Rankings?

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Thu Jan 03, 2013 4:50 pm

Let's Play Hockey Rankings as of January 3, 2013

Class AA (1st place votes)
1 MINNETONKA (5)
2 Benilde-St. Margaret's (4)
3 Eden Prairie (1)
4 Hill-Murray
5 Mounds View
6 Edina
7 Wayzata
8 Andover
9 Lakeville North
10 Roseville Area
11 Hopkins
12 Bloomington Jefferson
13 Lakeville South
14 North Wright County
15 Hastings
16 Armstrong/Cooper
17 Buffalo
18 Blaine
19 Cretin-Derham Hall
20 Dodge County

Class A (1st place votes)
1 WARROAD (10)
2 Red Wing
3 Blake
4 Thief River Falls
5 Orono
6 New Prague
7 Breck
8 Mound-Westonka
9 Proctor/Hermantown
10 Hibbing/Chisholm
11 South St. Paul
12 Mankato East/Loyola
13 Crookston
14 St. Paul United
15 East Grand Forks
16 Northfield
17 Henry Sibley
18 Princeton
19 Alexandria
20 Totino-Grace

Rocketwrister · Post by **Rocketwrister** » Wed Jan 09, 2013 7:16 pm

Jan 9 rankings

High School Girls AA

1 MINNETONKA (10)
2 Benilde-St. Margaret's
3 Mounds View
4 Eden Prairie
5 Edina
6 Hill-Murray
7 Andover
8 Wayzata
9 Lakeville North
10 Roseville Area
11 Buffalo
12 Hopkins
13 North Wright County
14 Bloomington Jefferson
15 Lakeville South
16 Armstrong/Cooper
17 Blaine
18 Apple Valley
19 Hastings
20 Cretin-Derham Hall

How does Cretin still make the top 20? They've lost some games recently...I know coaches vote but what am I missing?

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Wed Jan 09, 2013 9:45 pm

Rocketwrister wrote:How does Cretin still make the top 20? They've lost some games recently...I know coaches vote but what am I missing?

I think you could ask the same question about Hastings. They've lost their last three, and four of their last five, all to unranked teams. Meanwhile, in their last two games Forest Lake has wins over both CDH and Hastings, plus Woodbury and #17AA Blaine in their two previous games to those, yet they remain unranked. I guess we'll know more after their next three, vs. GR/G, Mounds View and Stillwater.

And speaking of Blaine they've also had a bit of a rough patch as of late, losing 3 of their past 4 (vs. Minnesota teams), to Armstrong/Cooper, Forest Lake and Andover. In their last game, however, they did bounce back in a big way with a convincing 9-1 win over Elk River/Zimmerman.

So I guess the bottom line is that there's a lot of parity when it comes to the teams that just barely make - or just barely miss - the rankings from one week to the next. It seems that many of these teams have had a series of games when they've been playing real well, but then they stumble and lose some that you wouldn't expect. Which leads to the situation where every week you can make a case that this or that team is ranked too high, or not high enough.

A question to ask, when looking at the polls, is how much weight do you put on each team's most recent games, as opposed to their whole "body of work" over the course of the entire season? The computer-based systems, like KRACH, do not differentiate between a team's most recent game and their first, while the human-based polls, like LPH...well who knows what each individual voter is thinking when he or she votes?

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 10:03 am

Let's Play Hockey Rankings as of January 23, 2013

Class AA (1st place votes)
1 BENILDE-ST. MARGARET'S (7)
2 Mounds View (1)
3 Minnetonka (1)
4 Eden Prairie (1)
5 Edina
6 Hill-Murray
7 Hopkins
8 Andover
9 Lakeville North
10 Buffalo
11 Wayzata
12 Roseville Area
13 North Wright County
14 Lakeville South
15 Bloomington Jefferson
16 Armstrong/Cooper
17 Eagan
18 Anoka
19 Blaine
20 Stillwater Area

Class A (1st place votes)
1 WARROAD (10)
2 Blake
3 Red Wing
4 Orono
5 Thief River Falls
6 Breck
7 South St. Paul
8 New Prague
9 Proctor/Hermantown
10 Mound-Westonka
11 Mankato East/Loyola
12 Hibbing/Chisholm
13 Crookston
14 Northfield
15 St. Paul United
16 East Grand Forks
17 Alexandria
18 Henry Sibley
19 Princeton
20 Totino-Grace

Goalie-Dad · Post by **Goalie-Dad** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 3:51 pm

What does MV need to accomplish to be ranked #1?

Record is 21-0-1. Quality class AA wins over Wayzata, Roseville, Stillwater (twice), Hastings and Elk River.

ExecutionTrumpsStrategy · Thu Jan 24, 2013 4:16 pm

Goalie-Dad wrote:What does MV need to accomplish to be ranked #1?

Record is 21-0-1. Quality class AA wins over Wayzata, Roseville, Stillwater (twice), Hastings and Elk River.

I suspect the fact that none of those quality wins are against top 10 teams keeps them out of #1!

Pens4 · Post by **Pens4** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:24 pm

Goalie-Dad wrote:What does MV need to accomplish to be ranked #1?

Record is 21-0-1. Quality class AA wins over Wayzata, Roseville, Stillwater (twice), Hastings and Elk River.

I assume you are talking about the LPH rankings I think they should be more responsive given the weekly results. The rankers should penalize top teams for losing to non-quality opponents. If this is anywhere on the players radar...it will keep them focused for a short 25 game regular season. The Krach takes into account the whole body of games and SOS...at this point of the season it is probably a better indicator of the top 10.

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:54 pm

Not to take anything away from a team that hasn't lost yet after 20+ games, but I wonder how many other teams would be undefeated, too, if the best team they had to play all year was ranked #11 in the state. BSM, Tonka, EP, Edina, . . . Would MV even make it to the Section 6AA finals? I'm sure that MV will use the "we don't get no respect" mantra to their advantage in the playoffs and we'll see how far they progress - should be fun to watch.

allhoc11 · Post by **allhoc11** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 6:48 pm

Goalie-Dad wrote:What does MV need to accomplish to be ranked #1?

Record is 21-0-1. Quality class AA wins over Wayzata, Roseville, Stillwater (twice), Hastings and Elk River.

IMO beat a top 10 team. I would say a top 5 ranking is probably too high for a team whose SOS is 39, and that is the highest point it has been all year. Good news is they will most likely have a chance to play a top 10 team in Andover in the playoffs, I'm curious to see how they do.

Goalie-Dad · Post by **Goalie-Dad** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 1:24 pm

allhoc11 wrote:
Goalie-Dad wrote:What does MV need to accomplish to be ranked #1?

Record is 21-0-1. Quality class AA wins over Wayzata, Roseville, Stillwater (twice), Hastings and Elk River.
IMO beat a top 10 team. I would say a top 5 ranking is probably too high for a team whose SOS is 39, and that is the highest point it has been all year. Good news is they will most likely have a chance to play a top 10 team in Andover in the playoffs, I'm curious to see how they do.

Does LPH use a numerical SOS rating as a basis for it's ranking? Isn't the LPH rankings a subjective evaluation of talent?

If MV's SOS ranking is so low, why are they #1 in the KRACH rankings.

hockeywild7 · Post by **hockeywild7** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 2:10 pm

LPH rankings are done by varsity girls coaches every week

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 2:25 pm

I would presume that a win against a weak team is more highly valued than a loss to a stronger team. As I understand it, a team could win in a RPI system and have its rating decrease if it played a weaker team. This can't happen in KRACH. The final KRACH number is basically winning ratio x SOS, I believe, in simple terms. MV does in fact have the best winning ratio by a large margin, so they have a higher starting point. Even though their SOS is weak, it's not weak enough to overcome the headstart MV has by virture of winning a much higher ratio of their games. Simply put, wins count much more than SOS.

At the risk of exposing my specious math skills to the world, if Team A is 20-1, their winning ratio is 20. If Team B is 16-4, their winning ratio is 4, so Team A is already "5 times as good as Team B" (or, more precisely, would be expected to win 5 out of 6 games head-to-head) prior to applying SOS. So, unless Team B's SOS is more than 5 times greater than Team A, Team A will always have the higher KRACH. There's more math to KRACH then I've shown here, of course, but then my brain would really start to hurt.

The fact that MV's KRACH rating is only "slightly higher" than BSM, Tonka, and EP proves how much lower MV's SOS is in relation to these teams.

I like KRACH, but it's by no means perfect (nor is LPH, of course) and it has plenty of opportunity for improvement, but its appeal is how self-contained and "unbiased" it is (plus, we get to have fun discussions like this one!).

I'll leave it to the KRACH experts amongst us to more precisely explain its guts, but I think I'm reasonably close at a naive level.

royals dad · Post by **royals dad** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 4:34 pm

sinbin wrote:I would presume that a win against a weak team is more highly valued than a loss to a stronger team. As I understand it, a team could win in a RPI system and have its rating decrease if it played a weaker team. This can't happen in KRACH. The final KRACH number is basically winning ratio x SOS, I believe, in simple terms. MV does in fact have the best winning ratio by a large margin, so they have a higher starting point. Even though their SOS is weak, it's not weak enough to overcome the headstart MV has by virture of winning a much higher ratio of their games. Simply put, wins count much more than SOS.

At the risk of exposing my specious math skills to the world, if Team A is 20-1, their winning ratio is 20. If Team B is 16-4, their winning ratio is 4, so Team A is already "5 times as good as Team B" (or, more precisely, would be expected to win 5 out of 6 games head-to-head) prior to applying SOS. So, unless Team B's SOS is more than 5 times greater than Team A, Team A will always have the higher KRACH. There's more math to KRACH then I've shown here, of course, but then my brain would really start to hurt.

The fact that MV's KRACH rating is only "slightly higher" than BSM, Tonka, and EP proves how much lower MV's SOS is in relation to these teams.

I like KRACH, but it's by no means perfect (nor is LPH, of course) and it has plenty of opportunity for improvement, but its appeal is how self-contained and "unbiased" it is (plus, we get to have fun discussions like this one!).

I'll leave it to the KRACH experts amongst us to more precisely explain its guts, but I think I'm reasonably close at a naive level.

Not to beat the dead horse but is just to bad that the above mentioned teams cant prove it on the ice at the X. Instead we will have 10-1 scores in the first round while most of the top 10 watches from home.

Bandy · Post by **Bandy** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 5:11 pm

sinbin wrote: ... I like KRACH, but it's by no means perfect (nor is LPH, of course) and it has plenty of opportunity for improvement, but its appeal is how self-contained and "unbiased" it is (plus, we get to have fun discussions like this one!)...

Agree.

There is no such thing as a perfect ranking system for 'best in state.' For MoundsView to be #2 on LPH and #1 on KRACH this late in the season is a darned good showing.

Good luck to everyone down the home stretch!

ghshockeyfan · Post by **ghshockeyfan** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:37 pm

Here's probably the best discussion of how KRACH works for those that are interested:

http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~butler/krachexp.htm

And some discussion about comparisons to other rankings:

ghshockeyfan wrote:From a related thread:

http://www.ushsho.com/forums/viewtopic. ... ht=#605192

ghshockeyfan wrote:I'll be curious to see how KRACH computer ranking compares against some of the others mentioned here (Minnhock's PS2, USHSHO, MyHockeyRankings). KRACH is probably as "pure" as any algorithm in that it doesn't even care about score differential. That's why I prefer it. No additional human intervention.

Interestingly, it is supposed to give you odds on a game taking place. A team with a "10" rating value is considered the average team in the state regardless of Class designation. A team with, for example, a "100" rating is a 10:1 favorite over the average team. Similarly, you can compare any two teams based on their ratings.

SOS is just an average of opponents rankings played as of now.

Any computer ranking is worthless right now as many have said too limited data at this point.

http://www.ushsho.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=29709

Most Recent Ranking Links:
==========================================
OVERALL:
http://www.bgoski.com/b/KRACH_OA.htm
CLASS AA:
http://www.bgoski.com/b/KRACH_AA.htm
CLASS A:
http://www.bgoski.com/b/KRACH_A.htm
SECTION:
http://www.bgoski.com/b/KRACH_SEC.htm
SOS (Strength-Of-Schedule) is at:
http://www.bgoski.com/b/KRACH_SOS.htm
==========================================

Added info. is at:
http://www.bgoski.com
And more info. on the girls forum at:
http://www.ushsho.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=29597
http://www.ushsho.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27320
Here's the real details about KRACH:
http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~butler/krachexp.htm

And, our friends at USCHO speak to KRACH vs other options (yep, 7+ years ago):
http://www.uscho.com/2005/03/17/lets-get-kraching/

In addition to their ongoing rankings for both genders at both levels:
http://www.uscho.com/rankings/
http://www.uscho.com/rankings/krach/d-i-men/
http://www.uscho.com/rankings/krach/d-i-women/
http://www.uscho.com/rankings/krach/d-iii-men/
http://www.uscho.com/rankings/krach/d-ii-iii-men/
http://www.uscho.com/rankings/krach/d-iii-women/

Basic Explanation
KRACH — or “Ken’s Ratings for American College Hockey” — is the implementation for college hockey of a sophisticated mathematical model known as the Bradley-Terry rating system, first applied to college hockey by a statistician named Ken Butler.

This method is based on a statistical technique called logistic regression, in essence meaning that teams’ ratings are determined directly from their won-loss records against one another. A key feature of KRACH is that strength of schedule is calculated directly from the ratings themselves, meaning that KRACH, unlike many ratings (including RPI) cannot easily be distorted by teams with strong records against weak opposition.

The ratings are on an odds scale, so if Team A’s KRACH rating is three times as large as Team B’s, Team A would be expected to amass a winning percentage of .750 and Team B a winning percentage of .250 if it played each other enough times. The correct ratings are defined such that the "expected" winning percentage for a team in the games it’s already played is equal to its "actual" winning percentage.

An alternative definition of a team’s KRACH rating is as the product of its Winning Ratio (winning percentage divided by one minus winning percentage) with the weighted average of its opponents’ KRACH ratings. (The definition of the weighting factor makes this equivalent to the first definition of the KRACH ratings.) In addition to KRACH and RRWP, the table above lists each team’s Winning Percentage, Winning Ratio and Strength of Schedule (the aforementioned weighted average of their opponents’ KRACH ratings).

KRACH is provided for entertainment purposes only and is not used in any official way, nor is it endorsed by USCHO.com.
From the Hub:
http://www.mngirlshockeyhub.com/page/sh ... h-rankings
http://www.bgoski.com

About KRACH:
=================
KRACH is short for “Ken's Rating for American College Hockey.” Ken is Ken Butler, a statistician, and the mathematical model he used is known as the Bradley-Terry Rating System. The system and its details are well documented in great mathematical detail online (see KRACH explanation at Ken Butler's homepage).

..
The KRACH rating system is an attempt to combine the performance of each team with the strength of the opposition against which that performance was achieved, and to summarize the result as one number, a "rating", for each team. The higher the rating, the better the team.

This system accounts for strength-of-schedule (SOS) as it ranks the teams.

Teams with equal records and differing SOS can quickly be ranked as a result (i.e. team with stronger SOS is ranked higher than other teams with same record and weaker SOS).

The ratings are calculated purely from the game results (win, loss or tie), and do not use the goals scored at all. Overtime wins count as wins. Ties, for KRACH's purposes, count as half a win and half a loss.

KRACH only counts games against Minnesota State High School League opponents.
..

ghshockeyfan · Post by **ghshockeyfan** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:40 pm

PS - my guess is MV shoots to #1 in KRACH as they didn't lose yet AND everyone else beat up on each other. If either not the case, MV probably isn't #1 in KRACH.

There is a somewhat similar KRACH situation drawing attention on the boys side with Tartan right now. They are ranked very high as they have only two losses - to STA and HM - the top two teams overall in the state. So - until they lose to someone else - they will continue to be ranked high and above other teams they beat.

sinbin · Post by **sinbin** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:42 pm

Agreed, RoyalsDad. While I find it extremely difficult to feel sorry for BSM, it seems unfair that they haven't even made it to State the past two seasons, even with incredibly strong teams. Will BSM get stymied for a 3rd consecutive year? Will Tonka's 8 D1 players get a chance at one more State tournament appearance and title? Will up-and-coming EP and giant-killer Buffalo even make it to State? Who wouldn't have wanted to watch Hannah Brandt at the State tournament last year?

I'm all for tradition and for all geographies of the State being represented, but what we're left with now is an extremely watered-down product, where many teams are rewarded for geographical luck rather than hockey skill. As 10-1 games and #15-25 ranked teams competing at State continue to perpetuate, we're slowly killing something that once upon a time had the lofty aspirations to follow the strides of the storied boys tournament.

Goalie-Dad · Post by **Goalie-Dad** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 9:55 am

allhoc11 wrote:
Goalie-Dad wrote:What does MV need to accomplish to be ranked #1?

Record is 21-0-1. Quality class AA wins over Wayzata, Roseville, Stillwater (twice), Hastings and Elk River.

IMO beat a top 10 team. I would say a top 5 ranking is probably too high for a team whose SOS is 39, and that is the highest point it has been all year. Good news is they will most likely have a chance to play a top 10 team in Andover in the playoffs, I'm curious to see how they do.

The SOS is useless in evaluating team talent. Teams in large conferences have little or no opportunity to play teams outside of their conference and/or section. Their SOS is dragged down by the weaker teams in the conference.

18 of MV's 22 victories have been against teams with a higher SOS ranking. The same is probably true for BSM.

By your logic a team like Prior Lake (as an example) should be a highly rated team because their SOS ranking is #8, even though they have 4 wins this season.

36Guy · Post by **36Guy** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 10:07 am

Who's Krach??

The #1 team in Minnesota last 5 games played Krachs #44, #22, #24, #35 and #58 ranked teams in the state winning by an average of 1 goal in 4 of them and losing to the #58 ranked team and beating #35 ranked in overtime? The #1 ranked teams opponents in those games are 51-53-11?? Again....Who's Krach??

Just an observation...no dirt being thrown here, I personally think this team is young and talented and there best is yet to come!

ghshockeyfan · Post by **ghshockeyfan** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 10:26 am

Context:
http://www.ushsho.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 7&start=85

KRACH is explained in a few earlier posts in this thread, and at the beginning of the one linked above.

goaline · Post by **goaline** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 10:30 am

Royals dad -- show me the 10-1 score in AA. I haven't seen it... If A weren't polluted with Private schools or Warroad, with a roster full of Minnesotans and Canadians, we wouldn't have it all

36Guy · Post by **36Guy** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 11:43 am

ghshockeyfan wrote:Context:
http://www.ushsho.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 7&start=85

KRACH is explained in a few earlier posts in this thread, and at the beginning of the one linked above.

Mr. gh's fan...I am well aware of what Krach is. I was just poking fun with numbers as I have been reading blog after blog justifying through numbers how Mounds View is #1. Usually I have to troll a couple times around the lake to real in a fish this big?!?!

When people are constantly pining to be rated higher the are usually looking for respect. Respect does not come from wins but rather quality wins. Buffalo is the perfect example. MV is clearly not the number 1 team in the state but have produced a very good year. Claiming quality wins against teams that were good in the past does not work in this twitter/blog/hockey hub educated fan base. They should be a favorite to go to state...in Section 5 they should only need one quality win to get in....the Blaine/Andover winner.

Again, big fan of their young talent and quality goaltending but I would look for a good year and put them higher on the radar for years to come.

Racki2016 · Post by **Racki2016** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 1:24 pm

Mounds Views weaker schedule is out of there hands playing in the larger Sub East Conf, only leaving a 1/2 dozen or so non-conf games. which you could say they should have scheduled above avg teams for all of them.

Maybe next year will be better, for one CDH should be a much better team next year. or maybe MV drops out of Sub East Conf and goes independent, they would be able to schedule alot more non conf games with high quality teams.

Not sure how it works to break free and become an independent team, maybe there is a waiting period - not sure.

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 4:52 pm

Racki2016 wrote:Mounds Views weaker schedule is out of there hands playing in the larger Sub East Conf, only leaving a 1/2 dozen or so non-conf games. which you could say they should have scheduled above avg teams for all of them.

Maybe next year will be better, for one CDH should be a much better team next year. or maybe MV drops out of Sub East Conf and goes independent, they would be able to schedule alot more non conf games with high quality teams.

Not sure how it works to break free and become an independent team, maybe there is a waiting period - not sure.

Another alternative might be to not play every team in the conference twice. This is what the teams in the North Suburban Conference does to reduce the number of mismatches. Trouble is, the Suburban East is normally a lot stronger than it was this year. You could certainly argue that Roseville, Stillwater and White Bear Lake are all down compared to prior years. I'm sure these teams will rebound sooner rather than later, and as you note CDH looks like they will only get better over the next couple of years. So even if nothing is done it would appear that this year's weaker schedule will prove to be an anomaly.

The other thing MV might consider is playing in one of the other Holiday tournaments, like Kaposia, Eden Prairie's or Edina's ABRA, where they would be sure to elevate their non-conference schedule at least somewhat.

allhoc11 · Post by **allhoc11** » Wed Jan 30, 2013 7:23 pm

Racki2016 wrote:Mounds Views weaker schedule is out of there hands playing in the larger Sub East Conf, only leaving a 1/2 dozen or so non-conf games. which you could say they should have scheduled above avg teams for all of them.

You can defend their schedule all you want, but what am I missing. Isn't Stillwater in the same conference? They have the #8 ranked SOS. Most coaches know what they have coming for talent some choose to play tougher schedules with their open games and some don't. You can say they don't have choices, but there are always choices.

HighSchoolHockeyForums.com

Rankings?

Moundsview

KRACH details

10-1?