Middle Hitter Pablo Rankings (MHPR)

[redhawkvb]

I have been busy (mostly behind the scenes) over the past few months in an effort to publish a men’s collegiate volleyball ranking. I noticed a few years ago that while there were at least two (RKPI & Pablo) ranking systems in collegiate women’s volleyball there were NONE for the men’s side. Pablo has graciously agreed to perform his Pablo algorithm calculation for the men’s game, if Middle Hitter can provide him the necessary data.

Since Pablo has spared me the huge learning curve of “phase space theory” including developing/tweaking a spreadsheet to perform the calculations, I have been focused on the data collection process. I have been communicating with SID’s (Sports Information Directors) and coaches on all levels of men’s varsity college volleyball regarding the MHPR effort. I created a data entry portal (which some of you helped test) for match results entry. The portal is similar to the one AVCA (American Volleyball Coaches Association) and Rich Kern uses to collect scores. I have approached AVCA, at the suggestion of several SID’s, to ask them if I could just use their match results data. Host Communications, who AVCA recently contracted to outsource their back office operations, stated they could not provide me their match result data in a simple data file. I could look it up and manually input it myself. They did not explain “why” but I didn’t pursue it further.

I have tested the data collection process and produced an output file for Pablo to download, load into his spreadsheet and crunch out a ranking. The goal is to publish the ranking once per week starting after the 2nd or 3rd week of the season. This means the first publishing will not occur until sometime around the end of January. The ranking will be published on the following webpage:

http://middlehitter.com/middlehitter...kings_page.asp

I will also provide the rankings to the VolleyTalk Admin who will list them on the VolleyTalk website, just as it is done for the women’s side.

I am going to give the data collection process a week or two, to see how the SID’s and coaches respond to providing their match results. If I find that I have to input the majority of the results myself, I will turn to the volleyball community for individual volunteers to provide scores for a small group of teams. The data is to be collected from DI, DII, DIII and NAIA schools. There are less than 100 schools in the DI, DII, DIII and NAIA universe. If anyone is from or has connections to the Puerto Rican schools, please let me know.

Meanwhile, you can learn all about the Pablo ranking process by reading the nine page Pablo FAQ. This FAQ can be found on the page above. A direct link to the PDF file is:

http://middlehitter.com/middlehitter...PR_Version.pdf

Please READ THIS FAQ before you start posting a bunch of questions on "how does it work". Pablo has been doing this for years on the women’s side and has prepared a great FAQ. He also has the experience to make adjustments, if necessary, because of the heavy cross divisional play (DI vs. DIII vs. NAIA, etc…).

I am sure the MHPR will create additional conversation/controversy about men’s collegiate volleyball. That is great, because that is why I am taking up the task of publishing it.

Enjoy the 2007 season….

[redhawkvb]

Middle Hitter Pablo Rankings