NCAA Regionals results

[bbower]

look on the bright side: you don't have to worry about MIT having teammates split up this year.

-m

Como se dice "blow me" en Espanol?

[oiuyt]

I meant those numbers in the posts related to the different fencers - you know some at 83.245 and some at 60.234. I assume those are based on the ncaa formula from the ncaa website. But they were posted on this space and I assumed they had been calculated by the posters - but then wondered if maybe they were available somewhere else for those of us unable to decipher the ncaa formula and not really inclined to look up all the results of all the college tournaments......

For every bout fenced by a particular fencer you would have to know the result (win/loss, score is irrelevant), the opponent, and the power rating of that opponent as of November 30, 2007. Without all of that information you cannot reconstruct the FSF numbers listed here.

The NCAA uses a password-protected website for reporting the results of every varsity dual meet bout. One of the features of that website is the ability to generate several types of report. One of those reports is an ordered list of every NCAA fencer in a weapon, including several represenations of the strength of his/her season. Most notably, the FSF number, which is the final product attempt to distill the entire sum of the bouts fenced into a single metric.

I don't believe that report is publically available on the web anywhere.

-B

[JEC]

For every bout fenced by a particular fencer you would have to know the result (win/loss, score is irrelevant), the opponent, and the power rating of that opponent as of November 30, 2007. Without all of that information you cannot reconstruct the FSF numbers listed here.

The NCAA uses a password-protected website for reporting the results of every varsity dual meet bout. One of the features of that website is the ability to generate several types of report. One of those reports is an ordered list of every NCAA fencer in a weapon, including several represenations of the strength of his/her season. Most notably, the FSF number, which is the final product attempt to distill the entire sum of the bouts fenced into a single metric.

I don't believe that report is publically available on the web anywhere.

-B

Brad,
Do you feel that it is a system that could be adapted to USFA instead of ratings (i.e.: ELO ,etc.)? I am aware that the universe of NCAA fencers and number of meets is considerably smaller than USFA. What are your thoughts about this idea?
JEC

[oiuyt]

Brad,
Do you feel that it is a system that could be adapted to USFA instead of ratings (i.e.: ELO ,etc.)? I am aware that the universe of NCAA fencers and number of meets is considerably smaller than USFA. What are your thoughts about this idea?
JEC

I think that the NCAA system has flaws. Some fairly large, some fairly subtle. It's trying to do an extraordinarily hard task -- distilling a season into a single number where the seasons are HUGELY hetreogenous.

Some schools fence very few opponents. Some of those schools fence almost exclusively top-level competition, others almost exclusively bottom-level, some something inbetween. Some schools fence a huge number of opponents, including a mix of strong, weak, and mid-level opponents. Some schools fence a moderate schedule. And then different fencers at the same school can have wildly divergent season composition. And we're trying to avoid systematic biases that favor one philosophy of schedule-building over another.

Not to mention the information used to value opponents is poor to start with (it utilizes a combination of USFA classification (even more flawed than normal when looking at collegiate fencers that may or may not actively compete non-collegiately and may or may not be USFA members (or American)), USFA junior and senior rankings, FIE junior and senior rankings, and performance in the previous year's NCAA Championships).

The overall system is better this year than last year. Last year was better than the year before. Etc. And it's all better than when we just had committees making subjective calls. The fact that we have (IMO) monotonic improvement, even with considerable incidents of unintended consequences, is somewhat improbable and somewhat amazing to me.

Do I think that the system currently used by the NCAA could be adapted for use in the USFA? No.

That does raise the issue of whether or not any of the systems floating around being suggested for the USFA could be adapted for NCAA use, however. I'll think about it and see if I can get time to play with some of them over the summer and try to measure how well they work in the collegiate domain.

-B

[DJ Apostrophe]

Como se dice "blow me" en Espanol?

Literally: Golpe me

HTH

-w

[DJ Apostrophe]

Last year it was easy to get into the whole thing because of the live or nearly live updates (again thanks). Is that also in the works for this year?

I was the guy who posted them last year... as I'm going to referee this year, it'll be a bit different to get them posted, but I'm going to do my best to make it happen.

-w

[JEC]

Literally: Golpe me

HTH

-w

"golpeame" is the literal translation, but it has other meanings too ...

[hello?]

So, what about predictions? My bet would be Columbia but I am biased.

[rustica]

I am not biased, but have to agree that this will be Columbia's year. The other schools with 12 have some very strong fencers in some weapons, but the list from Columbia is strong across the board!

And speaking of those other schools, there were a couple of names I was surprised to see, namely Horanyi and Hurley. Guess I thought they were among those students taking time to train for the Olympics such as Cross, Zagunis, etc.

Go Lions!!

[epeelion]

Hells yeah!!

Umm, in all honesty, we're not expected to win. But I agree, we're strong across the board. Like every year, it'll depend on epee (not to put any pressure on myself or anything). Our foil and sabre will be strong for sure, but both Men's and Women's epee (i.e.-me, Brent, Oriana, and Tess) will have to bring our A-games.

GO LIONS!!

[electrofencer]

IMHO:

Notre Dame
Ohio State
St.John's
Columbia

[argonis]

ND lost almost every weapon/gender matchup against OSU at the midwest conference (I think they might have won 1), I'd take OSU before them.

[electrofencer]

ND lost almost every weapon/gender matchup against OSU at the midwest conference (I think they might have won 1), I'd take OSU before them.

You're correct, and there is quite a bit of wishful thinking involved, Ohio State being at home has to definitely help them as well.
Yet, I hope that more of "Big Tournament" experience in ND squad will pull it through.