Strength of Schedule rankings

What I'm listening to: the Kinks... W.A. Mozart... 50 Cent... Randy Newman... Ash... James Brown...

Back in the fall, I cooked up a mathematical system for the calculation of schedule strength. With a little tweaking, it works for basketball too. I've copied and pasted the following explanation from the boys' soccer blog, changing a few words to make it relevant to this basketball season:

I couldn't sleep last night, and while I was lying there staring at the ceiling, I devised a relatively simple formula for calculating strength of schedule for SJ high school basketball, or really for any other sport in this area. Then once I came up with that, I really couldn't sleep until I'd done the math on all 88 major-conference teams in South Jersey.

I blame this illness of mine on my father. He has it too.

Anyway, here's the formula. Remember that it only measures the strength of a team's schedule (S.O.S), with no regard for wins, losses and ties. So it's not a ranking of teams so much as of the test each team has faced over the course of the season.

Here goes:

Working with the current Top 20, past Top 20s, the current list of bubble teams, the Gannett state Top 20 and the USA Today Top 25, point values are assigned to each opponent a particular team has faced.
5 -- Teams ranked from 1-5 in the C-P are worth
4 -- Teams ranked 6-10
3 -- 11-15
2 -- 16-20
1 -- "Almost" teams from the last two weeks, as well as squads that used to be ranked in the T20 but aren't anymore.

For instance, a game against Absegami is worth 5 points because the Braves are ranked in the Top 5. A game against Eastern is worth 1 because the Vikings used to be ranked.

For out-of-area opponents:
7 points -- USA Today Top 25
6 points -- USA Today Regional Top 10
5 points -- Gannett state ranking 1-10
4 points -- Gannett state ranking 11-20
3 points -- Any noteworthy out-of-area team, i.e. recent state champion, state title contender or major private school porgram
1 point -- Any out-of-area team with a winning record

For example, Willingboro gets 7 points for playing Shabazz (nationally ranked). Eustace gets 3 points for playing St. John Vianney (noteworthy out-of-area team). Gami gets 6 points for playing Bishop McNamara (ranked in the East region), and Camden Catholic gets 5 points for playing Bloomfield Tech. The out-of-area criteria for boys' soccer was way simpler, but I felt I needed to articulate it further in girls' hoops because there are so many more of those showcase event giving, and therefore a lot more games involving out-of-area heavyweights.

I hope that was clear enough.

Anyway, here are the top 25 teams on S.O.S. and their point totals:

1. Wilson 79
2. CCath 55
3. Gami 53
T4. Paul VI 52
T4. Camden 52
6. Willingboro 50
T7. Eustace 45
T7. Spirit 45
T7. Wash Twp. 45
T7. AC 45
11. Cherokee 44
T12. Eastern 42
T12. Mainland 42
14. Penn Tech 41
15. Lenape 40
T16. CH East 39
T16. EHT 39
T16. Pennsauken 39
19. Oakcrest 38
20. Moorestown 35
21. Camden County Tech 34
22. Lower Cape May 33
23. Shawnee 32
T24. Haddonfield 31
T24. Middle 31
T24. RV
T24. Seneca

Other T20 teams:

T28. Ocean City 30
T32. Pleasantville 27
T35. Wildwood Cath. 25
T40. Timber Creek 23
T51. Sterling 18
T68. Heights 14
T73. Glassboro 13

This is little more than an exercise, of course, and it doesn't really mean anything. A couple of trends that were at work here. Obviously, being in the Olympic National is money as far as SOS. I'm sure Camden would prefer not to be in the top 5 in this ranking, since it's not so much fun for the Panthers. Wilson's schedule looks better and better, more than 20 points clear of second place. There wasn't any one division that was abjectly weak, but

Anyway, take from the list what you like. As I said, it means nothing, but it's a fun thing to think about, at least for me. I started thinking about a way to use a similiar model to actually rank teams, but that's dangerous ground. It could be done, but I'm not sure anybody would like the result any more than I like the BCS in college football, which is not at all.