HELENA, Mont. - Carroll College Men's Basketball has teamed with internationally-acclaimed analytics guru, Jeff Sagarin, to bring an independent men's basketball rating of NAIA teams. The first-ever proprietary, robust national ratings system for the 230-team associtation.
The Sagarin Ratings have been used by the NCAA in selecting its March Madness teams since 1984 and were factored into the BCS Championship Ratings. They have also been a featured component of the USA Today Sports Section since 1985.
"For NAIA coaches, fans, and student-athletes to now have the MIT-trained Sagarin and his proprietary and well-respected methods put to use to rate NAIA teams is downright buckets," Carroll's men's basketball coach Carson Cunningham, said. "It means that a new and important reference point is available to all NAIA coaches, raters, fans, and student-athletes as they try to navigate what can often seem like a rather murky effort: ranking the over 230 NAIA men's basketball teams scattered across this great country. The NAIA Sagarin rankings should go a long way in taking the guesswork out of such a daunting proposition."
The Sagarin rankings for both NAIA D-I and NAIA D-II will be released every Tuesday, beginning on Nov. 24, on CarrollAthletics.com and be available to the public.
"It's particularly exciting to have this rating because Jeff Sagarin's work has been industry-leading for so many decades," Cunningham added. "When I coached high school ball in Indiana, coaches like me, as well as the players felt tremendous gratitude to Jeff, an Indiana resident, for using his method to rate all Indiana high school basketball teams. After reaching out to him to ask if he could somehow do the same for the NAIA, thereby giving the student-athletes, in particular, a clearer picture of where their team stands in relation to others, I was thrilled he said yes."
In addition to being perhaps the sports industry's best-known rater, Sagarin, along with friend and former MIT classmate, Wayne L. Winston (professor of Decision Sciences at Indiana University), advised the Dallas Mavericks using a statistics-based system called Winval from 2000-2011 and continue to work on projects for the Mavs as needed.
To learn more about Sagarin's computer models, visit his website, Sagarin.com.