So this year the boys regular season breaks down nicely into 3 1-month sections. Dec 7 (defacto start of season) - Today (Jan 7), Jan 8 - Feb 7 and Feb 8 to Mar 7 which is the defacto end of the regular season. How nice then that the 1st boys QRFs came out today as well (thanks to MN Scores, hopefully they'll add an RPI sometime down the road). Let's evaluate the metro sections based on the average QRF rank of each team, all teams are included in the analysis. Of course with some of the A teams having only a game or 2 in the MN Scores system, that can skew these numbers in a negative direction.
4A: Average QRF rank, 99.18 worst in 1A and its not close, best QRF average 3A 72.52. Next closest to 4A was 5A at 92.63. Moral of the story, the section still is dreadful and is showing me that it is indeed the worst in the state. This includes CHOF at #6 and above Maranatha (#8) which I can't see staying that high as the season goes on. Don't get me wrong, they have a nice team, but #6 overall seems high to me based on what I've seen of them. MN Transitions at 53 and St. Agnes at 63 with their Tri-Metro schedule starting will both probably move up dramatically.
4AA: Average QRF rank, 65.59 4th in 2A. Best QRF average 1AA 54.94, worst 3AA at 76.75. I thought it would be higher with heavyweights like Concordia, St. Bernard's and Holy Family.
Class AAA: Best is 6AAA at 25.25 and that's with DeLaSalle being 0-6. Absolutely amazing. Worst by far is 7AAA at 44.88. 3AAA was 2nd (28.13), 4AAA was 6th and 1AAA was 7th at 34 showing why STA should be disappointed if they don't make state (which was the thought all along that they had a cakewalk). 5AAA only finishes 4th despite having Princeton and STMA. To think what DLS, BSM and Washburn have on their road to state compared to what STA will have. That's the luck you have sometimes.
Class AAAA: No surprise that 6AAAA is the strongest at 26.63 with Hopkins and Minnetonka, but nice showings by Wayzata and Armstrong put the section in 1st and they have no team under 500 when every other AAAA section has a bad team at the bottom. 1AAAA is the weakest at 43 with only Rochester Mayo showing a high number. 2AAAA finishes 4th at 29.5, 3AAAA surprisingly weak at 6th (34.38). 4AAAA tough as expected finishing 2nd at 27.5. 4 teams from there in the top 12. 5AAAA finishes 3rd at 29.13 with their 3 strong teams and a surprising high score from Park Center. 7AAAA finishes 7th at 36.5 and shows that the section is wide open. I think this is especially true since I was not impressed with Forest Lake when I saw them on opening day. Duluth East at 3-7 giving up 77.2 pts a night isn't getting it done. That 77.2 is 3rd worst in AAAA (and 4th worst across AA, AAA and AAAA) with only Richfield (let's just say this fan is not surprised by that) and Chaska being worse in AAAA. At that rate Dyami Starks will have to score 50 a night to keep them in games. I might have to jump on the Cambridge-Isanti bandwagon. For completeness, section 8 finishes 5th at 33.38 with 3 respectable but not great teams at the top in Moorhead, St. Cloud Tech and Elk River.
That's how the numbers are today, lots to change in the last 2 months. I'll try to do this analysis again after month 2 and see what has changed.
"4A: Average QRF rank, 99.18 worst in 1A and its not close, best QRF average 3A 72.52. Next closest to 4A was 5A at 92.63. Moral of the story, the section still is dreadful and is showing me that it is indeed the worst in the state. This includes CHOF at #6 and above Maranatha (#8) which I can't see staying that high as the season goes on. Don't get me wrong, they have a nice team, but #6 overall seems high to me based on what I've seen of them. MN Transitions at 53 and St. Agnes at 63 with their Tri-Metro schedule starting will both probably move up dramatically."
ReplyDeleteThe results are coming in daily and
it's time to admit you were wrong,
"dreadfully", about Section 4A. Maranatha and CHOF are still high
up in the top 10. Even your friend
and fellow blogger, Andre, just posted on Preps pointing out how strong the Section is. He feels it is stronger than last year, when St Bernard's was in the section. (Actually, he is wrong
on this point, Section 4 had 3
of the top ten and 5 of the top
18 spots last year).
For the record, the QRF published
today shows that Section 4 ranks
second to Section 3 among the top
9, top 10, top 11, top 12, top 13,
top 14, top 15 and top 16 teams.
Among the top 8 teams, Section 4
ranks 3rd, with Section 8 narrowly
ahead of Section 4 for 2nd place.
Run the numbers yourself. Not only
is Section 4 strong, they are TRENDING stronger than any other section and will likely end up with
2-3 teams in the top 10 and 6-8 teams in the top 30. I've been associated long enough with the Section to see what's coming, believe it.
How did 4A rank when you took all 20+ teams in the section into account, including Great River who is listed as 2A but is actually 1A?
ReplyDeleteThose are what the numbers said at that time, I'm sure you'll note that I was right when I said Transitions and St. Agnes would move up (+25 and + 23 respectively). So I'm not all at surprised that the number today is better. You also didn't note that I said the 1A numbers are potentially skewed because of lack of games. CHOF I assume will stay up there by the time I do the 2 month checkup and they deserve ample credit for that.
I'm sure you'll look forward to reading what I have to say about CHOF (and BC) after I see them tomorrow night and to Feb 7th when I post the 2 month QRF checkup and do the analysis then and I won't be afraid to view the numbers then and possibly agree with you. Its easy to criticize the numbers when you don't look at them in the context which they were written by adding 3 weeks of data to them.
You also make the same old argument about the top 8, top 9, top 10 etc etc etc, which isn't relevant to the discussion and we've been through this. This is about the entire section top to bottom which I've said all along and you've even agreed with the point that the very bottom of the section is so bad that it really drags the entire section down. If you want to write up an analysis of the top 8 of all the sections, send it and I'll post it with you getting the credit or create another one of your blog entries on MN-Scores. Its complete lunacy to tell me my analysis of the data is wrong when you refuse to even analyze all the same data. You're comparing apples and oranges and you're smart enough to know better.
As to the teams themselves. If MCA is as good as they're suppossed to be, then they shouldn't be squeaking out road wins at NLA and SWC in league play. I've documented that I'm not a MTS fan, NLA is a disappointment, same with Heritage. West Lutheran doesn't have a quality win yet (we'll see how they do when they go to CHOF). CHOF I'll see again tomorrow. SW Christian is what people expected and PACT has a nice win over Heritage but nothing else, though I do like their team. It'll be interesting to see how they do Friday at MTS.
If they do get the number of teams as high as you say, congrats to the section and I'll be more than happy to say I'm wrong when the final numbers go up.
As to Andre, he is a friend and he is entitled to his opinion and I'm entitled to respectfully disagree. His opinion is from more current information than what I posted. My opinion stands as of January 7th when it was posted. Come Feb 7th when I do the month 2 QRF, I'll re-analyze.
"Its complete lunacy to tell me my analysis of the data is wrong when you refuse to even analyze all the same data. You're comparing apples and oranges and you're smart enough to know better."
ReplyDeleteThe definition of insanity is continuing to trust the same set of faulty data and not consider other possible ways of analyzing the numbers. I think a measure of the top 8, top 9, top 10, top 11, top 12, top 13, top 14, top 15 and top 16 are a pretty fair analysis that dismisses your statement-stated as fact- that Section 4 is "indeed the worst in the state"
and "still dreadful". Being #2 in
every comparison except one is pretty credible refutation.
Using your "apple" analogy, it's like saying the whole bushel of beautiful, prize-winning apples is the "worst in the state" because there are a few bad ones at the bottom of the barrel.
If you assume that all 8 sections has a top 16 set of teams, that gives a total of 128 teams that are
above "bottom of the barrel". Now
let's look at the "rotten apples"
in each section (i.e. teams ranked below QRF # 128):
Section 3- 1 team
Section 6- 2 teams
Section 4- 5 teams
Section 1- 6 teams
Section 2- 6 teams
Section 5- 7 teams
Section 8- 7 teams
Section 7- 9 teams
Using this comparison, Section 4 again is far from the worst. And, they actually have 18 teams in the top 126. Moreover, there are four schools that are not participating in section play, either voluntarily or because they don't meet the prerequisite requirements to be included, they are:
Rivers Christian
Community of Peace
Vessey Leadership Academy
Ag & Food Sciences Academy
Great River is also unlikely to qualify for sectional play in A or AA.
Running the numbers out to the 19 teams that are likely to be playing in post-season section play shows the same pattern.
Section 3 is #1 for top 17, top 18 and top 19.
Section 2 is #2 for top 17, top 18 and top 19.
Section 8 is #3 for top 17.
Section 6 is #3 for top 18 and top 19.
A reasonable person can conclude that Section 3 is clearly the best section in the state and Section 2 can not possibly be fairly considered as the worst in the state.
"Section 3 is #1 for top 17, top 18 and top 19.
ReplyDeleteSection 4 is #2 for top 17, top 18 and top 19.
Section 8 is #3 for top 17.
My last post should have been referring to Section 4 being
#2 in the comparisons, not
Section 2. That's what I get
for trying to post at 1:50 AM!
Sorry for the confusion! Here's
the corrected version of the last
two paragraphs:
Section 6 is #3 for top 18 and top 19.
A reasonable person can conclude that Section 3 is clearly the best section in the state and Section 4 can not possibly be fairly considered as the worst in the state."
Enjoy the blog!
Here's the correction to the
ReplyDeletecorrection:
My last post should have been referring to Section 4 being
#2 in the comparisons, not
Section 2. That's what I get
for trying to post at 1:50 AM!
Sorry for the confusion! Here's
the corrected version of the last
two paragraphs:
"Section 3 is #1 for top 17, top 18 and top 19.
Section 4 is #2 for top 17, top 18 and top 19.
Section 8 is #3 for top 17.
Section 6 is #3 for top 18 and top 19.
A reasonable person can conclude that Section 3 is clearly the best section in the state and Section 4 can not possibly be fairly considered as the worst in the state."
Enjoy the blog!