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Post by spectator on Mar 12, 2014 9:51:02 GMT -5
Soccer in College and Got Soccer are tournament based - so if a team doesn't do a ton of tournaments or do the right ones for the extra points, they aren't given the same weight in rankings as those that do. SIC includes Rec tournaments too so by Spring, the rankings get all gunked up with those teams. For the most part, I'd say the top 1-15 or so are accurate but it's from 16 all the way down to in the 40's that seems to be a crap shoot.
Does the state keep rankings for Classic and Athena based on games played? I really don't give a rats a$$ if our team is ranked 17 or 37 but when we enter tournaments and are asked for our state ranking, it's skewed. Can't use the national ranking from SIC because it's based off where the team is in the state.
Just curious - have a former team parent who lives and dies by where their team is in the SIC rankings - to the point of bragging about it on Facebook only to delete the post when some 'lower ranked' team beats them.
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Post by reinalocura on Mar 12, 2014 10:03:19 GMT -5
Soccer in College can only rank your team on what they "know" about your team. Results can be skewed - for example, your TM does not input League Scores at all or only inputs WINS (yeah, honestly some do that). So it's not perfect as we all are aware.
Tournament performance is also kind of skewed - sometimes you get placed in a division which is wrong for your team and you kick ass, and sometimes you get placed in a division and you are on the receiving end of the ass kicking, and sometimes the event has a good fit for your team. Again, not a great indication of your team's "ranking."
Coaches tend to know the level of the local tournaments and hopefully have your TM apply to tournaments which are a good fit for your team and contact the tournament director if your team is placed unfavorably.
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Post by TheMadOx on Mar 12, 2014 10:07:03 GMT -5
SIC rankings are silly at the younger ages...tends to play out and be more accurate at u14 and above...I never put stock in the rankings for the reasons Reinlocura stated.
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Post by 4theloveofsoccer on Mar 12, 2014 14:06:09 GMT -5
I agree rankings are not really what they are because of misinformation and some get too caught up in it. There are some teams that we were scheduled against that were not played and it was recorded by them they beat us. Clubs are also known to enter their teams lower than they are supposed to be, so this can also help their "ranking". In the end I believe more accurate rankings will be published.
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Post by Soccerhouse on Mar 12, 2014 14:24:19 GMT -5
i think what the rankings do, especially SIC is give you a sense of the top teams, middle teams and then bottoms.
you can gauge who the top teams are in each age group typically and not necessary focus on if they are ranked 1st or 4th. it gives you some understanding of the quality of team they might be on paper. granted you always have outliers, where one team only plays in 1 or 2 tourneys but has won and some how sneaks into a top spot.
i think its helpful for out of town tourneys so you can gauge the relative level a team is at. typically the top teams are pretty good (not considering style of play here).
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Post by silverback on Mar 14, 2014 17:17:40 GMT -5
Agree with SoccerAdmin. SIC would be more realistic if they would group teams based on performance without trying to determine specific rankings, like groups of 5. The rankings should help with tournament seeds and it's fun for the kids (and parents) to follow and track, but it gets silly to try and rank individual teams, especially after you get beyond the top 10 or so teams.
Also, not sure if they do, but they should weight tournaments to help with the ranking which might be a better indicator of team strength. They do this at GotSoccer and it seems to be a better indicator of team strength, but again, I like the idea of groupings versus individual rankings, especially at the younger ages.
I remember one time, my son's team was ranked #1 in the nation according to SIC and all the kids actually believed it, until they got spanked down at Disney ;-)
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Post by jash on Mar 15, 2014 19:00:12 GMT -5
SIC does do groupings... gold, silver, bronze, red, blue green. If you ignore the actual ranks and just look at that, you can definitely get a decent idea.
But after U13 it seems like it becomes much less important or accurate.
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Post by lovethegame on Mar 16, 2014 16:47:53 GMT -5
How about Top Drawer? SIC and Got Soccer are tournament based or rely on the reporting of a team manager. Top Drawer may have a bias of its own, but it does include ECNL, non ECNL, DA and non DA which the others don't since ECNL doesn't participate in many tournaments and DA doesn't at all.
In the end rankings just give a sense of how teams line up against like teams. Got soccer compares teams that play in tournaments Top Drawer compares ECNL teams with a few non ECNL teams, as well as DA and non DA. SIC ranks teams playing in state and PL.
I don't know that there is any real way to determine a teams rank outside of the state. Most people know the top team in any age group in GA. It doesn't matter what league the team plays in. When it gets tricky is when a team is ranked regionally or nationally. Those rankings are difficult to put stock in, although I would like to since my daughter's team is ranked pretty high nationally. But, common sense tells me that if we did a tournament among all of the top teams in the country they'd probably end up lower than they are ranked. Don't get me wrong, they are a good team. But, I have to believe there are many good teams out there and all of the ranking organizations are looking at something different.
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