Formally we calculate a team's win percentage minus their SOS win percentage, and rank on this. The comparison is based on the percentage of wins. To account for differences in the number of games played, We compare a team's actual win-loss record to that given by their strength of schedule. Why are the expected number of wins not whole numbers?.What are a team's win percentage and SOS win percentage?.How do the rankings differ from other rankings, such as Jeff Sagarin's Computer Ratings?.How do the rankings differ from using the Rating Percentage Index (RPI)?.Picking theģ7 teams with the best win-loss record is not appropriate. For example in 2009,Īrizona were given entry to the national tournament, with a Win-Loss record of 19-13, whereas Creighton, with a 26-7 record, were not. The difficulty with selecting the 37 teams for the tournament is that the strength of schedule of each team varies greatly. The announcement of these 37 teams, and the draw for the tournament, is made on Selection Sunday. The field of 68 consists of 31 conference champions, and a further 37 teams that are picked byĬommittee. This isĪ knockout tournament, in which (from 2011) 68 teams take part. Each March there is a nationalīasketball tournament (known as March Madness). There are around 340 division I US college basketball teams, almost all of whom belong to one of 31 conferences. This can be used to highlight the teams for which there is uncertainty about whether their record deserves a bid to the national tournament.īelow are Frequently Asked Questions page, which contains more detail of the ranking procedure,įull details of the method can be found in the academic paper Calculating Strength of Schedule, and Choosing Teams for March Madness. Margin of error, which gives an indication of how accurate the resulting estimates of the strength of schedule are. This is used to estimate theĪbility of each team, and thus the likelihood of winning a match against that team.

The strength of schedules are calculated by fitting a statistical model to all regular season results to date. Schedule is 5 wins easier than Boston College's - and thus we rank Boston College to have the better record, by one win. While Creighton won 4 more matches than Boston College, their strength of schedule is 26.5 wins and Boston College's is 21.5 wins. In 2008/09 Creighton had a win-loss record of 26-7 and Boston College one of 22-11. Intepreting the results is relatively straight forward. If a team wins more game than their strength of schedule, then that is evidence that they warrant a bid Strength of schedule we estimate the average number of wins a fixed team, comparable in ability to the last team in the national tournament, would This enables us to compare schedules forĭifferent teams, in terms of how many more wins we would expect a team to get if they played one schedule rather than another. Our approach is to quantify each team's strength of schedule in terms of a benchmark number of wins. For details of the background to the selection process see here These pages contains details and results of an approach for ranking US college basketball teams, aimed at guiding the selection of teams forĪnnual NCAA national tournament. Duke did just enough with a pair of road wins at Virginia and Syracuse to move to the fourth slot.īut the real surprise here is despite all the chaos, it’s the exact same 25 teams in the poll as it was last week, with no one moving in or out of the sample.NCAA Basketball - Rankings for Selection Sunday Introduction 3 in the poll with their 80-70 win at Kansas, getting them closer to the No.

Colorado?) retained the top two spots despite both falling by double digits.īaylor took the most advantage of Upset Saturday, rocketing from No. Gonzaga (67-57 loss at Saint Mary’s) and Arizona (79-63 loss at. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 teams in the February 28th poll all lost on February 26th, which makes it a bit of a crapshoot as to whom should be where. Keep things pretty copasetic, and hope the conference tournament season provides a bit more clarity. How do you vote in a college basketball poll when all the good teams play lose on the same day?

Ncaa basketball rankings