Updated Maher Rankings 1/24

The rankings have been updated complete with Upset of the Week, Movers of the Week, Region Strengths and Games of the Week for the week upcoming. In the queue we hope to have an analysis of Holy Cross Covington, and their ranking compared to some of the top teams in region 9, who they have beaten!

Let us know what you think.

Maher Rankings | Kentucky High School Soccer Rankings

Rank Team

1 Paul Laurence Dunbar

2 Covington Catholic

3 Scott County

4 Trinity (Louisville)

5 Ballard

6 Mercer County

7 Bullitt East

8 Lafayette

9 Newport Central Catholic

10 Bowling Green

11 Southwestern

12 Henry Clay

13 Male

14 St. Xavier

15 Cooper

16 Hopkinsville

17 Christian County

18 North Hardin

19 Doss

20 Lexington Catholic

In the past, you've said Mercer's SOS has kept them from being ranked higher. Just curious how Scott County's compares. They've lost only one game but it was to an unranked team that Mercer has beaten twice - and by an average of around 22 points. The have played 1 top 25 team, and they did win that game (Henry Clay).

Their margins of victory are solid but not huge. Help me understand how they're ranked third.

Scotts strength of schedule is 40th and Mercers is 56th

Scotts strength of schedule is 40th and Mercers is 56th

Then there must not be significant enough weighting given to margin of victory. Mercer's margin of victory is more than 50% higher than Scott County's. If Scott had a top 10 SOS, that'd be one thing - but they don't.

No ranking system computer or not is perfect. Not everyone is going to be happy with where there team is ranked in every poll. Just take them for what they are worth. It all plays itself out in the end.

Then there must not be significant enough weighting given to margin of victory. Mercer's margin of victory is more than 50% higher than Scott County's. If Scott had a top 10 SOS, that'd be one thing - but they don't.

I guess the computer doesn't care if Mercer is blowing out bad teams. We do have a tournament at the end that will take care of everything.

I guess the computer doesn't care if Mercer is blowing out bad teams. We do have a tournament at the end that will take care of everything.

I know, right. Montgomery and Wayne are terrible.

I guess the computer doesn't care if Mercer is blowing out bad teams. We do have a tournament at the end that will take care of everything.

There is a tournament at the end. But, until then, there are those who attempt to rank teams based on varying methodologies. And, given the fact that you responded to this thread, I'm guessing you thought that a ranking was interesting enough to read - even before the tournament at the end of the year.

I'm not going to argue with you about the logic/math behind this. Given your the lack of depth to your reply, I think it might be more worthwhile to await a response from SoccerMath.

By the way, there's absolutely no way UK should've been rated #1 last year; or any year for that matter. How could they be when they play in the SEC? There are just too many conferences that are stronger every year.

No ranking system computer or not is perfect. Not everyone is going to be happy with where there team is ranked in every poll. Just take them for what they are worth. It all plays itself out in the end.

I'm not unhappy about it; just trying to understand this particular poll. What I've heard to date is SOS hurts Mercer. So, seeing Scott County up there perplexed me - thus my question.

I agree with @mooremiller31, while I might not agree with where some are ranked in this poll, or others, I'm certainly not going to fault @SoccerMath for his efforts in doing the work to put this poll out.

I like the ranking system. Its black and white not based on homer opinion. I can't go into more depth because I didn't write the code.

I’m going to start by saying thanks for this excellent case study. Why is Holy Cross Covington ranked below CovCath, NewCath and Cooper, all fellow 9th Region foes which they have beaten? This one is especially interesting as it appears to be plaguing the Cantrell and Lit Ratings as well. Though I know nothing about the other two, I imagine we all have a similar base, with some differing assumptions along the way. This is a hard one, and it took some digging, and you may or may not be satisfied with the answer. There isn’t going to be an easy, single answer, but it’s more of a combination of factors all adding together.

Let’s start with Covington Catholic. You’ll notice some subtleties at first in their favor. CovCath is 4-3 against the top 35. Two of those wins are on neutral courts, and only one of the losses is at home, a 2 pointer to #4 Trinity. Holy Cross 4-4 against the top 35 with only one win on the neutral court, plus they have the additional loss to #55 Brossart by 12. In fact, Holy Cross is 1-5 against the top 70 away from home, CovCath is 3-2.

It is true that all else being equal, a road win counts for more than a home win. The converse is also true, however, a home loss hurts more than a road loss. Holy Cross clearly has a strong home court advantage, but they do seem to struggle on the road. Home losses, on the other hand can punish you, but a 2 point loss at home to the #4 doesn’t punish a whole lot. Still, so far we have probably successfully shown why CovCath is ranked higher, but probably not done enough to explain why they are so far apart. Enter the scoring margin.

We’ve talked a lot about W’s and L’s, but a major difference between the teams is the scoring margin. Against many mid-level opponents Holy Cross tends to slog out the ugly wins. Wins all the same, yes, but the system must use scoring margin, trust me on that one. Consider, a 5 pt win vs. #113 Buckhorn, 7 pt wins vs #166 Highlands, #178 Ludlow, and #93 Newport and even the win vs. #215 Bellevue; all wins that were actually negative point games for Holy Cross as viewed by the system. The Ludlow and Highlands games were fairly significantly negative (losing greater than 0.5 scaled rating point in each). The rest were very close to zero, or neutral games.

CovCath on the other hand, when they win a game, they can run away with it. They beat the #9 by 15 on a neutral court, the #14 by TWENTY-SEVEN at home, the #23 by FORTY-SIX on a neutral court. Their wins over the mid-level teams, Conner, St. Henry, Ludlow are also by impressive margins. They only have the one loss to Cooper that kind of got away from them (13 pts), as compared with Holy Cross’s two 18 point losses, a 12 point and a 10 point loss.

We are going to have to leave it at that for now. It is pretty time consuming to do the deep dive study, especially with 4 teams. I think next, I will move on to the Scott County/Mercer County question. Looks like a good one.

Thanks, and as always, questions/comments are welcome.