Baseball 1A & 2A Playoff Bracketology (If bracket was released today)
- Thread starter tarheelg
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East Surry did pick up another quality win over N.Stokes, but it still doesn’t make sense how a 2 loss team can be ranked ahead of an undefeated team (who also happen to be the returning state runners up)! I bet when the adjusted rankings come out from the state, this will be corrected.
The loss to Bishop should have been enough to keep Murphy ahead of ES regardless of ES winning their conf tourney imo. Maybe the so called "adjusted" rankings will move Murphy back in the #1 slot.
South Granville football was undefeated....and had to go on the road in 3rd Rd to one loss North Davidson, whose junior and senior classes were essentially 4A size
Me too....I teach an AP class
very possible but not guaranteed....one thing we learned from football was the rankings don't necessarily give precedence to undefeated over having a loss or two
I would love to know the magical formula the NCHSAA uses to create their adjusted rankings.
Think they use the "secret sauce" formula of Maxpreps with run differential taken out? What the original formula uses is the mystery to everyone.
The cancellation of the Murphy/Smoky Mountain game looms even larger now. Had Murphy been able to play that game and win, that would have definitely given a tremendous bump to their strength of schedule and there's no way ES would have surpassed them in Maxpreps.
I saw where someone mentioned it in some earlier post i was curious as to what everybody thinks about basketball and volleyball going back to 64 teams but not baseball softball or football. Football i can understand somewhat because of the number of football playing schools and they are subdivided which does level out the playing field, (how the state is classified is kinda messed up in my opinion with taking out non football playing schools but that's another argument for another day).According to max preps and teams with records posted there aren't but about 6 more schools that play volleyball and about 8 that play basketball compared to baseball and softball, Just want to hear some other peoples thoughts.
I think baseball and softball will end up back at 64 teams next year. My guess is that they will see how it goes with Volleyball, then make the adjustment for spring sports at the winter meetings next December. But you never truly know with the NCHSAA.
My guess is that it was North Pitt's win over North Johnston that propelled them past Eastern Randolph in the seeds...one of those times (happens more often than you realize) where having a lower seed can help you...always a case by case basis
I agree but why not just have everything set in place before next year starts. It makes to much sense i guess. Although i do think they made a good change with the playoff at large qualifying process for next year, gets the more deserving teams and the (no offense to them the tar roanoke) type out in sorts like baseball and softball
Yes, if the first and third place teams in a league play a 33-22 game in football....thumbs up....maybe ok in slow pitch softball 20 years ago.....but in BASEBALL?....come on....and then one team was 0-6 two weeks ago, finished on 4 game win streak to get in a tie for third....but they're tied with a team they never played if the records posted online are correct....yet that league is slated to get 3 berths unless somebody opted out of the playoffs
I know its a touchy subject to some but i think that a lot of coaches would be ok with the 48 teams in the playoffs if they took out the charter and charter type schools and gave them their own playoffs. Again not the point i was getting at, i think 64 is a more accurate number if for nothing else the money for the state and teams being able to avoid having a bye. coaches dont seem to like taking that time off.
How does South Stokes get in 1A with a 1-19 record? I know their conference is a 9 team conference but only 3 schools play sb?
South Stokes is in a 6 school conference, that only has 3 schools with softball teams. They realistically finished last in their conference.
Was there for a game in March....no noticeable stench to speak of...very easy to get to...less than two miles off US 64, close to a Sheetz, and for fast food places, stop in Nashville before you get to Rocky Mount
Eastern Randolph & Bertie had the honor of being the only two teams in 1A or 2A that I didn't get right, not counting the conferences where we weren't 100% sure of who would win the tiebreaks for 2nd or 3rd or 4th place....I think my final tweak yesterday had Bertie going to Nash Central and Eastern Randolph going to Midway and those two flipped based on today's adjusted rankings
Well done, I really like when you start it a few weeks out and update every few days so we can watch it evolve. Again, great job!
Man you costing me 20 extra minutes of drive time!!
Thanks for all the prelims you do.
Without that, and Maddox no longer on board, hardly anyone would ever talk baseball.
Right now, google maps says best way from ERHS to NCHS is 1:47....to Midway would be 1:40....you can make up those 7 minutes on US 64 between Raleigh & Nashville when the speed limit is 70
Game is at 7. 2 hour game. Might be in bed by 11:30! Wow.
If ER somehow pulls upset and other side of bracket held then 20 minutes away second round!
If...
I think it’s time the people spoke! The NCHSAA is the biggest joke in the country! It’s rather obvious to me where most of the committee lives! 21-1(only loss to #2 seed in 2A Franklin) and get a 5 seed with a team with 5 losses ranked higher?? Somebody has some explaining to do...
Second the hard work you have done, even though I have no dog in the fight, it has been a pleasant seeing the baseball talk.
Done went that route when Murphy girls were seeded lower than Mitchell in basketball tournament. After talking with Prez Joe Poletti, i dont see anything changing. You can send him an e-mail. He did return my e-mail with a phone call. joe.poletti@carteretk12.org
MHS-88 is correct. The board of directors are the ones making the crazy decisions. Look at what they did involving overtime in soccer. The NCHSAA sent a poll to the soccer coaches association to determine whether they wanted ALL games ending in a tie to have to play overtime. 51% of the coaches said NO but the board of directors mandated it anyway. That's where the changes need to be made.
To pile on this from the baseball side:
In 2A alone West Craven at 18-5 and second place finisher in the Eastern Carolina conference is ranked 2 in final rankings. North Lenoir at 16-5, with two wins over West Craven and a first place finish in same conference is ranked 5th.
A little closer to home for me Randleman 20-5 ended up being ranked 7th. Providence Grove 21-5, including beating Randleman 2 out of 3 times, is 17th.
Confusing ain't it?
Well Kidd since you are piling it on, let me get some things off my chest. That split 1a/2a conference is for the birds. You have 2 good 1a teams in Chatham Central and Chatham Charter, then the rest. NCSSM gets in as the conference first 2a seed with an adjusted ranking of 62. Sixty freaking 2 with overall record of 12-5. they play no non conference games. Next in line is Reidsville with adjusted maxprep ranking of 83. Eighty doggone 3. Really got the best teams in tournament. Then look at PAC-7 with 2 teams in top 16 with Randleman and PG. Really scratching my head.
So...
What I deduce from that is the rankings are what is causing all the uproar...
From a formula know one knows about except Maxpreps.
Conference finish should be the deciding factor in my old opinion. Do well like top 3 or 4 and you are in.
No subjectivity involved.
My first thought was that this has to make Jordan-Matthews wish they'd stayed in the Mid-State Conference....they would probably easily been in the top four....but then again maybe not...they did lose to Chatham Central I believe...and also their maxpreps ranking wouldn't be nearly as high playing those other teams in the Mid-State, never know how they would have done against NCSSM, BY, Carrboro, Reidsville this year
I know it's tough to get a true gauge of that when the adjusted rankings take out margin of victory but I have to believe that's only to a degree....I know many teams take their foot off the gas when they get ahead by 10-15 runs before the 3rd inning, but if you're going to getting a true representation of which teams are better, then you should be rewarded more for beating a team 10-0 when somebody else beat them 6-5...I know that a win is a win in a coach-speak sense, but for a computer generated power ranking to be worth the paper it's printed on, there have to be some parameters besides enrollment size of the school....almost all of the computer rankings out there (Massey, Brian Simmons, Sagarin, whatever formula HighSchoolOT and maxpreps use) make it typically beating a 4A > 3A > 2A > 1A....let's not forget that are some absolute beast baseball programs with small enrollment numbers (sometimes because of 1 or 2 players, sometimes because of a generally good tradition where the talent pipeline just never seems to run dry, sometimes both)...there are some pitiful baseball programs at huge schools....and baseball, maybe unlike any other sport, can be heavily influenced by one guy; one dominant pitcher...you can take a generally bad team, that struggles to find power, struggles to make plays defensively, and one dominant arm can hide those problems if he strikes out 15 batters and only lets them put the ball in play 8 or 10 times a game, and more than half of those are routine fly balls....while that same team, if they can just have a good approach at the plate, put the ball in play, walk some, sac bunt or sac fly when needed, be smart running the bases, might be able to scratch out 2-3 runs and win a pitchers duel...that same team, then, without their college commit pitching because he went the distance a day or 3 earlier, and threw more than 60 or 75 pitches or whatever limit applies, gets beat down 17-2 in five innings when they try to piecemeal a few innings together from their other guys that have any velocity at all, or maybe no velocity one half way decent off speed pitch or nothing but junk....if that teams starts their ace against their best competition but still loses a lot of those games 1-0 or 2-1, and then loses some other games because of their lack of pitching depth, their ranking is not going to be good, because of their record....if they in a sense concede their tougher games and throw the back of the staff against the teams they should lose to on paper, and throw their ace against the middle and bottom of the league, finish at or above .500, they would probably wind up with a better ranking...primarily because they would have a better record....but in addition to record, it seems that non-conference schedule is a great separator of teams within the same conference whose ranking is far apart...West Craven played 11 non conference games, 10 of them against 3A & 4A schools, granted a couple of those were not powerhouses, but 3A/4A none the less, and they did play a 1A in an Easter Tournament, (who happened to be the defending 2A state champions), but that non-conference schedule lifts your maxpreps ranking, especially if you can win a lot of those games....North Lenoir didn't play a necessarily weak non-conference schedule, but most would probably agree not as tough as West Craven's, and also they didn't have as good of a winner percentage as West Craven, hence the ranking with WC ahead of a team it lost to twice...also don't forget that that ECC with those two plus four other highly ranked teams, two of whom were left out of the playoffs by the way, all help each other's strength of schedule when the play each other twice...similar situation with Randleman & Providence Grove....PG did not play a clown schedule, but 1, they didn't play a non-conference schedule as tough as Randleman's and 2, they didn't win as many of those tough games against that tough competition as Randleman....with that said, remember even in the old days before maxpreps ranking mattered, Randleman would always have gotten seeded ahead of Providence Grove because they won the conference outright, with a better conference record....back in the days of predetermined brackets, RHS would have been the 1 from the league, while PG would have been the 2....and conference tournaments used to get the 2, unlike now getting a wild card....by the way I'm not defending everything the league does....I don't know that they've ever had a perfect system, don't know that they ever will, but when it comes down to it, every team just has to try to win their next game....I've seen my team get a raw deal many times....grew up in Gates County and followed the Barons from the early 90s-mid 2000s, then I've worked at South Granville since the mid-2000s, and time after time after time....seems like whoever you are, your team always gets the short end of the stick in some tiebreaker, some bracket situation, and it seems to happen over and over, year in and year out, then for once you get what looks like a good draw, and you lose a game you shouldn't, or somebody gets injured, but whoever's healthy has to adopt the next man (or woman) in approach and battle through, one game at the time
As usual tarheelg you make some very good points all well thought out and logical.
The one I keep getting hung up on, and again I played ball in a different time, is the fact that if a team beats another head to head, be it once or two out of three, then everywhere, except in a world of computer generated strengths of schedule land, that team is considered better.
Sorry ain't changing...
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