I am winding down on high school ratings and contemplating whether to tackle the Summer ratings again, but I am still going back over some statistics from this past season.  Several people have inquired about their team's rating and I have dutifully re-examined several of these requests, not so much for their satisfaction as for mine.  I am usually satisfied with the ratings, unless I find an error in a report table like I did for class two Montgomery County which was showing up with the Palmyra team rating of 91.  I looked at the raw data spreadsheet and Montgomery girls were rated 116 and then I looked at the report table and it was posting Palmyra's rating!  Poor Coach Joe Basinger was pulling his hair out over that 91 rating and that is tough when you keep it as short as he does.  So I don't mind fixing my mistakes.  Measure twice, cut once.  Right? Now some of the requests just turn ugly because I know the questioner won't like my answer aft...

 Justin @Ima_little_loud was questioning the placement of Salisbury and NE Cairo in my earlier blog on the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association poll and my ratings of each class.  Justin claim was that Salisbury beat NE Cairo by 32 earlier in the season and NE Cairo lost their first district game to Van Far by 3 and should not even be ranked.  NE Cairo did beat Salisbury by two in a rematch. I went back through both schedules and here is my re-analysis of both teams. NE Cairo had a weighted 118 rating in my final class two poll (rounded up to 118).  Reviewing their schedule below, their opponents rated at 95.  They finished 21-6 although their points for/points against would suggest a higher winning percentage.  Using the Pts For/Pts Against Pythagrean formula , their winning percentage predicted at 99.6% but the large point differential may be an outcome of a weak schedule.   Their consistency score (+/- 16.5) was fairly large for a elite team...

 One of the disclaimers on the MBCA website is " If your team should be ranked, send an email and explain why.  The goal is to promote teams, never to exc lude! ".  My whole intent during the year in comparing MBCA polls to Gramps Braggin Rights ratings was not to embarrass anyone but to highlight teams that were worthy but missing from the MBCA poll. I don't know if I accomplished that but their poll and my rankings match up pretty darn good at the end of the season.  It may be that the state playoffs helped align my ratings with their poll, or maybe, Gramps ratings were on target with the play-offs and state championship games, and the coaches poll finally caught up.   It really does not matter as long as the right teams are somewhere in the MBCA poll and, for some teams, like class 5 Smithville's or class 3 West County Leadwoods' girls' teams, their fourth-place trophy takes precedent over being ranked 6th (in the MBCA poll) or  11th or 12th in Gram...

Here are my Final Gramps Braggin' Rights Missouri Girls' Basketball Ratings for the 2021-2022 season. There is no argument about Incarnate Word Academy being the best girls' basketball team in the state of Missouri this year.  There may even be little arguing about how they rank with the last six state champion teams that IWA has had.  This one might be the best, or at least, they rated the best.  Maybe Gramp's ratings have experienced some creep as ratings just go up each year.  At any rate, these Red Knights are right up near the top of all-time best girls' teams in Missouri history. The arguments might come over who is #2.  There were an awful lot of bridesmaids for that second spot.  Kickapoo, West Plains, Nixa, Whitfield, John Burroughs, and Blue Springs South were all very, very good and very deserving large schools.  El Dorado, Strafford, and Platte Valley were outstanding small school teams in my top 20. The talent in Missouri just keeps gettin...

 Gramps Braggin' Rights Missouri Girls' Basketball Ratings (Alphabetical) The following table lists all Missouri girls' teams alphabetically for easy reference.  I have included the overall rank for each team, along with their class, district, and final rating. Here are the links to all of the final Missouri boys and girls basketball ratings: Boys    All Boys Teams (by rank)    All Boys Teams (alphabetical) Class One      Class Two      Class Three       Class Four       Class Five      Class Six Girls    All Girls Teams (by rank)    All Girls Teams (alphabetical) Class One      Class Two      Class Three      Class Four      Class Five      Class Six

  Final Gramps Braggin Rights Missouri Boy's basketball ratings - All Classes ALPHABETICAL  Just in case you hate pouring over 550 teams with a fine-toothed comb and a magnifying glass, I have sorted the final Missouri boys' basketball rankings alphabetically so that you can go to your favorite team by letter.  The team's ranking in the state of Missouri is listed in front of each team's name. Thanks for looking for Gramps Braggin' Rights ratings all year.  I have enjoyed doing these as much as you may have enjoyed reading them. Here are the links to all of the final Missouri boys and girls basketball ratings: Boys    All Boys Teams (by rank)    All Boys Teams (alphabetical) Class One      Class Two      Class Three       Class Four       Class Five      Class Six Girls    All Girls Teams (by rank)    All Girls Teams (alphabetical) Class One ...

  Final Gramps Braggin Rights Missouri Boy's basketball ratings - All Classes 3/23/2022 How do you split hairs?  Christian Brothers College and Vashon are about as close as two elite teams could be ranked in my final ratings.  CBC is about 0.2 rating points better but if you had these two teams play ten games, they would probably split them 5-5, or one of them might win 6 and lose 4.   The talent in Missouri just keeps getting better and better.  All of the top ten or so teams could be state champions on any given night.  They are all just that good.   Some of the best teams weren't even in the state tournament.  With the current MSHSAA district set-up, some outstanding teams were runner-ups in their district instead of a final four team.  Some of them deserved to be in the final four and there has to be a better way to seed teams so the best basketball is played in the last few days of the state tournament in EVERY class of boys or...

It has been three years since I started rating the Missouri Girls basketball teams. It seemed to me that most of the focus was on the Boys' teams and the Girls were an afterthought. So, I decided to add the girls and took a lot of heat because I wasn't very good in my early ratings. It helps to have developed a base to solidify the ratings. I had that foundation with the boys and, after three years, I now have it with the girls' ratings also. I, like many people, still look at the boys' ratings more but I am trying to keep my focus split more evenly.  I looked at the boys' teams the other day for improvement over the four years that I have rated them and then did a deep dive into the girls for the past three years. I calculated the average rating for each team for the three years and then calculated an "Improvement" score by taking the 2021-2022 rating and subtracting the average rating for the first two years. The object of any basketball program i...

 One reader asked which teams had improved the most from the beginning to the end of the season.  Since it takes at least a month to establish decent ratings for each team, I took the rankings and ratings from late December and compared them to the final ratings and rankings.   I took the difference between the early and late ratings and sorted the teams by the largest improvement to the teams that got worse, ie. most erosion in rating or ranking.  I did the same for rankings of all 547 MSHSAA teams.  This difference may be an actual improvement or it could be I underestimated the team's rating early in the season.  It is all in fun. Who do you think was the most improved?    Seneca had a 29 point rating improvement from December to March, followed by Maysville, Tarkio, Hillcrest and Lone Jack.  Notable state tournament teams included Ava, Willow Springs, Blue Eye, Smithville, Pembroke Hill, Nixa, Father Tolton Catholic, Parkview and Fat...

  I looked at the Missouri Boys teams that improved the most this season by comparing early season ratings and rank to their final placement in Gramps Braggin Rights ratings.  I am also going to analyze how much improvement girls' teams have made over the past three seasons. The Missouri boys' team improvement was blogged HERE: The Missouri boys' team improvements over the past four years were posted HERE: Here are the links to all of the final Missouri boys and girls basketball ratings: Boys    All Boys Teams (by rank)    All Boys Teams (alphabetical) Class One      Class Two      Class Three       Class Four       Class Five      Class Six Girls    All Girls Teams (by rank)    All Girls Teams (alphabetical) Class One      Class Two      Class Three      Class Four      Class Five   ...

 Last fall, I posted a blog about how Coach Eric Bennaka of Smithville was changing the culture at the school and in the community.  Eric's did improve over past years and nearly made a game of the district championship with William Chrisman. I have been rating boys' teams since 2019 and have kept track of each team's progress.  There is a chance my ratings have crept up slightly over the four years but, if that was the case, then every team might show improvement. I calculated the average of the four years of ratings and then took the rating for 2021-2022 and subtracted the average of 2019-2021 to get an "Improvement" score.  I posted the top "50" teams on my Twitter feed and have attached that picture below.  Sure enough, Coach Bennaka's Smithville squad has improved and his team seems to be on track for future success.  If you have not read Smithville's improvement plan, you should check it out HERE . I also wrote about the Eureka girls and bo...

 Zizzers?  So what is a Zizzer anyway?  I followed the West Plains success in cross country running back in the 1990s when my son was running track at Parkway West.  West Plains won a boatload of cross country titles and they always seem to have excellent football and basketball teams as well. Someone was surprised I picked the Zizzers to win the Girls Class Five championship, but they have been a top 3 team all season.  I gave them the slightest of edges over Whitfield but they seemed to breeze right past the Warriors, who had won a state title in 2021 and two second- and two third-place finishes in the past six years. Turnabout is fair play, as Whitfield topped West Plains for last year's title.  West Plains has been district champions seven times in the past twelve years but is just arriving in that top tier the past two years with the runner-up and championship last year and yesterday.  And you should expect the Zizzer's back for another dance next...

  After starting the year 2-3 with close losses to Webster Groves, Whitfield, and Marquette, the Lady Bombers of John Burroughs reeled off a 21-1 record, winning seventeen straight to claim the class four girls championship.   I had the Lady Bombers as my #2 team in the state, behind Westminster Academy, but the John B. squad knocked off Westminster by 11 and 10 points to claim their conference title. The Lady Bombers did not waltz through a very tough class four field.  Their toughest game was an opening-round four-point win vs. Cardinal Ritter, another highly ranked team.  I actually had Ritter winning the tournament back at the end of February and, because of their excellent season, they are my #2 team.  No other team in the Class four field stayed as close as Ritter to the eventual winners. I always have said you could put the top 10 teams into a hat and pick a paper slip out and be just as accurate as my ratings.  That was especially true with the...