Derby News Network Power Rankings - July 2009
| DNN | WFTDA | W/L | Next | Notes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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1 E | 2009 4-0 2008 10-0 |
9/11 @ Providence | The aura of invincibility was punctured last month in a thrilling back and forth bout with Texas, but the crew from New York remains the team to beat and will be carrying a 16-game winning streak into September's Eastern Regionals. | ||||
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1 SC | 2009 5-1 2008 10-4 |
9/6 vs Bay Area | Texas jumps up past Windy City and Philly on the strength of their performance against Gotham. Philly and Texas are the only teams to have really stayed in the ring with Gotham during their winning streak, and Texas' performance was more recent and arguably more impressive, as they led for half of the bout. | ||||
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2 E | 2009 5-0 2008 10-4 |
7/25 @ Windy City | Very impressive defensive teamwork to utterly stymie Rat City and Kansas City at ECE makes Philly look to be playing at their best level ever, but they hold steady as Texas and Windy City swap spots around them. They're headed for what is sure to be an illuminating head-to-head clash with Windy City on July 25. | ||||
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1 NC | 2009 4-0 2008 12-4 |
7/25 vs Philly | Though the #2 place finisher from last year's Nationals drops a few spots for the first time, it's more about the notable performances of Texas and Philly in the final two weeks of June than a weakness on Windy's part. | ||||
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3 E | 2009 10-2 2008 9-2 |
7/11 @ Kansas City | Charm City hits their highest Power Ranking ever by very nearly taking down Texas on June 20. While they're establishing a reputation for making fantastically effective adjustments as a game progresses, they also tend to start slow, which almost killed them against Rat City at ECE and keeps them just a hair out of the elite top four. | ||||
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2W | 2009 4-0 2008 6-2 |
7/11 vs Texas Rollergirls Hotrod Honeys | The wild card from the Pacific Northwest was idle in June, and like Windy City, falls based mostly on a striking performance from another team. They'll get a shot against Texas home team Hotrod Honeys in July 11, but won't face an all-star team till they take on Angel City in August. | ||||
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3 W | 2009 4-1 2008 4-8 |
7/25 @ Atlanta | No action recently, and stays right below Oly based on their 170-168 shootout back in April. | ||||
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5 W | 2009 3-3 2008 3-3 |
7/18 vs Carolina | Although Rat City came within a whisker of putting an upset on Charm City at ECE, they were completely foiled by Philly the following night. Their performance does lift them back into the top ten after a two-month absence. | ||||
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2 NC | 2009 3-3 2008 8-3 |
8/15 @ Boston | Motor City makes its first-ever appearance in the Power Ranking top ten after a hard-fought upset of Carolina at ECE. | ||||
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4 E | 2009 2-4 2008 7-5 |
7/17 @ Rose City | Carolina was on the right side and the wrong side of Power Ranking upsets at ECE, barely beating Boston but losing to Detroit -- and ends up right between them in July's rankings. They take on both Rose City and Rat City in a Pacific Northwest jaunt this month. | ||||
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5 E | 2009 2-6 2008 9-2 |
7/18 vs Duke City | The Massacre was impressive in both their bouts at ECE, but went 0-2, continuing to build on their history of playing thrillers but coming up just a bit short in the end. They have an inter-regional shot at Duke City coming up this July 18. | ||||
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4 W | 2009 1-1 2008 6-4 |
7/17 vs Carolina | Portland's crew has been idling for awhile -- they haven't played at the all-star level since late March -- but has a chance to prove they aren't rusty when they take on Carolina in a closed Friday-night bout on July 17. | ||||
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1 W | 2009 1-1 2008 13-3 |
7/31 @ Boston | BAD only has 2 bouts this year and is a significant question mark, as both games were against teams that appear to be on dramatic upswings -- Angel City and Rat City. Their 13 spot is still mostly based on 2008 performance, but they get a good chance to stake their claim to it and more when they end the month with a sanctioned bout against Boston in Las Vegas at Rollercon. | ||||
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- | 2009 8-1 2008 5-7 |
8/15 @ Bay Area | Though they were idle on the flat-track in June, the hybrid SDDD did manage to claim their second unofficial title in two months -- after winning California flat-track tournament The Big One to become unofficial California State Champions, they've also got a claim to the national banked-track title by having won Battle on the Bank II. | ||||
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6 W | 2009 3-3 2008 6-3 |
7/18 @ Boston | Drops three slots after an upset loss to Arch Rival and first-half troubles against unranked Dallas. The loss to Arch Rival points up some possible depth issues for the ABQ, which might further harm them in the long-distance travel bout against Boston on July 18. | ||||
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7 W | 2009 5-3 2008 10-3 |
8/8 vs FoCo | Performed to expectations by taking down Sacred, but they won't get another shot at a tournament-level team till they take on Boston in September. Pikes stays just a hair over Rocky Mountain based on their most recent head-to-head result, a tiny victory for Pikes at the Four Corner Feud tournament. | ||||
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8 W | 2009 1-4 2008 12-4 |
7/11 @ Sacred City | Like Pikes, Rocky Mountain ran up big points against an unranked team (187-13 over Omaha) but doesn't currently have a significant threat scheduled for the next couple of months. | ||||
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2 SC | 2009 4-1 2008 5-2 |
7/11 vs Charm City | No movement for KC, as they were impressive in playing a better overall game to hold off explosive Madison at ECE but could do very little against Philly. | ||||
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5 NC | 2009 4-3 2008 5-2 |
7/25 @ Madison | Extraordinarily hard to figure out what to do with Arch Rival, who scored a 15 point upset over a shorthanded Duke City in June, but also had a tough time with non Power Ranked Brewcity on the last day of May. Though ARRG moves up 3, this represents the first time in the Power Rankings that a team remains below a team they'd beaten head-to-head in the previous month. | ||||
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3 NC | 2009 2-1 2008 9-7 |
7/18 @ Brewcity | Gets passed by ARRG based on the point differentials in this year's Kansas City / Arch Rival (11 points) and Kansas City / Madison (40 points) bouts. | ||||
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4 NC | 2009 6-2 2008 12-7 |
8/22 @ Steel City | While they looked very good in an impressive first half against powerhouse Windy City at ECE, Cincy remains the least predictable team in the DNN top 25. They bump up one slot by passing Houston, but are currently stuck behind Madison based on a 108-50 loss in May. | ||||
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3 SC | 2009 2-0 2008 4-10 |
7/18 vs Texas Rollergirls Honky Tonk Heartbreakers | Drops two notches to land below rising Arch Rival and Cincinnati - the most recent bout for both Houston and Cincinnati was against Atlanta, and Houston had a bit more trouble with Atlanta, winning 127-101 while Cincy rolled to a more convincing 121-64 final. | ||||
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10 W | 2009 7-2 2008 8-6 |
8/15 vs Oly | No action for the LA girls since last month, but they take over Tucson's spot as the long-idle Arizona team falls out of the top 25 with no new data since February. | ||||
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6 NC | 2009 3-0 2008 7-7 |
8/29 @ Houston | Minnesota comes right back on the top 25 after a one-month absence with an impressive weekend at ECE, knocking back a tough challenge from a steadily improving Brewcity and then demonstrating some particularly effective defense in a 123-56 win over Connecticut. | ||||
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7 E | 2009 3-1 2008 2-7 |
7/25 @ Montréal | Keeps the 25 spot where they debuted last month, as Minnesota comes back in at 24 based on the last head-to-head matchup between the two -- a 143-16 romp for Minnesota, although Providence is clearly much improved since that Eastern Regionals meeting. | ||||
| Key: | |
| E | WFTDA East region |
| W | WFTDA West region |
| NC | WFTDA North Central region |
| SC | WFTDA South Central region |
Comments
Comparison to WFTDA Rankings
Apparently in the change over the old comments didn't follow. I wanted, for at least my own sake, to point out where the DNN rankings differ from the WFTDA rankings, so we can see if one makes better predictions than the other during Regionals. I think it's important to choose these rankings instead of, say, the September rankings because these are from the same data set that WFTDA had when they voted for the tournament rankings.
East:
Looks like DNN and WFTDA are in agreement.
North Central:
DNN has Arch Rival > Mad > Cincinnati
WFTDA has Mad > Cincinnati > Arch Rival
We get to see right off the bat who picked correctly. Game 6 is Cincinnati vs Arch Rival. Other than that the only chance to compare is if Arch Rival wins Game 6 and then plays Madison in either the finals or for the 3rd place bout.
South Central:
Looks like DNN and WFTDA are in agreement.
West:
DNN has Rat > Rose
WFTDA has Rose > Rat
Looks like the only chance to compare this is either the finals or the 3rd place bout as well.
monthly power rankings vs quarterly WFTDA rankings
>I think it's important to choose these rankings instead of, say, the September rankings because these are from the same data set that WFTDA had when they voted for the tournament rankings.
While that makes sense on some level, don't forget the underlying decision point for the Power Rankings: "if these two teams were to meet today, who would win"?
If the Power Rankings were made on the basis of "who will win come tournament season", it may be fair to look back, but that's not how they were explained to be formulated.
It may be interesting simply to see how teams fared through the season and what happened come tourney time, but I don't know that it's right to say that one system over another "picked correctly" months ago.
July vs September
I agree that if we want to see how accurate DNN's ability is to rank upcoming bouts we should use the September predictions. And I'm sure that their September rankings are going to do fairly well, and probably better than their July Rankings (Haven't looked to see where those differ).
The original post was involved in some discussion in an earlier month (June?) about whether DNN was a more accurate predictor of results or if WFTDA was a more accurate predictor of results. I don't even recall the details of the discussion any more, but I'm a scientist and nerd so I wanted to see what the data would show. The problem is that bouts between two teams that they disagreed on were actually pretty rare for any other time, so the data set wasn't really big enough to see who was doing better (I'm not sure if there was ever a bout that they disagreed on actually). Regionals provides the opportunity to have a larger data set, but there is the inherent lag between when the ranks are determined and when the bouts are actually played. However, in order to make it fair, I felt it necessary to handicap DNN so that I used the July rankings, because WFTDA rankings are equally handicapped.
By no means are my goals to undermine either the DNN Power Rankings or the WFTDA rankings. Both are valuable tools and no system can be a perfect predictor of the future. Heck, both of them agree on so many of the bouts in the tournaments that we don't actually have a large enough data set anyway. So, now it's mostly just a curiosity.