By the Numbers: What is Strength of Record?
Rankings With a new season comes new information, at least this season does. The ratings have been adjusted slightly, but mainly remain the same. What is new this season is the Strength of Record (SOR) value for each team. While…
Access all of Prep Girls Hoops
Continue reading this article and more.
Continue ReadingWith a new season comes new information, at least this season does. The ratings have been adjusted slightly, but mainly remain the same. What is new this season is the Strength of Record (SOR) value for each team. While the ratings are about what team is better if they were the play head to head, the SOR are a more accurate picture of where a team should be seeded.
The intent is provide another value for people to use when seeding teams. I will never claim to have the perfect answer for how to seed teams, but I believe this can provide more information for people to use when teams do not play similar schedules. One of the reasons I wanted to include this rating this season was because I am not a fan of using head to head to determine the seeding of teams. Can it be one piece of information? Yes. But my issue is when 25 of the 26 games a team plays are ignored because of a head to head result.
In order to come up with a method to seed teams, wins had to be given more value. What I came up with is a measurement of how difficult it would be for an average team to achieve the record each team currently has. All wins are given a positive value and all losses a negative value. Those values are assigned based on the percentage chance an average team would have to win the game.
Early season returns are solid as the team that sits with the highest SOR is Wayzata, followed by Hopkins, Rochester Lourdes, Park Center, and Marshall.
Biggest Upset
This section will feature the most unlikely winners. When the preseason ratings are involved, the unlikely winners have a chance to be the better team, but we use the ratings at the time of the game to determine who goes here.
Chisholm 72, Bigfork 58 (0.01% chance of upset)
Bigfork is two years removed from being Mountain Iron-Buhl’s biggest challenger is section 7A and Chisholm has won a combined eight regular season games the past two years. The Bluestreaks have already won three games this year.
Honorable Mention: North Lakes 36, Trinity School 33 (0.05%), Mounds Park 55, St. Croix Prep 50 (0.18%)
Biggest Gainers
This section will be reserved for the teams that move up the rankings the most.
A – Ely (preseason Class A #105, currently #66)
- Wins – at Nashwauk-Keewatin (58-24), at Greenway (60-51), International Falls (65-44)
- Losses – Two Harbors (52-47 OT)
AA – Mesabi East (preseason Class AA #53, currently #12)
- Wins – at Pequot Lakes (71-51), at Mountain Iron-Buhl (70-66), at Moose Lake-Willow River (83-68), Eveleth-Gilbert (57-27)
- Losses – none
AAA – Red Wing (preseason Class AAA #29, currently #7)
- Wins – Plainview-Elgin-Millville (67-35), Goodhue (53-40), at Mankato West (66-57), Northfield (56-55)
- Losses – none
AAAA – Blaine (preseason Class AAAA #53, currently #32)
- Wins – Duluth East (82-50), at St. Francis (68-29), at Buffalo (53-48), Totino-Grace (51-41), Apple Valley (77-38)
- Losses – Providence Academy (72-69 OT)
Biggest Fallers
This section will include the teams that fell down the rankings the most.
A – Bigfork (preseason Class A #33, currently #78)
- Wins – none
- Losses – at Chisholm (72-56), Littlefork-Big Falls (42-30), at North Woods (54-43), at Cherry (61-24), Floodwood (50-28)
AA – Thief River Falls (preseason Class AA #38, currently #89)
- Wins – none
- Losses – at Bemidji (69-30), at Roseau (68-35), at Ada-Borup (46-32), N Barnesville (44-26)
AAA – Hibbing (preseason Class AAA #7, currently #31)
- Wins – at Greenway (64-40), Princeton (62-50)
- Losses – at Grand Rapids (59-53), Bemidji (74-63), North Branch (55-38)
AAAA – White Bear Lake (last week Class AAAA #26, currently #47)
- Wins – Robbinsdale Armstrong (48-35), Irondale (66-36)
- Losses – Elk River (69-50), N Lakeville South (60-38), N Rosemount (55-33), at Park of Cottage Grove (47-36)
Highest Scoring Games
The offense appears to be ahead of the defense early in the season as the average point total per game through the first 2+ weeks of the season was 107.1 points per game.
- Minnehaha Academy 89, Sauk Centre 86 (3 OT)
- Farmington 92, St. Michael-Albertville 79
- Robbinsdale Cooper 85, Holy Angels 82
- Stillwater 97, Woodbury 69
- Jackson County Central 91, Martin County West 75
Predictions
Each week I will list the computer predictions for some of the more interesting games around the state.
Monday
- Minneapolis South @ Anoka (Minneapolis South 67-63)
Tuesday
- Jordan @ Hutchinson (Hutchinson 66-65)
- Chaska @ Minnetonka (Chaska 70-69)
- St. Michael-Albertville @ Waconia (St. Michael-Albertville 84-78)
- Lake City @ Winona Cotter (Lake City 60-58)
Thursday
- East Grand Forks @ Pelican Rapids (East Grand Forks 56-50)
Friday
- Rochester Lourdes @ Lake City (Rochester Lourdes 78-67)
Saturday
- Holy Family @ Providence Academy (Providence Academy 64-61)
- Hermantown @ Proctor (Proctor 61-52)