Every year there's debate surrounding the quality of NCAA conferences. Coaches themselves will discuss this at length, players, for the most part want to play at the highest level possible, and the pro teams looking to find the next NCAA star need to consider the strength of opposition when evaluating talent.
Luckily here at Win Factory we have an analytics model for strength of schedule, meaning our pro clients can use this information when considering players in the draft, and our college programs can use it when evaluating talent in the Transfer Portal. More on that later.
We took the time to look at every NCAA D1 program and rank the conferences according to average quality. With some interesting insights.
Unsurprisingly, the ACC ranks as the best conference in the nation. Boasting a number of powerhouse programs, you'll not find a team below 72 in the RPI (Louisville) which is higher than the average of all but 3 conferences. Essentially - there's just no easy games in the ACC, so it's not surprising this is where the pro's go looking for players capable of contributing at a higher level.
Next up is the Big10 lead by #1 ranked Ohio state. At the other end the ASUN has the unwelcome label of the easiest conference in the country, with their best team being Central Arkansas at #132.
The Big South presents an interesting challenge. With High Point and Gardner-Webb ranking a very respectable #40 & #51, you won't find another team until UNC Asheville at #146, so you might want to think twice before you go chasing someone racking up the goals in a division ranked 18th best in the USA.
Take Gardner-Webb's Lucas Mauro for example - how do you rate a player who's absolutely crushed it in the NCAA, but against a strength of opponent who only ranks 21/100 accorging to our model (the team with the hardest schedule ranks 100).
Using our player profile page we can see Mauro dribbles a ton and rarely loses the ball. He also ranks #1 in the conference for Expected Assists and has potentially a great goal-scoring contribution too.
Compare this for example to a player in the ACC like Clemson's Alex Meinhard.
Meinhard's profile is pretty interesting on paper, but doesn't have the 'jump off the page' appeal like Mauro. Check out the team strength and fixture difficulty scores though. Clemson rank as a 93/100 in our NCAA strength model and has played significantly more difficult games.
Notice also the small numbers next to these scores. we've selected Gardner-Webb as 'our team' in the comparison, so you can easily see how similar their playing style is, how strong the team is and how much harder or weaker their schedule is to ours. There's also a handy player similarity chart showing who in your own competition they most play like!
Our current NCAA clients absolutely love this feature, saving them hours of research when navigating the transfer portal.
Here at Win Factory, for now, we're staying away from predictive type scores like 'player x will be Y good in your division'. Many people have tried this modelling, and even the best teams in the world, with an army of data scientists don't bat anywhere near 100 in the transfer market.
If you want to find out more about what Win Factory is doing in the NCAA or how we benefit pro teams around the world, fill out the form on the website or schedule a call with us!
Win Factory Team