DragonFire Posted January 28 Posted January 28 -Big Things Kentucky out, Martin Media back in for the rankings. Maybe next week they'll both go and we can get up to eight rankings! Starting with the media rankings as always: 1. Madison Central [8 First Place Votes] 2. St. X [5 FPV] 3. Covington Catholic [3 FPV] 4. Daviess County 5. Male 6. George Rogers Clark 7. Warren Central 8. Frederick Douglass 9. North Laurel 10. Jeffersontown 11. North Oldham 12. McCracken County 13. Ballard 14. Boyd County 15. Lexington Catholic 16. Bryan Station T-17. Butler T-17. Highlands T-19. Ashland T-19. Caverna 21. Eastern 22. Seneca T-23. Bell County T-23. Covington Holy Cross 25. Manual 1
DragonFire Posted January 28 Author Posted January 28 -I have to assume Nations Elite may have left Warren Central out, initially, because that is a gnarly edit of their name in that image. -As suspected, there's a change at the top this time, as Madison Central ascends to #1 in the majority of the rankings, with four of the seven outlets ranking them at the top. The other three polls all had them second. Daviess County shows up at #1 in two polls, and St. X remained #1 in one outlet. -Ironically, Daviess County was not voted #1 by any voter in the Elite 16 rankings. Madison Central garnered eight first place votes, St. X five, and Covington Catholic took the other three votes. CovCath was rated as highly as #2 by one outlet, but on average, they were the fourth ranked team by most. Moderately surprised the media voters did not elevate them above fourth. -We were a hair away from a consensus top five, as four teams were in the top five of ever single ranking. Madison Central, Daviess County, St. X, and Covington Catholic were in all top fives, while George Rogers Clark was in the top five of 6 out of 7, moving up to #6 in the media rankings, but just outside the top five. Male was given the nod there. -In a bit of a surprise, those four teams were not only the only consensus top five, but they were the only consensus top ten, as the spread was much more broad this week. In all, sixteen teams appeared in at least one top ten rank. Male was the only one that appeared in all but one top ten, as Jeffersontown and Warren Central appeared in all but two. -The ranking of Frederick Douglass and perhaps Warren Central as well is a bit of an indictment of the media voters. I'm not saying you've most definitely got to drop if you lose, but both teams took a loss to a rival that is well, well down the food chain. Frederick Douglass fell to Henry Clay 65-63 while Warren Central dropped an overtime contest 65-59 to Bowling Green. Warren Central fell one spot, swapping places with George Rogers Clark, while a few other polls dropped them a bit more - they ranked as low as 12th a week after not being ranked below 7th in any poll. But Frederick Douglass? The media kept them firmly at 8, exactly where they were the week before. They're the only ranking that has them in the top ten, with all others ranking them 13th or lower, and they're as low as 18 in one. -Last week I touched on North Oldham being the only team ranked in every poll without appearing in a top ten. As expected, the win over St. X catapulted them up the rankings, where they now are no lower than 17th in any, and in the top ten in four of the seven outlets. -McCracken county is ranked in the top ten of four out of seven outlets as well. As always, Kentucky High School Sports Zone remains belligerent in their unbelief, ranking them merely 25th. It's the only ranking McCracken has below 14th. But at least they're ranked - KYHSZ had them totally out a week ago. Unsurprisingly, their 18 rank disparity - rated as highly as 7th but as low as 25th - is the highest among all teams ranked by each outlet. Bryan Station is the only other team even close, with 15 spots separating their somewhat ludicrously high ranking of 9th (by, well, whattya know, Kentucky High School Sports Zone) and their 22nd rating by both Nations Elite and Martin Media. -Playing the part of McCracken this week - highly rated by at least one but totally unranked by others - is Lexington Catholic. Now, Martin Media is an 11th Region-based "outlet", so I suppose that accounts for their extreme outlier rank of 8th. They did absolutely stamp North Hardin the last time they played a game, blowing them out 81-56. Of course, that was 8 days after going to double OT with 8-9 Tates Creek, that merely three days after falling to 11-9 Henry County. Martin had them 13th when he released his last ranking two weeks ago, so the win over North Hardin makes some sense in rising up the rankings, but it should also be noted that he doesn't rank North Hardin and in fact, no outlet has ranked North Hardin at any point. So it becomes harder to justify the raise. That said, the recruiting service rankers (Next Up Recruits and NextGen Prospects) both elected to have LexCath unranked at all. Next Up Recruits is consistent, they weren't ranked last week by that outlet either. But NextGen Prospects had them THIRTEENTH. From 13 to unranked following a 25 point win? Nah, that ain't it. -Speaking of wild swings from NextGen Prospects, I noted last week that they had J-Town ludicrously low at 25th given that they didn't raise them at all after beating North Oldham by 25. I guess they noticed that North Oldham beat X and was ranked 10 spots higher last week, because Jeffersontown has now skyrocketed all the way to 6th. Good to admit when you're wrong, I suppose, but man, what a ride. -Russell was the only team to return to the ranks this week, coming back after a week absence. Now, some of that was because Martin Media released a ranking again. They were the only team to rank Russell two weeks ago, and in the outlet's absence from a ranking last week, they fell out. But KSR joins Martin Media in ranking Russell this week, so it feels authentic. -Danville Christian's return to the ranks proved to be a one-week wonder, as they slide out following a loss to Taylor County. Evangel Christian also exits after falling to Clinton County in the All A Classic, as does Pikeville, who fell to Paintsville 70-62 on Friday. -We had seven unicorns this week (teams rated in only a single poll) - broken record, but most of them are from KYHSZ. Johnson Central (KYHSZ 19), Martin County (Martin Media 20), Newport (KYHSZ 20), Clinton County (KYHSZ 22), Covington Holy Cross (Media 23), Montgomery County (KYHSZ 23), and Woodford County (Martin Media 25). -Maybe Montgomery County will finally get a chance to justify their rank, with games against George Rogers Clark and Ashland this weekend (allegedly). If those get played, and they lose, man, I almost still want to see them ranked next week so I can keep railing against it. They did just get Sears eligible, so maybe they'll get a better chance now. -Only two reverse unicorns this week (rated in all but one poll), as Grayson County (unranked Media) and Ashland (Nations Elite) just missing consensus. Grayson County was as high as 14 in one poll, with Ashland climbing as high as 15. It's a bit surprising to see either on the outside anywhere. -17 teams were consensus ranked this week: Madison Central Daviess County St. X Covington Catholic George Rogers Clark Male Jeffersontown Warren Central North Laurel North Oldham Ballard McCracken County Boyd County Butler Frederick Douglass Bell County Bryan Station -Checking in on the Massey Ratings, they've got Covington Catholic ranked #1, and pretty impressively have them #1 in rating, power, offense, and defense. Yeah, that'll hunt. -The Massey is notably lower on Daviess County (6th vs. consensus outlet ranking of 2nd). Otherwise, it's pretty close to the outlets. Among the top ten teams in the Massey (CovCath, St. X, Madison Central, GRC, Warren Central, Daviess County, Male, North Oldham, Ballard, and Jeffersontown), only Ballard is outside the average top ten from the outlet rankings, where they are on average 11th. The outlets like North Laurel more, where they are narrowly averaging 10th, while the Massey has them 13th. -Lloyd Memorial remains the Massey outlier, coming in at 20th in their ranks. They are not now, nor have they been at any point, rated in the top 25 by an outlet ranking. Trinity is in the same boat, rated 23rd by Massey but never being ranked anywhere else. Trinity's schedule has obviously been brutal, but it is odd to see a 6-8 team rated that highly by Massey. 3 1
rerun Posted January 28 Posted January 28 Teams at the top get a lot of attention as well they should and the responsible parties ranking them seem to do their homework....but the middle to the end of the Top 25 is a crap shoot with little thought going into what they're throwing out there. Case in point, in my area Ashland has beaten Boyd County twice and is ranked behind them in all but one of these. Don't get me wrong, Boyd is deserving and could very well beat the Tomcats on down the road but they haven't yet and they've had two chances. Russell fresh off a January 23rd loss to Lewis County is ranked ahead of Ashland on the KHSAA rankings. I have been a huge fan of coach Cooksey at Russell and I mean no disrespect, but Ashland or Boyd would be a 20 point favorite on any given night versus the Red Devils. Ashland has laid an egg or two but a couple of their losses came with two starters out and they quickly avenged (convincingly) one of those a few weeks later when everyone was healthy. I've said many times on here rankings mean nothing and I'm sure coach Bonner appreciates the disrespect for locker room motivation, but if you're going to print it do your homework. 1
DragonFire Posted January 29 Author Posted January 29 51 minutes ago, Tigerpride94 said: Maxpreps ratings- Top 25: I wonder if they double counted in their rating the loss for Warren Central to Bowling Green. Because they're 15-2, not 15-3, and it shows the loss twice on their Maxpreps schedule.
Tigerpride94 Posted January 29 Posted January 29 11 minutes ago, DragonFire said: I wonder if they double counted in their rating the loss for Warren Central to Bowling Green. Because they're 15-2, not 15-3, and it shows the loss twice on their Maxpreps schedule. Looks like it. Does WC have someone that can edit that?
Runcible Owl Posted January 29 Posted January 29 5 hours ago, Tigerpride94 said: Maxpreps ratings- Top 25: 4 hours ago, DragonFire said: I wonder if they double counted in their rating the loss for Warren Central to Bowling Green. Because they're 15-2, not 15-3, and it shows the loss twice on their Maxpreps schedule. Proprietary algorithmic rankings systems, from the people in the field I've corresponded with, have occasional glitches. MaxPreps "errors" it seems, mostly stem from a partially crowd sourced data set. An Ohio football team recently got in some trouble for falsifying results on MaxPreps to get a better playoff position. So that's a possible problem for those advocating for an outsourced system to be used by state associations. It does update closer to real time than Massey's weekly output, but not every team in the state gets listed, much less ranked. Something that pops on MaxPreps is that their state and national rankings don't always line up. See below. 🔗 maxpreps.com/bb/US rankings ● Kentucky teams in the MaxPreps National Top 100 today (KY rank). 57. Madison Central (KY 1) 62. Covington Catholic (KY 2) 69. Daviess County (KY 4) 74. George Rogers Clark (KY 6) 78. St. Xavier (KY 3) And the "Handpicked" National Top 25 by their staff muddies the waters even more. Massey trends to more reliability and there's "staff" there to answer questions and make corrections - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They do list every team in the state, but there are 19k+ boys' teams in the US to track. 97% accuracy is maybe as good as it gets. If I'm looking for perfection, I'm sure to be disappointed. I post them and try to stay out of the results business. The further I go past the top 10-15 for any of them, the more likely I am to spot unicorns. It's a statistical certainty. Combining polls with ratings would seem to be a massive art + science undertaking. That's why I appreciate all the work DF puts into keeping up with these every week. As much as I love the analytics, I love watching as many teams as I can from my distant perch more. Is it March yet? 1
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