Thursday Rant

First off, let me say that more than angry rants, this is a day for me to talk about anything that I want. I started off this sequence last year, and I had things that I was angry about, so I called it "Thursday Rants." Now, I'm a generally happy guy with nothing to get bent out of shape over, so...

Today we're going to look at some predictors. I've done lots of interesting research over the past two weeks, looking for trends, patterns, formulas, predictors, all sorts of fun things. I was inspired by an old cartoon, but then the numbers themselves became a lot of fun.

For today, let's look at a stat that will tell us what our most difficult matches will be next year. Early in my posting season, I ranked the opponents we will play from hardest to easiest. That was before I found a way of predicting the most difficult matches. Let's see how my list matches up with this predicting statistic.

In my "eye test" ranking, I predicted the 5 most difficult matches next year would be:
1. Northridge
2. Fairfield
3. Concord
4. Westview
5. Goshen

So, that was just by looking at scores, seeing them play, knowing their coaches, predicting ability jumps, etc. Now, during the past two weeks I've worked on various patterns to see whether or not I could find one that gave some indication of what the most difficult matches would be. After going through many different ideas, here is the best one I came up with.

Whoever has the higher amount of players who won against that given opponent returning will win the following year's match.

Let me give you an example using Triton. From last year's match vs. Triton...
- We return: Ben Mast (L - #1S), Seth Krabill (W - #2S), Kyle Miller (W-#1D), Russell Klassen (L-#2D)
- They return: Jeff Ross (L-#3S), Josh Shafer (W - #2D)

If you assign a point for every winning singles player returning, and half a point for every winning doubles player returning, you get this score: Bethany - 1.5, Triton - 0.5. This would give Bethany a +1 in the stat. I'll call this calculation the "Winners Returning Stat" or the "WRS." So for the Triton match this coming year we will have a "+1 WRS."

Over the past five years, whoever wins this simple calculation wins the match 97.6%. It has only not held true once, when we defeated NorthWood in 2008 despite having a 2.5-2 disadvantage in the WRS. And many would tell you that this was one of our great matches, where we played the best, over the past 5 years.

This also tells us that this stat is not fool-proof. A team that works hard can overcome any deficit in the WRS. But it is a good indicator of what matches we will need to be ready for.

So I'm sure you are wondering by now, what are the WRS's for next year's varsity opponents? Well, here are the top 5 most difficult...

1. Northridge (-1 WRS)
1. Fairfield (-1 WRS)
1. Concord (-1 WRS)
4. Westview (-0.5 WRS)
5. Eastern (0.0 WRS)

So the only difference between my "eye test" ratings and the WRS is at #5, where Eastern replaces Goshen. We can also see that none of the WRS's are unbelievably difficult. For example, last year we had a -2 WRS against both Fairfield and Concord. We have no -2's this year. (As a side note, in 2008 we had a -2 against Concord and still almost won!)

By contrast, on the other side of things, we have five matches where we have a +3 WRS. Those matches are Mishawaka, Fremont, Laville, Prairie Heights, NorthWood and Bremen.

So, make of that what you want. This is what I'll make of it. There are still opponents that we need to work harder than. And if (or when) we defeat them, it will be a sweet cause for celebration!