PageStat 2020-21

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PageStat 2020-21

Post by east hockey » Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:04 pm

As those who have checked out minnhock.com are aware, PageStat won't be run this season. Due to COVID-19 and the reduced schedules, many teams have significantly pared their games either out of section or out of conference.

Any system such as PageStat requires a blend of games within and without sections/conferences in order for it to evaluate comparisons--vital in achieving an accurate SOS which is one of the two key components in the system. Using the Northwest Suburban Conference as a prime example, a cursory check of teams' schedules in this conference reveals only two games are being played out of conference this season. With a conference as large as this one, they were able to fill their 18 game schedules with conference foes only. Thus, it was turned the conference into an "island" of sorts.

I haven't looked to see if there are any other examples of this happening for one simple reason; having it happen in only one conference renders PageStat unusable this season. Which sort of sucks because I obviously enjoy running the system, but sometimes there are more important things in life than what I find enjoyable.

I'm assuming that things will return to a more normal state of affairs in the 2021-22 season and PageStat can be up and running again.

The same holds true with PageStat's application of Div. 1 Mens' College Hockey (and is also the reason Pairwise can't be used to determine the NCAA tournament field this year)

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by elliott70 » Tue Feb 09, 2021 8:51 pm

That’s too bad.
I, and just about everyone, relied on it and enjoyed it.
But thanks for all the past years and looking forward to it returning.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by O-townClown » Wed Feb 10, 2021 8:35 am

Thanks for doing it annually and for the explanation.
Be kind. Rewind.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by InThePipes » Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:35 am

Several examples of conference only schedules in metro (South Suburban, NW Suburban, Suburban East, etc.). I think the only way those teams will play outside of the conference is if there is a Covid-related cancellation and the stars align to add another opponent on that date.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by WestMetro » Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:46 am

Understandable !

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by east hockey » Wed Feb 10, 2021 10:15 am

InThePipes wrote:
Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:35 am
Several examples of conference only schedules in metro (South Suburban, NW Suburban, Suburban East, etc.). I think the only way those teams will play outside of the conference is if there is a Covid-related cancellation and the stars align to add another opponent on that date.
Sounds right. This would explain how Maple Grove ended up playing Dodge County. :mrgreen:

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by Browniemagoo » Wed Feb 10, 2021 6:30 pm

Was bummed when looking for the rankings, but understand your explanation. Next year (and not like saying "next year" about the Vikes)!

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by east hockey » Wed Feb 10, 2021 7:04 pm

Browniemagoo wrote:
Wed Feb 10, 2021 6:30 pm
Was bummed when looking for the rankings, but understand your explanation. Next year (and not like saying "next year" about the Vikes)!
I quit saying "next year" about the Vikes 30 years ago :mrgreen:

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by WestMetro » Fri Feb 12, 2021 9:29 am

Lee / Karl -
No Page Stat , But after watching last nights game and so many others this year, you must have a gut feel about where Hermantown would rank amongst the top AA teams? Top 5? No. 1?

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by karl(east) » Fri Feb 12, 2021 9:37 pm

WestMetro wrote:
Fri Feb 12, 2021 9:29 am
Lee / Karl -
No Page Stat , But after watching last nights game and so many others this year, you must have a gut feel about where Hermantown would rank amongst the top AA teams? Top 5? No. 1?
If I were including them in my AA rankings, I'd probably put them no worse than #2 this coming week. They're undefeated and the win over Rapids is more impressive than anything Maple Grove or Lakeville South have done. That said, based on the eye test, I certainly don't think they're on some different plane from LS or EP (though EP is built differently from LS and Hermantown); I actually haven't seen MG yet so can't compare those two on that front. Given their incredibly weak schedule, the Hawks' ranking would also be a lot more vulnerable to a minor shift than even that of MG or LS.

This Hermantown team is good, but I'm not ready to anoint them a clear #1, or say they're better than their 2016/2017 teams. Gotta win more than one game against a front-line team to get there.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by east hockey » Fri Feb 12, 2021 10:19 pm

WestMetro wrote:
Fri Feb 12, 2021 9:29 am
Lee / Karl -
No Page Stat , But after watching last nights game and so many others this year, you must have a gut feel about where Hermantown would rank amongst the top AA teams? Top 5? No. 1?
Top 5, maybe Top 3.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by Sparlimb » Sat Feb 13, 2021 10:22 am

karl(east) wrote:
Fri Feb 12, 2021 9:37 pm
WestMetro wrote:
Fri Feb 12, 2021 9:29 am
Lee / Karl -
No Page Stat , But after watching last nights game and so many others this year, you must have a gut feel about where Hermantown would rank amongst the top AA teams? Top 5? No. 1?
If I were including them in my AA rankings, I'd probably put them no worse than #2 this coming week. They're undefeated and the win over Rapids is more impressive than anything Maple Grove or Lakeville South have done. That said, based on the eye test, I certainly don't think they're on some different plane from LS or EP (though EP is built differently from LS and Hermantown); I actually haven't seen MG yet so can't compare those two on that front. Given their incredibly weak schedule, the Hawks' ranking would also be a lot more vulnerable to a minor shift than even that of MG or LS.

This Hermantown team is good, but I'm not ready to anoint them a clear #1, or say they're better than their 2016/2017 teams. Gotta win more than one game against a front-line team to get there.
Hermantown looked unstoppable when I watched them play HM last year. They looked like they could have won AA title no problem. And maybe could have. But yet they weren't so good that another really good A team couldn't beat them on the right night...

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by WestMetro » Sat Feb 13, 2021 10:42 pm

Good input

Starting to think about the same thing with Gentry .Saw them for second time today V Blake . One even period and two dominant . Really good. Top 10 in combined ? Trouble is not much competition before today , and none the rest of way til section finals . I don’t know how they stay fully tuned .

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by east hockey » Sun Feb 14, 2021 12:03 pm

Just for the hell of it, knowing the limitations imposed by conference-heavy schedules this season, I ran PageStat. The results are interesting. Posting Top 20 only.

1. Maple Grove
2. Gentry Academy
3. Hermantown
4. Eden Prairie
5. Andover
6. Benilde-St Margarets
7. Grand Rapids
8. Lakeville South
9. St Thomas Academy
10. Hill-Murray
11. Minnetonka
12. Wayzata
13. Centennial
14. Holy Family
15. Edina
16. Blake
17. Mahtomedi
18. Duluth East
19. Totino Grace
20. Rogers

Note that some teams are only playing conference games--this results in those conferences' PageStat rating averaging 15.00, since that's the starting baseline for everyone before all the scores are plugged in and PageStat runs its calculations. If a conference is actually above average, this penalizes everyone in the conference. If a conference is below average, this rewards everyone in the conference. It's up to the individual observer to determine what they believe are above average/below average conferences, of course.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by WestMetro » Sun Feb 14, 2021 6:55 pm

Interesting

As far as Gentry , page stat takes into account a couple years history, right ? Also if I recall right, it caps out the really excessive goal margins that they have won by so many times!

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by east hockey » Sun Feb 14, 2021 7:58 pm

WestMetro wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 6:55 pm
Interesting

As far as Gentry , page stat takes into account a couple years history, right ? Also if I recall right, it caps out the really excessive goal margins that they have won by so many times!
Most teams have played enough games by now that their last season's rating is no longer considered (only ten teams are still affected by last season's final PageStat rating). The cap will limit the effect of really running up the score, and any games they play against terrible competition where any game would result in a lower rating regardless of the outcome is tossed out (this season I lowered the goal cap--19.2% of games aren't counted. Using last season's cap, that percentage was 14.2)

When you mention the "couple years history" thing, I think of Tom Hawley, who I consider the Godfather of Computerized rating systems. His formula took into account both the current season and the previous season. I never had the chance to ask him how he did this. I played around with doing that with PageStat and the results looked bad. With the qualification, of course, that it was my idea of what "looked bad"

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by Stang5280 » Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:34 pm

Actually pretty good results, all things considered. The only teams that stand out at first glance as particularly low or high are Lakeville South, who is conference only, and East, who has great SOS and interconnections with an independent schedule.

One question that just occurred to me: I assume you ignore games against non-Minnesota competition? Or is there a threshold where a GF Central, for example, plays enough games against MN schools to be able to gauge those games?

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by east hockey » Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:46 pm

Stang5280 wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:34 pm
Actually pretty good results, all things considered. The only teams that stand out at first glance as particularly low or high are Lakeville South, who is conference only, and East, who has great SOS and interconnections with an independent schedule.

One question that just occurred to me: I assume you ignore games against non-Minnesota competition? Or is there a threshold where a GF Central, for example, plays enough games against MN schools to be able to gauge those games?
Those games are included. No threshold. It works better if GF Central plays more than one MN opponent, true, but if only one MN opponent, then the formula is pretty simple:

((PSA+PSB)/2)+((GF-GA)/2)

The out-of-state team starts with a PS of 15.00. If' Warroad's is 19.00, and they win 10-4, then we have.

((19.00+15.00)/2)+((10-4)/2)=20.00 game score for Warroad, 14.00 for the out-of-state team. Warroad was expected to win by 4, and they won by 6. Their rating would improve for that particular game. Of course, once you blend this in with the formula for every game played in the state over the season, and re-run those ratings a couple hundred times until convergence is reached, the PS for Warroad and the out-of-state team would change.

That's the nerd explanation. :mrgreen:

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by karl(east) » Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:58 pm

Interesting, thanks for running that, Lee. Glaring in its absence: the entire Suburban East Conference!

Andover jumps out as being higher than in any human poll, though given their margins, I'm not surprised by that and was tempted to put them higher this past week. Of course, they're in one of the three dreaded conferences, also. And upon reflection, I guess I'm not surprised to see East there, as their margins of defeat against very good teams are really not that bad all things considered, and don't show how lopsided some of those games were in their actual gameplay.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by east hockey » Sun Feb 14, 2021 10:14 pm

Here's something interesting--if I remove the caps altogether, the PageStat Top 10 is almost exactly the same as LSQRANK. Here would be the Top 20 (the number in parenthesis after a team name is their LSQRANK rank):

1. Maple Grove (1)
2. Andover (2)
3. Gentry Academy (3)
4. Centennial (4)
5. Hermantown (6)
6. Eden Prairie (7)
7. Rogers (8 )
8. Elk River (9)
9. Benilde-St Margarets (10)
10. Grand Rapids (14)
11. Lakeville South (12)
12. Minnetonka (13)
13. Totino Grace (5)
14. St Thomas Academy (15)
15. Wayzata (17)
16. Blaine (16)
17. Hill-Murray (18 )
18. Prior Lake (20)
19. Edina (21)
20. Holy Family (23)

This is eerie. I would not have expected PageStat to come close to any other system other than Mitch Hawker's power rankings (and I don't know if he runs his system any more)

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by Stang5280 » Mon Feb 15, 2021 12:33 pm

east hockey wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:46 pm
Stang5280 wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:34 pm
Actually pretty good results, all things considered. The only teams that stand out at first glance as particularly low or high are Lakeville South, who is conference only, and East, who has great SOS and interconnections with an independent schedule.

One question that just occurred to me: I assume you ignore games against non-Minnesota competition? Or is there a threshold where a GF Central, for example, plays enough games against MN schools to be able to gauge those games?
Those games are included. No threshold. It works better if GF Central plays more than one MN opponent, true, but if only one MN opponent, then the formula is pretty simple:

((PSA+PSB)/2)+((GF-GA)/2)

The out-of-state team starts with a PS of 15.00. If' Warroad's is 19.00, and they win 10-4, then we have.

((19.00+15.00)/2)+((10-4)/2)=20.00 game score for Warroad, 14.00 for the out-of-state team. Warroad was expected to win by 4, and they won by 6. Their rating would improve for that particular game. Of course, once you blend this in with the formula for every game played in the state over the season, and re-run those ratings a couple hundred times until convergence is reached, the PS for Warroad and the out-of-state team would change.

That's the nerd explanation. :mrgreen:

Lee
I appreciate the explanation, Lee. It was indeed nerdy, but I was able to follow along fine, despite not having used my math brain much in recent years.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by elliott70 » Mon Feb 15, 2021 1:17 pm

Stang5280 wrote:
Mon Feb 15, 2021 12:33 pm
east hockey wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:46 pm
Stang5280 wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:34 pm
Actually pretty good results, all things considered. The only teams that stand out at first glance as particularly low or high are Lakeville South, who is conference only, and East, who has great SOS and interconnections with an independent schedule.

One question that just occurred to me: I assume you ignore games against non-Minnesota competition? Or is there a threshold where a GF Central, for example, plays enough games against MN schools to be able to gauge those games?
Those games are included. No threshold. It works better if GF Central plays more than one MN opponent, true, but if only one MN opponent, then the formula is pretty simple:

((PSA+PSB)/2)+((GF-GA)/2)

The out-of-state team starts with a PS of 15.00. If' Warroad's is 19.00, and they win 10-4, then we have.

((19.00+15.00)/2)+((10-4)/2)=20.00 game score for Warroad, 14.00 for the out-of-state team. Warroad was expected to win by 4, and they won by 6. Their rating would improve for that particular game. Of course, once you blend this in with the formula for every game played in the state over the season, and re-run those ratings a couple hundred times until convergence is reached, the PS for Warroad and the out-of-state team would change.

That's the nerd explanation. :mrgreen:

Lee
I appreciate the explanation, Lee. It was indeed nerdy, but I was able to follow along fine, despite not having used my math brain much in recent years.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by east hockey » Wed Mar 10, 2021 7:40 pm

PageStat's Top 20 after last night's games. Numbers in parenthesis after a team's name shows what their rank will be if the Maple Grove - Lakeville South game hadn't been played. I'll explain after:

1. Gentry Academy (2)
2. Maple Grove (1)
3. Hill-Murray (4)
4. Eden Prairie (5)
5. Grand Rapids (6)
6. Hermantown (7)
7. Lakeville South (23)
8. Edina (9)
9. St Thomas Academy (10)
10. Andover (3)
11. Benilde-St. Margaret's (12)
12. Minnetonka (13)
13. Wayzata (14)
14. Warroad (11)
15. Roseau (15)
16. Centennial (8 )
17. Moorhead (18 )
18. Mahtomedi (21)
19. Holy Family (22)
20. Prior Lake (35)

Why did I do this? To illustrate a point. At the start of the season, when I saw the schedules and how a few conferences had few if any games scheduled outside their conference, I knew that PageStat had limited usefulness. That point has been mostly borne out but not for the reason I had anticipated. I had assumed that when a conference had only a few games played against teams outside their conference, it would have little effect on those teams' PageStat ratings.

I was wrong.

When I noticed that, specifically, teams in the Northwest Suburban conference had an unusually high average PageStat rating, I wondered why. I was especially curious because the same thing was happening with LSQRANK ratings. When i dug into the schedules, I saw that this conference had played only two games outside their conference (Maple Grove vs. Dodge County, Rogers vs Alexandria). NW Suburban teams had won both games handily, but this shouldn't have affected the entire conference's PageStat ratings that much, should it? It did. Why?

The answer became clear--when PageStat gets run, it keeps running until "convergence" is achieved. Convergence means it runs until running more iterations wouldn't budge each team's rating more than a minute amount. But the existence of these two out-of-conference games makes achieving convergence difficult. It can still be attained but in the process of getting there, it inflates conference teams' ratings more than it probably should. How much does it inflate these ratings? If you ignore last night's MG-LS game, the Northwest Conference's average PageStat rating is 19.26. If you do include that game, it drops to 17.48. This is probably more in line with reality considering you have teams such as Champlin Park, Anoka, Spring Lake Park and Osseo who have a combined record of 15-44-3. Yet each team has a PageStat rating of at least 16.39 if you ignore this game!

It is, to be sure, a serious fluke (sure, call it a flaw. I won't mind :) ) and it's why I chose not to post the complete ratings this season. I posted the Top 20 a few times but knowing what I know now, probably won't until after the end of the season when section and state tournament games blend the schedules a little better.

Conversely, last night's MG-LS game boosted the average PageStat rating of the South Suburban conference from 15.41 to 17.00. This also is probably more in line with expectations.

What would have happened if Maple Grove had won that game? We'd have a bigger mess than what we have now. The Northwest Suburban's ratings would be inflated to what I believe to be an even more unrealistic level.

So when you see that big gap in the rankings in the Top 20 for Lakeville South, Andover, Centennial and Prior Lake, the above outlines the reason why.

But a few games shouldn't have this big an impact on an entire conference's ratings!

How can this be solved? I can't speak for LSQRANK, but PageStat does what it does and achieves the effect I wanted when I developed the system--to predict section games better than the seedings. That it has done and done fairly consistently for the past 23 seasons. It's just that this has been (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime situation where a pandemic has led to massive schedule changes in the interest of limiting travel to the greatest degree possible. I have every reason to believe that we'll be back to some semblance of normalcy next season. :) In other words, no tweak or change will be made.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by O-townClown » Wed Mar 10, 2021 7:56 pm

This is awesome, Lee. Thanks for doing the work even on a year you weren't.

I am very curious to see the results of Gentry-Hermantown, possibly twice. To have an upstart school with this strong of a team and not really play anyone only adds to the peculiarity of the season.
Be kind. Rewind.

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Re: PageStat 2020-21

Post by east hockey » Wed Mar 10, 2021 8:04 pm

O-townClown wrote:
Wed Mar 10, 2021 7:56 pm
This is awesome, Lee. Thanks for doing the work even on a year you weren't.

I am very curious to see the results of Gentry-Hermantown, possibly twice. To have an upstart school with this strong of a team and not really play anyone only adds to the peculiarity of the season.
I'm curious too. The problem with Gentry and PageStat is a different one--they've only played one game against a team (Blake) which goes into their rating. The rest of the games have been against teams with ratings so low that to include them would hurt Gentry's rating no matter how badly they won these games. I should repeat the experiment I tried earlier in the season--remove the goal cap altogether to see how this affects everyone's PageStat rating. Other than removing the cap rewarding teams who run up scores to an obscene level, I don't know what the overall effect would be.

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