So thoughts after this week:

1. First and foremost I want to re-establish I do NOT like the RPI, personally. I could actually live with the RPI for what the KHSAA is using it for.. but I think the way they are calculating it is flawed and frankly a bit lazy. That's my official stance. With that said, some things I am noting below could easily mis-construed as RPI defense, that is not my intent. my intent is to only speak in actualities.

2. Reading comments above and in other threads, it is clear some people still aren't getting the RPI. This is not a ranking system like you are used to. This is a rating system. Comments like "I don't know why so and so is ranked ahead of..." This is not what the RPI ever was. It is a computer formula with no bias, no added logic, no sense of injuries, and no sense of the past. To put it as blunt as possible, the goal of the RPI is to take the formula the KHSAA has seen fit to determine the strength of a teams schedule and results to come up with a rating system to reflect that.

3. Beechwood had an important RPI week and unfortunately it went almost as badly as it could for them. They were forced to play a low RPI District foe, CovCath (See previously for discussion) continued to be a RPI Case Study by losing a heartbreaker to Highlands, both of their key 6A wins took losses, and even though NewCath gave them some help by beating 6A Campbell County, it may work against them in the end. Assuming Beechwood beats Campbell County, you want your 6A teams to win as many games as possible because of the bonus points Beechwood gets from beating a 6A team is amplified with each win. Since Beechwood will have wins over 1A NewCath and 6A Campbell County, it would have actually been much better long term for Campbell to have won that for Beechwood to maximize points.

4. Mayfield's move surprised me a little. It primarily was the product of most of the top 2A teams playing weaker district foes whereas the RPI though Caldwell was a decent win. The two other big factors is Mayfield's loss to Tilghman was fortified by Tilghman getting a big win improving both the OWP and OOWP. RPI also really liked McCracken County getting a win over Hopkinsville and likes McCracken County as a big 6A win for the Cards.

5. Prestonsburg made a big move by beating Knott Central. Don't expect that to stay as strong of a result. Knott will see their RPI go down by playing two weak district teams and they also don't have a tenth game yet. If they don't find a game not having ten results is brutal in the RPI. 

6. LCA with a big move. Similar to Mayfield, WEB Dubois was a better RPI win than the other top teams. Keep an eye on LCA. LCA is already getting big CPU points from playing up in wins and their lossses are all USDA Prime and the teams they lost to keep winning. LCA has a chance to finish strong as well. if Danville keeps winning that will be a huge RPI score to beat them, and even though PRP is pretty weak.. any 6A win is a good win if you are a 2A team.

7. Belfry with a BYE this week. Will be interesting to see what that does to them. Belfry right now is the biggest fan of East Carter you will find. They really need East Carter to beat Russell and Raceland for a chance at the 2nd seed. Johnson Central should stay a very high quality loss for them.. but Belfry doesn't have the 5A & 6A games that other teams have. The good news for Belfry is Letcher Central should win the next two games and be a chance for a good little RPI score to end the season. Belfry still has two RPI dogs to hurt them before that.

13 hours ago, Paul Dean said:

I don’t see how Mayfield can be so high, especially above som of the teams right below them.  They haven’t played anybody except Tilghman and got blown out in that game.

That’s another thing about RPI is the margin of victory is not taken into account. Whether you lose by 1 or lose by 70, a loss is a loss.

RPI Games to Track this Week:

Not a lot of watershed games between evenly matched teams. Very slight slate across the state due to Fall break. Obviously, if there were major upsets noone sees coming it would be have a substantial impact (think Central vs. CAL), but I am focusing solely on games expected to be tight.

One school though will have potentially their second consecutive week of major scoreboard watching. This is a massive week for Beechwood again. The following three are all big, in fact three of the four biggest RPI games to watch are all on Beechwood's watch. In fact if I added another game to the list it would probably be Newport vs. NewCath... in other words.. HUGE week for Beechwood potentially.

(Thurs) Conner @ Dixie Heights- Beechwood needs any 6A win they can get from Dixie Heights, Simon Kenton, and Campbell County. A lot of the remaining wins will be cannibalism of each other.. this is one they need Dixie to pull off.

Great Crossing @ Simon Kenton- See above. Beechwood really needs a SK win as Great Crossing is definitely a winnable game.

Cathedral, IN @ CovCath- Perhaps the single most important game for Beechwood the remainder of the year (Campbell County is huge but Beechwood will be expected to win big). Cathedral is very good and plays very good teams... but in the eyes of the RPI they are very average and play very average teams. A loss basically cements CovCath as a "bad loss" in comparison to the losses of the other top 2A teams expected barring a major upset down the stretch. Throw in Highlands vs. Elder as a tagalong to this game. Now that CCH lost to Highlands if the Birds lose to Elder it will only hurt this result more for Beechwood.

South Laurel @ Pulaski County- Somerset's lone loss is to South Laurel and the Briarjumpers are chasing the field pretty heavy right now in terms of RPI. They really need South Laurel to beat Pulaski. With really only one "play up" win (Southwestern), their best loss could potentially be one of their best hopes to scoring points. It is looking very likely Somerset will be the lowest seeded District winner in the West which likely means guaranteed travel Rounds 3 & 4.

Ashland @ Boyd County- This one matters more for the OOWP but a couple teams have a stake here. Belfry has some OOWP crossover as their best win East Carter beat Boyd County playing up and their best loss Johnson Central has already beat Boyd and is yet to play Ashland. LCA has an OOWP tie-in directly to Ashland via LexCath in the final game of the year. As long as Johnson Central beats Ashland the Pirates should be ok, but the ideal situation is Boyd County upsets Ashland as this will help Belfry while hurting LCA. 

 

24 minutes ago, Astro Domino said:

That’s another thing about RPI is the margin of victory is not taken into account. Whether you lose by 1 or lose by 70, a loss is a loss.

IMHO, this one is one of those "lazy" things about the RPI that could easily be fixed. You can't do anything groundbreaking, but it would be super easy to apply a bonus factor for road and neutral site wins vs. home wins. It also would be easy to give an easy factor for "Close Loss" "Close Win" "Notable Loss" "Notable Win" "Large Loss" and "Large Win". Would just need to be a fractional multiplier for each but anything with a margin under 8 points should constitute "close", anything 9-20 points should be notable, and anything 21+ points should be "large". I get the KHSAA is trying to avoid score run ups so I think capping at 21+ is the way to go.

BW going to be classic case of RPI free fall the rest of the year.  In fact, Bracken Co. maybe(?)  the sole victory over a winning team for the entire year.  Sure couldn’t see this coming when the schedule was made.  Weak six team District a killer.

18 minutes ago, Oldercoach said:

BW going to be classic case of RPI free fall the rest of the year.  In fact, Bracken Co. maybe(?)  the sole victory over a winning team for the entire year.  Sure couldn’t see this coming when the schedule was made.  Weak six team District a killer.

They still have a lifeline but last week was kind of a worst case scenario week and a worst case scenario repeat this week as I outlined could be really bad.

Having three 6A victories if they beat Campbell County is their saving grace potentially. Each time those teams beat another 5A or 6A team an angel may not get it's wings, but Beechwood gets some bonus points. They need Dixie, Simon Kenton, and Campbell County to win any game they possibly can from here on out. I don't think any of those teams will beat Ryle, so that leaves essentially five games left where they play other 6A/5A teams that are not each other (2 X Great Crossing, 1 X Cooper (not easy), 1 X Conner, 1 X Boone County).

No other 2A team has three 6A victories on their resume. That's the good news for Beechwood, but they need those 6A teams' OWP bonus points desperately.

NewCath needs to win out as well at this point. I mentioned it previously but it would have been better for Beechwood if Campbell County won that game against NewCath because Beechwood's win over NewCath is viewed as playing down compared to if Beechwood beats Campbell County it is the max playing up bonus.

 

2 hours ago, ATLCat said:

IMHO, this one is one of those "lazy" things about the RPI that could easily be fixed. You can't do anything groundbreaking, but it would be super easy to apply a bonus factor for road and neutral site wins vs. home wins. It also would be easy to give an easy factor for "Close Loss" "Close Win" "Notable Loss" "Notable Win" "Large Loss" and "Large Win". Would just need to be a fractional multiplier for each but anything with a margin under 8 points should constitute "close", anything 9-20 points should be notable, and anything 21+ points should be "large". I get the KHSAA is trying to avoid score run ups so I think capping at 21+ is the way to go.

I really like that idea!

2 hours ago, ATLCat said:

IMHO, this one is one of those "lazy" things about the RPI that could easily be fixed. You can't do anything groundbreaking, but it would be super easy to apply a bonus factor for road and neutral site wins vs. home wins. It also would be easy to give an easy factor for "Close Loss" "Close Win" "Notable Loss" "Notable Win" "Large Loss" and "Large Win". Would just need to be a fractional multiplier for each but anything with a margin under 8 points should constitute "close", anything 9-20 points should be notable, and anything 21+ points should be "large". I get the KHSAA is trying to avoid score run ups so I think capping at 21+ is the way to go.

It sounds like you are describing a poor man's https://hsratings.com/ (formerly CALPREPS). ?‍♂️

15 minutes ago, theguru said:

It sounds like you are describing a poor man's https://hsratings.com/ (formerly CALPREPS). ?‍♂️

I have always like Calpreps. It goes a little too heavy on rewarding margin of victory (KHSAA don't want that as a factor) but the out of state component is a VAST improvement over what the RPI offers. I also like the fact Calpreps identifies outlier results.

The only real critique I have with Calpreps once the season plays out is it does skew favoritism Nationally to California schools and some of these 8-man and Independent Private School Organizations mess up the metrics a little, but that really doesn't effect KY teams any.

If you told me we were using Calpreps instead of RPI I would have a hard time arguing against it as being a quality CPU ranking.

1 minute ago, ATLCat said:

I have always like Calpreps. It goes a little too heavy on rewarding margin of victory (KHSAA don't want that as a factor) but the out of state component is a VAST improvement over what the RPI offers. I also like the fact Calpreps identifies outlier results.

The only real critique I have with Calpreps once the season plays out is it does skew favoritism Nationally to California schools and some of these 8-man and Independent Private School Organizations mess up the metrics a little, but that really doesn't effect KY teams any.

If you told me we were using Calpreps instead of RPI I would have a hard time arguing against it as being a quality CPU ranking.

I would be all for using "Calpreps" and then the KHSAA could add an open source "filter" to account for anything the KHSAA thinks would be an improvement.  

1	Owensboro Catholic	2A	2	7	-	1			8	1.21113	.54332	.62488	.80152
2	Danville	2A	4	7	-	1			8	1.09878	.55346	.56239	.74700
3	Mayfield	2A	1	6	-	1			7	1.14549	.48153	.56842	.73998
4	Belfry	2A	8	6	-	1			7	.97436	.57267	.59746	.72070
5	Lexington Christian	2A	4	4	-	3			7	.69982	.87212	.51369	.70429
6	Beechwood	2A	5	6	-	1			7	1.03851	.49547	.52132	.69329
7	Prestonsburg	2A	7	7	-	0			7	1.00000	.45449	.53073	.66829
8	Breathitt County	2A	6	5	-	2			7	.85292	.58927	.53857	.66634
9	Martin County	2A	7	6	-	1			7	.87856	.51192	.57039	.65778
10	Somerset	2A	3	6	-	1			7	.93153	.44280	.54865	.64561
11	Monroe County	2A	3	5	-	2			7	.90908	.46803	.54465	.64539
12	Green County	2A	3	5	-	2			7	.82774	.52661	.50485	.62548
13	Caldwell County	2A	1	5	-	2			7	.83150	.42455	.51933	.59542
14	Bracken County	2A	5	5	-	2			7	.76031	.50232	.48760	.58820
15	Hancock County	2A	2	5	-	3			8	.70554	.52183	.50082	.57983
16	Washington County	2A	4	4	-	3			7	.69184	.48711	.53454	.57299
17	Knott County Central	2A	7	6	-	2			8	.71951	.50841	.46408	.56900
18	WEB DuBois	2A	4	3	-	5			8	.43401	.65220	.55868	.54778
19	Fort Knox	2A	2	3	-	4			7	.54898	.56999	.44593	.52542
20	Crittenden County	2A	1	4	-	3			7	.59284	.40270	.51717	.50359
21	Shawnee	2A	4	3	-	4			7	.52437	.41188	.56055	.49586
22	Shelby Valley	2A	8	3	-	4			7	.42857	.53686	.50265	.48870
23	Fort Campbell	2A	1	3	-	4			7	.44999	.46485	.48653	.46615
24	Metcalfe County	2A	3	1	-	6			7	.16427	.71507	.48898	.45446
25	West Carter	2A	6	3	-	4			7	.44999	.47059	.42894	.45088
26	McLean County	2A	2	3	-	4			7	.52437	.37552	.43138	.44438
27	Pike County Central	2A	8	2	-	5			7	.28571	.53438	.51553	.44169
28	Leslie County	2A	7	2	-	6			8	.25000	.55935	.51283	.43712
29	Betsy Layne	2A	8	2	-	5			7	.28571	.51114	.48847	.42544
30	St. Henry	2A	5	2	-	5			7	.28571	.55001	.43144	.42194
31	East Ridge	2A	8	2	-	6			8	.25000	.52281	.48885	.41714
32	Owen County	2A	5	2	-	5			7	.30713	.45044	.45663	.40214
33	Walton-Verona	2A	5	2	-	5			7	.28571	.41725	.44660	.38002
34	Clinton County	2A	3	1	-	6			7	.16427	.49407	.44659	.36440
35	Morgan County	2A	6	2	-	5			7	.30713	.29307	.49232	.35777
36	Trigg County	2A	1	1	-	5			6	.16667	.44753	.46455	.35434
37	Floyd Central	2A	7	1	-	6			7	.16427	.38478	.47887	.33583
38	Todd County Central	2A	1	1	-	6			7	.14286	.40927	.43622	.32411
39	Gallatin County	2A	5	1	-	6			7	.14286	.31555	.44105	.29276
40	Jackson County	2A	6	1	-	6			7	.12426	.28421	.46473	.28238

Owensboro Catholic always gets the top spot but never wins the State Championship.

4 hours ago, snakesnot_2000 said:

Owensboro Catholic always gets the top spot but never wins the State Championship.

I’m going to stand by my prediction for the Semi Finals

Beechwood at Catholic 

Belfry at Mayfield 

6 hours ago, snakesnot_2000 said:

Owensboro Catholic always gets the top spot but never wins the State Championship.

Shots fired!!!! But you’re not wrong.

LCA might get to #2 in RPI if they win out.