West County Leadwood and Steelville - an analysis of schedules and explanation of comparative statistics

Sometimes I think I need thicker skin.  When you get into a rating of teams, the old saying from Lincoln "you can satisfy some of the people all of the time, but you cannot satisfy all of the people all of the time" or something like that.  No matter how hard I try to keep the ratings equitable, there will be a complaint, an inquiry, or a question about their team's placement.

I had an inquiry this morning about class three Steelville and West County Leadwood.  The inquirer indicated that West County had made the final four and had beaten Steelville in a February game by 47-37.  I don't always respond to such questions with this much analysis but it does two things: 1) it validates my ratings and 2) it helps explain to everyone how I get to where the ratings end up.

I told the inquirer that I would take a look but she said it did not matter because head-to-head should trump everything else.  I don't agree with that unless it is a state championship game (besides, I hate to use the word trump).  The success of a team during the entire season needs to be evaluated along with the strength of the schedule.  Head-to-head games might be an anomaly.  Players might have been sick or injured.  One team might have their only bad night of shooting for the entire season.  It makes rating teams dicy but it has to be weighed with all the factors.  The efficacy of the ratings is based on comparative statistics, not one game but an entire season of games.  Winning one game is like having Ace-2-3-4-6 vs. 9-10-J-Q-K in 5 card poker. The Ace does not "trump" the other hand.

I took a backhanded approach in my Twitter reply.  I said Licking beat Steelville by 1, Strafford beat Licking by 8, El Dorado beat Strafford by 2 so that would make Steelville eleven points worse than the state champ.  El Dorado had a 147 rating so Steelville would be 136.  AND, South Shelby beat West County by 14 but lost to El Dorado by 35 so that would make West County 49 points worse than El Dorado or a 98 rating.  I guess you can look at statistics in many, many ways.  Her response was that West County beat Steelville by 10 and that was that.

So I took both teams' schedules and did a deep dive.  First off, I looked at common opponents.  Both teams played South Iron, Potosi, Fredericktown, Park Hills Central, Grandview Hillsboro, and Cuba.  West County was 6-2 but had a point/points allowed of 39/39.  Steelville had a 4-2 record but averaged 56 points and allowed 43.    I also looked at the Score Difference, ie. how did West Co. and Steelville do against the same opponent?  So for South Iron, West Co. lost by 22, Steelville by 14 so the score difference was -8.... West Co. lost by 8 more than Steelville.  Steelville also beat Fredrictown by 23 or 28 more than West Co., beat Cuba by 22 more, and Grandview by 27 more than West Co.  So from a Common Opponent standpoint, Steelville seemed to have a superior team.

I then looked at the entire season.  West County had a better record at 24-6 but their strength of schedule was 105 (their opponents average rating) vs. Steelville, who was 19-10 but played a much more difficult schedule (Fatima, St. James (2), Helias, Owensville, Licking (2), and Ellington) with a S.O.S. of 112.  Their raw rating were 120 for West County and 127 for Steelville.  Their weighted ratings were 119 and 128.  If I were to make any changes in the final class three girls ratings, I would move West County up to a 120 rating which moves them up from #12 to #11 over Ash Grove but then I would make all the fans in Ash Grove mad and I would have to recalculate their rating too.

So, based upon further review, the fact West County beat  Steelville by 10 is not as important as their overall season performance.  I just cannot penalize Steelville for their great season because of a particular loss, nor can I reward West County for one game.  It would be like using the El Dorado analogy I made above.

And while that satisfies my curiosity about these ratings and it might help all of you understand how these ratings end up where they do, I am pretty sure I will not convince one coach's wife that West County doesn't belong above Steelville, no matter how much data I throw out.