2443853704
Iowa6-14744454913
Rutgers5-34870709410
Penn State7-14943374616
Northwestern6-2526264729
Washington6-184917810818
USC5-3941021081145
Minnesota6-3978610012512

The last column is strength of schedule relative to the Big Ten, using my ratings.
My systems don't place much weight on blowouts of inferior opponents.
Nor do they severely punish teams for not blowing out inferior opponents.
Nor do they care how good a team is supposed to be, based on last year's team or roster moves.
(In other words every season starts with all teams considered equal)
This shows up readily in the ratings differences.

Some examples...
Illinois beat Arkansas-Little Rock 92-34, a 37 point outlier. However, they lost to Alabama 100-87.
Maryland beat Canisius 108-37, a 41 point outlier. Not impressed.
You can see that Torvik and KenPom are fooled by that sort of thing.
On the flipside of that, unbeaten Oregon has an 83-81 win over #13 Alabama, a 78-68 win over #29 San Diego State and an 80-70 win over #41 Texas A&M.
The game that lowers Oregon's rating for Torvik and friends is an 80-70 win over Portland, where they were supposed to win by 40 or so.

Unbeaten Wisconsin beat #7 Pitt by 6, beat #65 UCF by 16 and #43 Arizona by 15. But they have a couple of clunkers, like the 3 point win over Texas-Rio Grande and the 21 point win over Chicago State.

UCLA has played one game against a team they weren't supposed to blow out. They lost that game to #44 New Mexico 72-64. However, their blowouts of Lehigh (85-45) and Southern Utah (88-43) have some systems thinking UCLA is a very good team. To me, they haven't given any serious evidence of that.

As the season plays out, these differences reduce and teams improve or decline, but treatment of outliers is important as it can be misleading (and hidden).
We'll see how things look at the end of December, when conference play begins in earnest.
 
Torvik has an additional ranking - Wins Above Bubble (WAB) - that focuses more on who you beat then how you beat them. For the conference, it looks like this:

TeamTorvikWAB
Oregon292
Wisconsin349
Purdue1210
Nebraska4039
Illinois1040
Michigan St.3241
Washington8443
Michigan2547
Penn St.4960
Maryland3062
Iowa4764
Ohio St.2265
Indiana4466
UCLA1677
Northwestern5280
Rutgers48115
USC94144
Minnesota97165

Seems like WAB aligns closer to your ratings, PWB. Only real outliers look to be Washington, Nebraska, UCLA and Ohio St.
 
Torvik has an additional ranking - Wins Above Bubble (WAB) - that focuses more on who you beat then how you beat them. For the conference, it looks like this:

TeamTorvikWAB
Oregon292
Wisconsin349
Purdue1210
Nebraska4039
Illinois1040
Michigan St.3241
Washington8443
Michigan2547
Penn St.4960
Maryland3062
Iowa4764
Ohio St.2265
Indiana4466
UCLA1677
Northwestern5280
Rutgers48115
USC94144
Minnesota97165

Seems like WAB aligns closer to your ratings, PWB. Only real outliers look to be Washington, Nebraska, UCLA and Ohio St.

Thanks for posting that, Cappy!
Torvik is great - don't get me wrong - he provides a ton of free data and I can only thank him for that.
His website is filled with interesting information and he has coding skills that I can only dream about.
Plus, he's making a living off this stuff and seems like a decent guy.
 
TeamRecordTorvikMiyaKenPomPWB - PtsSched
Illinois6-11017142311
Purdue7-1121515271
UCLA6-11616173814
Ohio State5-2222118306
Michigan6-12514224015
Oregon8-0292019102
Maryland7-13036325617
Michigan St6-2323336373
Wisconsin8-0343129117
Nebraska6-1403747178
Indiana5-2443853704
Iowa6-14744454913
Rutgers5-34870709410
Penn State7-14943374616
Northwestern6-2526264729
Washington6-184917810818
USC5-3941021081145
Minnesota6-3978610012512

The last column is strength of schedule relative to the Big Ten, using my ratings.
My systems don't place much weight on blowouts of inferior opponents.
Nor do they severely punish teams for not blowing out inferior opponents.
Nor do they care how good a team is supposed to be, based on last year's team or roster moves.
(In other words every season starts with all teams considered equal)
This shows up readily in the ratings differences.

Some examples...
Illinois beat Arkansas-Little Rock 92-34, a 37 point outlier. However, they lost to Alabama 100-87.
Maryland beat Canisius 108-37, a 41 point outlier. Not impressed.
You can see that Torvik and KenPom are fooled by that sort of thing.
On the flipside of that, unbeaten Oregon has an 83-81 win over #13 Alabama, a 78-68 win over #29 San Diego State and an 80-70 win over #41 Texas A&M.
The game that lowers Oregon's rating for Torvik and friends is an 80-70 win over Portland, where they were supposed to win by 40 or so.

Unbeaten Wisconsin beat #7 Pitt by 6, beat #65 UCF by 16 and #43 Arizona by 15. But they have a couple of clunkers, like the 3 point win over Texas-Rio Grande and the 21 point win over Chicago State.

UCLA has played one game against a team they weren't supposed to blow out. They lost that game to #44 New Mexico 72-64. However, their blowouts of Lehigh (85-45) and Southern Utah (88-43) have some systems thinking UCLA is a very good team. To me, they haven't given any serious evidence of that.

As the season plays out, these differences reduce and teams improve or decline, but treatment of outliers is important as it can be misleading (and hidden).
We'll see how things look at the end of December, when conference play begins in earnest.
I like the other ratings over your’s PWB!
 
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