This is one of those questions I've been trying to figure out for a while. So, I've actually built out a system to provide what I'm calling a Dynasty rating for teams. It's effectively based on the team's ability to play in the afternoon. I've assigned winning an event as 100 points. From there, each level is divided by the number of alliances reaching it. (Finalist 50, SF 25, QF 12.5) I also reverted towards the mean by 5% each year to help offset teams that had a great year in like 2006 and haven't been consistent.[1] I've also added a minimum threshold of 5 events, teams are derated accordingly prior to that because they are unknown. So, my theory is that this shows an overall ability to play in eliminations.[2] These were averaged over a year.
After that I started asking myself how I could quantify competitiveness of an event. Frankly, I enjoy watching an event where the winner isn't a known thing[3]. So I did a bit of research, for those of you unfamiliar with the
Gini Coefficient, it's a measure of income disparity in nations. But, at it's core, it's a measure of equality of distribution. So, I got to wondering if I could leverage the math behind it to find events with lots of close teams.
Ok, this post is dragging on a lot longer than I wanted it to, so the TLDR - you can, it's actually fairly simple math given a sorted array. So, by week, the most "exciting"[4]:
(If they were real close (within a hundredth) I included the top 2
Week 1
Code:
Guilford County 2016ncmcl
Kettering University 2016miket
Week 2
Code:
Tippecanoe 2016inwla
Central Valley 2016cama
Week 3
Code:
Walker Warren 2016inwch
Week 4
Code:
Central Maryland 2016mdedg
Week 5
Week 6 [5]
Code:
Pine Tree 2016melew
This was all based on every official event from 2006 to present. [6]
I'm tired, but if folks want the other order I can do that tomorrow.
[1] Number felt right, not really based on much than the that.
[2] Spot checking teams felt right. In theory there's prolly a way of using this for Fantasy FIRST type stuff.
[3] Almost known thing... whatevs
[4] Read as, events with the lowest Gini coefficient since 0 would be perfectly equal distribution.
[5] Actually, NCCMP was flagging as the most even this week, but since it's a qualify only event I assume it's a TBA bug?
[6] Which surprises absolutely nobody that I have...