Hard to believe that there are only 2 more weeks before the 1st round playoff games start. Here are this week's RRPI rankings. Not sure if you guys have noticed, but the IDHSAA website has the 'official' RPI rankings up that will be used in 4A, 3A and 2A this year (in a variety of ways). If you have questions, let me know.
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Based on how I understand it, here is how 2A will work this year. There are 16 teams that will qualify for State. 13 of those teams will qualify based on where they finish in their conference standings, and 3 teams will be awarded at-large berths based on their RPI ranking.
The auto-bids are broken out like this: District 1-2 (2), District 3 (4), District 4 (1), District 5 (3) and District 6 (3).
The 3 at-large teams will be the highest RPI teams that didn't automatically qualify.
These 16 teams will then be placed in 'geographic' match-ups for the 1st round game to ease travel burdens for the schools. I would assume that it will look pretty similar to past year brackets for the first round (Districts 4/5/6 play each other and Districts 1/2/3 play each other).
After this 1st round of games, the remaining 8 teams will be seeded 1-8 based on their regular season RPI. So the matchups will be 1/8, 2/7, 3/6 and 4/5, and then the playoffs will proceed as normal with no other 're-seeding' taking place after the quarterfinals.
If the season ended today, here is how I see the 2A division qualifiers shaking out:
Auto Bids:
District 1/2 - Grangeville and Orofino (Orofino hasn't played a conference game yet)
District 3 - New Plymouth, Cole Valley Christian, McCall - Donnelly and Melba
District 4 - Declo (making an *big* assumption here because Declo and Wendell haven't played yet)
District 5 - West Side, Soda Springs and Aberdeen
District 6 - North Fremont, Firth and West Jefferson
At-Large teams (RRPI and the official Idaho RPI are the same)
St. Maries
Ririe
Malad
Interesting fact that I came across when calculating my RPI this week. Both Aberdeen and Wendell in 2A are 3-3. But Wendell actually out ranks Aberdeen in SoS with 2 of their 3 wins over 3A teams while Aberdeen only has 1 of its 3 wins over a 3A team. Wendell, like Salmon gets very little respect and often gets **** for making it into the playoffs when much better teams do not. I know playoffs are changed around a bit this year but I thought this info worthy of giving Wendell some love for having a better season (at least on paper) than a well known powerhouse Aberdeen.
I'm not talking opponents or RPI, I am talking Wendells 3 wins are against higher point teams. And although you can argue differently, just looking on paper, they have Aberdeen beat in SOS for them.
Don't take this little victory away from them, come the end of the season, Aberdeen will look better than them once more. But right now, this week, Wendell is the better team.
Yeah I don't think you have many people on the "Wendell is better than Aberdeen right now" train there Coach Newell. None of the data supports it. Wendell beat Marsing (ranked 2 spots lower than them in 2A RPI, second to last overall in 2A - 0.39338 score), they beat Payette (ranked dead last in 3A - 0.31420 score) and they beat Buhl (ranked second to last place in 3A - 0.35277 score). As Payton61 mentioned, those 3 schools have combined for a whopping 1 win and their opponents overall have combined for a 20.44% win percentage.
Aberdeen's 3 wins have come against 3 teams that have combined for 4 wins. American Falls is #12 in 3A, and they have also played Bear Lake and Marsing which are dead-last and next-to-dead-last in 2A, respectively. But their opponents overall have combined for a 66.77% winning percentage (thanks to Declo, North Fremont, and West Side all being undefeated).
There's a reason Wendell is ranked 9 spots lower than Aberdeen right now in the RPI - and it has everything to do with what I just listed. I just don't know how it could be claimed that Wendell is better than Aberdeen as of right now.
Even if you did the whole transitive property comparison (which should never be used) using Marsing as the common opponent, Wendell beat Marsing 37-12... while Aberdeen beat Marsing 67-18.
Wendell will play three 3A teams this year. They are 2-0 against the winless, bottom of the barrel 3A teams and will get smoked by Gooding this week.
Aberdeen had one 3A team on the schedule and hammered them - that was #12 American Falls.
Aberdeen has already gotten more out of American Falls' 2-5 record than Wendell has in Buhl and Payette's combined 0-13 record. Buhl and Payette may be 3A in name but certainly not 3A in quality of play or record this year. They have combined to go 0-6 against 2A teams.
And I don't say this to take away from the fact that Wendell has 3 wins for the first time since 2013. It's great for that program, they needed something to go in their favor. But it has to all be put in context.
I know that a lot of abstract factors go into this calculation, but wouldn't head-to-head play significant part? Timberlake beat Priests River 38-8? this past weekend, yet Priest is rated above Timberlake? Timberlake has played 4A schools while Priest has lost to 2A schools. Just wondering where the weight of the calculations is?
Timberlake does not get any point boost for playing 4A schools unless they beat them. Same for Priest, if they beat the 2A schools they would get 85% of the win but since they lost, it counts as a 0 the same as if they lost to a 4A.
Im guessing where Priest is getting the bump in points is not from their own win % or match ups but from their opponents match ups and win %.
Opponents SoS is worth 40% where their own SoS is only 30%
Im guessing that Priest has lost to some teams that are undefeated or maybe 1 loss teams where Timberlake has played against teams more in the middle maybe 3-3 area, thus receiving less points in the biggest category of the RPI system.
Priest schedule
Win vs (3-3) 3A Riverside (WA)
Loss vs (5-0) 3A Newport (WA)
Loss vs (5-2) 2A St. Maries
Loss vs (6-0) 2A Grangeville
Win vs (2-4) 2A Orofino
Loss vs (4-3) 2A Timberlake
(1-6) 3A Bonners Ferry
(2-4) 3A Kellogg
Timberlake Schedule
Loss vs (6-1) 3A Frenchtown (MT)
Win vs (0-8) 4A Rogers (WA)
Win vs (0-6) 3A Freeman (WA)
Win vs (2-5) 4A Moscow
Loss vs (5-2) 2A St. Maries
Loss vs (3-3) 4A Lakeland
Win vs (2-4) 3A Priset River
(1-6) 3A Bonners Ferry
(2-4) 3A Kellogg
So Priest has games against 2 undefeated teams where Timberlake has 2 wins against win-less teams. I am guessing that is where the point swing is at.
I would be very surprised if Orofino beat St. Maries.
Chuck, I completely agree with you about St. Maries over Orofino. I used the current conference standings when I did the mock scenario, that's the reason I put Orofino as the AutoBid.
Thanks for the RRPI rankings Payton. Not sure if it's a hobby for you but I love looking at the charts every week.
Ditto that thanks Payton for the
Its a PROVEN commodity that the 3A north is weak year after year! If 2A St Maries and grangeville were in that league they would go first, second consistantly! When the RPI doest account for weak divisions and actual scores against opponents the slippery slope has been created. Wendell has beaten NOBODIES and i would give a 1 win Bear Lake an at large over Wendell based on a common opponent score ! Wendell was hammer by Malad while Bear Lake lost by 6. In my idea of a RPI point score for those 2 games Wendell gets -3 while Bear Lake gets -1. Not all common opponent losses are the same! This RPI system is a bumpy road that needs to be smoothed out!