For someone who complains about personal attacks, Andy, you sure know how to dish them out. On to more substantive things.... " Andy [Hu], face facts. Maryland just isn't that good. [flame delated] Compare these numbers: Duke vs. Maryland TUPPTH: Duke, 5.17 to 4.28 PP20TH: Duke, 278 to 238 We were 7-6, you were 9-4. Either the Southeast was much stronger than the Mid-Atlantic or breaks bounced just right. " While comparing records among teams who not only did not face each other, but faced completely different sets of opponents is fraught with problems, a rigorous enough look can elucidate a good deal and provide context for numbers such as those above. In both Baltimore and Chattanooga, we had the same field size, 13, on the same set of Qs. The one difference besides the teams : the JHU moderation crew got through more TUs, which is partially a function of team buzzer speed and partially a function of moderator speed. Both SCTs had some very good teams at the top (though no team in SE approached the kind of numbers Princeton A did at MA), and some not-so-good ones on the bottom, though there were no total doormats as no team failed to average at least 90 PPG. Looking at the SE field, my guess based on a cursory examination of team totals is that there were five games a team roughly at the skill level of a Duke or Maryland (or GW or Princeton B) would under most circumstances consider an easy win, i.e. teams that averaged fewer than 150 points/game on these questions. I count two such teams in the Mid-Atl region, even allowing for a reasonable adjustment for Baltimore's faster pool of moderators. That's _three_ extra games of score padding for "bubble" teams in the SE, and that makes a big difference in PPTH, though none at all - at least in theory - in BConv. (Obviously a bubble team in the Mideast would have an even greater gripe about this formula, if such a team existed.) Bonus conversion stats tell some of this story, but not all of it. It is the major reason why Duke and Florida Atlantic are in line ahead of Maryland, GW, and Princeton B. So in games among teams that had something resembling a shot at a qualifying bid, Maryland's record was 7-4 (6-4 if we give Andy the benefit of the doubt and remove 2-9 Georgetown despite its scoring ~180 PPG). Unless Duke suffered a highly unusual upset in Chattanooga, which would hardly holster any claim to superiority, their record in such games was 2-6. Yes, Maryland won its share or more of close games. And Duke may well have lost its share or more. But isn't that the point of playing these games, on some level? Especially if you consider how NAQT ICT is run (roughly the same way everything else is), with points scored data always being secondary to wins and losses.
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