What if skiers only competed against their round at collegiate tournaments?

[jgills88]

After I finished watching everything related to NCWSA Nationals, one question came to mind: what if ski teams earned points based off of how well their 1st round skier did against every other team's first rounder? With too much time on my hands, I went through all of the scores on waterskiresults and made a custom scorebook to determine how schools would have placed, if all skiers only earned points by competing against the other skiers in their round of the tournament. The scorebook is attached to this post if you would like to look through it.

How the scorebook works:

• Each round is measured separately from the others
• The winner of each round earns 12 team points, 2nd place earns 11, and so on.
• If there was a scratch, the scratching team earns 0 points, and the next last place team earns points as if they had beaten the scratched skier (starts at 2pts)
• All 5 skiers count towards team scores

The results:

• Slalom Scores:Alabama and ULM tied in slalom, ASU drops to 4th place, Kansas jumps to 8th place (from 11th), Michigan climbs to 10th place (from 12th), Ohio State drops to 11th (from 8th), and Miami comes in 12th (from 10th)
• Trick Scores: Alabama and ULM once again tie for 3rd, Rollins and Florida Southern swap places (ROL now in 5th, FSC in 6th), Clemson and Wisconsin flip (Clemson now in 7th, and Wisconsin in 8th), Miami jumps to 9th place (from 11th), Michigan climbs to 10th place (from 12th), and Kansas drops to 12th place (from 9th)
• Jump Scores: Clemson jumps to 8th place (from 12th), Rollins drops to 9th place (from 8th), Miami and Ohio State trade places (OSU to 10th, Miami to 11th), and Michigan goes to 12th (from 9th)
• Overall Team Scores: No change. Using this method, all schools placed exactly where they did using the traditional collegiate scoring method

ConclusionsI think that using this kind of scorebook could make for some interesting lineup decisions for teams based off of where they think they can earn the most points in a given tournament by strategically placing skiers in rounds they have the best chance of winning, rather than competing against other team's best skiers and potentially earning fewer team points.

I was a little surprised that while team placements in S/T/J moved around quite a bit, there was no change in overall standings at the end

This exercise could be beneficial to determine the most dominant collegiate team ever, if someone wanted to tear through other scorebooks. That determination could be based off of how many rounds a team wins. In this format, a team can potentially score 360 points (6 events, 60pts/event). We could see how close any given team has come to having a "perfect" tournament where all of their skiers won their specific round. This year ULL scored 317/360, while that is a great score, and certainly enough to win the tournament. They still "only" earned 88% of possible points, or a B+ grade going by academic measures. I would not be surprised if there was a previous team who has accomplished 90% or more of possible points in this format.

Alabama's jump team very nearly had a perfect score, they had 114/120, with their men's team coming 1pt shy of a perfect 60

[Kelvin]

There's already enough shenanigans going on with the rotations. What order would teams have to do their rotations. They wait long enough and make enough changes in their line-up the way it is. Now interject a timing to making the rotations and things get out of hand quickly. Its an interesting idea, but as the last guy in line trying to get running orders loaded into the computer for webcast graphics, - NO THANKS.

[Kelvin]

There's already enough shenanigans going on with the rotations. What order would teams have to do their rotations. They wait long enough and make enough changes in their line-up the way it is. Now interject a timing to making the rotations and things get out of hand quickly. Its an interesting idea, but as the last guy in line trying to get running orders loaded into the computer for webcast graphics, - NO THANKS.

[MattP]

Not sure what problem you are trying to fix. Apparently it didn’t change any of the overall results this year.

Many skiers have won national championships skiing in the 1st rotation and teams can’t see who is in the other teams rotations until running orders are posted. Seems like a crap shoot way for teams to put rotations together and hope for the best.

[MattP]

Not sure what problem you are trying to fix. Apparently it didn’t change any of the overall results this year.

Many skiers have won national championships skiing in the 1st rotation and teams can’t see who is in the other teams rotations until running orders are posted. Seems like a crap shoot way for teams to put rotations together and hope for the best.

[jgills88]

@MattP wasn't trying to fix a problem (not that's there's even one to fix). Just got impatient waiting for scorebooks to come out, so I decided to see how scoring might look if points were earned in a different way.

[jgills88]

@MattP wasn't trying to fix a problem (not that's there's even one to fix). Just got impatient waiting for scorebooks to come out, so I decided to see how scoring might look if points were earned in a different way.

[jgills88]

@Kelvin not that this was anything more than a thought experiment, and a way for me to burn a couple of hours, but if for some reason we were going to actually apply this kind of scoring, I imagine that teams would be limited to not adjusting their skiers for any reason after they submit their initial rosters on USAWS to enter the tournament (aside from something like an injury sub)

[jgills88]

@Kelvin not that this was anything more than a thought experiment, and a way for me to burn a couple of hours, but if for some reason we were going to actually apply this kind of scoring, I imagine that teams would be limited to not adjusting their skiers for any reason after they submit their initial rosters on USAWS to enter the tournament (aside from something like an injury sub)