DragonFire Posted January 6 Posted January 6 The new year brings a new ranking set to add - the Elite 16 media rankings. The media rankings are a replacement for the old (decrepit) AP ranking, led by Jason Frakes of the Courier-Journal. Media Rankings 1. Male [14 FPV] 2. St. X 3. Madison Central 4. Covington Catholic 5. Daviess County 6. Frederick Douglass 7. Warren Central [2 FPV] 8. George Rogers Clark 9. North Laurel 10. North Oldham 11. Butler 12. McCracken County 13. Boyd County 14. Lexington Catholic 15. Ballard 16. Eastern T-17. Jeffersontown T-17. Seneca T-19. Covington Holy Cross T-19. Highlands 21. Bryan Station 22. Pikeville 23. Caverna T-24. Marshall County T-24. PRP Also receiving votes - Montgomery County, Ashland, Bell County, Evangel Christian, Grayson county, Danville Christian, Adair County, Christian Academy-Louisville Our other ranks:
DragonFire Posted January 6 Author Posted January 6 -Nations Elite finally got rid of the Preseason Top 25 from their image. Good for them! -The photos of their players should have made it pretty apparent, but Male is the headliner, a consensus #1 in all five polls. OK, technically not FULL consensus since they only got 14 FPV of 16 in the media poll, but essentially to what we define as consensus here, they were universally the top team. -I'm a proud Dragon, but I found it extremely surprising that two voters in the media poll took the Dragons at the top. They ended up mostly where all the other rankings had them - 7th - but those first place votes probably pushed them over George Rogers Clark for that placement at 7th, which in and of itself is surprising since they're ahead of GRC in every other poll. Guess it all works out. -In addition to a consensus #1, St. X is a consensus #2, and Madison Central and Daviess County are consensus top five teams in every poll. Covington Catholic narrowly misses out again, as KSR has them just outside the top 5 at #6. -In all, eight teams are top ten in every poll, those being Male, St. X, Madison Central, Covington catholic, Daviess County, Frederick Douglass, Warren Central, and George Rogers Clark. Butler appeared in three of the five top tens, as did Boyd County. Other teams rated in at least one top ten were North Laurel (Media and KHYSZ), North Oldham (Media), and Bell County (Nations Elite). -Bell County is the one that is going to stand out most there. No other outlet had them rated above 15th, and the media poll had them unranked altogether (they'd be 28th if going by "receiving votes"). The Bobcats are undefeated in competition against Kentucky teams, but haven't faced many with a pulse. That said, they own an impressive win over from December 30th. Eastern is ranked #16 in the media poll, so perhaps Bell County is being overlooked. Bell County slots in as the team with the widest disparity between their highest and lowest ranks, not even accounting for being unranked in one. -There are fewer teams that are in every poll this week with the new addition of the media poll, but the widest disparity among those belongs to North Oldham. The media voters elevated them to 10th, eight spots higher than their lowest rank, which comes from both Nations Elite and Kentucky High School Sports Zone (18th). North Oldham will have a chance to make that ranking move soon enough, as they are the #1 seed in the Louisville Invitational Tournament due to begin on Sunday. -Four teams returned to the polls after having been ranked previously then dropped. Grayson County leads the way, appearing in both Next Up Recruits and KSR, at 18th and 19th respectively. Woodford County climbs back in with a generous #17 ranking from Nations Elite, Lyon County is into the Nations Elite poll at #21, and PRP is rated by the Media poll at #24 (so back into our consolidated ranks, but not technically returning to the other polls we've had up until now). -Joining Woodford County, Lyon County, and PRP as unicorns (teams appearing in only a single ranking) are Montgomery County (KYHSZ 15), Ashland (KYHSZ 19), Clinton County (KYHSZ 23), Pulaski County (Nations Elite 24), and South Oldham (KYHSZ 24). -Some reverse unicorns, that is teams that appear in all rankings BUT one), are McCracken County (KYHSZ unranked), Seneca (KYHSZ), Bell County (Media), Ballard (NUR), Pikeville (KYHSZ), and Eastern (KYHSZ). Given all the one-offs that KYHSZ is handing out, is it any wonder that the majority of these are theirs? -Find yourself someone who loves you the way that Kentucky High School Sports Zone loves Montgomery County. They're still #15 in that poll with no one else ranking them, with a meager 7-4 record on the year. They haven't played anyone from Kentucky since the 22nd, but that was a loss to Covington Holy Cross. Guess that's why Covington Holy Cross's highest ranking in any poll is #14 by.... Kentucky High School Sports Zone. -Speaking of that ranking, what is their beef with McCracken County and Seneca? None of the other rankings have either below #17 and McCracken's lowest rank is #15. McCracken's only losses are to an out of state team, Boyd County, and Daviess County. KYHSZ has both of the latter two ranked in the top ten. Seneca's only losses are to that same McCracken County team and Butler. -Evangel Christian catapults into their first rankings of the season with a trio of polls, ranked 20th by both KSR and KYHSZ, and 22nd by Next Up Recruits. Johnson Central (NE 16 & KYHSZ 22) and Clinton County (KYHSZ 23) are also into their first ranks of the year. -Both Russell and Taylor County dropped entirely. -With an additional poll, we're down to just 13 that were ranked by every outlet, the fewest of the year, as one would expect. To reiterate, eight teams were in every single top ten poll, so we've got a pretty good sense who is at the top, then relatively little agreement below that point. In every poll: Male St. X Madison Central Covington Catholic Daviess County Frederick Douglass Warren Central George Rogers Clark Butler Boyd County North Laurel Lexington Catholic North Oldham -I took a look at the Massey Ratings, just to see how they felt about some of these teams. Sure enough, their top eight are the same eight teams that are consensus in all the top tens of the outlets, albeit in a slightly different order. Ironically, their top team is Covington Catholic, the one team that didn't get into the consensus top 5 (thanks KSR). They were followed by St. X, Madison Central, and Warren Central, with the outlet consensus top team Male coming in at just #5. -The most shocking Massey rank I saw off the bat? DuPont Manual, ranked #10. Not only does no outlet have them ranked, no outlet has had them ranked at any point all year. The ratings seem way off on that. -Then again, they do have Montgomery County 54th, so they're definitely brighter than one of our outlets.... 2 1
Runcible Owl Posted January 6 Posted January 6 Great job @DragonFire! I'll just sit back with a cup of hot tea, a comforter, and settle into "all" of it. A few general observations on Massey for the week ~ ● Strength of Schedule, and the results thereof (margin, etc.), might have given a Top 25 nudge to some MR outliers: 10. Manual (SoS #5), 20. Great Crossing (#11), 23. Trinity (#1) - Massey is adding two apparent scrimmage results to the Rocks, both losses to excellent teams. ● Some teams mentioned by the various outlets besides Montgomery Co (#54), fall outside of the MR Top 50: 51. Lyon Co, 55. Pulaski Co, 62. Johnson Central, 70. Caverna ● I think Massey is just beginning to sort itself out, much like hsratings.com for football. Some pre-season "magic numbers" are falling by the wayside. SSF (SoSForward) is worth looking at. The MR should settle in, with less week to week volatility, as the Bluegrass moves into the meat of intra-regional scheduling. 1
24Rocks Posted January 7 Posted January 7 3 hours ago, Runcible Owl said: Great job @DragonFire! I'll just sit back with a cup of hot tea, a comforter, and settle into "all" of it. A few general observations on Massey for the week ~ ● Strength of Schedule, and the results thereof (margin, etc.), might have given a Top 25 nudge to some MR outliers: 10. Manual (SoS #5), 20. Great Crossing (#11), 23. Trinity (#1) - Massey is adding two apparent scrimmage results to the Rocks, both losses to excellent teams. ● Some teams mentioned by the various outlets besides Montgomery Co (#54), fall outside of the MR Top 50: 51. Lyon Co, 55. Pulaski Co, 62. Johnson Central, 70. Caverna ● I think Massey is just beginning to sort itself out, much like hsratings.com for football. Some pre-season "magic numbers" are falling by the wayside. SSF (SoSForward) is worth looking at. The MR should settle in, with less week to week volatility, as the Bluegrass moves into the meat of intra-regional scheduling. I'm firmly convinced that many (maybe most....) coaches overtrain their players. They schedule too many games and practices and don't back off in intensity as the season wears on. I find the Massey Ratings to be a really useful way to track that kind of thing. When I see a 157th ranked Danville (missing two starters....) come back from a 20-2 deficit on 26th ranked DCA (missing 1 starter) to go in to half time down 22-21 I suspect dead legs on the part of the higher ranked team. That's not to take anything away from Danville, they played tails off and didn't pack it in when they got down that far. There are other signs that are evident if you know what you're looking for but the Massey Ratings can help. 2
hardwoodlegend Posted January 10 Posted January 10 Who is this NationsElite group? I saw there Facebook page the other day.
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