OLA Preseason Ratings vs MYLax Week #1

by (Login 007lax007)

Out of curiosity, I thought that I'd take a quick look at how the first week of MyLax rankings compared to pre-season ratings. Bear in mind that I'm a bit of a stats geek, so this was done for my own interest and not intended to stir up any controversy or anything like that.

Anyway, I've just used the top 20 in Peewee.

1 Clarington Gaels 1 A
2 Whitby Warriors 1 A
3 Oakville Hawks 1 A
4 Shelburne Veterans C
5 Mimico Mountaineers 1 A
6 Six Nations Warriors 1 A
7 Burlington Chiefs 1 A
8 Huntsville Hawks C
9 Peterborough Lakers 1 A
10 Centre Wellington Mohawks A
11 St Catharines Athletics B
12 Kitchener-Waterloo Braves A
13 Windsor Warlocks B
14 Caledon Bandits B
15 Barrie Tornado 1 A
16 Mississauga Tomahawks C
17 Guelph Regals 1 A
18 Brampton Excelsiors 1 A
19 Clarington Gaels 2 C
20 Whitby Warriors 2 B

12 of the 14 teams that received a preliminary "A" ranking are in the top 20. Only Orangeville (#27) and Halton Hills (#37) fell outside of the top 20, and those teams had 1-8-1 and 1-5 records respectively.

The top 10 is pretty much what you'd expect, with the big exceptions of Shelburne (#4) and Huntsville (#8). Unfortunately, this appears to be the result of an error. MyLax has Shelburne dominating Toronto Beaches 1 twice this past Sunday when, in fact, it was Beaches 2 whom they beat. Even a small error like this has a dramatic impact on the rankings, as Huntsville also shoots up the standings based on their win and close loss to Shelburne earlier in the season. The impact ripples out from there, as any teams that Shelburne has played get a bump from their overstated rating.

So, once this error is corrected, the top 20 should be very close to what most lacrosse observers would expect. The clear lesson is that MYLax, the OLA, the zones, and teams will have to pay incredible attention to accuracy, particularly with tournament results. A single error in a zone game won't have much impact, but having the wrong team results reported for 4 tournament games has a huge impact, as the non-zone results deeply affect strength of schedule ratings.

The more interesting analysis will be on the other 60 teams. In my opinion, the OLA typically does a good job in ranking the top teams, but the wheels fall off as you get into the lower B and C/D divisions (which is completely understandable). It is in those divisions at provincials that you tend to see the big blow-outs and the teams "in the wrong group". Hopefully MYLax will help even out those groupings.

Anyway, as I said, very cool!

Posted on Jun 16, 2012, 12:16 PM
from IP address 70.50.31.151

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  1. Re: OLA Preseason Ratings vs MYLax Week #1. scout, Jun 18, 2012, 1:08 PM

2011 PROVINCIAL CHAMPIONS
Tyke: Whitby (A), Kitchener (B), Burlington (C), Oshawa (D), Kahnawake (E)
Novice: Whitby (A), Six Nations (B), NOTL (C), West Durham (D), Newmarket (E)
Peewee: Whitby (A), Brampton (B), Toronto Stars (C), Kahnawake (D), Halton Hills 2 (E)
Bantam: Whitby (A), Mississauga (B), Kahnawake (C), Kitchener 2 (D)
Midget: Orangeville (A), Burlington (B), Arthur (C), Kawartha (D)
Intermediate: Brampton (A), Markham (B), Clarington 2 (C)