p_malinich
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Post by p_malinich on Oct 11, 2014 9:14:21 GMT -6
BC_coach encouraged me to share about the structure in PA for playoffs, etc. I'm still getting up to speed (even though we're in final week of regular HS season). But I'll start posting some things in this thread & fill in details as I discover them or as some of you raise questions.
PA appears to have 577 Boys Soccer teams that are divided evenly into AAA to A: School size from 1-213 = 194 A (think DIII) 214-401 = 192 AA (DII) 402 & up = 191 AAA (DI)
Those schools are divided into 12 (seemingly varying size) districts. You do not play every team in your district. Each district seems to set its own method of determining who advances to state playoffs. Each district also appears to have varying numbers of spots that they can award. Power rankings do come into play, but I'm not sure if every district uses the same.
More later... Info is hard to track down. The newspaper does do a great job in this area of having scores updated same night as games. PIAA has published 6 editions of Power Rankings so far. I've been creating a very basic system for projecting playoff spots based on what's been published.
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p_malinich
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Post by p_malinich on Oct 11, 2014 16:47:47 GMT -6
Here's the breakout by district & size. The numbers in parentheses are how many playoff spots each district can advance to the State Playoffs. * Not every district puts in a team (some share) * Districts vary greatly in terms of number of teams * Playoff matchups are pre-set (i.e. 1st place of District 1 plays 4th place of District 3 in opening round). * About 200 teams in each Division are reduced to top 16 based on District results (no statewide seeding).District | A | AA | AAA | 1 | 14 (1) | 11 (1) | 56 (4) | 2 | 16 (1) | 16 (1) | 7 (0.5) | 3 | 31 (3) | 36 (3) | 45 (4) | 4 | 26 (2) | 11 (1) | 1 (0.5) | 5 | 14 (1) | 3 (0.5) | 0 (0) | 6 | 11 (0.5) | 11 (0.5) | 5 (0.5) | 7 | 33 (3) | 43 (4) | 30 (3) | 8 | 1 (0.5) | 1 (0) | 4 (0.5) | 9 | 15 (1) | 5 (1) | 1 (0.5) | 10 | 11 (1) | 19 (1) | 4 (0.5) | 11 | 11 (1) | 17 (1) | 18 (1) | 12 | 11 (1) | 19 (2) | 20 (1) |
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warrior16
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Post by warrior16 on Oct 11, 2014 17:57:30 GMT -6
Sounds insanely complicated...but I'm sure it makes more sense to you, being there in person. Good thing they have a spreadsheet wizard like you on hand if they need to figure all of that out.
I guess there are way more high school teams in Pennsylvania since it has about five times the population of Louisiana and soccer has always been a popular sport there.
Over 200 teams in one division is crazy for us. There aren't even 200 teams total in all the divisions in Louisiana yet.
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Post by SFC Retired on Oct 11, 2014 20:15:27 GMT -6
Are the finals still in Hershey ?
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p_malinich
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Post by p_malinich on Oct 11, 2014 20:18:29 GMT -6
Sounds insanely complicated...but I'm sure it makes more sense to you, being there in person. Good thing they have a spreadsheet wizard like you on hand if they need to figure all of that out. I guess there are way more high school teams in Pennsylvania since it has about five times the population of Louisiana and soccer has always been a popular sport there. Over 200 teams in one division is crazy for us. There aren't even 200 teams total in all the divisions in Louisiana yet. I'm not sure it makes more sense to me being here. What I do like is that districts mean something and you advance from there to states. Those small districts that wind up getting seeded low in LA are minimized here. And they don't really need my spreadsheet "mastery." They've been doing this for a while & it seems similar across all sports. Games are reported within 12 hours in most cases to the PIAA (think LHSAA). And then reported by the paper (at least in our area). I'll be sharing how our district selects their 4 from the 45 AAA teams in my next post (probably tomorrow).
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p_malinich
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Post by p_malinich on Oct 11, 2014 20:24:59 GMT -6
Are the finals still in Hershey ? Yes. I'm not sure of attendance figures. And many of the late rounds in our district playoffs (which includes Hershey) are held there as well. A side note, back in the day (20 years ago), I don't think you were allowed to charge for PIAA playoffs. Now it looks like the finals at least are charged ($6 adult / $3 student). Another side note, Hershey is currently #1 of the 45 AAA teams in District 3. Their current stat leader is Jordan Wix-Rauch. He & Andrew played club together as U10 & U11 before we came to LA. Jordan's current club team has also been competing in a National level (we got to see the Blue league I think when they played at the same time as the Disney tourney 2 years ago). It's great to see him succeeding. He's in the latest TDS report on their All-American watch.
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Post by SFC Retired on Oct 11, 2014 20:32:56 GMT -6
I was part of the FCVC "French Creek Valley Conference " when I played sports in Pennsylvania back in the 90's. The AD's did all the scheduling, bus transportation , ECT. Coaches had no say in who they played , even with non conference games . Is it still like that in your sons District? I
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p_malinich
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Post by p_malinich on Oct 11, 2014 20:44:13 GMT -6
I was part of the FCVC "French Creek Valley Conference " when I played sports in Pennsylvania back in the 90's. The AD's did all the scheduling, bus transportation , ECT. Coaches had no say in who they played , even with non conference games . Is it still like that in your sons District? I I'm not 100% sure. Here there's a full-blown Booster Club for the soccer team so there are many more layers between me & the coach than there were at Lusher. In addition to district, you are also (at least we are) part of a conference. Our conference actually has 4 sub-conferences and includes teams from at least 2 different districts. You play everyone in your sub-conference home & away. That counted as 14 of our games (and then added in 4 friendlies). All games count toward Power Rankings and your district seeding (even though not everyone is in the same district). There is post-season conference play where the winners of the 4 sub-conferences play for the championship of the whole conference. That takes place while some of the play-in rounds of district play are taking place for the lower seeded teams. Other conferences do different things. I'd like to see a flowchart of it all....
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p_malinich
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Post by p_malinich on Oct 12, 2014 22:56:42 GMT -6
I actually probably should describe the Power Rating next. It appears to be used throughout the state, but I have yet to see anything that compares the entire state. The most common use is the Ratings within a district (which will be used for Seedings for district playoffs).
The calculation is similar to LA in that both have 2 components: 1) game result & 2) strength of opponent. However, those 2 components are slightly different in how they are calculated.
Result: * LA is straight up 5 for win, 2.5 for tie, and 0 for a loss * PA distinguishes between size of school (unrelated to their strength). * Playing a AAA (DI) school counts as 1.2 for a win or 0.6 for a tie. A loss is only treated as 0.8 of a game. * Playing a AA (DII) school counts as 1 for a win or 0.5 for a tie. A loss is treated as 1.0. * Playing a A (DIII) school only counts as 0.8 for a win or 0.4 for a tie. A loss is treated as 1.2 of a game. * In PA, to calculate your Result component, you take your weighted wins / your weighted total games
Strength: * LA considers opponents strength based on wins - you earn 100% of their wins for a win, 75% for a tie, and 50% for a loss. * PA ignores the result against the opponent and gives you credit simply for playing them (completely separating Result & Strength, where it's blended some in LA). Whatever the Result component is for you opponent, it essentially is included in your strength calculation (again, regardless of your outcome against them). All of your opponents are then averaged together to get your strength number.
Power Rating: * In PA, 55% of the Result component and 45% of the Opponent Strength component are then added together to get the Power Rating * In LA, the mix isn't as simple since there is some overlap of the 2 factors. Essentially beating a 5-win team winds up equalling losing to a 20-win team.
I think that's about as simple as I can make it (based on what I've learned so far). Josiah's team must win on Tuesday to get that 20th spot. They've had several OT losses through year that cost them as well as losing to a smaller school. But my top-side spreadsheet projects that we're in with a win (and not with a tie or loss).
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p_malinich
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Post by p_malinich on Dec 4, 2014 23:05:13 GMT -6
With the talk heating up around the impact of Power Ratings and Playoff implications, I thought I'd bump this thread back up since I was sharing during PA's HS playoffs (which happen in the fall before many of you were back).
In summary, Josiah played on a D1 (AAA) team. There are 190 teams at that level and ONLY 16 advance to State Playoffs. To determine who that is, there are District Playoffs with seedings based on Power Ratings from during season. We're in the 2nd-largest district (45 teams) and only the top 4 advance into the State Playoffs. For the most part State winds up being the best-of-the-best.
I cover various details earlier in the thread. Take a read & feel free to ask for clarification.
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