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At a glance: The ratings for conference play, as could be expected, narrowed slightly this week, and will likely continue to do so as the regular season draws to a close. Clarkson and Cornell remain the top two, Quinnipiac still holds third after the week off, Harvard moves up ahead of Yale (mostly on the strength of the much expected blowout of SLU), and Brown moves nearer to the middle with a road sweep of the Capital Region (yeah, I didn’t pick that to happen, and neither did you.)

Conference Ratings: 

Remember that the ratings are indexed to an average of 100, so a team’s rating can change from week to week even if they don’t play, because the average will change as long as teams are playing league games…

The standard deviation for the ratings is approximately 9.55. That means that Clarkson is almost two standard deviations better than an average team and SLU is almost two standard deviations worse than an average team. Of course, SLU did beat Clarkson this year for their only league win, so the numbers are only indicative of what may happen and not fully predictive. But basically, 11th-rated RPI is still a significantly better team than 12th-rated SLU.

Last Week’s Picks:

I only had two winners on Friday (Dartmouth and Cornell). Saturday, on a slate which I thought would be easier to pick, I had three of five (Clarkson, Harvard, Yale). I picked RPI in the rescheduled Mayor’s Cup game, which ended in a 0-0 tie.

This Week’s Picks:

Friday, Feb. 1 (betting lines from 5dimes.eu)

It’s hard to be favored as much as Princeton is (on that line, you have to bet $430 to win $100 on a Tigers’ victory), but St. Lawrence is really that bad.

Saturday, Feb. 2

Monday, Feb. 4

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Email me if you have questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, etc.