You can check out the fully updated bracket here, but here’s the punchline:
Boston Militia (8-0) @ Chicago Force (8-0)
Dallas Diamonds (8-0) @ San Diego Surge (8-0)
Once I have game time & broadcast details I’ll post those too, of course. Off to check out flights to Chi-town (which I still don’t know how to pronounce).
Overheard in the stands
Person 1: MORE cops? What’s happening now?
Person 2: I dunno, but I hope it ends up involving handcuffs. [Pause] Huh. This isn’t usually the setting where I say that kind of thing.
OK, so the WFA Round 3 playoff game schedule is below along with all I know about where to find streams & updates. If you’ve got any more info, lemme know and I’ll add it ASAP. The coverage of American Division (west coast) games is surprisingly sparse!
[table id=2 /]
…you should rethink your decision. The Marriott has kindly set up a special group rate and just TRY to tell me this isn’t a group you wanna be a part of:
So the Massey method correctly predicted the winner of all eight Round 2 games. What’s more, the predicted point spread for five of the eight games were within one touchdown of the actual score. That’s pretty impressive to me. Three games were further outside the predicted spread; one was the Force/Crash game, which had a predicted difference of 65 and a true difference of 56. So, off by 9 points, which to me feels like it’s still within an acceptable margin of error when the spread’s that big anyway. The Diamonds/Mustangs game was a magnified version of that: predicted difference of 57, actual difference of 76. This is not surprising to me as I kind of feel like tacking on two or three touchdowns to any predicted Diamonds score when they’re playing someone they can decimate since they seem to be fond of scoring in unnecessary situations. The Bandits/Central Cal game was the only one with a truly surprising score – it was predicted to be a nailbiter, within 3 points. Actual score? Bandits: 34, Central Cal: 8.
Was that game a failure of the Massey system and, by association, a failure of the concept of using statistics to predict game outcomes? Some would say yes. Some would also be dingbats. To me, it was perfect. If stats correctly predicted the outcome of every game always, the games would cease to have meaning or interest. That doesn’t mean that the statistical predictions are baseless or fundamentally inaccurate – they say what SHOULD happen, based on measurable factors. We watch (or listen or follow) because we don’t know when something might outweigh those measurable factors. That said, dunno if I see that happening with any of these four games – as I’ve mentioned before, the WFA is a bit strange in that games tend to get MORE predictable as playoffs progress.
Predicted outcome of WFA Round 3 playoff games using Massey ratings:
Tomorrow or Saturday morning I’ll make another post with game times for all of these and links to whatever feeds I can find info on. In the meantime, enjoy this comparison between the 2011 and 2012 WFA playoffs; had Chicago not been redistricted out of the mother of all meatgrinder divisions this season, I think this whole round might have been entirely identical.
On to Round 3! Stay tuned for post-game(s) analysis, by which I mean more stats, a little bit of smacktalk and some complaining about how old I am. In the meantime, enjoy and/or download this updated bracket (links under image):
Below is the schedule for the WFA Round 2 playoff games (in EST first ’cause that’s where I am and it’s my blog) as well as any links I have been able to find to audio, video or social media feeds for each game. Should you have any additional information or corrections, please let me know in the comments or via the contact page and I’ll update the info right away. Thanks!
[table id=1 /]And lest anyone think I’m just the TV Guide of women’s football, let’s cover two more items here:
Now, if you’re up 60-something points and you’re going for two, ok, that’s pretty dickish. And there’s absolutely no effing excuse for a triple-digit score. This isn’t basketball, people. Put a friggin’ lid on it. You’re not helping the cause.
That’s all for now – I’ll have an updated bracket posted after the games are completed. (Dear SD Surge & Pac Warriors: feel free not to go into overtime. I miss sleeping on Saturday nights. xo, militia cheerleader)
Your Militia Cheerleader is, by trade, a data analyst. As such, this is one of my favorite quotes ever (it’s attributed to Mark Twain): “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
I know very well that numbers can be manipulated, and the accuracy of any argument based on numbers is only as strong as the integrity of the person putting the argument together. That said, I think stats are wicked hot.
I was quite sad when the Massey Ratings site stopped analyzing women’s tackle football; I don’t know why that change was made but I felt like it was a real loss for the sport. So I was really psyched when I found out that someone had taken it upon themselves to calculate current ratings for the WFA using Massey’s formula – I’ve posted them here with express permission.
The Massey system is explained for laymen here and explained for data geeks here. Basically, it takes game results and uses them to predict the probable winner and margin of victory for the theoretical match-up of any two teams. For example, the ratings before Round 1 of the playoffs (I haven’t posted those but can if people are interested) had the Pittsburgh Passion’s rating at 46.843 and the Detroit Dark Angels at 19.649. Home field advantage was calculated at 3.319, so you take the difference of the ratings and add in PGH’s home field advantage and the data says that the Passion should win by 31 points. They did, in fact, win by 34 points (which is pretty damn close to predicted, all things considered).
The ratings correctly predicted the winner of all eight Round 1 games. Additionally, with a few exceptions the ratings also correctly predicted the comparative order of point differentials – that is to say, both the Passion and the Sharks should have won their games, but the Passion should have won by more than the Sharks did (34 points and less than 1 point, respectively – remember, these are theoretical computations, not dictations of actual scores). And guess what – they did! (31 points and 5 points, respectively).
So what, you say? Plenty what, I say! First, stuff like this is prime fuel for time-wasting arguments about the accuracy and validity of predictive models. Second, it’s pretty-looking. Third, it allows for tidbits like this: I calculated the total predicted point differential of all the games in Round 1 and then did the same for the upcoming Round 2 games. The total predicted difference is almost 20% higher in the Round 2 games than the first round – which really just supports what we all already know: lots of Round 2 and Round 3 games are far less competitive than regular season and Round 1 games. War Angels at Jynx? Interesting game. Crash at Force? Major snoozefest.
So just in case there are some of you who don’t enjoy playing with Excel as much as I do, I have gone ahead and posted the numerically-predicted outcomes of the Round 2 games scheduled for this upcoming Saturday. What do you think? Do you see any upsets coming? Any qualitative factors that might outweigh the quantitative ones? As ever, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Predicted outcome of Round 2 games using Massey Ratings
I stayed up until the conclusion of the last West Coast game so I could get this up here, therefore someone else needs to get up with Tiny Coach at 5:15 in the morning tomorrow. Commentary & analysis will have to wait, but here’s the lineup for Round 2 (links to download are below image):
Getcher own bracket/schedule here: PDF or XLS
And in case you were wondering why a 7-1 team is traveling to play a team that’s 4-4, or wondering how a team that’s 3-5 got into the playoffs in the first place, below are the determining criteria to the very best of my knowledge. There are still a number of ambiguities but I’ve pretty much given up on getting any more clarification. Here’s what I got for ya:
- Division Record/Winning Percentage (uneven games)
- Head to Head – (if split, then compare point spreads of 2 head to head games). Example:
Game 1: Team A beats Team B 21-0,
Game 2: Team B beats Team A 40-0.
Team B would advance.- Average Point Differential (40 per game max)
- Head to Head
- Common Opponent Point differential (Matching home, away game, or both)
- Record
- Total Point differential
“Blue division” or “Green division” winners host.
National Conference
- Division Winner
- Record
- Point Differential (max 40 per game) Playoff games count toward point differential
American Conference
Away Team in Previous Round Hosts
a. If 2 Away – furthest travel in previous round
b. If 2 Home:
- Division Winner
- Record
- Point Differential (max 40 per game) Playoff games count toward point differential