2A Districts---Early Picks

[maxstabs13]

D1-
Western Christian is my current pick

D2-
North Union... Watch out for Sioux Central, ELC, and Alta/Aurelia

D3-
FDSE

D4-
Saint Ansgar... Osage and Forest City could pull off an upset

D5-
Waterloo Columbus... Watch Out for NF, SF, MFL, and maybe SW

D6-
Beckman... Maybe Maq Valley or Jesup for an upset

D7-
Regina... Maybe NEGL for an upset

D8-
Wilton... West Branch could pull off an upset

D9-
Louisa Muscatine? Just guessing... The district is bad. Maybe Central Lee

D10-
Davis County... Possible upsets are Mid Prairie, Eddysville Blakesburg, and Van Buren

D11-
PCM Monroe... Possible I35

D12-
Ogden... Possibly Gilbert

D13-
Hudson... Possible upsets from East Marshall, BCLUW, or AP

D14-
North Polk... Possible upset from West Marshall or Roland Story

D15-
Missouri Valley... Clarinda... Underwood... Tri-Center... This district is also not really good and a toss up

D16-
Carroll Kuemper... Possibly IKM Manning, Ridge View, East Sac

 

[PNation]

Why does probably the best team in the state (Davis County) have probably the hardest district in the state, and the sister district is one of the easiest.

 

[maxstabs13]

I would say arguably the 2 best teams in the state are in the 2 toughest districts...

Carroll Kuemper and Davis County are in pretty stacked districts, but if they escape the district play they get the weakest 2 districts at substate.

The 4 toughest districts in no particular order:
D2
D5
D10
D16

The 4 weakest:
D15
D12
D9
D8 or D4

 

[Rocket98]

D1 is very weak as well. BHRV and Western might be the best, but both have been very inconsistent all year.

 

[dirt33]

D10, in addition to DC and E-B, don't sleep on Albia. They are really the only team all year to have have hit Martsching and Matthews from DC at all. I can't imagine there is a team in the state with a bigger discrepancy between their W-L record and their actual ability than Albia. They are 5-18 right now with 6 losses by 1 run and 5 losses by 2 runs. Included in that group of close defeats are losses to DC, Centerville, Chariton, and Grinnell.



Albia could pull off a real shocker IF they had one of those days where the bounces went their way and a team like DC happened to have an off day.
This post was edited on 6/20 4:33 PM by dirt33

 

[maxstabs13]

Originally posted by dirt33:


D10, in addition to DC and E-B, don't sleep on Albia. They are really the only team all year to have have hit Martsching and Matthews from DC at all. I can't imagine there is a team in the state with a bigger discrepancy between their W-L record and their actual ability than Albia. They are 5-18 right now with 6 losses by 1 run and 5 losses by 2 runs. Included in that group of close defeats are losses to DC, Centerville, Chariton, and Grinnell.


Albia could pull off a real shocker IF they had one of those days where the bounces went their way and a team like DC happened to have an off day.
This post was edited on 6/20 4:33 PM by dirt33

Good Point. I don't bother looking at the stats. I judged Albia solely on the record I saw.

 

[terrehawk]

Sounds like pairing should be out shortly?

Looking at District 14, correct me if I am wrong but if my math is correct it should go as follows:

1. N Polk
2. W Marshall
3. Roland Story
4/5 Colfax-Mingo/S Hamilton
6. CMB



First round


N Polk & WM=BYE


3 RS vs 6 CMB
CM vs S Ham in 4/5 game


Winner of RS/CMB vs WM


Winner of CM/SH vs NP
This post was edited on 6/26 11:38 AM by terrehawk

 

[gg2224]

I don't have a dog in the fight, but does anyone see a problem with the lack of a strength of schedule component in the seeding process?

For example:

The breakout of Roland Story's opponents consists something like

1A - 5

2A - 14

3A - 5

4A - 1

80% of RS schedule was against 2A or larger schools

While West Marshall's is

1A - 7

2A - 10

3A - 1

4A - 0

61% of WM schedule was against 2A or larger schools

Not to take anything away from WM's season, but when a post-season bye is at stake, shouldn't there be some consideration for a team like RS who puts themselves at a higher risk by playing 80% of their games against schools of similar or greater size?

Or have I got this completely wrong?

 

[terrehawk]

Originally posted by gg2224:

I don't have a dog in the fight, but does anyone see a problem with the lack of a strength of schedule component in the seeding process?

For example:

The breakout of Roland Story's opponents consists something like

1A - 5

2A - 14

3A - 5

4A - 1

80% of RS schedule was against 2A or larger schools

While West Marshall's is

1A - 7

2A - 10

3A - 1

4A - 0

61% of WM schedule was against 2A or larger schools

Not to take anything away from WM's season, but when a post-season bye is at stake, shouldn't there be some consideration for a team like RS who puts themselves at a higher risk by playing 80% of their games against schools of similar or greater size?

Or have I got this completely wrong?

I get your point. And it's a good argument. Part of this is out of both teams control due to the conference they play in.


isn't that one reason why they use the points per game formula. The difference between the 2 is .95 vs .92








Also in WM's defense, they had:


3 4A games that were rained out/cancelled one of which is a DH that wouldn't have counted anyway as it was after the cutoff date.


(Newton is the same team RS had on their schedule)


3 3A games (2 are yet to be played and won't count in the formula)


Nevada is one of WM's upcoming opponents and is a conference opponent for RS as well.







This post was edited on 6/26 1:12 PM by terrehawk

 

[terrehawk]

One positive though is most #6 seeds are really bad and most #3 seeds shouldn't have to throw one of their top 2 or even 3 guys so it should be good for them to not have 4 or 5 days off. Help keep them sharp. Many times after playing day in and day out through the season, a large break can hinder you more than help you.


I was somewhat comparing this to football where District champs have to go on the road in the quarterfinal to go to the dome. Much more disadvantageous if you ask me.

 

[Who Are You]

WM vs RS should be a good match-up if RS takes care of CMB. Weaver is tough, and he helps to eliminate anyones running game. I dont know if i see anyone knocking off NP though. Hadaway and Pichard are a tough package to deal with.

 

[Who Are You]

In defense of WM they did play 59% of their games versus 2A schools where as RS played 47% against 2A. Granted RS played a few bigger schools but they played a considerable amount more games. WM played 2A teams whixh is what theyll play come playoff time.

 

[gg2224]

For clarity, my argument isn't about the Trojans or Norsemen, I just happen to think the methodology the state has adopted for seeding can reward the wrong things. The RS/WM situtation is just the example I stumbled on.

So let me take another cut at my argument (stats from quikstat data through 6/23).

A) If you average the class size of each team's opponents played:

RS: 2.13

WM: 1.61

B) Then total seeding points earned in the first 18 games (I used 18 because it is WM total game played count as of 6/23)

RS: 21 (1.17 per game played)

WM: 18 (1.00 per game played)

C) And consider the total games played until the 6/23 seeding cutoff:

RS: 30 (14-16)

WM: 18 (13-5)

A) Shows RS played a tougher schedule

B) Shows RS earned more seeding points over the same game span (games 1-18) as WM. BTW, using the same game span makes the seeding score an apples to apples comparision between the two squads

C) Shows RS played an aggressive, riskier schedule, averaging about a game a day. That's a lot of pitching for a 2A school to cover.

With these points in mind, I think any seeding system that rewards a WM over a RS is flawed. When teams are closely matched as WM and RS seem to be, the current seeding system rewarded the "less games versus weaker competition" scenario.


That's just not good baseball.

 

[j6694]

No dog in the fight, and don't disagree with anything you said....but how much of this is the difference between the conferences the two are in and thus have little control over in terms of scheduling. From glancing at the WM schedule on quikstats, they scheduled non-conference games vs: St. Ed's, North Polk, Gilbert, DM Christian, Hudson, Newton, and Nevada (appears a couple got rained out and I know a couple are past 6/23). That looks like a team challenging itself by playing some good teams. The real difference in schedule strength looks like the NICL vs the HOI. Not taking anything away from RS cause they definitely have challenged themselves no doubt. Just saying.....

 

[LB-HR]

If RS wins more games there is no argument either. Win your games = better seed

 

[gg2224]

I am sympathetic and respect your points, but, (with sincere apologies if I sound like a jerk) I don't believe they are relevant to the argument.


-Schools select the conference they play in. In fact, WM used to be a founding member of the HOI (a 2A/3A conference) before migrating to the NICL (1A/2A conference) a few years ago.

-AD's and coaches select what non-conference teams to play, when to play them and how many games to schedule
-The IAHSAA evaluates the results and seeds teams based on the performance of games played.


As noted earlier posts, my issue is soley with the "IAHSAA evaluates" statement above. I agree that it's not WM's fault if they can't play the games as scheduled due to weather, but why devise a system that can penalize RS for WM's deliberate decisions (conference affiliation & scheduling) and bad luck (weather)?



At heart, I am a baseball guy. My sole annoyance is when the "powers that be" risk diminishing the sport when they send a message to schools that less baseball is more, playing down a division is more. Could it be more backwards?



The end result in my view, the IAHSAA first swing at seeding is bad for our sport, they can and should do better.

 

[gg2224]

Just a little 2A snap shot to support my thoughts from a couple of weeks ago -


By my count, 11 of 16 #2 seeds lost tonight.


Do we really have a seeding system that's accurate in Boone?

 

[hawkeyepower100]

Good insight I looked at the same thing for 1a and only 11 higher seeds won yesterday 6 being the 5 seed and 5 being the 6 seed. No one or two seeds loss.

 

[hawkeyepower100]

Its also a little different in 2A because a lot of those 2 seeds were playing 3 seeds in their "first" game since they had byes. In 1A those 2 seeds were playing the 7 seed or a lesser opponent the way it should be for first round. So while you have an argument I think 1A is a better representation of the seeding process and how it has worked much better this year.

 

[gg2224]

It's just my opinion, but when a bye is at stake, I think any seeding system should award the better performing team the bye. The poor performance of the 2A #2's suggests the seeding calculation is flawed. To wit: if you don't account for a strength of schedule component and have situations crop up where 1 team can have up to 25 games considered for seeding purposes and other teams have as few as 15-16 games considered (or less!), you're going to get the kind of whacky results we saw this week.

Boone has all the schedule and game results data in a database. With a little effort, they could generate an NCAA type RPI for seeding purposes. I believe D1 college baseball uses three weighted factors to determine RPI; teams winning percentage (25%), opponents winning percentage (50%) and opponents, opponents winning percentage (25%).

Because districts are pre-grouped, I do agree the 2-3 seeds are probably going be the toughest for the seeding convention to distinguish. Also, the six team districts in 2A make the matchups unconventional in that 2-3 are going to meet in the 2's first game.