Comparing NE Cairo and Salisbury - a Statistical analysis 3/27/2022

 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.  The higher the consistency score, the less predictable the team will be in winning games where they are more highly rated.

Upon re-calculating their raw rating, I ended up with a 120.4 rating.

Salisbury had a 117 weighted rating in my final class two poll (rounded up from 116.6).  Reviewing their schedule, they actually played a stronger schedule than NE Cairo AND had a better record at 23-3.

Salisbury's points for/points against suggested that by the Pythagrean win % formula that they should win 98% of their games and they did win 89% AND their consistency score was +/-11.4 points, suggesting that Salisbury played much more consistently during the season than NE Cairo.

Even with those positives (winning record, consistency, strength of schedule), the raw rating for Salsibury was 119.1 compared to NE Cairo's 120.4.  

Given the re-analysis of these two teams, I would potentially move both teams up in the class two ratings, but NE Cairo would still be one rating point better than Salisbury.

If I did change their ratings, I would have to go back and check every top 20 team that raised a fuss.  The new ratings might look like this:

But I am not going to re-issue my rankings.  Under further review, NE Cairo is still a hair better than Salisbury, even if they didn't win a district game.