maligned

Merrillville only had 13, but I noticed they had 315 points--maybe the most dominating overall performance versus the competition they faced. They had 10 champs and were collectively 39-6 with 35 falls or forfeits (not byes) on the day. All but one guy had at least 2 falls or forfeits--and that guy was a champ still.

Here was 2a through sectional 2 years ago:

Here is a link to the pdf download of Team State Qualification Procedures for 2020, along with links to updated Frequently Asked Questions pages by topic:

Links to Frequently Asked Questions are below. Almost all questions we receive every year can be answered in the procedures document itself or here: General Qualification and Scoring Process: Team Classification: Controlling for Sectional and Regional Difficulty: Injuries and "Those scores don't seem fair" situations:

Here are the Team State Qualification Procedures for 2020. Included are of course the small changes to scoring in the new 3A and 4A classes and a description of how classification will be done going forward. Links to Frequently Asked Questions and their answers by topic are in my next comment as well. Good luck in the qualification race!! IHSWCA Team State Duals Qualification Procedures 2020.pdf

Hoffman of Lehigh wrestled for the first time tonight since Lee's illegal knee thing on him.

We include every single result in the database; but unless at least one of those opponents at a particular event faced at least one other Indiana team sometime during the year, those results won't move your rating or your SoS numbers at all. (That's a good example of where there's a limit to what the SoS numbers are telling us by the way. We have plenty of data for each team to get slotted well in terms of rating, but the SoS numbers only apply to what genuinely impacted your rating.)

Nice..beat me to it. These Genius POTENTIAL ratings for 2020. All results in the IndianaMat database are included in these ratings. A few reminders if you haven't seen these ratings before: 1. POTENTIAL is a strictly score-based rating, collected and calculated within the context of your schedule. It doesn't take into account wins and losses, but overall performance across every single contest you had. This type of score-based rating is more predictive of future performance than wins/losses based ratings. Just as you might be expected to beat a certain team by 20 points because you averaged 20 more points per dual against two common opponents, we can input all scores in the state together and interconnect all results to spit out how you'd be expected to do against anyone using the same principle. 2. The algorithm used for these ratings is one of the main types used to set Vegas lines for games and matches. The rating difference between your team and another team is roughly the expected point differential between your teams in a dual meet. 3. Tournament results are also included because they are remarkably predictive of dual meet results. We do, however, weight those results much less than dual meets. In general, the difference between you and another team in a tournament is about 3 times as much as the difference expected between your two teams in a dual. 4. Because we consider ALL results, not just isolated duals, it is very common and normal to have Team A be rated lower than Team B even though Team A won the head-to-head. Even in the NFL, for example, a two-touchdown favorite loses 15-20% of the time. This doesn't mean that favorite won't still be expected to be the better team in the future based on all their performances put together. 5. If someone seems overrated or underrated, it can sometimes be a case of schedule difficulty--especially at the top and bottom of the ratings--where a team faced virtually all teams of very high quality or much less quality than their own that didn't allow their position against the entire state to be fully evaluated. However, this "overrated" or "underrated" phenomenon is not nearly as extreme as you think. Someone that feels "overrated" to you in ratings like these is almost always better than you think but didn't get the chance to prove it against a team you recognize. 6. Strength of Schedule rating is essentially an average of the quality of every team you wrestled--including JV and out-of-state opponents. Don't be insulted if you feel your SoS rating is too low when you faced 10 ranked teams. It just means you also faced a healthy amount of weak teams that pulled your SoS down. Everyone knows you still ran the gauntlet.

Just a quick bumperoo to remind folks today is the last shot to email us if you're thinking of trying to compete in 4A for the next couple seasons.

A few guys really stand out to me from that list in terms of exceeding expectations when you see their records on paper in black and white. 1. I know he's been doing it for a couple years, but I never would have expected Cael McCormick to get as good as he has. If felt like he had such a small frame and potentially limited offense. But that dude gets into offensive fireworks shows against people. So fun to watch. 2. Dylan Lydy just keeps impressing. Where's the ceiling? He doesn't throttle people, but he somehow just gets incrementally better again and again and again. He's one I never would have pegged as an All-American candidate/favorite. 3. Starting with his Al Smith run his junior year of high school, I kept hearing how Thomas Penola was such a hard worker and so eager to learn and try things. A true gym rat/mat rat. You know those guys will just keep following an upward trajectory. But to see how he keeps improving as he's moving up in weight classes and now to see what he's doing this year up against much bigger men and really solid competition? He's got a real shot to go from 170-lb unknown junior in high school to redshirt freshman heavyweight NCAA qualifier. Definitely a cool, cool story.

Nebraska joined the Big 10 the Purdue year, so if it's typically the idea that they wait a full cycle, Nebraska would slot in after Northwestern. Maryland and Rutgers joined the Ohio State year, so it would seem Maryland would be after Wisconsin.

Very cool

One more thought to try to illuminate what I've been arguing for: if Sasso had beaten only Lugo before a new rankings, wouldn't that automatically have pushed Lee to #2 and Sasso to #3 because it would have been a neat and tidy Lewallen over Lee over Sasso over Lugo over O'Connor with a random DQ in the mix? If we'd had #2 Lee and #3 Sasso in place before Sasso-Lee II, how does Lee losing to Sasso drop him to #4 or #6 when he's still got the win over Sasso in his pocket? It wouldn't have. He'd have dropped only to #3 almost certainly. But because he started out at #4 or #5 and both Sasso wins happened in a rankings period, they overthought things compared to how rankings logic usually works.

Fair point. I suppose the fact that InterMat has Brayton down at #6 behind 1-loss Mauller and O'Connor and Flo has him at #4 ahead of those guys tells us there's disagreement as to what to do with the "3".

I agree it will be one of those 4 guys, and I agree that odds would have to favor Valencia. He'd have overall accomplishments over S Lee and Hall slightly and it's hard to put strong odds on Joseph when his personal kryptonite in Marinelli will be in his bracket.

I really don't think rankers care about DQ losses. I mean, using an in-state example: if Mendez slams the #20 kid and loses, plus takes an out-of-state loss, will he be ranked behind an undefeated kid? No. Because rankers want their rankings to look and feel logical, not contrived. He doesn't fall unless by a genuine in-state loss. It's different with seeding where the loss was by rule a penalty of sorts that has to be considered. He did something illegal twisting on his knee, but I didn't see it. I've only read bare bones reports to know he didn't continue that match, and I researched and found he hasn't wrestled since.

Antknee is right. That's 2019 forfeit data, but it is the enrollment data the IHSAA and us are using for classification for this year. This season's forfeit data will be finalized after everyone steps on the mat this weekend.

In certain years, it seems like Parris could be a Hodge trophy contender with how dominant he is over 98% of his weight, but man there are so many stars this year. It's really conceivable that Spencer Lee, Deakin, Hall, Valencia, and Moore all cruise to undefeated titles carrying strong credentials with them. Plus, whoever turns out to have the upper hand in the Joseph/Marinelli and Nick Lee/Pletcher battles could be undefeated too. Not to mention Mason would have to beat Cassioppi next weekend, both Cassioppi and Steveson at Big 10s, and one or two of them again at nationals to run the table. Crowded, crowded field of credentialed candidates for the Hodge, that's for sure.

Yes. Unfortunate, but zero impact in terms of media rankings typically. He's got 2 losses in the eyes of rankers. There may be an issue with seeding though down the road because of the impact on RPI and other metrics used at NCAAs. I didn't hear the updated prospectus for Hoffman, but he hasn't wrestled since that match. Disappointing scenario for two really tough wrestlers.

We'll publish qualification procedures later this week that will include detailed instructions for sending injury info, and then you'll have until the week before state to get it in.

No, they'll be in the procedures doc. They're not finished yet.

Yeah, where I live, NCAAs start Thursday at 5pm and March Madness at 6pm. My wife has been incredibly generous to hang with our kids and I just hide out from like 5pm to 2am my time.

I'll post the procedures at the end of the week. The only changes in 3A are 1) to add one extra point to regional and semi-state first round qualifiers for both underclassmen and seniors and 2) to add a full-lineup bonus of 3 points for 14 wrestlers and 1 point for 13 wrestlers. All will stay the same in 2A and 1A since the teams will be virtually the same as in the past. In 4A, scoring will have a number of minor adjustments to reflect the bigger dual meet impact for the biggest schools of having guys get to semi-state second round, state, and state placement levels.

Yeah, I'm not necessarily saying he's the 3rd best guy, but usually they basically disregard losses to guys above you. If that's the case, you disregard the Lewallen loss and see that Lee is 1-1 against Sasso and Lugo is 0-1. In my book, 1-1 is better than 0-1 and would usually put him higher. I think it's a bit of a situation where they just shifted Sasso up and didn't reconsider how the big picture now looks since it would mean re-slotting Lee up a couple spots after a loss.

These dual meets are entered in the IndianaMat system with impossibly large scores (84 points is maximum). What were the real scores? Benton Central 52, Wapahani 34 Benton Central 47, Union City 41 Benton Central 60, Blackford 27 Hamilton Hts 69, Blackford 18 Boonville 81, New Washington 6 Boonville 79, Mitchell 6 North Harrison 57, Madison JV 36 Maconaquah 66, SB Washington 24 Cascade 52, Rossville 38 Frankton 72, Tri 15 TH South 73, North Knox 12 Lawrence North 46, Floyd Central 39 S Vermillion 48, Covington 39 Beech Grove 45, FW South Side 42