Of course it factors in head-to-head results, it factors in all the results...
If you'd bother to look at the results you would see Colorado underperformed by 67 and Syracuse overperformed by 83. Similarly the week prior, Colorado had a bad day and Virginia had a good day. You rank teams assuming they show up and have an average to good day.
You proved my point. If Colorado "underperformed" by Lacctic's standards at the two most important meets of the year, then why are they ranked 3rd in the nation by lacctic?????
This is actually a really great point. I would love to hear Bijan's explanation of why this is happening.
It looks like Colorado is only ranked so high because of their track results. That does not carry over well to XC.
New competitor from USTFCCCA. The XCRI: Cross Country Rating Index. I would guess the model is very similar to Lacctic, though I haven't read much on the methodology. It would be great to hear a breakdown of the differences from the top minds themselves. (This also one has the benefit of being powered directly by athletic.net and eliminates web-scraping, which is probably a huge convenience.)
This is FAR more accurate because it factors in each runner individually instead of a team average. As we know, this is more important for XC.
You can have the fastest top 4 in the NCAA that make your team average really fast, but if your 5th runner is in the 200s at NCAAs you aren't winning or coming anywhere close.
This is FAR more accurate because it factors in each runner individually instead of a team average. As we know, this is more important for XC.
You can have the fastest top 4 in the NCAA that make your team average really fast, but if your 5th runner is in the 200s at NCAAs you aren't winning or coming anywhere close.
This is another really good point.
No it isn’t. Lacctic has a simulated meet scoring feature. You apparently just haven’t used it.
This is FAR more accurate because it factors in each runner individually instead of a team average. As we know, this is more important for XC.
You can have the fastest top 4 in the NCAA that make your team average really fast, but if your 5th runner is in the 200s at NCAAs you aren't winning or coming anywhere close.
Lacctic's true ranking is its simulation which factors in every runner including the six and seven. The list by team average is called a "pseudo ranking." That is not its true ranking.
Per usual Lacctic's critics are confidently clueless.
Lacctic's true ranking is its simulation which factors in every runner including the six and seven. The list by team average is called a "pseudo ranking." That is not its true ranking.
Per usual Lacctic's critics are confidently clueless.
New competitor from USTFCCCA. The XCRI: Cross Country Rating Index. I would guess the model is very similar to Lacctic, though I haven't read much on the methodology. It would be great to hear a breakdown of the differences from the top minds themselves. (This also one has the benefit of being powered directly by athletic.net and eliminates web-scraping, which is probably a huge convenience.)
This is FAR more accurate because it factors in each runner individually instead of a team average. As we know, this is more important for XC.
You can have the fastest top 4 in the NCAA that make your team average really fast, but if your 5th runner is in the 200s at NCAAs you aren't winning or coming anywhere close.
Actually, this is far LESS accurate. Aside from the individual rankings being weaker than LACCTIC's, cross-country scores aren't an absolute - a team with a very strong top three can be unbeatable in dual meets, but uncompetitive in larger races if they have a weak #4 and #5.
XCRI ranks all individuals in Division I from 1 to 3,898, and then adds up the five best on each team to get a team score. While that might be a way to estimate the quality of teams in a field of 3,898, after the top few teams it is fairly useless in estimating national or regional rankings in smaller races.
This is FAR more accurate because it factors in each runner individually instead of a team average. As we know, this is more important for XC.
You can have the fastest top 4 in the NCAA that make your team average really fast, but if your 5th runner is in the 200s at NCAAs you aren't winning or coming anywhere close.
Actually, this is far LESS accurate. Aside from the individual rankings being weaker than LACCTIC's, cross-country scores aren't an absolute - a team with a very strong top three can be unbeatable in dual meets, but uncompetitive in larger races if they have a weak #4 and #5.
XCRI ranks all individuals in Division I from 1 to 3,898, and then adds up the five best on each team to get a team score. While that might be a way to estimate the quality of teams in a field of 3,898, after the top few teams it is fairly useless in estimating national or regional rankings in smaller races.
Agreed - I give them credit for trying but this is so terribly inaccurate they should just scrap it. Wake Forest women 9th? They will be lucky to make the national meet. North Carolina men 57th? Give me a break.
Why does LACCTIC not have pre nats in its ranking yet? It dosent give an accurate representation of where everyone is at yet!
I suspect it is not set to get results mid week. I did email Bijan but maybe he did not see. He was also having some issues getting "past" results.
Is pre-nationals not on TFRRS for some reason? I don't currently have a way to load results in from athletic.net.
It seems like the XCRI system has special access to the ustfccca data. My life would be 100x easier if they had just reached out and collaborated with me instead of building their own product. All I want is access to their data-base so I don't need to spend hours tweaking my scrapers.
I can't evaluate XCRI because it doesn't work for me right now. It times out and does not load any rankings. Their methodology does seem a bit more rudimentary right now.
I suspect it is not set to get results mid week. I did email Bijan but maybe he did not see. He was also having some issues getting "past" results.
Is pre-nationals not on TFRRS for some reason? I don't currently have a way to load results in from athletic.net.
It seems like the XCRI system has special access to the ustfccca data. My life would be 100x easier if they had just reached out and collaborated with me instead of building their own product. All I want is access to their data-base so I don't need to spend hours tweaking my scrapers.
I can't evaluate XCRI because it doesn't work for me right now. It times out and does not load any rankings. Their methodology does seem a bit more rudimentary right now.
prenats made it to tfrrs on Tuesday - it is listed at 10/17 but in the middle of 10/18 meets
Oct 17 Missouri Pre-National Invitational MO Gans Creek Cross Country Course
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Lacctic is so inaccurate. It does not factor in head-to-head results.
For example, UVA beat Colorado handily a few weeks ago but Colorado is ranked higher nationally according to lacctic.
Then Colorado only beat Syracuse by 2 points at Nuttycombe, but Colorado is ranked #3 and Syracuse is ranked #7
It also gives the same course much different conversations...ON THE SAME DAY. And from week to week despite identical conditions.
At Gans Creek a few weeks ago, 14:00 was 23:20 for the Black Race and 23:30 for the gold race. Same conditions. Once pre-nats gets analyzed, it's going to be different as well on the same course.
Right now, track is likely over-emphasized. There is a tradeoff here, because track emphasis is very important for individual rankings. Before I included track times, people were very upset when obvious #1 individuals were ranked 9th or 10th because they hadn't been challenged in a race yet. By adding in track, individual rankings improve, but you end up with Colorados.
Lacctic is so inaccurate. It does not factor in head-to-head results.
For example, UVA beat Colorado handily a few weeks ago but Colorado is ranked higher nationally according to lacctic.
Then Colorado only beat Syracuse by 2 points at Nuttycombe, but Colorado is ranked #3 and Syracuse is ranked #7
It also gives the same course much different conversations...ON THE SAME DAY. And from week to week despite identical conditions.
At Gans Creek a few weeks ago, 14:00 was 23:20 for the Black Race and 23:30 for the gold race. Same conditions. Once pre-nats gets analyzed, it's going to be different as well on the same course.
Right now, track is likely over-emphasized. There is a tradeoff here, because track emphasis is very important for individual rankings. Before I included track times, people were very upset when obvious #1 individuals were ranked 9th or 10th because they hadn't been challenged in a race yet. By adding in track, individual rankings improve, but you end up with Colorados.
We said there was an ~31 sec difference, for the low sticks, between Nutty and the Gans Creek course, giving Hartman an ~18:59 PreNats time. Longisa was awarded a TiC of 15:22 at Gans Creek running the previous 19:07 course record. Hedengren ran 25sec faster than Longisa’s time, so her TiC should be at least ~22sec faster than Longisa’s, giving her a TiC of ~15:00.
And voila, LACCTiC gave Jane’s PreNats performance a 15:01.
We said there was an ~31 sec difference, for the low sticks, between Nutty and the Gans Creek course, giving Hartman an ~18:59 PreNats time. Longisa was awarded a TiC of 15:22 at Gans Creek running the previous 19:07 course record. Hedengren ran 25sec faster than Longisa’s time, so her TiC should be at least ~22sec faster than Longisa’s, giving her a TiC of ~15:00.