The formula

How Outlier Ratings work

Every D-II player with at least 5 games and 100 minutes gets one number from 45 to 99. It comes only from official box scores. Nobody votes, and there's no scouting opinion.

1. Production

We start with Game Score, a standard box-score formula. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks count for you. Missed shots, turnovers, and fouls count against you. Offensive rebounds count more than defensive ones, since they're harder to get.

2. Efficiency and impact

We look at production two ways:

• Efficiency: what you produce per 40 minutes. Players with few minutes are pulled toward average until they've shown it over a real sample.
• Impact: what you produce per game. This credits the players coaches trust with big minutes.

The rating is 60% impact and 40% efficiency, so the top of the list belongs to players who are both productive and on the floor.

3. Compared at your position

Guards are measured against guards, and forwards and centers against forwards and centers. Big men naturally pile up rebounds and blocks, so comparing everyone together would bury playmakers. Wings listed at two positions (G/F) are measured against both groups, and the two results are averaged.

4. Strength of schedule

Every D-II team gets a strength rating from its game results: its average scoring margin, adjusted for who it played. Players whose teams faced tougher schedules get a small boost, and players with easier schedules a small penalty.

5. The scale

Ratings follow a curve centered on 70. About 1 in 20 players reaches 85. Only a handful reach 95. A 90 means you were one of the best players in the division. Above 92 the curve bends, so each extra point is harder to earn than the last. A 99 is a once-a-season rating, and most seasons only one or two players get there.

Tiers

Card color follows the rating: Diamond for 90 and up, Gold for 80–89, Silver for 70–79, and Bronze under 70. Starting ratings get a plain gray card until games are played.

Attributes

Every card with a rated season also shows six attribute ratings on the same 45–99 scale. Unlike the overall rating, attributes compare every player with every other player, regardless of position. That means a center's passing is measured against guards too.

SCO · Scoring

Points per 40 minutes.

SHO · Shooting

Mostly true shooting percentage (twos, threes and free throws together), plus made threes per 40 minutes for range. Players with few shots are pulled toward average.

PLY · Playmaking

Assists per 40 minutes, minus a little for turnovers.

REB · Rebounding

Rebounds per 40 minutes, with offensive boards counting a bit more.

DEF · Defense

Steals and blocks per 40 minutes, minus a little for fouls. The box score can't see most defense, so treat this one as a rough guide.

IMP · Impact

Total production per game, the same measure the overall rating uses.

Per-40 numbers are pulled toward the division average for players with few minutes, so one hot stretch off the bench doesn't produce a 99.

During the season

Preseason ratings come from last season. Once games start, this season's numbers blend in and take over as games pile up. Each game you play this season counts for 5% of your rating: after 10 games it's half last season, half this one, and from game 20 on it's all this season.

Every Monday and Friday

Ratings update twice a week: Monday mornings, after the weekend's games, and Friday mornings, after the Wednesday and Thursday games. The arrow next to a rating shows how much it moved since the last update. Anyone up 3 or more in one update gets an In form card. Box scores and stats on the site still update after every night of games. Team of the Week is picked once a week, on Mondays.

Transfers from other levels

Players who came to D-II from Division I, Division III, NAIA or junior college are rated from last season at their old school, when we can find those stats. Their production is scaled by how strong that level is, then measured against D-II players the same way as everyone else:

D-I power conference

× 1.75 (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, Big East)

D-I high-major

× 1.55 (A-10, American, Mountain West, WCC, Missouri Valley)

Other D-I

× 1.40

NAIA

× 0.83

Junior college

× 0.78 for NJCAA Division I, × 0.72 for Division II and other junior colleges, × 0.65 for Division III

D-III

× 0.75

A 10-point scorer in the Big Ten counts like an 18-point scorer in D-II; 15 points in D-III counts like 11. The D-I and NAIA numbers come from players who made the same move a year earlier: we compared their last season at the old level with how they actually played in D-II. Because no conversion between levels is exact, the result is pulled 15% back toward the 62 transfer starting rating, and this season's D-II games take over the same way as for everyone else.

Starting ratings

Every player gets a rating, even before his first D-II game. Players without a rated D-II season, or whose stats from another level we couldn't find, start at a set number: 58 for freshmen and for returning players who barely played, 62 for transfers from junior college, NAIA, or Division I. Starting ratings show in gray. Once the season starts, your own games take over fast: they count for half your rating after 3 games.

Think your rating's wrong?

Ratings only know what the box score knows. They don't see defense that doesn't show up as steals or blocks, or the screens that free up a shooter. If you think something's off, email contact.outliercollege@gmail.com. We read everything.