2A Regional Brackets...gonna be interesting.

[Northern Ghost]

I was looking at the rankings today and got out a state map. I have no idea how the union is going to pull this off in a balanced fashion.

It has the makings for a big mess.

3 teams at or south of I-80 are ranked (Iowa City Regina #6, Central Decatur #11, Des Moines Christian #12)

3 teams in northeast Iowa (North Linn #3, Dike-NH #7, Cascade #9)

9 teams are located north of I-80 and west of I-35.

 

[DarkThunder#61]

Yeah, we kinda figured that going in. Even with a few teams reshuffling to different classes, such as Pocahontas to 3A, there was still a good bet to be a log jam on the western side of the state.

There's just so many good teams in the north central and northwest parts of the state in Class 1A-3A (many of the top 2A teams play in conferences ranging in these sizes).

The official pairings are scheduled to be released on the afternoon of Monday, January 26th.

In between then, I'm gonna try to come up with a few scenarios for the pairings to give people some ideas. I was pretty darn close with football this past season, under the new/random format.

Last year, I was close on a lot of them, I just went left instead of right so-to-speak with some of the teams in the western half of the state, which goes back to what you were saying about how it could end up being a crap-shoot. Sometimes, the Union will do some funky things in an effort to try and create regionally/geographically balanced brackets, but upon second glance, they probably could've made a few better decisions in hindsight (then again, that's just the way it works sometimes)...

For the most part, I think the Union has done a fairly decent job of pairing teams up based both on seeding and geography.

 

[DarkThunder#61]

Finally finished my pairing predictions. Took a little tinkering to get it all to make sense. There's also a few that I could easily see being switched around, and maybe even work better than the first list I made. I'll post them later but a few things that stood out to me while making this:

- There's gonna be front-loaded regions, just like there will be "easy" regions. There may be 3 ranked teams in several regions along with a number of other good teams, simply because of geography (once you've gotten past who the top seeds for each region will be)...

- Which brings me to the next point. Obviously, who the 8 top seeds are will be the biggest determining factor for where everyone else lands (domino effect, basically). My eight #1 seeds are:
(#1) Unity Christian
(#6) Dike-New Hartford
(#3) North Linn
(#8) Cascade, Western Dubuque
(#9) Iowa City Regina
(#4) South Central Calhoun
(#5) IKM-Manning
(#2) Western Christian

Who gets what specifically numbered region is anybody's guess. Maybe there's a method to that, oh well.....

- If you divide the state into 4 quads, the west side of the state will have to borrow some in order to make everything "work". Specifically, in the NW region where there's only 21 teams to choose from unless they dipped down into SW Iowa like they did last year, however, with two NW Iowa teams getting their own region and IKM-Manning and SCC getting their own regions, that's gonna be tougher to work around, geographically. I don't think that either Manson NW or St. Edmond get shipped up to play in Unity or Western's bracket. I believe they'll either stay in central Iowa or work their way east, like MNW did last year, being in Dike-New Hartford's region.

- Lastly, for the Gaels fans who've been asking me who I think we'll see, unless we get shipped south again like last year and still away from SCC and MNW, I see us being in the same region (or even sub-region) as either or both MNW and SCC. And should we get a 1st round bye, if things work out the way I have it drawn up (which means it'll be completely different), we'll be playing any one of the winners of Clarion-Goldfield, Belmond-Klemme, or South Hamilton, also depending on how they pair teams up.

 

[AN96]

Jeff Linder of the Cedar Rapids Gazette put out his mock brackets today:

http://thegazette.com/subject/sports/girls-basketball-mock-pairings-20150123

 

[hawkfanalso]

What time do they come out?

 

[warriors dad]

Probably at 4:59 on the way out the door!

 

[hawkfanalso]

Will anything change from the weekends games or did it really matter?

 

[DarkThunder#61]

Originally posted by hawkfanalso:
Will anything change from the weekends games or did it really matter?

I'm guessing since the last rankings came out, they've had a pretty good idea of who is going to be in what region. They might have then waited for at least Friday's results to pair teams together based on records, though if I remember correctly, there may have been years (and I certainly could be exaggerating, or wrong....) where say a 9-6 team played a 10-4 team while a 5-11 team played a 4-win team or something like that...........

I think that once they've established the sub-regions and the 4 teams getting a bye, it's pretty much luck of the draw from there as to who play who in the first round and who gets who for the 2nd round matchup as well. Again, this is only an assumption, but I just think this is one of the ways it differs from the boys postseason format.

 

[DarkThunder#61]

AN96..........

I actually like a lot of the picks he has, maybe even better than mine.

We're in agreement on a lot of the groupings, though he also went more outside the box than I did, which is something I don't think I did a good enough job of taking into account and something that almost inevitably WILL happen with the official pairings (such as western Iowa teams getting randomly shipped to play in a north central/north eastern heavier bracket.........when such things could also easily be avoided)

He also has all the top 8 teams getting their own 1-seed/region, including Panorama, whom I did not give a 1-seed to, though I could definitely see them getting one. Like I said, I have a few other region possibilities, if a few things falls into place differently, including Panorama getting their own region.

Here's what I have (only listed in order by ranking and current records):


#2 Western Christian (14-2)
#14 Okoboji-Milford (13-3)
#15 Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn (13-2)
North Union (9-5)
Lake Mills (8-6)
Britt, West Hancock (8-7)
West Lyon (8-8)
Emmetsburg (7-5)
Rock Valley (5-9)
Boyden-Hull (3-12)
Sibley-Ocheydan (1-14)



#1 Unity Christian (13-0)
#12 Maple Valley-Anthon-Oto (13-4)
#13 Hinton (15-1)
Lawton-Bronson (10-7)
Woodbury Central (10-8)
Alta-Aurelia (9-8)
Sioux Central (8-9)
Ridge View (6-9)
South O'Brien (6-10)
West Monona (6-12)
OA/BC-IG (5-10)
Akron-Westfield (5-11)


#6 Dike-New Hartford (13-2)
#10 Manson Northwest Webster (12-2)
West Fork (11-2)
St. Edmond (9-4)
Grundy Center (9-7)
Central Springs (6-8)
Saint Ansgar (5-10)
BCLUW (5-12)
Clarion-Goldfield (4-10)
Belmond-Klemme (3-12)
South Hamilton (2-13)
North Butler (0-13)

Eagle Grove (0-15)



#3 North Linn (16-1)
Sumner-Fredericksburg (12-4)
Hudson (12-5)
Clayton Ridge, Guttenberg (11-4)
MFL MarMac (9-6)
Starmont (8-7)
Wapsie Valley (8-9)
Edgewood-Colesburg (5-9)
Denver (5-11)
South Winneshiek (4-12)
Postville (4-13)
Jesup (0-15)



#8 Cascade, Western Dubuque (15-1)
Maquoketa Valley (13-4)
Alburnett (11-4)
Durant (11-6)
Columbus Junction (10-4)
Wapello (7-8)
Danville (6-10)
Bellevue (5-11)
Lisbon (5-11)
North Cedar (4-12)
West Burlington (3-13)
Wilton (1-13)



#9 Iowa City Regina (13-2)
Pekin, Packwood (14-2)
West Marshall (13-4)
Highland, Riverside (12-3)
BGM, Brooklyn (12-5)
West Branch (11-5)
Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont (11-7)
Pella Christian (8-6)
Cardinal, Eldon (7-8)
North Mahaska (3-14)
Pleasantville (2-12)
C-M-B (2-15)

#4 South Central Calhoun (14-1)
#7 Panorama (14-2)
#11 Des Moines Christian (12-4)
Central Decatur, Leon (15-1)
Interstate 35 (12-4)
Nodaway Valley (11-4)
Van Meter (11-5)
Ogden (7-9)
Woodward-Granger (7-9)
Madrid (4-11)
Earlham (3-13)
Colfax-Mingo (0-15)


#5 IKM-Manning (14-1)
Logan-Magnolia (14-2)
Treynor (11-2)
CB St. Albert (9-7)
Missouri Valley (8-7)
Audubon (7-8)
Tri-Center, Neola (7-8)
Southwest Valley (6-10)
Underwood (5-9)
A-H-S-T-W (4-10)
Oakland, Riverside (1-15)
Clarinda Academy (0-12)

 

[DarkThunder#61]

Here's another possibility I had if certain teams got their own region or sub-region such as SCC and MNW, and Panorama and DMC and how that would trickle down.


Other Possible Regionals:
South Central Calhoun
Woodward-Granger
Madrid
Ogden
CMB
West Marshall
-
Manson NW
St. Edmond
South Hamilton
Eagle Grove
Clarion-Goldfield
Belmond-Klemme


Panorama
Nodaway Valley
Central Decatur
Interstate 35
Earlham
Van Meter
-
Des Moines Christian
Colfax-Mingo
Pleasantville
Pella Christian
North Mahaska
Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont


Iowa City Regina
Pekin, Packwoood
West Branch

Highland, Riverside
BGM, Brooklyn
Cardinal, Eldon
-
Durant
Wapello
Danville
West Burlington
Wilton
Columbus Junction


Cascade, Western Dubuque
Alburnett
Lisbon
North Cedar
Bellevue
Maquoketa Valley
-
Clayton Ridge
Starmont
MFL-MarMac
Edgewood-Colesburg
South Winneshiek
Postville


North Linn
Jesup
Hudson
Sumner-Fredericksburg
Denver
Wapsie Valley
-
Dike-New Hartford
BCLUW
Grundy Center
North Butler
West Fork
Central Springs
Saint Ansgar

 

[warriors dad]

brackets are out!

 

[DarkThunder#61]

I think just with the geographical layout and the assumption that Panorama wouldn't get pushed west, IKM-Manning was pretty much guaranteed their own set-up down there. Central Decatur is not a bad team, but yes, IKM is used to much stiffer competition so that will definitely be a factor should those two meet.

I'm a little surprised they went so widespread with the D-NH and Regina region, I would've figured that they would've kept Regina in their own part of the state, though really they will be until a potential neutral site game with presumably D-NH.

Figured North Linn and Cascade would get their own regions. After having finally seen Cascade play last year, the thing that jumps out is no matter what they do scoring-wise, they will always play very tough defense. They will rarely if ever be a team that scores 55 or more a game, but they will do everything they can to bog other teams' offenses down.

Pretty much unavoidable that Unity and Western were gonna be part of a 3-ranked team division.

St. Eds' region went about as expected however I had been going under the assumption that they'd try to split it up into sub-regions, but like I mentioned in another post, when you have a region that is pretty much entirely comprised of teams from that same area, they'll just seed the top 4 and go from there. SE's 3-pt loss to MNW being a difference in how the pairings were. I wonder if SE and MNW would've flipped had the Gaels pulled off the comeback in Manson a few weeks ago. Either way, SCC is the team that looms in that region.

Another interesting note from that region, the final is scheduled to be hosted at St. Edmond. I wonder if they will move that if the Gaels manage to knock off SCC in the regional semifinal. I certainly wouldn't mind a home game for a chance to go to State.

 

[hawkfanalso]

Pretty much what everyone thought?