02-27-2024, 01:38 PM
In the latest ITA rankings, Stanford climbed to #2, just squeaking past Michigan. The new Top 25 is below, plus any teams on our current schedule, followed by a little ranking math discussion.
1. Oklahoma State (L, 2-4, neutral)
2. Stanford
3. Michigan
4. UNC
5. UVA
6. Texas (W, 4-3, home)
7. Pepperdine (Apr. 5, home)
8. USC (Mar. 30, home)
9. Ohio State (W, 4-1, neutral)
10. NC State
11. Georgia
12. Auburn
13. Alabama
14. South Carolina
15. Oklahoma
16. San Diego (W, 5-2, away)
17. Cal (Apr. 19, away)
18. Duke
19. Florida (W, 4-0, neutral)
20. Tennessee
21. Texas A&M (W, 4-3, neutral)
22. Miami
23. Arizona State (Mar. 8, away)
24. Wisconsin
25. Columbia
**
29. Washington (Apr. 14, away)
34. Arizona (Mar. 9, away)
36. UCLA (Mar. 29, home)
41. Utah (Mar. 24, home)
50. Oregon (Apr. 7, home)
54. Colorado (W, 4-1, home; Mar. 23, home)
65. Maryland (W, 5-0, home)
71. UC Santa Barbara (W, 6-1, home)
Opponents currently unranked: Washington State (Apr. 12, away); UC Davis (W, 7-0, home); Pacific (W, 6-1, home); St. Mary's (Mar. 2, home)
As a quick ranking math reminder, the formula goes like this:
CountWinPts / (#ofCountableMatches + LossPoints).
In other words, the total number of points you have from your countable wins is divided by the number of countable matches, but the denominator increases with every loss.
Win Points
The number of countable wins in the rankings changes as the season progresses. I can't seem to locate the current year's rankings manual, but assuming it's not too different from past years, right now we're looking at our best 5 wins counting for our ranking, and that'll go up week by week in March until it holds steady at 9 for all of April and then it'll be 10 for the rankings that are used for NCAAs. So, we care about our best 5 now and what our best 10 wins could be by season's end. You get 106 points for beating the #1 team, 102 for beating #2, 98 for beating #3, 94 for beating #4, 91 for beating #5, 88 for beating #6, and so on. The spread between teams gradually shrinks, going from 4 at the top to 3 at the back end of the top 10, to 2 from 9-15, and 1 from 16-50, and then it goes down by 1 after every 2 teams. So, a win over #25 is worth 57 points, a win over #50 is worth 32, a win over #75 is worth 20, and so on and so forth.
Loss Points
Hypothetically, if you're undefeated at the end of the year, your ten best wins are divided by 10 to get your average. But if you've taken a loss to a top 5 team, your ten best wins are divided by 10.1 to get your ranking average. But if your one loss was a horrific upset loss to, say, the #101 team in the country, your ten best wins are divided by 11.2 to get your average. In other words, the ranking system cares about quality wins first and foremost, you don't get punished much for losses to highly-ranked teams, but you get hammered for taking bad losses. All in all, a pretty good system that rewards aggressive scheduling.
Right now, we've got wins over #6, #9, #16 (away), #19, and #21, but right now our record gets the benefit of beating Texas as a #4, since that's what they were last week, rather than #6, which is what they are this week. So, for next week's rankings, our win over Texas will be worth slightly less. And our next-best win that isn't currently counting drops way down, to #54 Colorado, so once the formula starts counting 6 wins rather than 5, expect our ranking to drop a bit. And right now, our five best wins are divided by 5.1 rather than 5 because of the loss to Oklahoma State.
Compare that to Oklahoma State, who right now has wins over #2, #3, #3 again since they've already beaten Michigan twice, #6, and #7, with a win over #9 as their next-best not currently counting, and a win over #12 after that. But they don't have super valuable wins remaining, as Texas and Oklahoma are the only Big 12 teams that will get them valuable points. So they'll be counting some wins in the 20s at season's end. (Of course, so will we, and we won't have the benefit of the top 5 wins that the Pokes have, so they'll very likely stay ahead of us.)
Wait, Why Do We Care?
Because a few years back, the NCAA moved to a super regional system for tennis, meaning only the top 8 teams make it to the final site. Before then, the top 16 teams went, so the main thing was to make sure you were in the top 16 by season's end, as then you'd get to host your regional. And Stanford's model of scheduling relatively lightly was good enough to get us in the low teens, and we've won national championships in the past decade as the national #12 and #15 seeds. But now we need to be in the top 8 to make sure we don't have to play a road super regional to a top team, so the difference between finishing at #8 vs. finishing at #9 is now very meaningful.
OK, back to Stanford. What's that mean for us?
Well, we have one loss that is the least-damaging loss you can take. And we have two more Top 10 teams on the schedule in USC and Pepperdine (and maybe we could get USC again at the Pac-12 tournament), so that's five potential Top 10 wins. Cal and ASU loom as potential Top 25 wins, too, so the path is there to have 10 wins from the Top 25, including the conference tournament. And it's important to remember that your win points are based on the current ranking of that team, not what they were when you beat them. So, we don't get 102 points for our win over A&M because they were #2 then, we get 61 points because they're #21 now. But the higher they climb, the more valuable that win will become. So, we are all now very big fans of San Diego, Texas A&M, Florida, Ohio State, and Texas. We want Oklahoma State to stay ranked highly so our loss hurts us least. Basically, we want our opponents to do as well as possible in their other matches. But that Pepperdine match is crucial.
And there will also be some wild swings as teams who have struggled so far do well in conference play and rack up good wins. UNC will be top 3 by season's end, and no one will want to play them. Right now, UCLA is #36, but that's because they have only one good win (5-2 over Texas) against three losses (all to good teams--4-3 to Oklahoma State, 4-0 to Ohio State, and 4-0 to Duke). UCLA is incredibly dangerous, as they have the talent to beat us, but beating them won't be super valuable to us, while losing to them will make a big dent. UCLA might not have ten great wins by the end of the year, but they'll be a scary team that no one will want to play, a lot like our teams in the past decade who have far overperformed their seed.
1. Oklahoma State (L, 2-4, neutral)
2. Stanford
3. Michigan
4. UNC
5. UVA
6. Texas (W, 4-3, home)
7. Pepperdine (Apr. 5, home)
8. USC (Mar. 30, home)
9. Ohio State (W, 4-1, neutral)
10. NC State
11. Georgia
12. Auburn
13. Alabama
14. South Carolina
15. Oklahoma
16. San Diego (W, 5-2, away)
17. Cal (Apr. 19, away)
18. Duke
19. Florida (W, 4-0, neutral)
20. Tennessee
21. Texas A&M (W, 4-3, neutral)
22. Miami
23. Arizona State (Mar. 8, away)
24. Wisconsin
25. Columbia
**
29. Washington (Apr. 14, away)
34. Arizona (Mar. 9, away)
36. UCLA (Mar. 29, home)
41. Utah (Mar. 24, home)
50. Oregon (Apr. 7, home)
54. Colorado (W, 4-1, home; Mar. 23, home)
65. Maryland (W, 5-0, home)
71. UC Santa Barbara (W, 6-1, home)
Opponents currently unranked: Washington State (Apr. 12, away); UC Davis (W, 7-0, home); Pacific (W, 6-1, home); St. Mary's (Mar. 2, home)
As a quick ranking math reminder, the formula goes like this:
CountWinPts / (#ofCountableMatches + LossPoints).
In other words, the total number of points you have from your countable wins is divided by the number of countable matches, but the denominator increases with every loss.
Win Points
The number of countable wins in the rankings changes as the season progresses. I can't seem to locate the current year's rankings manual, but assuming it's not too different from past years, right now we're looking at our best 5 wins counting for our ranking, and that'll go up week by week in March until it holds steady at 9 for all of April and then it'll be 10 for the rankings that are used for NCAAs. So, we care about our best 5 now and what our best 10 wins could be by season's end. You get 106 points for beating the #1 team, 102 for beating #2, 98 for beating #3, 94 for beating #4, 91 for beating #5, 88 for beating #6, and so on. The spread between teams gradually shrinks, going from 4 at the top to 3 at the back end of the top 10, to 2 from 9-15, and 1 from 16-50, and then it goes down by 1 after every 2 teams. So, a win over #25 is worth 57 points, a win over #50 is worth 32, a win over #75 is worth 20, and so on and so forth.
Loss Points
Hypothetically, if you're undefeated at the end of the year, your ten best wins are divided by 10 to get your average. But if you've taken a loss to a top 5 team, your ten best wins are divided by 10.1 to get your ranking average. But if your one loss was a horrific upset loss to, say, the #101 team in the country, your ten best wins are divided by 11.2 to get your average. In other words, the ranking system cares about quality wins first and foremost, you don't get punished much for losses to highly-ranked teams, but you get hammered for taking bad losses. All in all, a pretty good system that rewards aggressive scheduling.
Right now, we've got wins over #6, #9, #16 (away), #19, and #21, but right now our record gets the benefit of beating Texas as a #4, since that's what they were last week, rather than #6, which is what they are this week. So, for next week's rankings, our win over Texas will be worth slightly less. And our next-best win that isn't currently counting drops way down, to #54 Colorado, so once the formula starts counting 6 wins rather than 5, expect our ranking to drop a bit. And right now, our five best wins are divided by 5.1 rather than 5 because of the loss to Oklahoma State.
Compare that to Oklahoma State, who right now has wins over #2, #3, #3 again since they've already beaten Michigan twice, #6, and #7, with a win over #9 as their next-best not currently counting, and a win over #12 after that. But they don't have super valuable wins remaining, as Texas and Oklahoma are the only Big 12 teams that will get them valuable points. So they'll be counting some wins in the 20s at season's end. (Of course, so will we, and we won't have the benefit of the top 5 wins that the Pokes have, so they'll very likely stay ahead of us.)
Wait, Why Do We Care?
Because a few years back, the NCAA moved to a super regional system for tennis, meaning only the top 8 teams make it to the final site. Before then, the top 16 teams went, so the main thing was to make sure you were in the top 16 by season's end, as then you'd get to host your regional. And Stanford's model of scheduling relatively lightly was good enough to get us in the low teens, and we've won national championships in the past decade as the national #12 and #15 seeds. But now we need to be in the top 8 to make sure we don't have to play a road super regional to a top team, so the difference between finishing at #8 vs. finishing at #9 is now very meaningful.
OK, back to Stanford. What's that mean for us?
Well, we have one loss that is the least-damaging loss you can take. And we have two more Top 10 teams on the schedule in USC and Pepperdine (and maybe we could get USC again at the Pac-12 tournament), so that's five potential Top 10 wins. Cal and ASU loom as potential Top 25 wins, too, so the path is there to have 10 wins from the Top 25, including the conference tournament. And it's important to remember that your win points are based on the current ranking of that team, not what they were when you beat them. So, we don't get 102 points for our win over A&M because they were #2 then, we get 61 points because they're #21 now. But the higher they climb, the more valuable that win will become. So, we are all now very big fans of San Diego, Texas A&M, Florida, Ohio State, and Texas. We want Oklahoma State to stay ranked highly so our loss hurts us least. Basically, we want our opponents to do as well as possible in their other matches. But that Pepperdine match is crucial.
And there will also be some wild swings as teams who have struggled so far do well in conference play and rack up good wins. UNC will be top 3 by season's end, and no one will want to play them. Right now, UCLA is #36, but that's because they have only one good win (5-2 over Texas) against three losses (all to good teams--4-3 to Oklahoma State, 4-0 to Ohio State, and 4-0 to Duke). UCLA is incredibly dangerous, as they have the talent to beat us, but beating them won't be super valuable to us, while losing to them will make a big dent. UCLA might not have ten great wins by the end of the year, but they'll be a scary team that no one will want to play, a lot like our teams in the past decade who have far overperformed their seed.