How well all six models matched the 1997-98 final coaches' poll.

Table explanation: The Spearman Correlation Coefficients (SCC) below relate to how well the top 15, 25 and 35 teams, in the final coaches' poll, match with the predictions for the models listed. The '0,1,2' column contains how many top 35 team rankings were only off by 0, 1, or 2 places, and this is followed by the average deviation between the actual ranking and the prediction. ("X" in the large table at the bottom represents the number of wins in the NIT tournament that a team earned.)

SCC15 SCC25 SCC35 0,1,2 Average
ZP2 0.96071 0.96538 0.93053 13,3,4 2.4666
PR2 0.96786 0.97000 0.93165 10,7,4 2.4666
50T 0.96786 0.97500 0.95270 10,11,2 2.0952
LN2 0.96974 0.97385 0.91601 14,7,5 2.1524
 ZPF 0.92143 0.95154 0.91466 12,10,3 2.1905
MCB 0.83750 0.72615 0.78128 9,3,6 3.1490
OCC 0.96964 0.97173 0.90812 11,7,5 2.4000

Commentary: The first four models in the table above (and OCC) had very high SCC-15 values (this being the third best such value for OCC), and ZPF joined those five in the 'strong SCC-25 value category' as well! (The 50T model had the highest SCC-35 value this year - where all models, except the MCB model, performed quite well.) The LN2  model predicted 26 teams' ranks that were only off by 2 or fewer ranking positions; ZPF had one fewer. 50T had the smallest average rank difference, with LN2 and ZPF right behind it; ZP2 and PR2 were (unusually) appreciably larger than all three of the aforementioned models (with 'earned' those relatively low averages). LN2 had 14 perfect rank matches, 13 for ZP2, and 12 for ZPF - all quite impressive (on the whole). NIT Champion Minnesota was ranked #29 in the final poll, and the 50T and ZPF models had them as #28, and OCC predicted them to be #31; however, the other models had them 6, 8, 8 and 19 positions lower in the predictive ranking.

TeamName Poll Wins ZP2 PR2 50T LN2 ZPF MCB OCC
Kentucky 1 6 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Utah 2 5 2 2 2 2 2 4 3
NorthCarolina 3 4 3 3 3 3 3 2 2
Stanford 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 6 6
Duke 5 3 5 5 5 5 5 3 4
Arizona 6 3 6 6 6 6 6 5 5
Connecticut 7 3 7 7 7 7 7 7 7
Kansas 8 1 8 9 9 9 8 8 8
Purdue 9 2 9 8 8 8 9 9 9
MichiganSt 10 2 10 11 11 10 11 10 10
RhodeIsland 11 3 11 10 10 11 16 11 12
UCLA 12 2 14 14 14 15 15 18 14
Syracuse 13 2 17 16 16 14 14 19 13
Cincinnati 14 1 13 13 13 13 12 12 16
Maryland 15 2 16 15 15 17 17 14 15
Princeton 16 1 12 12 12 12 10 16 11
Michigan 17 1 15 17 17 16 13 17 17
WestVirginia 18 2 18 18 18 18 22 13 18
SouthCarolina 19 0 23 23 22 21 18 32 22
Mississippi 20 0 22 22 21 24 21 25 23
NewMexico 21 1 20 20 20 20 20 21 20
Arkansas 22 1 19 19 19 19 19 20 19
Valparaiso 23 2 26 25 26 23 24 40 25
Washington 24 2 21 21 23 22 23 27 24
TCU 25 0 25 26 24 25 25 15 26
Illinois 26 1 24 24 25 26 26 24 21
Xavier 27 0 34 36 32 27 27 23 30
Charlotte 28 1 31 31 33 29 30 31 28
Minnesota 29 "5" 37 35 28 37 28 48 31
OklahomaSt 30 1 27 27 27 28 29 22 27
Clemson 31 0 40 40 40 47 47 41 50
IllinoisSt 32 1 29 29 30 30 31 28 29
StJohn's 33 0 44 44 44 46 46 44 41
Indiana 34T 1 30 30 31 34 35 29 42
Massachusetts 34T 0 39 39 39 41 42 46 36
Detroit 34T 1 28 28 29 31 32 26 45
GWashington 37 0 42 42 42 40 41 43 35
NArizona 38 0 65 65 60 45 45 57 40
FloridaSt 39T 1 33 33 35 36 37 37 43
Oklahoma 39T 0 50 49 48 39 40 55 34
UtahSt 39T 0 54 53 52 49 49 51 53
Iona 39T 0 46 46 46 48 48 35 52
PennSt 43T "4" 47 47 49 43 39 56 37
Temple 43T 0 38 38 38 38 38 39 33
Georgia 45 "3" 49 50 58 61 68 54 48
MiamiFL 46T 0 48 48 47 55 55 50 81
MurraySt 46T 0 41 41 41 42 43 33 38