Y2CJ41 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Busco loses almost half of their team to graduation, and another 5 of their returning guys are well below .500. But their coach has some very nice hair Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maligned Posted April 28, 2015 Author Share Posted April 28, 2015 (edited) Busco loses almost half of their team to graduation, and another 5 of their returning guys are well below .500. Welcome to 1A. As I wrote above, they have 16 JV kids coming back (24 total). The other contenders had 3-5 JV kids. Who will be better? The team that had a clearly better season and brings back 8 + 16 JV kids, or the 1A team that was worse and brings back 10-11 with 3 JV kids. The voters went with the first option. Edited April 28, 2015 by maligned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decbell1 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 I am sure there are other factors involved and the committee had more information than I do, but just at a glance: Churubusco returns three wrestlers who won a match in the state tournament series last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bog190 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 How many JV kids did Eastern Hancock have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decbell1 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 In 3a: Valpo returns 8 semi-state qualifiers HSE returns 4 regional qualifiers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maligned Posted April 28, 2015 Author Share Posted April 28, 2015 How many JV kids did Eastern Hancock have? They didn't turn in any information about their program. Average for 1A "contending" teams is about 3-4, so the voters had to work under the assumption they were somewhere around average. Again, it's impossible to overstate how big of a deal it is just to fill a lineup in 1A with kids that have some wrestling background. For 'Busco to have 8 starters, 16 reserves, and 8 freshmen coming in is almost a guarantee of being a top 10 team in 1A. That's just the nature of 1A. The job for the voters was to figure out if other teams are in that prospective quality level too. Decbell, there have been teams in the 1A event every year with similar or worse credentials to what you quoted. The majority of 1A schools in what might be considered the top 20 had 1 or 0 guys past regional. They all won very few matches, especially the ones like Busco who come from a very crowded sectional in terms of having lots of regional-level or better quality kids at every weight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bog190 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 The committee decided 8 returning starters with 5 of them having very poor records was a better returning resume than a team with 11 returning starters? Seems like plenty of emphasis on the number of JV kids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maligned Posted April 28, 2015 Author Share Posted April 28, 2015 In 3a: Valpo returns 8 semi-state qualifiers HSE returns 4 regional qualifiers As you know, not all sectionals and regionals are created equally. HSE wrestles in the most crowded sectional and the 3rd-most crowded regional in the state. Valpo wrestles in one of the worst regionals in terms of depth of guys that are truly semi-state quality (great high-end quality, but a sharp drop-off after the first couple at each weight). HSE was a consensus top 8-12 team in human voting and computer numbers. They bring back 9 starters, including several stars. That in itself equates to staying at about the same level for a big-school top-notch program. Figure in the fact that they have one of the largest few programs in the state (they'll have 75 in the room next year again) and it seems very clear they'll be at that level again. Valpo, on the other hand, was probably only about the 35th best team in the state this year. They bring back 12 starters, which means they'll be better, but their common opponent results vs. HSE were very weak and it's hard to imagine even having 12 starters will jump them up to that 8-12 range that HSE's info suggests they'll be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maligned Posted April 28, 2015 Author Share Posted April 28, 2015 The committee decided 8 returning starters with 5 of them having very poor records was a better returning resume than a team with 11 returning starters? Seems like plenty of emphasis on the number of JV kids. Time will tell. I think they were fully justified, considering the top-end quality of wins Busco had compared to others, the level that teams tend to replace kids they lose, and the depth numbers of the program. I did not envy their voting position in 1A at all because it's always so tough to predict. I would just add, however, because I know how people will always question the objectivity of voters: before this year, there were 4 instances where coaches or ex-coaches who are directly involved with the entire state duals process had teams in the voting process. Twice they were selected and twice they were not. Both of the selected teams ended up placing top 2 at the event. One of those not selected turned out to be erroneously omitted when they had a great season. And the other one not chosen turned out to be a wise omission. These concerned coaches are always out of the room and the process has gone in a very objective way, in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warsawwrestling Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 It is cool seeing teams fight and argue about their chances to get into a tournament. It shows how great of a tournament this is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bog190 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Time will tell. I think they were fully justified, considering the top-end quality of wins Busco had compared to others, the level that teams tend to replace kids they lose, and the depth numbers of the program. I did not envy their voting position in 1A at all because it's always so tough to predict. I would just add, however, because I know how people will always question the objectivity of voters: before this year, there were 4 instances where coaches or ex-coaches who are directly involved with the entire state duals process had teams in the voting process. Twice they were selected and twice they were not. Both of the selected teams ended up placing top 2 at the event. One of those not selected turned out to be erroneously omitted when they had a great season. And the other one not chosen turned out to be a wise omission. These concerned coaches are always out of the room and the process has gone in a very objective way, in my opinion. Busco had those "top-end quality of wins" with 6 seniors that are no longer there. I'm not saying Busco won't be a better team next year, but I find it hard to justify that they were more deserving of that spot based on what is coming back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maligned Posted April 28, 2015 Author Share Posted April 28, 2015 Busco had those "top-end quality of wins" with 6 seniors that are no longer there. I'm not saying Busco won't be a better team next year, but I find it hard to justify that they were more deserving of that spot based on what is coming back. I definitely understand your point, but E. Hancock only brings 4 back that made it out of a below-average sectional. It's just very, very tough to isolate one stat and say that's the end of it. (I'm not even sure which way I would have voted because I wasn't in the room to hear the discussion.) Playing the devil's advocate, however, think of it this way: Consider E. Hancock's worst 3 guys as similar quality to JV and examine only their 8 best guys. I also just found they had 11 JV in real life (too bad their coach didn't submit any info after being asked a few times...this is a nice number). Anyway, in our thought experiment, that means they bring back 8 starters and 14 JV-quality guys, compared to 'Busco's 8 starters and 16 JV. Also, rather than looking at the highly misleading true results from two teams with very different quality levels of sectional and regional, consider the "virtual" results they earned in our quota system this year (these reflect what they would have earned in an average level sectional). The totals then look like this: 'Busco returns 2 sectional, 3 sectional 5/6, 1 regional, 2 semi-state first rounders, and 16 JV kids that backed up a top 10 quality team E. Hancock returns 4 sectional 5/6, 3 regional, 1 semi-state first rounder, and 14 JV-quality kids from a top 20 quality team Even with that, I'm not saying I can suggest 'Busco will definitely be better, but it's a lot more accurate look at where the teams really are. And it's not hard to understand why voters leaned the way of the deeper team (not knowing E. Hancock had an irregularly large 1A program also) from the two that are actually bringing back similar quality levels from their varsity, rather than the simplistic 11-8 first look at starters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bog190 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Again, 5 of these 8 starters had records of 8-18, 8-17, 5-11, 6-20, and 8-15. that seems like JV quality to me. Busco gets the bid with 3 returning starters and 21 JV quality kids? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chambers Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 The point isn't that the scores don't matter at all. The point is that you have to put the qualifying score in perspective with everything else. A 10-point advantage here suggests a team performed in the state series in a way that they would be a 4-point favorite in a dual. That's very, very slim and requires us to look at more information. Tecumseh brings back 9 starters--none who made it past regional. Churubusco brings back 8 starters--1 who made it past regional. Churubusco beat Tecumseh by 30 in the season. Churubusco brings back 16 JV kids (plus 8 freshmen). Tecumseh has only 3 JV kids (plus 7 freshmen). Churubusco had a significantly better genius rating. I wasn't a voter, but for me, with how difficult it is to fill a 1A lineup with varsity-quality kids, the data seems clear between these two. I am the coach at Tecumseh. We had our chance to score enough points in the tournament to get an automatic bid. We lost two matches that we were winning. If we would have won one of them we would have got an automatic bid. We had our chance and failed. We will go back to work and plan to score enough points to earn our way in next time. We would have liked to be voted in but I have no problem with how the vote went. I am sure Churubusco and Attica do well at the state duals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpt189 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 I'm glad to see The progression of Attica's program. They've only been around a handful of years and are in the state duals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maligned Posted April 28, 2015 Author Share Posted April 28, 2015 Again, 5 of these 8 starters had records of 8-18, 8-17, 5-11, 6-20, and 8-15. that seems like JV quality to me. Busco gets the bid with 3 returning starters and 21 JV quality kids? I just meant that if you look at the 8 starters coming back for Busco and the top 8 coming back for E. Hancock, they're very similar. Then you've got 16 guys for Busco and 14 guys for E. Hancock that are all JV or less-than-stellar varsity after those. My post was confusing, I admit. I'm glad to see The progression of Attica's program. They've only been around a handful of years and are in the state duals. Time will tell if they can keep building. They'll be senior-heavy this upcoming year and they're not incredibly deep, so hopefully they've got some good 7th and 8th graders about to come in that can keep the ball rolling after those seniors leave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpt189 Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Personally, something I would like to see in the future in terms of selection, is make the semistate selections more evenly distributed. Of the 36 teams in next season's team finals, only 7 come from the evansville semistate. In theory, a class title could be decided by 3 schools from 3 semistates, and 9 from the remaining semistate. I understand you want to pick the best teams, but sometimes I feel some teams are put in a disadvantage because of where they live. However, I am always one that believes you have to prove yourself to get a shot at something like this. I just hate to see the second best class 1a or 2a or whatever class team not automatically get a shot if 7 teams from a different semistate may have a higher score than them. In the pros they don't take 6 teams out of one division because their scores are better than the 2nd place in a different division. I may be way off base, and understand my opinion doesn't mean much, but I wanted to voice it anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Here is my rough guess if we took 2 from each semi-state and then 4 wildcards, red are the different teams invited 1A Fort Wayne Prairie Heights Oak Hill Evansville Monrovia Tecumseh New Castle Southmont Knightstown Merrillville Bremen Triton Wildcards Centerville Eastern Hancock Winchester Attica 2A Fort Wayne Yorktown Bellmont Evansville Mount Vernon (Posey) Evansville Memorial New Castle South Dearborn Lebanon Merrillville West Lafayette Benton Central Wildcards Delta North Montgomery Jimtown Leo 3A Fort Wayne Carroll (Fort Wayne) Elkhart Memorial Evansville Evansville Mater Dei Brownsburg New Castle Warren Central Perry Meridian Merrillville Penn Portage Wildcards Indianapolis Cathedral Jennings County Lawrence North Avon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrecoCoach Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Personally, something I would like to see in the future in terms of selection, is make the semistate selections more evenly distributed. Of the 36 teams in next season's team finals, only 7 come from the evansville semistate. In theory, a class title could be decided by 3 schools from 3 semistates, and 9 from the remaining semistate. I understand you want to pick the best teams, but sometimes I feel some teams are put in a disadvantage because of where they live. However, I am always one that believes you have to prove yourself to get a shot at something like this. I just hate to see the second best class 1a or 2a or whatever class team not automatically get a shot if 7 teams from a different semistate may have a higher score than them. In the pros they don't take 6 teams out of one division because their scores are better than the 2nd place in a different division. I may be way off base, and understand my opinion doesn't mean much, but I wanted to voice it anyway. If it was evenly distributed perfectly, there would be exactly 9 (of the 36) from each semistate. 7 is pretty darn close to that, so I'm not sure where the complaint is coming from. The system in place guarantees every semistate is at least represented in each class, but it also gives equal chances for teams to earn their way into the tournament to balance it out as much as it should be. Y2's post above shows that upping it to 2 auto bids per semistate would only include 1 team per class that didn't qualify or get voted in. (not sure why the voted in spots would have been different, Joe) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maligned Posted April 29, 2015 Author Share Posted April 29, 2015 The other issue is that there is uneven distribution of teams per class at various semi-states. The number of teams for a particular class at a particular semi-state vary from 18 to 35. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpt189 Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 (edited) I don't have a good reason to complain, I suppose. I don't have a dog in the fight so to say. Yes, 9 and 7 are close to each other. However, of those 7, 4 of them are in 3a, 2 of them in 2a, and 1 in 1a. That's not an even distribution. If it were to be an equal distribution, take the top 3 from each semistate. And if they took the top 2 from each class as stated above, then the wildcats from the south are 2 of 12, both in 3a. I understand it can't be perfect, especially when classes are distributed evenly across the state. Their are only 17 schools in the evansville semistate that are 1a. There is a much better division in the other 2 classes. As I said before, my opinion doesn't matter in this. I guess one issue I can see is that we want the best teams per class to wrestle each other, but the way we determine that is from the results the previous season, and everyone is grouped together. To be the best 1a team, you have to hope you can advance enough guys through an individual tourney that includes 2a and 3a schools. Same thing for the other 2 classes. At a dog show, you don't judge the best miniature breed, but throw a bulldog and St. Bernard into the competition. I know that's a terrible analogy, but I'm trying to say if you want the best per class, you have to have the tourney per class. If a 1a or 2a school is in a sectional that is loaded with 3a schools. What are the odd they can truly qualify for their state duals tourney the following season? Edited April 29, 2015 by jpt189 Super_Fan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super_Fan Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 I don't have a good reason to complain, I suppose. I don't have a dog in the fight so to say. Yes, 9 and 7 are close to each other. However, of those 7, 4 of them are in 3a, 2 of them in 2a, and 1 in 1a. That's not an even distribution. If it were to be an equal distribution, take the top 3 from each semistate. And if they took the top 2 from each class as stated above, then the wildcats from the south are 2 of 12, both in 3a. I understand it can't be perfect, especially when classes are distributed evenly across the state. Their are only 17 schools in the evansville semistate that are 1a. There is a much better division in the other 2 classes. As I said before, my opinion doesn't matter in this. I guess one issue I can see is that we want the best teams per class to wrestle each other, but the way we determine that is from the results the previous season, and everyone is grouped together. To be the best 1a team, you have to hope you can advance enough guys through an individual tourney that includes 2a and 3a schools. Same thing for the other 2 classes. At a dog show, you don't judge the best miniature breed, but throw a bulldog and St. Bernard into the competition. I know that's a terrible analogy, but I'm trying to say if you want the best per class, you have to have the tourney per class. If a 1a or 2a school is in a sectional that is loaded with 3a schools. What are the odd they can truly qualify for their state duals tourney the following season? I have wondered this for a while now... I was curious as to why class wrestling supports don't have a big problem with this issue... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maligned Posted April 29, 2015 Author Share Posted April 29, 2015 I have wondered this for a while now... I was curious as to why class wrestling supports don't have a big problem with this issue... It's a tough issue for sure, but we've done hours and hours of research and data compiling over 6 years that have allowed us to do 2 important things: 1. Know how to rate sectionals and regionals for their duals strength depth and adjust teams' advancement levels to make them accordingly more fair. 2. Have class-specific scoring systems that assign points according to how their performance as a team of their school size translates into ability next year. If you've never read our scoring procedures document, I'd really recommend taking a look at it on the ihswca website to understand how we work very hard to hone in on teams' future abilities based on current-season performance (even in sectionals/regionals/etc. of different quality levels). No "predictive" model will ever be perfect, but we've been far, far more accurate in getting the following season's best teams into the event than the old IHSAA geographic system ever was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpt189 Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 It is a tough issue for sure. Predicting 3 classes from a single class tourney does make it difficult. I am not in any way discrediting the efforts of everyone involved with the selection process Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super_Fan Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 It's a tough issue for sure, but we've done hours and hours of research and data compiling over 6 years that have allowed us to do 2 important things: 1. Know how to rate sectionals and regionals for their duals strength depth and adjust teams' advancement levels to make them accordingly more fair. 2. Have class-specific scoring systems that assign points according to how their performance as a team of their school size translates into ability next year. If you've never read our scoring procedures document, I'd really recommend taking a look at it on the ihswca website to understand how we work very hard to hone in on teams' future abilities based on current-season performance (even in sectionals/regionals/etc. of different quality levels). No "predictive" model will ever be perfect, but we've been far, far more accurate in getting the following season's best teams into the event than the old IHSAA geographic system ever was. But it's not fair if my 1A kids have to wrestle 3A kids and it causes us not to go to team state because of a bad draw in sectionals... Not saying that you guys aren't pretty good at predicting future ability it just seems silly that you can argue for classing wrestling because its not fair if a 1A kid has to wrestle a 3A kid in the individual tourney but it is ok if this happens for the team state qualifying score... Maybe you guys just need to design a formula to give 1A kids a handicap in the state tourney too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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