Variables and Power Ratings
This is the fourth installment in our five-part series on power ratings and adjustments. The final step will be tying everything into one.Here, we're going to look at some of the other factors that will influence your power rating predictions, such as home field/home court, injuries, weather and motivational factors.
So far, we've look at:
How to Create Your Own Power Ratings
Updating Power Ratings
Misleading Finals
and now we're ready to put our numbers to use.
Now that we have the ability to make predictions based on our updated power ratings, we have just one more step that is done after we get our power rating predictions and that is to make adjustments based on the factors listed above.
Home Field/Home Court
This is probably the easiest adjustment to make, since it merely involves adding points to the home team. Most people will use three points in football and four in basketball as a general rule, although you can probably come up with better numbers yourself by looking at each team individually.In football, a range of 1.5 points to 7 points is more accurate, especially in college football, where some teams, such as Oregon or Boise State, are notorious for being monsters at home and playing at Autzen Stadium is definitely worth more than three points for the Ducks. They are one of the teams that should receive a 6 to 7 point home field allowance.
In the NFL, a team playing in front of a stadium that is one-third empty is likely to get the 1.5 point minimum allowance, while other teams will receive four points, which is my limit in professional football.
Basketball is treated much the same way, but I'll seldom go below a three-point allowance for being at home, as there are always teams who are close to .500 at home, but only 8-33 on the road, so obviously playing at home helps.
Again, college basketball will have a larger range than professional basketball, as teams receive between three and seven points, while the NBA is typically three to five points.
If you're unsure of which teams should get higher home court advantage adjustments, go ahead and use the general three to four points for all teams.
The road team's travel should also be considered here, especially in the NBA where teams fly to different time zones and play back-to-back games.
Injuries
Again, injuries will factor college sports more than they will pros for the simple reason that the replacement player in the pro ranks is likely to be closer in talent level to the injured player than in college sports.In the pros, an injury to an All-Pro quarterback or All-Star basketball player is worth four points tops and that is just for the Peyton Mannings or Kobe Bryants of the world. Usually the adjustment will be a point or two, if there is one at all.
A starting lineman or receiver may not get an adjustment at all, although if there are cluster injuries, such as two starting linemen or two receivers out, I'll make a two-point adjustment.
In college sports, the loss of a star player could be worth as much as 10 points, especially if the replacement player is a freshman or sophomore and the team is on the road. This is rare, but it does happen.
The one advantage sports bettors have over the sportsbooks is that if we're unsure about a replacement's ability is we can always pass the game and wait and see how they perform.
But typically, a key college player who is out is worth twice as much as a key pro player.
Weather
Obviously this is for football only and is purely subjective, but there are two weather adjustments I'll make. The first is to add several points to a cold weather team hosting a warm weather team in cold weather.The second is adverse weather which will affect both teams and an adjustment of several points can be made in a game playing in a rainstorm, snowstorm or extreme cold. This will involve reducing the predicted advantage of the favored team by several points.
Motivation Factors
Factors such as revenge, let-down games and look ahead games have to be given some consideration when looking at games. As is the case with the factors, these factors play a larger role in college sports than in the pros.Revenge games are simply rematches between two teams. The losing team the last time out would have revenge in its favor, but the two teams have to be closely matched or the losing team has to be the better team for this to have any merit.
If I were to fight Mike Tyson in his prime, I would get my butt kicked. If we were to have a rematch once I got out of the hospital, I would have revenge in my favor, but I would get my butt kicked again. The same holds true in college sports.
A four-point adjustment is typically sufficient in college sports, while a two-point adjustment can be made in the pro ranks.
A letdown game can occur after a big game with a rival or an extremely close game that goes down to the wire. Teams may be a little flat the next time out, especially in basketball where teams play more than once a week.
Again, I'll use the four-point maximum in college and two points in the pros, which happens to be allotment I'll make for look-ahead games. Look-ahead games are simply the opposite in that the team in question has a huge game the following contest and may look past their present opponent a bit.
Examples
Let's use Oklahoma and Iowa State as an example with the Sooners being at home.Say Oklahoma has a power rating of 89 and Oklahoma State has a figure of 71. The first step will involve the advantage for being at home. If we give the Sooners five points for being the home team, our projection goes from Oklahoma +18 to Oklahoma +23, so we now have Oklahoma predicted to win 23 points.
Next, say the Sooners are without a quality player who is worth a two-point adjustment. That will bring our prediction from Oklahoma by 23 points to Oklahoma by 21 points.
