Having actually played against TH I can tell you why they're so good. First, GA Southeast is a lot like GA Southwest. There's a couple of really good teams and a lot of not as good teams. But I think a lot of leagues are like that. This allows TH to run up the score on not as good teams. Second, Atlanta has A LOT of highly talented players I'm talking Size, Speed, and Ability. TH as a club is a lot like Surf in that they have very good coaches and facilities and are a destination club for top youth players in the South. Put it all together and THs ranking makes more sense.People don't understand statistics - and believe that if they see an example they don't like, all of the rest must also be wrong. Come on with the adult population believing they understand math and probabilities better than they actually do.
All of the ratings are continuously optimized to make it most likely that it will successfully predict the outcome of the next game. This measure (predictivity), is exactly what is tracked over time, with any of the parameters for game history timing, affect of scoring deltas, being tweaked to keep that number as high as possible. This is done over thousands and thousands of games. 1 or 2 (or 100) examples we can point to where something unexpected happened isn't "proof" that it isn't working, it's basically doing exactly what it's being asked. For that Galaxy GA vs Kansas GA game, SR predicted that Galaxy would win 82% of the time, only lose 12% of the time, and should win 5-0. Yet when the game was played, it showed a massive difference from the prediction - and Kansas did end up winning. This doesn't make it a "shake my head, SR is full of crap" moment, it makes it a moment where sports isn't entirely predictable, and strange things are expected to happen from time to time.
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TopHat 2010 is a common punching bag on this site, as they are very highly rated, and are in a bracket where they completely and utterly dominate their competition. Remember, ultimately these ratings are intended to predict whether this team will beat that team when they face eachother. And for TopHat, like all teams, they are predicting their game outcomes exactly as expected.
Here's the overview:
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Currently 7th highest rating in the country, playing a schedule where the average team they face is #102 in the country. Here's their recent game history:
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And here's what their bracket looks like. They are utterly dominant, at 11-0, while the 2nd place team is showing 5-1 and over 2.5 goals weaker according to SR.
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Add me to the long list of people who think it would be great if all of the teams saying (or at least believing), they are highly competitive at the national level, would actually get to face each other at the national level. Put me also on the other list of people who seem to understand all of the competing reasons why this doesn't happen.
I think they'd surprise many of the top Socal clubs because they have speed size and power to play direct. But they also have very good coaching which allows them to switch to possession if nessasary. Which is basically what teams like Surf do to opponents. The difference with TH is the players are bigger and faster.