AA Rankings for 1/26/14

[HShockeywatcher]

The point is, nobody likes STA.

I like STA.

I like STA in AA.

So do most

[Tenoverpar]

Some of you really need to relax and stop overthinking this thing.
If you respond with a 5 paragraph essay to anything posted on any post on the forum, you're the guy I'm barking at.

[Traxler]

Some of you really need to relax and stop overthinking this thing.
If you respond with a 5 paragraph essay to anything posted on any post on the forum, you're the guy I'm barking at.

That's pretty funny. You could just not read those posts, but then you'd be missing out on some of the most entertaining posts on the forum. Still, it's your call what you read. Not sure why you are trying to influence others.

If you're one of those who respond with 5 paragraph essays, please continue, I love reading what you write.

[TheHockeyDJ]

Some of you really need to relax and stop overthinking this thing.
If you respond with a 5 paragraph essay to anything posted on any post on the forum, you're the guy I'm barking at.

That's pretty funny. You could just not read those posts, but then you'd be missing out on some of the most entertaining posts on the forum. Still, it's your call what you read. Not sure why you are trying to influence others.

If you're one of those who respond with 5 paragraph essays, please continue, I love reading what you write.

[pekyman]

Some of you really need to relax and stop overthinking this thing.
If you respond with a 5 paragraph essay to anything posted on any post on the forum, you're the guy I'm barking at.

That's pretty funny. You could just not read those posts, but then you'd be missing out on some of the most entertaining posts on the forum. Still, it's your call what you read. Not sure why you are trying to influence others.

If you're one of those who respond with 5 paragraph essays, please continue, I love reading what you write.

HSHW vs. karl!

I have been waiting for this to happen. It was just a matter of time!

Go karl

[karl(east)]

Interesting; I would've used head to head and come to the same conclusion, because in doing so you can't look at one team in a vacuum. While St Francis did have a 1 goal win over Rapids midway through the season, they also got shut out 6-0 by Forest Lake and lost to CEC to end the season. The transitive property almost never works perfectly to seed sections. If it does, great, but in most cases you will look at other things to break it up. All the teams aside from Rapids fell perfectly into place, and considering they beat the 3 seed and tied the 4 seed twice and lost to the 1 seed by 1 goal, I would find it hard to put them anywhere but 2 without considering the rest of the their schedule.
I could be wrong, but I highly doubt their "body of work" would've come into play had those ties to CEC been loses or the OT win to Elk River been a tie or a loss.

You might have done that, but I think it's very easy to make other arguments too, though. I recall that Doug over at FollowThePuck was adamant that GR should have been lower, and he and our friend DJ had a rather epic Twitter war on the subject. I don't always agree with Doug, but he does follow these things as closely as anyone, used the transitive reasoning, and came to a very different conclusion.

I didn't start my rankings until the next season and can't find others to compare to, but I'd be interested in finding them to compare the Class A field of 2008-2009. If you don't look at rankings and simply look at the the teams that were seeded, it seems the nothing more than the transitive property (or head to head) was used for seeding. 1 beat 2, 2 beat 3 and 4 didn't play any of those teams during the season. I remember the discussion that year of how Breck was the favorite to win (and they did).
I wish I had them prior to the tournament, but using PageStat after the tournament puts it: 1 Breck, 2 Warroad, 3 Cathedral, 4 Little Falls and yet they were seeded in the opposite order.
(That could be 100% because the results of those games have factored into the current ranking from that year)

My memory of 09 Class A is foggy, but I'm guessing your last line is exactly what it came down to. LF went into that Tourney undefeated and was #1 in LPH. I'd also be near-positive that those four teams plus STA (upset in sections) were the top 5 in the human poll before sections, so their head-to-head results were very likely to have also been factored in. If one of those teams had been ranked #8 or #10 and still been seeded, then I might buy this argument, but they weren't.

I can't speak to AA, but from watching Class A over the years, I haven't seen a time where there were head to head results and teams were seeded out of order because of body of work at state or at the section level. I haven't followed it as closely, but I haven't seen it at the AA level that I can recall either.

If WBL had won the game against Hill, would you think Hill would still be the top seed in the section because of the rest of their season?

I'd at least entertain the idea. There is at least one precedent that's been mentioned on here several times: in 1994, Duluth East lost twice to Cloquet, but went 18-4 and was a top-5ish team, while the Jacks were fairly mediocre. East was the top seed in 7AA. It doesn't happen often because most of the time H2H and a holistic ranking lead to the same conclusion, but they are out there.

Another example, this one using state seeding: in 2009, Rochester Century was 1-0 against Tourney teams. They beat Duluth East. East was 1-2 against Tourney teams, with a win over unseeded Moorhead and a loss to #3 Blaine. (Moorhead's lone win over a Tourney team was against a depleted Hill team that had just lost a bunch of players, and had beaten the Spuds earlier in the year--there's an entirely different can of worms that strict H2H might have some issues with. Point is, the Moorhead win didn't prove much.) East got the 4-seed, which was consistent with their ranking. They were a 3-loss team against a very difficult schedule, while Century lost 11 against a mediocre one. I don't think anyone even tried to argue that things should have been otherwise.

I used two East examples because they're what came to mind immediately, but I'm guessing there are more; I doubt the Hounds are getting some special benefit that other teams aren't. Anyone else have any more?

Hmm, five paragraphs (six if you count this one), but the last one was only two sentences. Shoddy transitions, too. Probably not a top-notch essay there. Sorry, Tenoverpar.

[Tenoverpar]

No worries Karl...hey how do I change my name on this thing anyway..last summer I was more like 7 over...new wedge set improved the game slightly #7overPar

[east hockey]

Some of you really need to relax and stop overthinking this thing.
If you respond with a 5 paragraph essay to anything posted on any post on the forum, you're the guy I'm barking at.

t could be worse. They could be doing it over on the Youth Forum.

Lee

[HawkeyPower]

quote="HShockeywatcher"]

Not a bad point, but I would point out that the amount of parity between the top 8 or so means there's relatively little difference between a win over #1 and a win over #7. The mystique that comes with beating the top two just isn't there. If STA takes care of business they'll certainly pass the loser of ER-Blaine, maybe more if others lose. The Blaine-Hill game will also give us another measuring tool.

I'm not disagreeing with how you have things in the least. I think there'd be a solid case for one higher, I think going to OT and losing 6-3 with one good Class A team is better than the 3-1 domination EGF put on Blaine that I'm still convinced should've been a shut out, but that's neither here nor there. I also think Elk River has put together a good season...while it could be argued on the reverse that they have two quality wins, one of which is over Edina, a team they also lost to and the other Blaine and they lost to both your 10 and 16 teams.
While I disagree with your comment about mystique, I don't think it warrants them being ahead of Burnsville.

I also don't think head-to-head results among the State Tourney entrants have ever really mattered for seeding, nor do I think they should. That leaves too much off to chance results and upsets in sections. Go with the rankings based on 28 games played, without regard for head-to-head.

So, if there is so much parity among the top teams, what else are you going to use? With North, Hill, Burnsville/Edina, STA, Blaine and Wayzata all having really good seasons and all having losses to lower teams, how do you not use head to head results to sort things out? Of the 6 I mentioned, one doesn't get ranked...

Of course, since the coaches vote, St Thomas probably won't be ranked anyway.

Just wondering because I didn't see the game. I keep hearing EGF dominated Blaine in a 3-1 win. I believe shots were 30-26 in favor of EGF and EGF had 4 power plays compared to 2 from Blaine. Were all of Blaines shots from the blueline and EGF had numerous scoring chances... Forget it
Just found your original view of this game. It must of aged like a fine wine.
PostPosted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 10:30 pm Post subject: Reply with quote

HShockeywatcher



Joined: 31 Aug 2006
Posts: 6356


PostPosted: Fri Dec 13, 2013 10:30 pm Post subject: Reply with quote


Knowing small town pride and how good EGF is, I was very surprised to not see a wave of green on the visitors side. Probably their biggest non-section 8 opponent all season. It was a very good game, two very good teams. Blaine the better all around team, EGF the better defensive team.

EGF is the best defensive team I have seen play all year. Their PK is awesome, they are very aggressive, they are huge and their goalie is very aggressive. Their offense isn't the power their defense is so much of the play was in their end, but they always had a guy in the way.

Up until the middle of the third period I would've said that EGF's downside is their lack of scoring, that they would hold the best teams to a couple goals and not score, but they turned it on in the third and took advantage of the opportunities they got.

Did anyone see Blaine's goal? What happened with it and why was the whistle not blown much earlier? From where I was sitting it seemed like it should've been blown dead seconds earlier.

Very good game with two very good teams. After seeing them tonight, I would put EGF up against anyone in the state. Their defense will keep them in any game they play this year. Against a worse defense, Blaine would've had a very good game. They are very good at moving the puck on offense and moving bodies around on defense. I wouldn't count them out against any opponents this year or say that their top 3 ranking is too high. Definitely worth the drive.

Last edited by HShockeywatcher on Fri Dec 13, 2013 10:32 pm; edited 1 time in total



/size][/size]

[gitter]

If you know of good examples of times when teams have been seeded in sections or state with vastly different head to head results than their seed because of the rest of their schedule, I'd love to see them.

1993-94
Cloquet 7, East 6
Cloquet 7, East 4

Section 7AA seeding (record at time of seeding):

#1 Duluth East (18-4)
#2 Cloquet (16-6)

[HShockeywatcher]

I'd at least entertain the idea. There is at least one precedent that's been mentioned on here several times: in 1994, Duluth East lost twice to Cloquet, but went 18-4 and was a top-5ish team, while the Jacks were fairly mediocre. East was the top seed in 7AA. It doesn't happen often because most of the time H2H and a holistic ranking lead to the same conclusion, but they are out there.

Another example, this one using state seeding: in 2009, Rochester Century was 1-0 against Tourney teams. They beat Duluth East. East was 1-2 against Tourney teams, with a win over unseeded Moorhead and a loss to #3 Blaine. (Moorhead's lone win over a Tourney team was against a depleted Hill team that had just lost a bunch of players, and had beaten the Spuds earlier in the year--there's an entirely different can of worms that strict H2H might have some issues with. Point is, the Moorhead win didn't prove much.) East got the 4-seed, which was consistent with their ranking. They were a 3-loss team against a very difficult schedule, while Century lost 11 against a mediocre one. I don't think anyone even tried to argue that things should have been otherwise.

The East/CEC examples you and gitter presented are good ones. So it definitely has happened.
When people talk about section seedings today, they mainly bring up section opponents, when they're available.

Like I mentioned before, though, you can't look at one team in a vacuum and say "ha, A beat B so A has to be ahead of B." Look at what I did with the predicted Class A seedings if all Class A top seeds made state. It's almost impossible for the transitive property to always work.
Personally, I would argue that Eden Prairie's body of work was better than Edina's that year, but the two head to head games that Edina won are probably why they got the top seed.
I would likewise say the same comparing East and Blaine's season's that year.

Just found your original view of this game. It must of aged like a fine wine.

What's your point? I stand by everything in that post. It was a great game that EGF dominated. The one goal Blaine had came from the EGF covering it for quite some time, no whistle being blown and most in the arena thought should've been called off. If there is someone who has more insight on that goal, I'd love to hear from them.

As I've said multiple times, of the many games I've seen this season the defensive performance by EGF in that game is the best I've seen all year.

[karl(east)]

The East/CEC examples you and gitter presented are good ones. So it definitely has happened.
When people talk about section seedings today, they mainly bring up section opponents, when they're available.

Like I mentioned before, though, you can't look at one team in a vacuum and say "ha, A beat B so A has to be ahead of B." Look at what I did with the predicted Class A seedings if all Class A top seeds made state. It's almost impossible for the transitive property to always work.
Personally, I would argue that Eden Prairie's body of work was better than Edina's that year, but the two head to head games that Edina won are probably why they got the top seed.
I would likewise say the same comparing East and Blaine's season's that year.

No real disagreements on the first paragraph. Yes, people do often bring up section opponents, but as you note, they're not always available and reliable--and that can be a problem.

I would disagree on Edina/EP in 09...that was my first year doing rankings using more or less the same method I use now, and I had Edina at #1 going into sections. If memory serves, the old Lake Conference (now mostly SSC teams) that EP was in that year was on the weak side; Jefferson was the only other good team. I think LPH had Jefferson at 1, Edina at 2, and EP at 3. The computers definitely had Edina at 1. They had a lot more quality wins.


Also, to clear up some other stuff that got lost in the shuffle here...I copy down schedules from the Hub at the start of the season. So, yeah, considering the Hub's reliability this season, I should probably back-check these things.

Also, the 3AA discussion was lovely and well-researched, but CDH went and blew it all up tonight with the win over STA. We'll see how the rest of the week shakes out, but I'd say all 4 top teams will be in the 10-20 range next week, which probably qualifies as "in the same ballpark." CDH has the head-to-head wins over Eastview and STA, but CDH was STA's one and only section game...it'll be an interesting one. It has to be one of the most wide-open sections I've ever seen, and I guess it's a good example of how head-to-head can't always solve things, with no CDH-Eastview, STA-Eastview, or STA-Eagan games to help.