Samer writes: It will be interesting to see what role, if any, strength of schedule has in determining the bids, as well as the relative weighting of W/L record and total score (how do you compare, for example, Oklahoma's 6-6 with Princeton B's 6-7)? Strength of schedule is of VERY great importance in our attempts fairly to compare teams across different sectionals. We do not, however, compare W/L records across sectionals at all. The basic approach was posted here last year in message #1405. The most salient paragraph of that post is here re-posted: "For the record, official order of finish within an SCT is not itself a factor in how we rank SCT "performance," for the purpose of ranking teams in invitation order. That ranking is largely a factor of points scored per tossup heard and bonus conversion, with an adjustment for strength of schedule, so that teams from different sectionals may be compared, and we try to minimize statistical advantages to teams who fatten their tossup numbers against opponents who collectively rate as below the average team across all teams in their division at sectionals, and minimize the statistical disadvantage to teams whose numbers are presumably deflated by facing better-than-average opponents. By whatever percentage a team's actual opponents throughout the tournament average out to be better or worse than the overall average for all teams in the same division (and playing on the same question set; Division II teams in mixed-division fields excepted) across all tournaments, to the same degree a team's initial rating of points scored on tossups (not bonus conversion averages, which are not affected by opponents' strength) is adjusted up or down. We also then tweak a little bit based on actual won-loss percentages, which usually has little effect, but can move a team up or down in relative rankings a little bit as a reward or punishment for compiling a won-loss record much different from what statistics would predict. (i.e., you'll get a little boost in your ranking if you win most of your close matches, and have your ranking a little deflated if you lose most of your close ones. It rarely happens that our rankings diverge wildly from a tournament's order of finish, though it is fairly common that we will rank teams adjacent in official standings in reverse order for purposes of ICT invitations." Eric Hillemann NAQT VP for Development
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