Rankings with a Dartboard: Central Region

I typically am not one who wants to question former colleagues and some of the decisions they have made, but considering I think they made a mistake last year in regards to the last singles qualifier for nationals, I thought I might get ahead of the game and get some raw data in front of them earlier. The most recent Central region rankings have some questionable choices. You can see them here:

http://www.itatennis.com/ResultsAndRankings/Rankings/Oracle_ITA_Division_III_Men_s_Collegiate_Tennis_Rankings/Oracle_ITA_Division_III_Men_s_Central_Regional_Rankings_-_April_13.htm

Thanks to the help from D3Tree, we have compiled some hidden resumes and you can decide where certain players should be ranked. Remember, only the top 7 get an automatic spot to nationals with 4 at large berths across all regions. Before giving the hidden profiles, let me just say that Mohanad Al-Houni and Brandon Metzler absolutely should be #1 and #2. I think Al-Houni gets a slight nod above Metzler because he has one more in top 8 region win than Metzler, but also a few out of region losses, which Metzler does not. So the fact that he is sitting second is somewhat surprising. But that’s not any of my issue with these rankings. Let’s take a look at some player resumes:

It’s quite clear as I mentioned above that Player H and Player D are Brandon Metzler and Mohanad Al-Houni. The Key on the left is blacked out so you can see where the current ITA regional rankings has them seeded, but the letter of which resume they represents doesn’t show. The glaring mistake on this sheet is with player B. That particular player only has one in region win over the #19 seed and two in region losses to #1 and #7. In my opinion that player should be on the outside of the top 8 because his body of work isn’t at all comparable to the others. Player J has a similar resume in that a few minor wins over #7, #18, and #20 with a loss against #9. I think you can argue that he should be seeded #7 or #8 because he does not have any bigger wins to justify him being higher. Ready for the big reveal?!?

Player B is Nick Chua (currently #5) from Chicago and Player J is Johnny Wu (currently #3!) from Wash U. If the rankings committee was putting together a “Power Rankings” like we do here at the blog, they might be justified in their decisions, but that isn’t how they are supposed to work. I see one of a few things at play here. Either the committee is taking into consideration out of region results (which they aren’t supposed to) or they are attributing their teammates (either David Liu or John Carswell) wins over higher seeded players and counting them as direct wins for Chua and Wu (which they didn’t even play those matches). They seem to also be vastly overestimating the value of an out of region win version in region results. Some teams just aren’t able to play the same type of schedule so in region wins/losses are what should make up the regional rankings.

Players from the lesser known national powerhouses like Ancona (Wheaton/Player A), Anderson (Coe/Player G), Abban (Carthage/Player F), and even Rodefeld (DePauw/Player C) really got screwed in these rankings. We get called out quite often for having bias towards the historically better teams. It seems like the rankings committee deserves the same call out. If the rankings were objective like they are supposed to be, here is how I would rank them with their Resume “letter” in parathesis.

1. Metzler (H)
2. Al-Houni (D)
3. Anderson (G, wins over Liu, Rodefeld, losses to Al-Houni, Metzler, Ancona)
4. Liu (I has fallen because of lack of play which is fair)
5. Wu (J, reorder gives him a direct win over Rodefeld, loss to Liu)
6. Rodefeld (C, reorder gives him losses to Al-Houni, Anderson, and Wu, win over Chua)
7. Abban (F, Just beat Ancona, but after rankings were submitted. Only losses to Al-Houni and Anderson)
8. Ancona (A, reorder gives a win over Anderson, but loss over Thompson from Whitewater)
9. Chua (B, no significant wins in region yet)
10. Carswell (E, just the first #2 player on the list)

So the reason I named this “rankings with a dartboard” is the notion that I feel like the committee pinned all these names up and started throwing darts at them. Whatever they hit is where the player fell in the rankings. The only true thing they might have done right is dropping David Liu because of his lack of play. That doesn’t mean Chua gets credit for his wins though. Again, is Chua one of the better players in the region? Absolutely, he just doesn’t have the in region results to back that up yet. There has to be a better process for all of this, but in the end we just have to hope the committee gets it right. Until then, my email address is d3centraltennis@gmail.com. I am always free to help consult.

Be sure to keep following the blog as we reveal D3West next week!