2021 Postseason Analysis Explanation
by Admin on 11/01/21
Greetings all!
Going to try something new (and hopefully fun) for this year's postseason. As many of you know, we have been working to create a MO Soccer Power Rankings over the past few years in an effort to replace the (much slower and likely not all that accurate) Coaches Polls. It's been a labor of love for the creator (Ryan Schweain, of Cape ND) and he has been constantly tweaking the formulas in order to provide the best possible way to rank the teams in the state based on results, strength of schedule, etc. What started in 2019 has grown into our current ranking system and with that, a lot of good dialogue from coaches, fans and players with regards to our sport. As always, lots of "what if" questions come up and if nothing else, it's an interesting way to fix the biggest problem we had with our previous Coaches Polling system - that of coaches in all parts of the state trying to compare teams that most don't or can't see throughout the year. The MPR (Missouri Power Rankings) is designed to do that through an analytical "numbers based" approach with one goal in mind: create more interest for our sport.
That all being said, this system was not designed to replace the current playoff system seeding method or anything really to do with how MSHSAA runs the playoffs. With the latest change to the postseason (no more sectional games and thus larger districts) coming into play this year and the obvious connection to how football uses a similar system to seed districts, several people have reached out to see if this is a possibility for MO soccer. The answer, frankly, is probably "no" - at least not anytime soon and not without a lot more dialogue from the coaches/schools with MSHSAA.
In any case, over the weekend prior to the postseason starting (and using the last regular season MPR as a guide), we looked at each district's seeding and how our MPR aligned with those seeds and offered a bit of analysis as a reference. What we discovered was that in several cases of the MPR and seeding not aligning came from head-to-head games or the fact that not many teams played each other within the district, so likely the coaches were "guesstimating" where seeding should be, or also possibly manipulating seeds. Regardless, we sent an email out to association members with some of what we found and that led us into thinking we could try to do some more with our info over the next few weeks. Thus, the genesis of this blog.
Again, this is only for discussion and (maybe) some entertainment value. Feel free to let us know any thoughts you have...we will be doing some updating to this over the next few days as best we can.
Enjoy
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