On-going Season Rankings V2.0 - Herp Derp

[BlueDevil95]

The Georgia 5A regionals tournament was held last Saturday on HSAPQ-23. I don't know when the link to the SQBS will be added but here's a table:
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11619#p234939

[No Electricity Required]

The Bloomington Mirror of IMSANITY's stats are here: http://www.ihssbca.org/statistics/2012_ ... ndings.php.

[tintinnabulation]

Yeah, if stats are missing but you want them in there, you should post a link to them.

Didn't know if that tourney had to be more "important" or if you needed them emailed to you or what. Thanks for looking and for listening to me nag, guys. Sorry.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

I am from West Virginia, y'all. Not exactly the hot bed of quiz bowl perennial powerhouses.

[jjones]

Fred,

Regarding DCC's recent tournaments:
Rube Goldberg: the stats reflected for DCC A are really DCC B's stats. DCC A was playing at Loyola that weekend.
Culver: DCC A down two A team members.

Thanks,

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Not that it will get us in the rankings, but we were down our second-best and "science" player at GDS last weekend. This weekend at Charter, we'll again have three-fourths of our top team, but i think we have the two or three best players so it might not matter a lot.

[Charles Martel]

3 Illinois things:
1. HFT at Auburn overall stats are here: http://www.ihssbca.org/statistics/2011_ ... ndings.php . The stats you're currently using are incomplete and contain more errors.
2. Auburn wasn't missing players at Loyburn.
3. IMSA B at Huskie Bowl was really the IMSA C team, and contained none of IMSA B's regular players.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

2. Auburn wasn't missing players at Loyburn.

I've received other reports, so I'm not going to make a change here.

The rest was already noted or has been noted. Thanks everyone!

[Charles Martel]

http://www.ihssbca.org/statistics/2011_ ... il.php#t16
They had Lloyd, Abid, Filip, and Alex, which is their usual A team. I also confirmed this with Abid a few months ago.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

A question.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

Hey what new rankings whaaaaaaaaaaaaat

[Edward Powers]

Hey Fred---not that it matters in any ultimate sense---but we won our last two tournaments and we keep falling in the rankings; teams we defeated head to head to win or a team or teams that we finished ahead of by 5 or 6 places in the standings, or defeated with one of our undermanned house teams in an earlier tounament, jump 10-30 or so spots while we drop---team(s) we defeated quite comfortably earlier in the year and have never lost to!?! Further, our PPB stats at Delaware are inaccurate (we think they are off by over 2PPB---we have us at 22+, but it is what it is) , and if my memory serves our power conversions were among the best or were the best in the field and have been that way in almost every tournament we have attended, certainly every NAQT tournament.

As I lamented earlier in the year for Dorman after Harvard, when it won Harvard by going undefeated and while it defeated 5 or 6 teams that rose??? in your ranks while it dropped???, I ask again, this time for my own team: Where's the love? At the least it's tough to see them drop after going 20-0 in two straight tournaments while teams with multiple losses in the same field or teams we defeated head to head rise higher while we, strangely, fall.

But we know your job is tough, and more than this, we know what matters most is actual play.

And this of course is meant with the best of intentions---and we do appreciate what you do and we know that being ranked anywhere in the Top 50-150 is truly complimentary.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

Your best adjusted PPB performances are from last semester (there's nothing I can do about mistakes in peoples' stats, that's their stuff to fix). Other teams are putting in performances that are better than what they've had in the past. The end.

I'm doing things the same as last year, when my rankings proved to be very accurate.

[Edward Powers]

Fair enough. The end!

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

The end!

I'm the monster at the end of this thread!

[Edward Powers]

Ha! You're not fooling anyone---you're a Teddy bear! ( But I will not tell anyone!).

[jonathanmarx]

Not too be overbearing, but a couple things regarding RM A/B's various strengths at different tournaments this year:

Yesterday at Delaware Spring was the first time that RM A has been at full strength all year (with Samantha, Daniel, Josh, and Chris).

RM B has yet to have their three best players together this year (which would be myself, Sam Deutsch, and Danish Akbar).

Finally, you appear to have omitted the stats from Delaware Spring in RM B's rankings while they are included for every other team who attended the tournament.

Thanks so much, and I really appreciate the hard work you put into compiling these rankings!

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

Additionally, and in less of a set up for me to yell THE END:

As the only person who works on these rankings, most weeks, I put in at least 5 hours a week (maybe closer to 10 sometimes) hunting down stats, putting them into an Excel file, calculating adjusted PPB, calculating powers per game, and changing the text file to show teams moving around. This doesn't mention smaller tasks like changing every team's ranking for this & last week. My stat file currently has 2500 entries in it. My text file is currently an incomplete version of a top 300 ranking set. All this work is on top of my other quiz bowl work, my actual job, my social & relaxation time, etc. And this is all just to track the PPG, PPB, & power rates of teams.

I should also note that the process of putting the rankings together is really mind-numbing stuff. It's not much fun.

While I'm skeptical of the true meaning of a team's win-loss rate against other teams when it comes to rankings, I'm basically unable to track those stats. I've already maxed out how much time I can afford to put into the rankings; they're already pretty accurate, so I'm happy with what they accomplish for what I put into them. I was planning on kibitzing off of Excelsior for notable win-loss advantages, but unfortunately that's not going to happen this year.

I hope to work with some people to automate more of the process in the coming years.

[Matt Weiner]

I mean, I can just yell at people that it's literally mathematically impossible to guarantee teams will always be ranked ahead of anyone they have beaten, all concerns about why that's not a good standard anyway aside, until it gets through their skulls. Will that help?

[jonpin]

I mean, I can just yell at people that it's literally mathematically impossible to guarantee teams will always be ranked of anyone they have beaten, all concerns about why that's not a good standard anyway aside, until it gets through their skulls. Will that help?

Only if you also mention that noting how "Smallville High School A was really playing like Smallville High School A-and-a-half because we were missing our literature player" is essentially impossible to plug into the rankings in any meaningful way.

[deserto]

I do not mean to deprecate my team and its accomplishments, but for what it is worth, I think you have us overrated. Bonus conversion seems to be the main metric by which you rank teams. Having a ppb of 19 or 20 instead of one of 22 is, in the vast majority of cases, not going to alter the outcome of a game or tournament. Averaging six or seven powers per game, on the other hand, may well put you in a position to win games you would not win with only two or three 15pg. There are a number of teams ranked behind Hanover, such as IMSA B, Hunter B, Brookwood, and yes, St. Joseph, whom I would expect to beat us handily in NAQT or any other pyramidal format. To answer bonuses, you need first to get toss-ups, which is why I think you should give more weight to power statistics in your rankings. As nice as it feels to be 27th, I think Hanover currently belongs lower in the rankings.

[Edward Powers]

If it's my skull you are talking about, I know it can be pretty hard. But in reality I think we all know how hard Fred works on this stuff. On the other hand, if we cannot log on and communicate with Fred, however amicably, else we be accused of having thick skulls, then why have this forum at all? It does get tiresome when harsh judgments are made about comments that are posted in friendly ways, and, when those who post those comments also explicitly thank Fred for doing what he is doing and recognize that in general he is doing it very well. I hope it is not true, as it perhaps seems to be in this particular case, that some people refuse to have any patience for friendly banter while the initiator of the banter also discusses the purposes of this thread. Apparently such a post triggers in others the censorious notion that such banter is evidence of abnormally thick skulls. Apparently.

[abnormal abdomen]

Hey, Fred. I think you put in Seven Lakes's stats from the Winter Rodeo into Auburn A's entry in the rankings. Nothing major, obviously.

Otherwise, I sincerely thank you for your continued work on these rankings. As you've stated, I can't imagine that they're much fun to put together.

[Goole by-election, 1971]

<REDACTED>

I'd like to echo others in my thanks for these rankings and their regular updates. They're certainly a great tool for fostering discussion and it's nice to see how we compare with other schools on a national level. Plus, it's pretty useful in keeping my non-quizbowl friends updated in our performance, since they can comprehend a numerical ranking a lot easier than they could stats like PPG, PPB and the like.

[Edward Powers]

Fred,

Since PPB is so important to you, the statisticians at the Delaware Spring Tournament have apparently reported this corrected stat line for Saint Joe's to the NAQT Official Results site:

55 powers; 71 tens for 126 Bonus opportunities= 21.79 PPB. You can check the NAQT site to verify this, but it's OK if you do not.

And of course I understand that you cannot keep tabs on all the comings and goings of all possible combinations of players at tournaments, or the usually modest errors of statisticians trying their best, so do with this what you will. The stats SJHS posted yesterday from our mirror of GSAC XIX apparently have some errors, and my kids tried their best to be accurate, so I understand the problem. Further, I do not think you should spend any more time than you already do working on all the stat lines from across the country. I do hope however that the service you provide the quizbowl community is in fact a labor of love and not a drudgery, and, finally, I trust you understand my comments yesterday to you fall under the category of friendly banter while lodging a modest disagreement with our continued drop in the rankings. But I agree with you fully---more and more teams are playing quite well against the sets themselves, so many teams have received their just recognition from you for their excellent performaces, as they should, especially teams that have not traditionally been recognized but yet certainly deserve to be, based upon excellent performances againt the sets themselves, and you should be commended for spotting these rising teams. So, when all is said and done, we are fine with wherever you see fit to place us, for there are many stellar teams across the country, and we thank you for all of your efforts for trying to shine a light on as many of these deserving teams as you can. But one thing I will continue to disagree with you about, and I am almost certain that the larger quizbowl community will side overwhelmingly with me against you on this: You are no "monster", but rather a Teddy Bear whose roar scares no one!

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

I AM SO TIRED

here is a ranking. a ranking of quiz bowl teams.

[tintinnabulation]

Thank you. And I hope you get some rest soon.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

I owe replies to things in this thread, which I'll try to give sometime soon. Immediate qb priorities are writing questions and then maybe getting the rankings up to where I'd like them in terms of up-to-date-ness (some difficulty adjustments are from January, which is not satisfactory!).

I'd also like to make more in-depth changes to the rankings in the future. I'm aware they aren't perfect - one thing that I would like to change in the future (after this year) is not just using linear ppb adjustments, because frankly these don't work out great for teams at the far right of the Bell curve. But, there's two things that are going to keep me from fixing that for now:

1) Time, largely. Full time job, side work in qb that actually make me money, PERSONAL LIFE~, et al. I am at least comfortable executing my system as it is.

2) Concerns with the accuracy of any kind of mathematical adjustment for these cases. My primary worry would be with sample size; there's just not a lot of teams capable of putting up 25+ ppb on sets, even the easiest ones, which could obviously be an accuracy problem.

Other questions that have been raised recently are things like "are playing sets as hard as D1 SCT a good predictor for nationals" (A: I dunno!) and "what to do with teams that have noticeable gaps between their best & 2nd best performance" (not 100% sure there either, though that's largely a judgment call - do you think that the best one shows the team's true capabilities, or do you think that multiple performances that are strong but not quite as strong as the one best individual performance are more meaningful?).

I don't think the rankings are going to get an official expansion to 200 before the pre-nationals set. I just don't have the time to deal with the extra work added by those 50 teams.

Anyway, I'm literally at the point where I'm forgetting grammar things and might even be getting to the point where caps lock usage amuses me, so I'm done with this for now.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

Oh and this is now the 5th #1 team in hsqbrank history huzzah

[bird bird bird bird bird]

the far right of the Bell curve

I see what you did there

[Remember-the-Alamo-Remember-Goliad]

I can certainly understand Fred's exhaustion.

After competing in part 1 of the Texas Invitational and doing 16 matches in about 16 hours, I was totally wiped out -- and I only had to watch Cistercian Prep compete!

However, I must say that bringing together such a fantastic group of teams to compete over 2 (or 3?) days was a great experience for my students, even if 3 of the 4 played with some form of illness. Finishing right in the middle of the pack and retaining our # 15 ranking both BEFORE and AFTER the competition was, well, a huge confidence booster. When you take a closer look at the stats, it really does show how volatile and variable things are with those top teams. To state the obvious: the particular packet set DOES make a difference, sometimes a huge difference. I was particularly surprised that not a single team -- not one --- posted a P/B ratio of 20 or above. Maybe I don't have enough familiarity with this D1 question set, but we really had to scramble for the bonuses, not just toss-ups.

Personal note: On the LIVE BLOG, I was described as wearing a dashiki; while I'm flattered to have been described so colorfully ( and moreso that anyone would even be noticing such things!), I think my attire was a bit closer to what the traditional Yoruba male would wear. As most readers know, I would normally be in Roman collar, but on that particular day, we dashed away from our campus during our annual Arts Festival (BraveArt) where I had been conducting a cinema workshop; there was literally no time to change clothes -- so we just drove like mad from Dallas to Houston -- and we made it in time for our matches. Sadly, on Saturday, i was back to my staid Roman black attire and the wonderful colors of my other attire were safely packed away.

[etchdulac]

On the LIVE BLOG, I was described as wearing a dashiki; while I'm flattered to have been described so colorfully (and moreso that anyone would even be noticing such things!)...

I saw you wearing a kufi at the two-day state tournament that Bellaire won in 1995. I remember seeing that. It was bizarre, and these things scar people.

Thus grows the legend of Fr. Gregory.

To be slightly on-topic, I think the new rankings reflect exactly what I pictured coming out of our tournament, and our forthcoming analysis blog at texasquizbowl.org will reflect that. I think the size of the gaps from 2 to 3 and 3 to 4 are interesting discussion points, given that I'm made to assume that the difference between 1-man Centennial and four-player Centennial is minimal.

[Chandragupta Maurya]

Stats have been posted for the 2012 St. Mark's Invitational:
http://texasquizbowl.org/d/@120303SMS/

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

Work on the rankings is going to resume this weekend, with a new set of rankings to appear in the future.

Tournaments to be added (this is a work in progress; due to computer issues, I'm using this as a storing area until I get around to implementing these stats. I don't need help with finding stats as of right now):

March 3
Right Triangle Open - new adjustment needed

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

Okay, the previous post now has a list of tournaments that I will add to the next set of rankings. Please let me know if I missed any stats between that post & my last set of rankings.

[AustinlSmith]

On March 3rd there was a tournament in Kentucky featuring such teams as DuPont manual and (a weakened) Dunbar. However, that tournament only has game results, so I'm assuming you can't really do much with that info?

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

Unfortunately, no. I need ppb at a minimum to accomplish anything with my method.

[a bird]

I don't know if you've done a difficulty adjustment for the Minnesota novice set yet, but on February 18th Hanover hosted the OATH. Most of the teams in attendance were not really novice teams, so the data might be relevant to rankings.

If it helps, Phillips Exeter split their usual "A" team (their two top players from MITBAT, anyway) into two teams. Hanover "A" was similar in composition the usual Hanover "B" team.

Stats Prelim Combined

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

I haven't done anything with the Minnesota Novice set as far as the rankings are concerned, because I was under the impression it was for JV-type tournaments. Was this the case with OATH?

[a bird]

The OATH was a general interest tournament in a region relatively unfamiliar with pyramidal Quizbowl. As an open high school tournament, the OATH, in my view, was similar to a general tournament played on something like an IS-A set.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

I've been sick mostly all day today, so I haven't done much with this. I think I will try to just do an update with the old set adjustments, and then recalculate those before the next update. I'll have to juggle those with my writing & editing jobs, of course.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

I've changed my mind and am going to make all the adjustments first before I post a new set of rankings. So, wait a few more days.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

Rankings~

There's even some dumb commentary!

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

I made a mistake with the stats I looked at for TJ, which has now been corrected.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

I also made a mistake with Auburn, which has been corrected. Further corrections will be noted on the blog post, before the jump.

[tinioril]

I understand that you may not be able to account for this, but Wheaton Warrenville South was missing their best player for the NAQT State Championship.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

Unless a team has gone the entire year (or most of it, I guess) without their full lineup, performances that are dragged down by missing players tend to get ignored, regardless of my knowing about those absences or not.

[tinioril]

Makes sense, just checking. Thanks.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

New rankings.

[Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon]

Also I did a thing I totally don't have faith in, happy to help.