Thursday, March 08, 2007

Strength Of Schedule

Good stuff from Paul Rugani:

Offense (ranked from hardest opponent defense to easiest):
NC State - 104.09
Georgia Tech - 104.37
Miami - 104.82
Duke - 105.05
Clemson - 105.40
Florida State - 105.42
Virginia Tech - 105.43
Maryland - 105.45
Boston College - 105.47
North Carolina - 105.68
Wake Forest - 106.12
Virginia - 106.74

Defense (ranked from hardest opponent offense to easiest):
Duke - 106.49
Clemson - 106.26
Wake Forest - 106.16
Virginia Tech - 105.46
NC State - 105.20
Maryland - 105.16
Boston College - 105.05
Virginia - 105.03
Georgia Tech - 104.94
Florida State - 104.94
North Carolina - 104.75
Miami - 104.54

We faced the toughest assortment of defenses in conference play and the fifth-toughest collection of offenses. Paul points out:

Wake's league worst offense came against the second easiest schedule of defenses, and Miami's league worst defense came against the easiest schedule of offenses - just amazing.

Truly astonishing. It wasn't their schedules making them look bad; in fact, their schedules make them look worse.

Paul uses efficiency margin to evaluate strength of schedule. Earlier this week, VaWolf examined SOS using opponents' wins. Two different methods with similar results. Here's how the two ranked the schedules:
Paul    VaWolf
Duke NCSU
NCSU Duke
Clem Clem
GT VT
Wake UMD
VT GT
Mia Mia
UMD Wake
BC BC
FSU FSU
UNC UNC
UVA UVA