Elizabeth’s undefeated season continues to make its mark in the Big Central Conference, as the Minutemen have now jumped ahead of second-place Phillipsburg and last week’s top team, Piscataway, to take the No. 1 spot in the Big Central Conference Power Rankings for Week Seven.
That knocks Piscataway down to second, even though their SI went up, while Bridgewater-Raritan rose from five to three, and Rahway jumped from nine to four, while the Stateliners – who were idle – dropped to five; all those teams were winners last week, but to varying degrees.
The power rankings are simply based on the state’s Strength Index formula, which helps determine a team’s OSI, and is 60% of the UPR playoff formula. SI values and will change each week as games are played. See the methodology at the bottom of this page.
Rounding out the top ten, Sayreville held at No. 6, Ridge rose from 13 to seven, Old Bridge kept the eight spot, Somerville dropped two places – after losing to the Bombers – into ninth, and Hillside crept up two spots to ten.
Statewide, we again have a new No. 1, as St. Augustine takes the top spot from Donovan Catholic, but the Griffins only drop to No. 2 this week, followed by Glassboro holding at three, and Don Bosco down two spots to four, while Old Tappan edges up one spot to get into the top five.
While no Big Central teams are in the Top 25 statewide again this week, a half-dozen are in the state Top 50:
- Elizabeth took Piscataway’s spot at 30, rising 14 spots this week.
- Piscataway fell from 30 to 32.
- Bridgewater-Raritan skyrocketed from 48 to 34.
- Rahway climbed from 61 to 43.
- Phillipsburg (idle) fell from 33 to 45.
- Sayreville climbed from 51 to 47.
- New Providence fell out of the Top 50 after getting beaten at home by Perth Amboy, falling to 76.
Strength Index Methodology: Team A and Team B are compared to find the difference between their rankings, which provides the Expected Result. The margin of the final score is figured in positive or negative terms compared to the Expected Result. The difference is divided by five, and the teams increase or decrease by the resulting number.
Example #1: Team A has an SI value of 80, while Team B has an SI value of 60. The Expected Result is +20 for Team A. When the game is played, Team A wins by 30. That is 10 points higher than the expected result. Than number is divided by 5, meaning Team A increases by 2 (Team A now has an SI of 82) while Team B decreases by 2 (Team B now has an SI of 58).
Example #2: In the same scenario, Team A defeats Team B by 20. That is the same as the Expected Result, no there is no change. Team A remains with an SI value of 80, while Team B retains its 60 SI value.
Example #2: Team A defeats Team B by 10. That is 10 points fewer than the expected result. Divide by 5 to get 2, but in this case, Team A drops by 2 points to 78 (because Team A “underperformed”) while Team B increases by 2 points to 62.
Out-of-State Opponent SI: Strength Index ratings for non-New Jersey teams are calculated by finding their MaxPreps ranking, then averaging the SI ratings of the next New Jersey team above and below them in the MaxPreps rankings.
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