Swim Ninja

**Submitted by @NVSLStatistics (twitter)**

The 2019 NVSL season starts this week, and what better way to start a few friendly rivalries than making predictions for all 17 divisions? The season outlooks are based solely on results from the 2018 season. We ran 25 different simulations for each meet of the upcoming season. The outcomes of those simulations were then used to predict a team’s final division placement.

Since each team swims five meets a season, this leads to 25 simulations for how they would’ve competed against each other in 2018. These results were extrapolated to predict their 2019 meet result by creating a W-L breakdown and calculating an average score of the 25 simulations. A team was awarded the win for the 2019 meet if they had a winning record in those 25 simulations and an average score that would result in a victory. These results are compared to their division opponents and when put together, make a final predicted division standing.

We acknowledge that last year’s results by no means can 100% accurately predict the results of the upcoming season. There are obvious variables that this method doesn’t account for, such as swimmers aging up and/or moving or switching teams, new coaching staffs, and seasonal momentum to name a few. Conversely, last year’s results do shed some light on which way a team is trending and how they might perform in the upcoming season–more than anything, this allows for some fun conversation!

Think you can pick better than the Ninjas – go to our forum here, and tell us who is going to win each division and why!