Sports Rankings REU Final Report 2012: An Analysis of Pairwise-Comparison Based Sports Ranking Methods and a Novel Agent-Based Markovian Basketball Simulation

There are numerous methods to rank sports teams. Each of these methods incorporate different components to determine a ranking system. For example, the Rating Percentage Index (RPI) method considers the weighted average of a team’s winning percentage and its opponents winning percentage [16]. The Elo method assigns each team a rating and when two teams play each other, the rankings change depending on the rating of their opponent and the outcome of the match [10]. A Random Walker method casts a vote for a team to be the winner and the ordering of the number of votes deduces a ranking system [4]. A Hodge Rank determines the ranking of teams by minimizing the error of wins and losses [14][12]. The Bradley-Terry model uses a probabilistic approach to deduce a team ranking[2]. These various ranking methods are generally consistent with differentiating the best teams from the worst teams, but are less consistent when ranking teams whose rankings are closer together.