Updated March 7, 2023
It was a wild night for Missouri boys' classes four through six. Class four sectionals went pretty much as expected, class five was fairly uneventful other than Sikeston upsetting #1 rated Cape Central, and class six was "upset" city.
On a sad note, I heard that a
player from the Salisbury class two boys team died Sunday. It is a real tragedy when we lose a young man or woman and my heart breaks to hear this. The team will continue on for the state semi-finals this week with the blessing of the grieving family. Please keep the White family in your thoughts and prayers.
I went to the Class six District 2 game between Hwy 109 rivals Eureka and Lafayette. I keep game statistics for Eureka and I expected Lafayette, led by Matt Haefner, to beat my Cats by five. Eureka has struggled to find the basket all year, shooting around 28% from three but last night they shot 57% on nine makes out of fourteen attempts. But that wasn't the most remarkable thing. They made ten of twelve from two for a whopping 84.8% eFG field goal percent! And they held Haefner to 13 points and Lafayette to 40, winning 61-40. It was a remarkable performance by all of the Cats defensively, but largely by PG Mason Dunlap (19 pts) and small forward, Carter Luft (16 pts), who also guarded the gifted Haefner.
It wasn't the only remarkable game in class six last night either. Jackson upset Kirkwood, Battle upset Rock Bridge to win their first district title, Chaminade edged out CBC, and Kickapoo got by Nixa. While Gramps is still picking 83% of all boys' and girls' game results, I took it on the chin last night in class six. I don't mind being wrong, especially when my home team wins by 21 over their local rival.
In class five boys, the big shocker was a solid Sikeston team, upsetting #1 Cape Girardeau Central by two. The Ladue Rams also kept their dream season alive by edging De Smet by one, although the Spartans had five or six shots from point-blank range in the closing seconds and could not find the bottom of the net. The upset news was Hillcrest edging out Parkview, although when I have two teams rated within a couple of points, it really isn't much of an upset.
In class four boys sectionals, my only miss was a six-point win by Lutheran St. Charles. Otherwise, class four boys are going to form so far.
Overall, the prediction numbers still look damn good. Gramps rating system is still working with 83% of all classes of Missouri boys' and girls' games from district to state. I missed a few of last night's games but I expect to miss more as the tournaments progress.
Good luck to all teams.
Updated March 2, 2023
You know, Gramps is the only rating system in the state that rates EVERY boys and girls team in the state of Missouri, right? Others rate the top ten or so but Gramps looks at everyone from Vashon to Breckenridge.
And the way Gramps keeps himself honest and knows that his rating system is working is to track games in district competition and the state playoffs. I figure that if I hit 80% of the games correctly (the higher-rated team beats the lower-rated team) then the model must be working pretty darn good.
So Gramps ain't braggin' when he posts Prediction Accuracy. It's just a quality control check to make sure Gramps Braggin' rights ratings aren't blowing smoke screens.
How are the ratings holding up? Well, the overall prediction accuracy went UP with the Girls' class one through three sectionals last night. My prediction rate rose from 83 to 84%, which is nice because the games actually get harder to predict as the tournament progresses.
The charts below are mis-labeled in the total games column. It reads Wrong but it means total games.
Updated March 1, 2023
You know, Gramps is the only rating system in the state that rates EVERY boys and girls team in the state of Missouri, right? Others rate the top ten or so but Gramps looks at everyone from Vashon to Breckenridge.
And the way Gramps keeps himself honest and knows that his rating system is working is to track games in district competition and the state playoffs. I figure that if I hit 80% of the games correctly (the higher-rated team beats the lower-rated team) then the model must be working pretty darn good.
So Gramps ain't braggin' when he posts Prediction Accuracy. It's just a quality control check to make sure Gramps Braggin' rights ratings aren't blowing smoke screens.
How are the ratings holding up? Well, the overall prediction accuracy went UP with the Girls' class one through three sectionals last night. My prediction rate rose from 83 to 84%, which is nice because the games actually get harder to predict as the tournament progresses. The Girls' sectional picks are below.
In Class One, the big miss for me was the Delta win over South Iron. I had Delta rated over the Lady Panthers early in the season but then rated them down a bit from South Iron on their losses to Cape Notre Dame and Park Hills Central. I might have overweighted those losses. Really, when the spread is four or less, the game is a toss-up.
In Class Two, I missed on both East Carter's win over Neelyville (almost a toss-up) and New Haven's win over St. Vincent. in which St. Vincent was an eight-point favorite. Other than that, class two looked good.
In Class Three, I missed the South Harrison victory over East Buchanan but picked the rest right. Considering that my predictions should be MORE difficult at sectionals than districts, I will take 20 picks out of 24 for a 83% sectional prediction rate.
The other reason the overall prediction rate went up is that I added the games I was missing on the boys side, where my prediction rate had been lower and the missing games brought the average up.
Original Post 2/28/2023
You know, Gramps is the only rating system in the state that rates EVERY boys and girls team in the state of Missouri, right? Others rate the top ten or so but Gramps looks at everyone from Vashon to Breckenridge.
And the way Gramps keeps himself honest and knows that his rating system is working is to track games in district competition and the state playoffs. I figure that if I hit 80% of the games correctly (the higher-rated team beats the lower-rated team) then the model must be working pretty darn good.
So Gramps ain't braggin' when he posts Prediction Accuracy. It's just a quality control check to make sure Gramps Braggin' rights ratings aren't blowing smoke screens.
How are the ratings holding up? Well, the first table indicates the accuracy for classes one through three was 83% overall so far on 446 district and first-round playoff games. That's about where the Prediction percentage has been in the past few years. Now, as the tournament gets down to the last few teams vying for a state championship, that percentage will drop. It always does because the teams that are left are all darn good and a one or two-point difference in rating means squat when they get on the court. There were some real surprises last night and I will discuss those below with the class one, two, and three boys summaries.
In class one, Gramps missed two games.... Thomas Jefferson Independent Day Joplin (that's a mouthful) upset Rich Hill by ten when I had Rich Hill as a four-point favorite. In the other upset game, Glasgow beat Leeton by three when I had them a six-point favorite.
The other games went as expected with #1 Green City making a statement with their 48-point win over Orrick (my spread was 31).
In class two, Gramps hit on seven of eight cylinders, missing only on Hartville's beat-down of Eugene. I should know better than to not put "experience" into the rating formula. Hartville has been there and done that much more often than Eugene and that experience showed last night.
In class three, the big story would be New Madrid County Central's four-point upset of season-long #1 Charleston. The two teams had split their games with Central's Eagles winning by four in December but Charleston's Blue Jays had blown out the Eagles by 25 in January. With common opponents, the Eagles had better success, so their "upset" is not that surprising.
Over in Kansas City, St. Pius X (8-19 record) has been coming on and upset Milan (22-7 record), who I had rated six-point favorites. Pius won by thirteen so Gramps will have to retool the Warrior's rating as they moved on to play Lafayette County, who will probably still be a 25-point favorite. The rest of the class three field went close to form.
New Madrid, my #2 rated team, looks like they have a pretty good lane to drive to a state championship, after beating #1 Charleston. I am sure Lafayette County will have something to say about that too.
Good work, MSHSAA! Your best two teams just played but it wasn't the championship game, was it?
Comments
Post a Comment