Seeding the State Tournament

hockeywild7 · Post by **hockeywild7** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 3:03 pm

What are everyone's thoughts about having the state tournament seeded? I hear the coaches will be voting on this and it is possible it would go into use for this years state tournament. Seed 1 thru 8 like soccer does or just 1 thru 4 like boys hockey?

boblee · Post by **boblee** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 3:04 pm

hockeywild7 wrote:What are everyone's thoughts about having the state tournament seeded? I hear the coaches will be voting on this and it is possible it would go into use for this years state tournament. Seed 1 thru 8 like soccer does or just 1 thru 4 like boys hockey?

Don't do it. I hate it in soccer. I hate it in boys hockey. Don't do it.

hockeywild7 · Post by **hockeywild7** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 3:10 pm

I personally would love if they seeded it for the same reason we seed the section tournaments.

joehockey · Post by **joehockey** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 4:02 pm

If the goal is to have the best teams compete against each other in the final why wouldn't you do it? Why would gils hockey be different from soccer or boys hockey on this front? Can others expand on why they would hate it or not like it?

Bensonmum · Post by **Bensonmum** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 4:32 pm

Seeding within a section is one thing--the coaches and maybe ADs are familiar with all the teams in their sport in their own section and can give an informed opinion. Statewide rankings are mostly bogus--since the sport isn't televised, how many of the teams can any person see in the course of a year? Who is going to do the seedings? Will it be by record, meaning a team who played a weak schedule might get a high seeding? Is it by a statewide poll? People on this forum have already discussed how ridiculous the PP and Star Tribune polls are. The LPH is better, but how much? Should coaches do the ranking? If so, how many teams can one coach see? Do you think a HS coach has time to attend games that his team isn't playing in? We've seen how bogus and biased polls can be with the College Football BCS--and that's a sport that is widely televised so everybody can see every team at least on TV. Leave this the heck out of girls' hockey.

gopher25 · Post by **gopher25** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 5:26 pm

Look what happened with the Boys tournament last year. Edina was ranked 1 and lost to Grand Rapids in the 1st game. Hill was 3 and lost to Woodbury, Blaine was 4 and lost to Burnsville. Clearly seeding did not work. I think there is something to be said for the best team playing at the best time will win. Also how to you look at a team that goes 22-2-1 but their conference is really easy and they come out of an easier section? Should they be ranked higher than a team that has to battle through the Lake or Suburban East conference with 6 or 7 losses....if coaches do not get out and see all of the teams they can't rank the opponents.

joehockey · Post by **joehockey** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 6:14 pm

I think this is used in the discussion to seed sections not to mention ranking the teams in polls. I would think it could also work to seed the Tournament. Assuming this is produced again for this year. Go to:

bgoski.com:

KRACH MN Girls HS Hockey Power & Strength-of-Schedule (SOS) Rankings

KRACH Explained...

allhoc11 · Post by **allhoc11** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 7:38 pm

joehockey wrote:If the goal is to have the best teams compete against each other in the final why wouldn't you do it?

I don't think the goal of MSHSL has ever been to have the top 2 teams in the state compete for a state title. Their goal is clear by the way they arrange sections, and that is have a fair representation from each section of the state.

I say keep it the way it is, unless you are willing to look at your section tournaments and divide up the top 16 to 32 teams in the state and put 2 to 4 of them in each section, then seed the state tournament as well so then in theory you have a tournament that has the possibility of the top teams meeting in the state finals.

blindman · Post by **blindman** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 9:59 pm

Any one know if the Krach ratings are coming out this year?

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 10:46 pm

blindman wrote:Any one know if the Krach ratings are coming out this year?

It does not appear so, there was a thread started a couple of weeks ago on ghshockeyfan not posting here since October. Looks like he has given up doing the KRACH ratings as well. He is missed and we hope everything is OK.

As far as the tournament seeding issue is concerned, I think there are good arguments on both sides. Tough call. When in doubt, I guess I come down on the side of tradition, which is to have all of the sections face each other on a rotating schedule. The only downside is the possibility of having one bracket with the 4 weakest teams, but who's to decide which teams are weakest until the games are played? And the chance of this happening are pretty remote anyway.

Whatthe · Post by **Whatthe** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 8:42 am

Computer rankings coming out on the QRF site later this month.

eastsidehockey · Post by **eastsidehockey** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:33 am

i would say seeding the state is bogus as the teams almost certainly wouldnt have common opponents to compare win/loss to, so it is useless.

In the section you basically play each other at least once or have common opponents to compare each other to.

keepitreal · Post by **keepitreal** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 12:53 pm

eastsidehockey wrote:i would say seeding the state is bogus as the teams almost certainly wouldnt have common opponents to compare win/loss to, so it is useless.

In the section you basically play each other at least once or have common opponents to compare each other to.

While this is true in many cases, I think polling the coaches combined with computerized rankings such as KRACH or QRF could be used to get a reasonable approximation of the proper seeding. I would not rely on media-driven polls.

gopher25 wrote:Look what happened with the Boys tournament last year. Edina was ranked 1 and lost to Grand Rapids in the 1st game. Hill was 3 and lost to Woodbury, Blaine was 4 and lost to Burnsville. Clearly seeding did not work.

No offense, but to say seeding doesn't work is a groundless argument in light of the current system that assigns matchups without consideration of team strength. In the case of the boy's tournament, yes, supposed lower seeds beat higher seeds, but isn't that what made it such a compelling story and viewing? The potential for an underdog to knock off a favorite makes a tournament more exciting and more interesting to the casual fan and if anything that kind of interest is what this sport needs.

So I would ask, why not? Did the seeding make anything worse?

eastsidehockey · Post by **eastsidehockey** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:11 pm

yeah as long as the media has nothing to do with it, i would warm up to the idea

allhoc11 · Post by **allhoc11** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:04 am

keepitreal wrote:So I would ask, why not? Did the seeding make anything worse?

My question is why? What would you hope to gain with seeding?

MNHockeyFan · Post by **MNHockeyFan** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:48 am

allhoc11 wrote:My question is why? What would you hope to gain with seeding?

Why does the NCAA seed the teams for their tournaments? Like in basketball, should they just throw all 64 teams into a hat and hope for the best?

For MN high school hockey, I'm still on the fence. You can make good arguments either way.

keepitreal · Post by **keepitreal** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 10:36 am

allhoc11 wrote:My question is why? What would you hope to gain with seeding?

The major reason is to create the opportunity for the perceived strongest teams to meet in the finals, rather than a more likely scenario where they would meet in the quarter- or semi-finals under the current system.

Also, depending on how it is set up, seedings also might "reward" the teams that are the most successful against the toughest schedules during the regular season. This would lead to more competitive non-conference scheduling by schools, which would benefit the sport.

The current method is a default system. It provides no benefit to the sport, no promotional possibilities. I doubt any of us can quote the pairing rotation; there are no rivalries or any traditional appeal. If you're a fan of NCAA basketball, you understand the appeal of a seeded tournament and the media interest created by both underdog stories and potential championship matchups of the #1 and #2 ranked teams. The growth of girls hockey is tied to how much interest you can create among the general public. That's how we will increase participation at the youth level and put people in the stands besides the parents and grandparents of the players.

How's that?

State Champ 97 · Post by **State Champ 97** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 10:50 am

First round outstate vs metro. Go from there.

elliott70 · Post by **elliott70** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 11:40 am

This year they are paired as follows for both AA and A.

6-4
2-8
3-1
5-7

I believe they (MSHSL) are reviewing the boys side of it one more year and then will let the coaches association vote on implementing it for 2009.

The method of seeding would be by the coaches done on the Sunday/Saturday preceding the tournament. Seed 1-4, random draw 5-8.

Lobbying the coaches for or against would seem to be the appropriate appraoch.

hockeywild7 · Post by **hockeywild7** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:11 pm

I can understand the argument for having an issue with seeding if you are talking about how difficult it is to know all the teams thus making seeding tough for coaches. I would tell you that no system is perfect and whats the difference if it is wrong anyway. That wouldnt be any different than having a random seed. The argument I don't understand is that it should be random. I have to wonder why doesn't the NCAA use the random selection process for basketball, hockey, volleyball, football ect...For that matter the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB. Give me an argument that supports them not having a seeding system either.

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