When your team is ranked lower than some team you beat

 I often get complimented for the boys' and girls' ratings that Gramps post.  There is only one other rating system that rates all high school basketball teams in Missouri and we are pretty darn close to each other in rankings.  I still prefer the way Gramps rates teams because the difference in rating is the predicted spread when they play.

First off, there wouldn't be a Gramps Braggin' Rights ratings this year if Coach Mike Backes of Blair Oaks had not volunteered to help me with the calculations.  I sure hope he wants to be the new Gramps next year.  While I enjoy the work, I have other priorities (as does Grama) and someone else needs to take the baton.

I have finished up my History of Minnesota Nordic Skiing book application at Amazon and have sold a bunch of books at bookpatch.com.  Today is the start of the Minnesota State HS Nordic Ski Championship, which I won (or actually tied for first) just 59 years ago.

But I digress.  This blog today is about why your team is rated lower than teams they beat and many followers question their teams' rating because they are rated lower than someone they beat, and maybe beat several times.

Gramps ratings are based on score differential for the entire season.  A team's rating is the sum of opponents ratings and the spread for each game, so your team could beat another team two or three times but if they play poorly against the rest of their schedule, their rating will get pulled down.

I took some heat for rating Eureka above Lafayette in early January.  The Lancers had soundly beat the Cats by one and two points, however, Lafayette is 10-12 while Eureka is 13-6.  The Lancers have played a slightly stronger schedule but have lost to some teams they shouldn't have. If Eureka had made a couple of freethrows, Lafayette might be 8-14 and Eureka 15-4.  I threw Marquette into this analysis too.  All three schools are big rivals and the fans are rabid.  It's pretty exciting come District playoffs with these schools involved.

Listed below are each team's schedule and results.  The ratings are calculated from the entire season:

I would expect that come district seeding, Marquette would get the #1 seed, Lafayette the #2 (based on their two wins over Eureka) and Eureka the #3, but the seed discussion might put more weight on record and recent performance.  (Postscript: I neglected to mention Parkway South, which has quietly put together a 16-4 record and a rating equal to Marquette and Eureka.  The Patriots might actually be the #1 seed over the three aforementioned teams). It will be an exciting playoff.

So if you are a fan of a class one team thinking you should be rated higher than those yahoos five miles down the road cuz you beat them three times but you have a 4-18 record and they have a 15-12 record, take a hard look at your team's total season.  

Gramps does look at head-to-head and will weight ratings, especially if the teams are close in their records and the games were blowouts, but I tend to hang my hat on performance over the entire season rather than one or two games, especially when they are decided by two or three points.  As Mark Twain said, "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics".  

I prefer the statistics cuz they usually don't lie.