Rankings

Listed below are projections for the final 5 soccer games for Section 2 this season.  Here are a few comments on the tournament and an update to my experiment “predicting” games against the sectional seeding committee.

The overall sectional prediction record is 45-15 (.750). Down 5-10% from the regular season. The regular season games are mostly inter-conference games and the predictions will be more accurate as you can compare more data between the teams in each conference.  Once you start playing teams in different conferences the rankings and predictions become more difficult. That being said, I’m happy with the overall results using just final score data and a strength of schedule component I’ve created.

I’ve stated in another entry how I had the WAC conference rated too high.  Once the on field play began, helping adjust all the teams, the rankings (between different conferences) seemed very accurate when comparing teams throughout Section 2.

You can also look back at a bunch of early season non-league games and you’ll see that the majority of the actual ON FIELD results would still be predicted using the current rankings. I think that is another good sign of a ranking system.

Here are a few notes about each class:

Class AA

The committee needs to scrap the idea of separating its teams by conference (Big 10 vs Suburban). The Big 10 can’t compete currently with the Suburban and should be seed accordingly. In both the 2010 and 2011 tournaments the Big 10 has had only 1 participant make the final eight. Yes 1, that’s it. No Big Ten teams have made it to the Semi’s in either year.

In my opinion they should open seed this class like all the others 1-16?, even if the top 6 seeds are all from the Suburban Council. You are actually rewarding a lower level Suburban team by having them play a higher seeded team from the Big 10. Get rid of the current system.

Class A

I had a hard time understanding how Albany Academy, a team that plays in a league of mostly teams in classes below them, could be the #1 seed in Class A. They were beat on the field by the #2 seed in Class B (Ichabod Crane) so someone that knows more about soccer than I do will have to explain that to me.

My rankings actually called for #9 Glens Falls to upset #1 Albany Academy by 1 goal….and it happened….Glens Falls 1 AA 0. The committee missed on them badly and also missed on the strength of the Foothills Council.

Class B

The committee’s seeds held serve in the final four other than their #3 seed Doane Stuart. Another shocker seed for me when looking at the tournament brackets when they were released. Doane Stuart played in a league that had ZERO Class B teams, yet the committee thought they were the 3rd best B team in the section. Huh? Doane Stuart should have been a double digit seed without a question based on league strength and non league games played  by this conference.

Class C

Once again the committee did a nice job getting 3 out of 4 teams to the semi-finals. However, they seemed to have the same problem as I did, thinking the WAC Conference was stronger than it really was. The Wasaren League teams made a statement and took care of all WAC competition.

Class D

The Adirondack League teams dominated this bracket with 4 teams, filling 4 spots, in the Semi-Finals. They were far superior to the CHVL and WAC, Class D teams.

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OK,  there are 5 games left and the computer rankings have 4 game lead on the committee. For the championships we only we differ on 1 game so the experiment of my rankings versus the committee’s eyes is over. The Rankings win the 2011 tournament of seeding vs predictions. So without further adieu……… Here are the projections for the 5 championships.

*Side Note: 3 of these games look to be absolute coin-flip’s so I’m not confident at all with the predicted results. We’ll see how it shakes out.  Good luck to anyone who’s participating or is a fan of one of the final 10 schools playing this weekend in Section 2.

Overall record for sectionals 42-14 .750

4 games ahead of sectional selection committee with the Lake George win yesterday.

Today there are no differences in our picks.

Projected winners

Shen, Bethlehem, ICC, and BP

Full Rankings listed here:

http://nationalsportsrankings.com/2011section2boysrankings