The Lion King
Senior
Posts: 394
Reg: 11-21-04
|
02-11-05 04:05 PM - Post#3916
For what it's worth, here are the winning margins in the 16 games played so far among the Seven Dwarfs:
30, 19, 15, 10, 9, 9, 8, 5, 5, 5*, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1
(* indicates overtime)
So more than half the games have been decided by 5 points or less.
And here are the winning margins in Penn's 5 games:
24, 24, 23, 13, 8*
What this says to me, besides the obvious conclusion that Penn just might be a tiny bit better than the rest of the league, is that any game among the other seven is basically a toss-up.
A more sophisticated analysis would take home and away into account, and you certainly would expect Brown and Yale to have the edge now that they will be back home. I also suspect that Princeton will snap out of it soon, if they haven't already. But when spinning scenarios for Cornell or Brown to catch Penn, you have to not only assume that the Quakers will stumble twice against a lesser team, but also that the lesser team will suddenly elevate itself above its peers (and that Princeton will not return to form, except against Penn, of course). It's possible that one of those teams will come back, but I think it's much more likely that Princeton will finish ahead of Brown (or Cornell) than that Brown (or Cornell) will finish ahead of Penn.
(Another conclusion to be drawn from the winning-margin stats is that Columbia is the most variable team, since it was involved in both the 30-point and the 19-point games, losing to Cornell and defeating Dartmouth respectively.)
|
