College Squash Team Preseason Rankings – How Accurate? By David Keating
photo Squash Magazine
December 14, 2016
- How good are college squash coaches at assessing other teams? Until
now, no one had any idea. But thanks to a ranking method that started
last year, we can take a look.
According to the College Squash Association, teams are ranked as follows:
For team rankings, the season
will have three phases:
* The preseason team rankings will be determined by a poll of varsity coaches;
*
After the preseason rankings are published, the men’s and women’s
ranking chairs and the Executive Administrator will rank the teams;
* Beginning with the ranking cycle that includes January 25th, a computerized ranking system will be enabled.
The only ranking method that really counts
is the third. That one decides the placement and seeding of each team
in the various divisions at the College National Team Championships.
The computer ranking ignores the first two ranking phases and counts
all matches.
Still, it’s interesting to compare the preseason rankings to the final season results.
One trend is clear – the women were a lot
more predictable than the men. Some might say the women’s coaches were
better than the men’s coaches at assessing team strength. But I
think the answer is pretty obvious. Thanks to unprecedented depth on
men’s teams, there were many upsets last year. That in turn produced a
final ranking that was considerably different than one in the preseason
college poll ranking.
The final rankings for the men’s teams were
off by an average of 2.41 spots compared to the initial ranking based
on a poll of coaches. For women, the difference was just 1.29
spots. Among teams in the top eight, the variance was 2.875 ranking
spots for men, and just 0.875 for women. No men’s team wound up in its
predicted spot in the top division, while three of the women’s teams
had final rankings equal to the prediction in the preseason poll.
Here’s a look at the final top 25 teams among men and women:
Note: only varsity teams are ranked in the preseason polls. Virginia fields club teams for men and women.
