Saturday, February 9, 2008

CR-North 50, Pennridge 43

PENNRIDGE (43)
Jordan Dominic 3 0-0 8; Lindsey Lyons 1 2-4 4; Shannon Zickler 3 4-6 10; Marissa Kunkle 3 1-2 9; Sam Simonosis 3 5-9 11; Stacey Gunter 0 1-2 1; Sarah Hoban 0 0-0 0. Totals: 13 13-23 43.

CR-NORTH (50)
Juliann Fricke 4 1-1 12; Devin Gold 4 2-2 13; Jen Sroba 2 2-2 6; Kelly Scull 1 1-2 3; Sarah Kiely 5 3-4 13; Kate Logan 0 1-3 1; Jenn Casper 1 0-2 2. Totals: 17 10-16 50.

P 12-10-11-10—43
CRN 9-20-13-8—50

3-point goals: Dominic 2, Kunkle 2 (P); Fricke 3, Gold 3 (CRN).

Link to Courier Times game story

Link to Intelligencer game story

Link to Courier Times girls basketball notes from Friday

Link to Courier Times Jen Sroba profile from Friday

NINE THINGS

1. Sophomore center Sarah Kiely had 13 points and nine rebounds for the Indians (17-8). Freshman guard Devin Gold had 13 points and two steals, while junior point guard Juliann Fricke scored 12 points.

2. CR-North has won its first round District One Class AAAA game in each of the last 11 years. The No. 15 seed Indians visit unbeaten No. 2 seed Methacton (25-0) in the second round on Wednesday.

3. Gold made two free throws with 36.7 seconds on the clock to put CR-North up by five points, 48-43, and seal the victory. Kiely and senior guard-forward Jen Sroba had fouled out with more than 2 1/2 minutes remaining.

4. Fricke played very well down the stretch. Senior Jenn Casper came of the bench and grabbed several important late rebounds. Casper also scored on a pretty reverse layup in the first half.

5. Sam Simononis scored 11 points and Shannon Zickler added 10 points for Pennridge (15-10).

6. “I was really impressed with the way Fricke reacted,” CR-North coach Lou Palkovics said. “When Jen and Sarah fouled out, Julie just told everybody, ‘We’re all right. We’re fine.’ She and Devin were basically the veterans left on the floor.”

7. “(Casper) has been doing that all year,” Fricke said. “She does those things in practice all the time.”

8. No. 10 Sun Valley, No. 11 Upper Darby and No. 12 Perkiomen Valley all lost in the first round. Those three teams had great records against not-so-great schedules and probably were beneficiaries of the suspect power rankings system. The three teams from the extremly competitive SOL Continental - CB East, Norristown and CR-North - probably should have been ahead of all three of them. CR-North and Norristown will have to pull big upsets to get to the quarterfinals. CB East lost in the first round in a tough league rematch against a talented William Tennent team.

9. Maybe the first round upsets in the girls and boys brackets will cause District One to reevaluate the power rankings system.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Dist. 1 to Teams: "Take the Easy Way Out."

I was going to do a whole post about the seriously flawed District One power rankings system, but the Intelligencer's Todd Thorpe beat me to it at his blog at http://blogs.phillyburbs.com/intelgirlshoop.

As Todd said:

Last year’s very flawed power rating system had one thing this year’s system did not. It took into account whether opponents were Class AAAA, AAA, AA, or A, and awarded schedule points accordingly. That wasn’t taken into account with this system, and hence some team were rewarded just as many points for playing and beating much smaller schools, but ones that happened to have good records against the rest of the teams it played.

Non-league games are at the discretion of the coaches and athletic directors. But if one team goes 4-4 in non-league games and the competition includes very quality teams, and another goes 7-1 against lesser competition against small Class A schools, why should the one be punished for scheduling better?

It doesn’t encourage better scheduling. It encourages winning, no matter the opponent. That’s the central flaw of this system.

Personally, I think they should go back to the committee seeding system and all the aggravations that came from it. But one thing about it, though, they usually got it right. The best teams were usually the ones who made it states every year.

I just want to point out what several SOL teams got for scheduling tough teams.

Council Rock-North for losing to Archbishop Wood, one of the three best teams in Pennsylvania - 4.55 Power Rating Points.

CB East for a one-point loss to Spring-Ford - 4.58 Power Rating Points

Pennridge for a loss to Mount St. Joseph's - 4.55 Power Rating Points

What each team could have earned for scheduling and beating New Hope-Solebury: 5 + 2.63 + 6.32 = 13.95 Power Rating Points.

Or for scheduling and beating Christopher Dock: 5 + 3.25 + 7.8 = 16.05 Power Rating Points.

Why do you want to encourage teams to drop games against Wood, Spring-Ford and Mount to schedule tiny Bicentennial Athletic League teams such as Christopher Dock and New Hope-Solebury?

The message to kids: "Don't challenge yourself. Take the easy way out and get rewarded."

Monday, February 4, 2008

Dist. 1 Class AAAA Strength of Schedule Rankings

Using District One's "Schedule Points" totals from its published power ratings, I tried to determine the schedule strength (opponents' winning pct.) for each team.

To do this, I reversed the district's formula for calculating schedule points. I took "Schedule Points" and divided by the number of games played and divided that total by five.

I didn't even look at the individual schedules. I went straight from the district's "Schedule Points" totals. If I am wrong, please let me know where the mistakes are. I probably made at least a few errors.

TEAMOPP WIN PCT
1. Penn Wood
0.594
2. Cheltenham
0.573
3. Down. West
0.562
4. Down. East
0.556
4. North Penn
0.556
6. CB East
0.550
7. Pennridge
0.538
8. Upper Dublin
0.537
8. CR-North
0.537
10. Conestoga
0.531
11. Neshaminy 0.527
12. CB South
0.524
13. Souderton
0.521
14. Unionville 0.520
15. Lower Merion
0.518
16. Chichester
0.516
17. Boyertown 0.515
18. Bensalem 0.514
18. Perkiomen Valley
0.514
20. Spring-Ford
0.512
20. Chester
0.512
22. Norristown
0.509
23. Upper Darby
0.506
24. Henderson
0.505
25. Kennett
0.495
26. Garnet Valley
0.490
27. Methacton
0.476
28. Abington
0.475
29. William Tennent
0.471
30. Wissahickon
0.471
31. Sun Valley
0.460
32. Great Valley
0.459


Schedule strength does not seem to mean a whole lot in the final power rankings. Cheltenham's No. 2 schedule, for instance, earned it only 13.67 more total "Schedule Points" (68.75) than Great Valley's No. 32 schedule (55.08 "Schedule Points"). That's less than the points earned with three victories (against any opponent).

Teams are much better off beating weaker teams than taking a chance of losing to stronger teams.

Most coaches want to play better teams to make their own players better. But coaches who do so in this system seem to put their teams at a disadvantage in the district tournament.