Knop's Knotes Tuesday

[odoyelrules]

http://knopsnyder.blogspot.com/2014/01/ ... mment-form

Highlights that North Star's win Tuesday night over Meyersdale moved NS to #5 seed (facing Somerset) and drops NBC, which didn't wrestle Juniata Valley, to the #6 seed (facing Berlin.)

A few of Eric's opinions caught my attention:

"Of course, there's a whole different argument about the wisdom of District 5 not including dual-meet tournaments in its standings. There's a school of thought that the reason those results aren't included -- even though the majority of the D5 teams now compete in at least one dual-meet tournament -- is that Bedford doesn't schedule them and that, for some reason, whatever Bedford wants Bedford usually seems to get."

Is that belief of Bedford accurate? Is it a Somerset County belief? Do other Bedford County schools think this way? Does Bedford think this?

and also

"I'm not saying that is the case, but I honestly don't know that there is a good excuse for not including the dual-meet tournaments in the district standings. Is there a chance to rack up some easy wins against bad competition? Sure. But it's also ridiculous that Chestnut Ridge's victory over Burrell and Berlin's win over Greenville - both of which are ranked among the top teams in the state - don't count."

An explanation as to why those matches don't count is that 2 squads could enter the same tournament, 1 perform better (for example going 2-1 in pool, 0-2 later and finishing 4th) while another squad gets more credit (1-2 pool, 2-0 later to finish 5th.) Additionally districts have a very difficult time measuring strength of schedule. Under the hypothetical situation of all matches counting then Chestnut Ridge's victory over Burrell would count, as would their losses to Towanda, Brookville, and Reynolds. My calculations would put Berlin as the top seed, Bedford second, and Chestnut Ridge 3rd...which would make Chestnut Ridge's head to head wins over both squads irrelevant.

Ideally a supercomputer could rank teams across the state, factoring in strength of schedule. This is done in football in some states and wrestling has many more crossregional matchups than football does, which should increase accuracy. Now outliers like Hyndman (often minimal PA duals) or Westmont in D6 (weather wrecked schedule) will always be more difficult to accurately place, a statewide system should be something that the state could do. That starting point could then be adjusted by D5 coaches as needed for the local situation...ie #3 seed has no local losses and has already defeated the top 2 seeds. And lollipops for everybody!

[Lefteyelouie]

This should get things rolling a little bit. It's a nice opening to take some shots at Bedford, which everybody loves to do.

I think the current point system is obviously bad. But it probably came into effect when some teams where going to all of the dual tourneys and wrestling 25 meets a year. (CR as an example) You had others (Bedford) that preferred regular tourneys and would wrestle around 15 dual meets per year.

When you have some teams wrestling 10 more matches then others it would really change overall points. Teams that where going to dual meet tourney's were using points they would generally use for going to individual tourneys. So if you eliminate the dual tourney's from the point calculation generally I am guessing teams where getting points from about the same amount of matches wrestled. Just a guess on my part.

[CRWizard]

Does Bedford wrestle any dual tournaments? I didn't see any on there schedule, so why would they have a dog in the fight.
Everybody knows that Somerset County runs D5. Where is Knopsynder coming up with this, or is he creating more drama for when Berlin wins he can make it more theatrical?

[Lefteyelouie]

Bedford doesn't wrestle any.

I think the way the points are that a 15-0 team could lose out on being 1st seed to a 23-4 team that they beat head to head. I am not sure but I think that is the gist of it.

I think for ex. from what he said that CR this year would have ended up 3rd seed behind Bedford and Berlin whom they beat. Because CR has 4 losses.

[odoyelrules]

Is there something at the D5 level that Bedford has pushed for and received?

I thought that Bedford wanted wrestling districts moved to UPJ, but Palumbo/Windber made some changes to keep the event @ Windber.

Additionally I think that Bedford pushed for NBC's Jeff Batzel to be the D5 Vice Chair, while some Somerset county representatives pushed for Paul Leonard of Shade. Leonard won by an 11-7 vote which I suspect was done primarily along county lines.

[Lefteyelouie]

Not that I am aware of.

District's should be moved from Windber!! UPJ would be great.

[odoyelrules]

EKnop has issued a clarification:

http://knopsnyder.blogspot.com/

In short it appears that some schools that schedule the dual meet tournaments are those that want the current system to remain in which those matches don't matter. Bedford has been in favor of all matches counting. Which appears to me to be another example of Bedford NOT getting what they want.


RSpring weighed in on the topic also, mentioning that Tom Eiling has started a statewide system this year based off of how the football rankings are performed.

http://springintosports.blogspot.com/

[Sneakers]

Are you ready for what will be given as the official reason for not counting the dual tournaments???...
The District V committee has all sports to be equal...i.e. every sport calculates the same way. And it is set that 'tournament games' do not count toward District rankings. Sport where this is (probably) definitely not wanted, the one that is done in the gym when it is not partially covered with resilite. Basketball teams have always wanted the freedom to strengthen schedules by going to some of the Tip-off and Christmas tourneys, schedule some 'doozy' opponents and not have their ranking hurt. For teams in a league, that always works nice because there would still be enough games, (18 possibly 20 non tourney games) that help determine a ranking.

[odoyelrules]

Complete agreement Sneakers.