Last week Moody flexed its muscles and defeated Northland. The computer had Northland as a favorite to win that game, and therefore it was wrong in its prediction. We now move to this week’s game of the week; #1 Manhattan Christian College vs. #2 Northland International University. This will be the big men’s soccer match up.
Here are a few thoughts on the teams, before we get to the actual prediction:
#1 Manhattan Christian College – The computer like’s MCC, but I am not sold on them. They don’t have a lot of results against quality teams yet. This game will be the first BIG game against DII opponents this year. A bad loss could cause this team to drop significantly.
#2 Northland International University – NIU lost to Moody, but still didn’t drop. I have Moody fans emailing me asking, “Wha’ happ’n?” The computer believes that Northland is still a better team despite losing to Moody. I can explain it like this: The purpose of these rankings is not to tell you how good a team is today, the rankings are trying to be predictive of how good the team will be at the end of the season.
Notes on Rankings: Unlike Longo, these rankings do not take into account wins and losses. These rankings are built on goals scored, goals against, and shots on goal. This is how they are predictive. Last year, Grace Bible College lost to Kuyper College in men’s basketball. The computer still ranked Grace Bible #1 even though Kuyper beat Grace Bible TWICE! I took a lot of heat for that, but as the season progressed, we discovered that Grace Bible was the better team, and the computer was vindicated. I think we need to be patient and read these rankings as they are meant to be read: Predictive.
Game of the Week:
| Week 5 | Score | Win Exp | Excitement Rating |
| Manhattan Christian College | 2 | 56.24% | 13.43 |
| Northland International University | 1 | 43.76% | 13.43 |
| 26.86 |
Manhattan seems to be the favorite by a goal, but the win expectancy is not as high as you might think it should be. What does that tell us? Well, MCC’s offense has been scoring a lot of goals, but the question is can they keep NIU out of the goal… that is the million dollar question. I believe that the computer is wrong on this one, and I would expect NIU to win, but crazier things have happened.
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UPDATED SCORE LINE:
| Week 5 | Score | Win Exp | Excitement Rating |
| Manhattan Christian College | 0 | 22.40% | 13.13 |
| Northland International University | 3 | 77.60% | 13.13 |
| 26.25 |
Manhattan’s loss to Providence is going to cause some problems for MCC in the rankings going forward.
Manhattan is not good… did you see their ozark score?
It seems that it has just been affirmed by them losing to Providence earlier today.
Northland looked good today. 5-1 over Providence. Providence beat Manhattan 3-1, with some extra fireworks at the end…..
What do you mean by fireworks?
Manhattans goal keeper and striker got into a fight and a brawl started within their team.