I'm a long-time lurker from outside of any of the traditional hotbeds...these boards are pure entertainment gold
The US Club Lax rankings are flawed, for sure...as someone else pointed out, they don't have every tournament played in their ranking system and the algorithm needs to be tweaked, but I commend the effort and the rankings are as good as we've got (really all we've got, actually - the Nissan/IL 13U rankings only rank teams who play in WSYL qualifiers)
I will say that they are relatively transparent about the shortcomings of their system. When they posted the final top 100 on Instagram, they posted 4 slides which explained the rankings - one on the RPI calculation (Winning Percentage, Opponents Winning Percentage , Opponents-Opponents Winning Percentage and Goal Differential up to 8); one on Strenght of Schedule calculation (OWP and OOWP); a Head to Head disclaimer (when an unranked opponent beats a ranked opponent in any sport, that unranked opponent doesn't automatically go ahead of the ranked opponent); and one about a team's Record (winning percentage) in relation to schedule strength.
It appears to me that Strength of Schedule is much more important than actually winning games in their algorithm, though - and that is a major flaw. There is a team in the 2024 top 60 that went 0-9 in events tracked by USCL this summer with a -87 goal differential. I saw this team play this summer, and they wouldn't beat the 91 LI 2024 B team, but because all of their lopsided losses were against good teams, they are ranked. At some point, they've got to make results matter more if they rankings are going to be taken as a serious barometer of relative strength.
My son plays for a team which has played Hawks, True National, Crabs, Thunder LB3, Sweetlax FL, Edge, Big 4 HHH, API Diamondbacks, Carolina Miners, West Coast Starz, Laxachusetts, Leading Edge and a number of other "top 100" 2024 teams in the last calendar year (along with the Team 91 LI 2024 B team), and I will say that when you get outside of the top 20, or so, there isn't much separating the number 21 team from the number 70 team...for the most part. My son's team has taken lumps from teams barely in the top 50 and handled a top 25 team...
If you care about the rankings at all, you have to take them for what they are...a somewhat flawed measure of approximate relative strength...nothing more.
For the 2024's, I look at them in tiers...
the top 25 teams are all strong programs that can compete with any team on any weekend and will likely thump anyone outside of the top 25 with some regularity (you could probably make an argument that the top 8 to 10 is a separate tier on its own) - all of these teams are legit AA caliber teams
26 through 75 are all really strong teams that are likely to play good, competitive games against each other, will occasionally knock off a top 25 team, but more often will get beat handily by those teams...this tier is a mix of low AA caliber teams and high A caliber teams
76 - 100 are teams that are good, solid regional programs that will occasionally play a competitive game against a top 75 team, but really only make the rankings because they play in some high-level events where they get a SOS boost for this ranking system
Last thing...the team that went 0-9 this summer posted their USCL rankings to their Instagram page as a way to puff up their program...it took everything I had in my power not to respond and say "but your team didn't win a single game all summer"
...now continue with your Madlax Cheaters vs. Wolfpack Up and Leave debate...I've got plenty of popcorn
You hit the nail on the head. Many complaints have merit (esp about conflict of interest) but that site fills a vacuum. There's no need to completely bash it unless you can create a better mouse trap. I believe they are open to ideas on how to improve it and I hope they are reading your post which is by far the best post in a long time. We need you to stop lurking and mix it up in the octagon once in a while so you can get your fair share of head bashing. Well done.
good idea but bad data or something. Need to put more emphasis on head to head in my opinion. And if not enough data on a team dont rank them that is better than putting them way down where they shouldnt be. They should count all tournaments not sure why they do not. They left out some really big tournaments. My son's team beat 8 teams ahead of them......a top 5 team they went 2 and 2 with and are in the 30s somehow. Could be really cool though if they get it more accurate, but need to count all tournaments for that I think.
I see what you mean. Just looked at the Team Results and one team only have 6 games in the database while the majority are in the 15-25 range. At the very least, they should use the same # of games. Hope they improve it.
All of #WolfPackUpAndLeave’s games are listed. 91 hoax.
