All things Rankings, NCAA RPI and Coaches Rankings

[Spladle1989]

One could make a case for or against the Coaches Poll -- I tend to agree with mookie on this.
Back in early December, I was roundly shouted down when I posted Okla State was a top tier team. Guess what? They were then and are now. They were even without Fix and Surber in the line up. I 'watched' the dual instead of referring to wrestlestat. It was plain to *see* how good they were and how their young guys were going to develop.

I think the argument was at that time were they "that" team without Fix and Surber, the obvious answer being no, at that time they were over ranked by an easy 5-8 spots without those two.....the only real surprise to me since that dual is the continuing emergence of Spratley at 125......

[Oracle]

You’re saying they were over ranked by 5-8 spots when they were #11 against us? No way. Pollsters had no idea when those 2 would return or that were even going to miss the dual. Rankings don’t what way. Based on your calculations (if I’m hearing you correctly) ok st should have been 16-19??
Sprately, Jamieson, Woodley, Travis, Thompson — all terrific.
Impressive reloading by a program most thought was coming apart.

[legger]

Why does anyone need to look at comparative statistics when they have the W-L records of each wrestler?

It’s not that I abhor statistics, it’s that I’d rather just watch the matches.

**** Agree 100%. I like probably many on this Forum tend to trust our own wrestling knowledge, (especially what styles work against others) more than all the statistics in the world.

[HFO]

Why does anyone need to look at comparative statistics when they have the W-L records of each wrestler?

It’s not that I abhor statistics, it’s that I’d rather just watch the matches.

**** Agree 100%. I like probably many on this Forum tend to trust our own wrestling knowledge, (especially what styles work against others) more than all the statistics in the world.

A single person watching a match is just a sample. Wisdom of crowds gives a good Expected Value to actual results. Polls are essentially 1 or 2 persons at some media outlet sample. Now if rankings were open with 10,000+ could enter their rankings, then that would be an accurate poll.

Yes, we watch the matches and that is the good part. Rankings do have an impact on seeding and what 33 get in.

Comparative statics and inference do matter.

[HFO]

Coaches know the least. Outside of the conference, they're clueless.

77 programs....sample size is too small to be relevant. 77 votes will still give you potentially a wide variance, especially if coaches game the system and overrank their own wrestlers or worse vote down competitors from their conference.

[FloridaGuy]

>>>>>>>More information is better than minimal info when making ranking judgements. Individual records, relative strength of schedule/opponents and various ranking services as well as the coaches ranking should all factor into the equation along with your personal viewpoint.

It will never be an exact science, but the coaches rankings and the RPI combine for NCAA qualifier selection and seeding that works fairly well year after year.