How the ratings work
The Win Value Rating (WVR) asks one question of every team: given who you played, how well did you do? It uses only match results. Nobody adjusts any team by hand.
What counts
- A win is a win. A 3–0 win and a 3–2 win count the same.
- Losses earn a little credit for sets won, compared with how many sets a loser usually takes in a matchup that close. A 2–3 loss to a much stronger team earns credit; a close loss to an equal team earns about none, because close matches between equal teams are normal.
- Best-of-3 tournament matches count two thirds as much as best-of-5 matches, so one Saturday tournament can't outweigh a season.
- A 1–1 pool split counts as half a win.
- Matches against JV teams count in a team's record but not in its rating.
- Postseason matches don't count. District, region and state tournament results appear on team pages but never change a rating. Each division's ratings and records are final once its regular season ends: Division B after Oct 27, AA after Nov 3 and A after Nov 5 in 2026.
How opponents matter
Each team's rating is the value at which its expected results, against the teams it actually played, add up to what it earned. Beating a strong team moves the rating more than beating a weak one, because the win was less expected. All ratings are worked out together, so every result in the state affects every team a little.
Teams with only a few results are pulled slightly toward their division's average until more results come in.
What the numbers mean
Ratings are on the same scale as Minnesota's QRF: Minnesota teams are held at their published values, and North Dakota teams that play them are rated against those values. South Dakota teams are rated from their full schedules. The gap between two ratings gives each team's chance of winning:
| Higher rating by | Its chance of winning |
|---|---|
| 0% | 50% |
| 5% | 58% |
| 10% | 66% |
| 20% | 77% |
| 30% | 85% |
| 50% | 94% |
How well it predicts
Rated on results through October 5 and asked to predict the 492 matches played after, the WVR picked the winner 81% of the time.
Changes
Any change to the formula is published here with its reason and test results, and applied to every team at once. Changes are made between seasons unless a correction is needed during one.
- October 25, 2026, version 1.1. Losses are compared with the sets a loser usually takes in an equally close matchup, and teams with few results are pulled less toward their division's average. Version 1 gave Division AA, whose evenly matched teams split many sets, a small bump as a group.