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ISR's -- 1996 Season -- Score-Gathering Methodology and Resolution
Predendum: I'm going to leave the essay below intact, because the rules that I describe in it are the ones that I will continue to use going forward to older seasons to resolve disputed scores. However, the plea that I mentioned to SID's for further data was quite productive. I got a response from about 25% of the SID's contacted, for which I am grateful, but one of those in particular was extremely productive, as one sharp-eyed individual noted something that I had missed. Over the course of the last year, some unsung hero at the NCAA office has apparently spent some time with a filing cabinet and a quite prodigious digitalization project. Looking up the records for pre-web seasons now gives you scans of the paper records submitted at the time, going back to the mid-60's. My favorite that I've found so far is the 1965 Grambling State report, which is literally a scan of a Western Union telegram. This, over time, will be wonderfully valuable, as I should now be able over time to re-create seasons as far back as that goes. With that in hand, I've now updated the 1996 scores with only a few gaps. As far as I can tell, I'm only missing 6 games for Cornell, 3 for Howard, and 1 for Texas Southern, with it being quite likely that all of those are outside Division I, so they wouldn't affect the ratings.
The foundation of this data came from records collected by an old Usenet friend named Rick Rollins, collected at the time and shared with me somewhere around 1999 or 2000 (as you can tell, this project took a while). Rick's records were, of course, incomplete and occasionally wrong, but they served as an invaluable starting point and are still the only source I have for a lot of games involving teams with incomplete or poorly published records. Many thanks go to Rick for that start.
It's odd to think of things that took place when I was on my third adult job and had two kids as being in need of historical research, but that very much describes the process that's needed to pull these together. In that light, it has some resemblance to another hobby of mine, genealogy. Records for some things are fantastically thorough, sometimes in areas where you might not expect it - for example, there are quite detailed records of every Cincinnati score back to 1886, some areas where records exist but require some substantial digging, some where records are published but in unfriendly ways (SID's, if you're using issuu.com to publish your guides, that's great, but check that "Downloadable" box), and some where the institution doesn't even really exist any more. 1996 was the last year of baseball for Colgate, Wyoming and New Hampshire; in the Colgate case, I can't find records of the ten games needed to be able to do even a cursory rating of them, although given what I have found, I suspect they played a short, mostly non-D1 schedule that year. Records that exist can be misleading or flat out wrong. This isn't complaining - it's actually part of the appeal sometimes - but it's an explanation for why the record is and presumably always will be a little less than complete or perfect.
Because of the resulting incompleteness, there are some situations where I had to develop rules for resolution. In all of these cases, where I talk about sources, I'm referring to something published by the team, typically a media guide or record book; I have these sources for around 170 teams at this point, which will help when I tackle 1995.
Here are the rules that I used to resolve each type of identified error:
Score disagreements with no sources: I have no idea how, but I have three games involving Butler, two against Illinois-Chicago and one against North Carolina A&T, where I have no sources (presumably referring to scores I got from the Rollins archive) but have differing scores from the data sets for the two teams. For these games, I used the closer of the two scores so as to minimize the margin of victory advantage given in the ISR's.
Score disagreements with one source: In these cases, I'm using the score from the official source, playing the odds that it's more likely to be correct, with the exception of cases where there are disagreements as to who actually won the game, in which case I obviously use the score that leads to the correct won-loss records. Here's a table of those games:
Date | Score 1 | Score 2 | Source School | |||||||
326 | Winthrop | 11 | North Carolina A&T | 4 | Winthrop | 13 | North Carolina A&T | 4 | Winthrop | |
219 | Appalachian State | 10 | North Carolina A&T | 4 | Appalachian State | 9 | North Carolina A&T | 4 | Appalachian State | |
407 | Ball State | 6 | Eastern Michigan | 4 | Ball State | 7 | Eastern Michigan | 4 | Eastern Michigan | |
323 | Bowling Green State | 6 | Vermont | 4 | Bowling Green State | 7 | Vermont | 5 | Bowling Green State | |
421 | Princeton | 10 | Columbia | 5 | Princeton | 10 | Columbia | 6 | Columbia | |
424 | Columbia | 6 | Siena | 5 | Siena | 5 | Columbia | 3 | Columbia | |
507 | Drexel | 6 | St. Joseph's | 2 | Drexel | 8 | St. Joseph's | 2 | St. Joseph's | |
516 | Virginia Commonwealth | 10 | East Carolina | 0 | Virginia Commonwealth | 10 | East Carolina | 3 | East Carolina | |
407 | Ball State | 6 | Eastern Michigan | 4 | Ball State | 7 | Eastern Michigan | 4 | Eastern Michigan | |
308 | Florida Atlantic | 15 | Monmouth | 2 | Monmouth | 20 | Florida Atlantic | 15 | Florida Atlantic | |
423 | Maryland-Baltimore County | 9 | Georgetown | 5 | Maryland-Baltimore County | 9 | Georgetown | 8 | Maryland-Baltimore County | |
225 | St. Joseph's | 5 | Georgetown | 1 | St. Joseph's | 6 | Georgetown | 1 | St. Joseph's | |
313 | St. Louis | 11 | Grambling State | 5 | St. Louis | 21 | Grambling State | 5 | St. Louis | |
311 | Illinois | 26 | Pace | 11 | Illinois | 27 | Pace | 11 | Illinois | |
406 | St. Joseph's | 3 | Rhode Island | 2 | St. Joseph's | 5 | Rhode Island | 4 | St. Joseph's | |
327 | Rider | 5 | St. Joseph's | 2 | Rider | 6 | St. Joseph's | 2 | St. Joseph's | |
428 | Detroit Mercy | 6 | Wisconsin-Milwaukee | 0 | Detroit Mercy | 9 | Wisconsin-Milwaukee | 8 | Wisconsin-Milwaukee | |
511 | Wisconsin-Milwaukee | 8 | Butler | 5 | Wisconsin-Milwaukee | 9 | Butler | 5 | Wisconsin-Milwaukee | |
411 | Toledo | 4 | Bowling Green State | 1 | Bowling Green State | 4 | Toledo | 1 | Bowling Green State | |
424 | Eastern Michigan | 12 | Toledo | 4 | Eastern Michigan | 12 | Toledo | 0 | Eastern Michigan |
Score disagreements with two sources: This happens more often than you might think. I'm using the closer score, with the exception of cases where there are disagreements as to who actually won the game, in which case I obviously use the score that leads to the correct won-loss records. Here's a table of those games:
Date | Score 1 | Score 2 | |||||||
323 | Akron | 11 | Bethune-Cookman | 3 | Akron | 12 | Bethune-Cookman | 3 | |
126 | Florida International | 1 | Bethune-Cookman | 0 | Florida International | 5 | Bethune-Cookman | 1 | |
127 | Florida International | 5 | Bethune-Cookman | 2 | Florida International | 8 | Bethune-Cookman | 1 | |
501 | Bradley | 4 | Western Illinois | 2 | Bradley | 5 | Western Illinois | 2 | |
406 | North Carolina-Asheville | 8 | Maryland-Baltimore County | 6 | North Carolina-Asheville | 9 | Maryland-Baltimore County | 6 | |
301 | Arizona State | 7 | Stanford | 2 | Arizona State | 8 | Stanford | 1 | |
323 | Baylor | 8 | Texas Tech | 0 | Baylor | 9 | Texas Tech | 0 | |
301 | Hawaii | 6 | Cal State Sacramento | 5 | Hawaii | 8 | Cal State Sacramento | 5 | |
409 | Xavier | 7 | Cincinnati | 3 | Xavier | 7 | Cincinnati | 4 | |
227 | St. Joseph's | 8 | Delaware State | 2 | St. Joseph's | 8 | Delaware State | 3 | |
219 | Grand Canyon | 6 | Texas Tech | 3 | Texas Tech | 6 | Grand Canyon | 3 | |
320 | Texas-Pan American | 10 | Miami, Ohio | 2 | Texas-Pan American | 9 | Miami, Ohio | 2 | |
224 | Purdue | 5 | Texas Christian | 0 | Purdue | 9 | Texas Christian | 5 |
There are a number of games where I only have a score from one team's data, either from their source document or from my (sometimes inherited) historical records. In those cases, I'm using the score, since the most likely explanation by far is just a records gap for the missing team. I don't see any benefit to listing those games; there are around 265 of them.
Finally, despite my best efforts, there are a number of teams where I can't find records of as many games as are listed in the historical win-loss records that I have from the team, typically gleaned from official conference records. It's possible, and even likely in a lot of cases, that the missing games were against non-Division I opponents, but I can't guarantee that there aren't gaps in the scores that underlie the ratings. I'm writing to SID's in search of additional scores and will update as new material comes in. Here's a list of the teams with missing games, in addition to teams where I've never been able to find a W-L record for 1996:
Team | W-L Record | Record from Scores | |||
Alcorn State | 0 | 0 | 16 | 23 | |
C. W. Post | 15 | 24 | 13 | 24 | |
Centenary | 23 | 34 | 22 | 34 | |
Central Connecticut State | 17 | 25 | 17 | 23 | |
Colgate | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | |
Coppin State | 19 | 21 | 13 | 18 | |
Cornell | 17 | 27 | 11 | 23 | |
Delaware | 44 | 12 | 42 | 12 | |
Florida A&M | 14 | 34 | 12 | 32 | |
Grambling State | 0 | 0 | 6 | 12 | |
Howard | 14 | 35 | 10 | 29 | |
Illinois-Chicago | 23 | 26 | 21 | 26 | |
Iona | 26 | 21 | 20 | 15 | |
Jackson State | 0 | 0 | 13 | 17 | |
LeMoyne | 17 | 19 | 14 | 14 | |
Long Island | 22 | 19 | 21 | 19 | |
Manhattan | 9 | 30 | 5 | 21 | |
Maryland-Baltimore County | 9 | 28 | 9 | 27 | |
Maryland-Eastern Shore | 4 | 45 | 4 | 41 | |
Mississippi Valley State | 0 | 0 | 2 | 16 | |
Monmouth | 25 | 22 | 25 | 21 | |
Niagara | 14 | 20 | 8 | 17 | |
Nicholls State | 17 | 36 | 17 | 35 | |
North Carolina A&T | 4 | 38 | 3 | 34 | |
North Carolina State | 42 | 19 | 41 | 19 | |
Prairie View A&M | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23 | |
Princeton | 26 | 21 | 25 | 20 | |
Rice | 42 | 23 | 40 | 23 | |
Southern | 34 | 7 | 18 | 5 | |
Southern Utah | 0 | 0 | 7 | 29 | |
St. Mary's | 14 | 37 | 13 | 38 | |
St. Peter's | 18 | 24 | 12 | 21 | |
Tennessee Tech | 28 | 29 | 27 | 29 | |
Tennessee-Martin | 14 | 30 | 13 | 30 | |
Texas Southern | 0 | 0 | 6 | 17 | |
Texas-Arlington | 23 | 35 | 20 | 35 | |
Troy State | 41 | 13 | 40 | 13 | |
Valparaiso | 18 | 29 | 18 | 28 | |
Wagner | 14 | 24 | 13 | 23 |
In addition to all of that, off-field situations can change the official won-loss record of a team after the fact, and it's hard to know exactly how to handle that. Ideally, a rating system should reflect what actually happened on the field, but the reason that eligibility issues are punished is because they distort what happens on the field. There were two situations in 1996 that involved forfeits. Loyola Marymount subsequently forfeited all but four of their wins for the year. I can't find any record stating why, although it fits the pattern for use of an ineligible player. In those cases, the score records show the original game score. Without more detail, I used the original game scores, so that Loyola Marymount and their opponents are rated as they were on the field. Feel free to mentally adjust or dismiss their rating if you wish.
The other situation is different and a bit more mysterious. Texas-Arlington lists a forfeit weekend against Sam Houston State for the last weekend of the regular season, while SHSU has no games listed for that weekend. Both have the seasons fully listed in old media guides but with no explanation. I'd love to hear the story if anyone knows it, but I've left the games out of the record, since a set of 9-0, 7-0, and 9-0 doesn't really tell us anything useful about the teams involved.
Boyd's World-> ISR's -- 1996 Season -- Score-Gathering Methodology and Resolution | About the author, Boyd Nation |