Northern New Mexico High School Basketball Updates (Roswell, Las Vegas: calculation, tuition)

[bradly]

I think the way they seed, Is by how many you have won, and your strengths.
They also match you against teams you have played before, for Example LA beats Capital twice so they are 1 seed higher than Capital.

Thats what they did lasy year, but then again last year was easy choosing #1 becuase Espanola was 26-1 and the second best which was St. Pius X was 20-5.


Of course it is too early to predict anything, but the placing of Artesia being #2 is questionable..since they have been on a losing streak.



Well me and friends got bored one day and made a prediction bracket.
At the time we seeded teams by how many games lost and won, and their ranks.



Artesia just lost to Clovis, I thought that was hilarious, worse than Espanola losing to Hobbs, because Espanola killed Clovis at a preseason game, I think it was a 25 point win.

[rwalkernm]

Cute .

Well, I am OK with Espanola having the #1 seed, if it were done today. Both Artesia and Roswell have had some losses mixed in recently, and so I agree they might be seeded lower than their strength rating. I have Academy up real high also, because they lose barely to very strong teams, so even though they are rated high, I agree they cannot practically be seeded as high as the strength ratings put them.

Deming might be my choice for #2 seed -- they are on a tear and will probably win the rest of their games, just like Espanola will.

But notice what we're doing -- we are counting recent win/loss results a bit more than season-long results, which is why I asked if you thought we should treat more recent games with more weight than early-season games. The reason I asked that is I do have some experimental calculations with weighted games, counting recent games more than early games, and counting close games more than blowouts. The experimental results change things a bit, and actually predict game-winners more accurately (well, slightly more accurately). So I am trying to decide if I should release these experimental results.

Of course, that would mean I'd attach no significance to the unreported Espanola/Clovis game -- the Espanola/Hobbs game was at least a real honest-to-goodness regular season game.

I've also been calculating the RPI for teams -- like they do for BCS football and for college basketball. The RPI builds in strength of schedule in a different way. If I were to rank teams according to RPI, the top 10 would be Hobbs, Texico, Manzano, Gallup, Espanola, Highland, Clovis, Artesia, Santa Rosa, Hope. Note that RPI just averages your winning percentage along with the winning percentages of your opponents and your opponent's opponents. So a "weaker" team (perhaps like Texico in 2A -- Texico is having a great season and is top-ranked in 2A) gets a high RPI because they mostly play other 1A and 2A teams and beat them (and Texico's opponents generally beat the teams they play also, except for Texico, etc.). On average, Espanola plays teams that are 15 points or so stronger than Texico does, but Texico has a higher RPI than Espanola!

I see you already have Espanola winning state. Maybe so. But, watch out for Deming and Academy! Academy should cruise through their district. They have lost lots of games, mostly to very strong 5A schools, and by less than 10 points. They may not get a high seed, but if I was a coach, I would not want to be meeting up with them early in the tournament.

BobW

[bradly]

Although you make some really good points, I dont think Albuquerque Academy will get a high seed in the Tournament, there is no way, their record 7-11.. Mmmm either 7th could even be 10th..

Looking at their Schedule kinda tells me losing to Gallup, Rio Grand, and Los Alamos could hurt them.

[ThatTNGuy]

Am I reading correctly that Los Alamos pulled off a win against Española on Friday night? That's a great win for the Hilltoppers.

[rwalkernm]

Both the BV and GV Espanola/Los Alamos games went in the statistically unexpected direction!

Away Los Alamos over home Espanola 59-53, Friday, BV, most unexpected. Espanola was "supposed" to win by 8-10.

Away Espanola over home Los Alamos 55-46, Saturday, GV, also unexpected. LA was "supposed" to win by 1 or 2.

Upsets are what makes it all exciting, yes? GV game maybe not even an upset.

Rematches on 2/17 (GV at Espanola) and 2/18 (BV at Los Alamos).

BobW

[rwalkernm]

New ratings posted earlier today. Biggest change is I am using weighting factors to count recent games and close games more than early-season games and blowouts. See more at NMAA Basketball -- 2008-2009 New Mexico High School Varsity Rankings.

Summary of 3 notable results from games last week:
BV 1/29 Pojoaque wins tossup 59-57 at W Las Vegas
BV 1/30 Los Alamos upset win 59-53 at Espanola
GV 1/31 Espanola wins tossup 55-46 at Los Alamos

Summary of close, notable games coming up this week -- lots of important BV games
BV 2/4 SFIS at Raton, SFIS by 6?
BV 2/4 Espanola at Bernalillo, Espanola by 5?
BV 2/4 Capital at Los Alamos, Los Alamos by 5?
BV 2/6 Pojoaque at Robertson, Pojoaque by 4?
BV 2/7 Espanola at Capital, Espanola by 4?

GV 2/3 Los Alamos at Capital, Los Alamos by 10?
GV 2/5 Pojoaque at St Michael's, Pojoaque by 11?

Enjoy.
BobW

[rwalkernm]

New ratings posted this afternoon.
(NMAA Basketball -- 2008-2009 New Mexico High School Varsity Rankings)

BV 4A rankings: (1)Deming, (2t)Espanola, (2t)ABQ Academy, (4t)Roswell, (4t)Artesia, (6t)StPius, (6t)Los Alamos, (8)Belen, (9)Capital, (10t)Bernalillo, (10t)Santa Teresa.

GV 4A Rankings: (1)StPius, (2)Moriarty, (3)Roswell, (4)Kirtland, (5t)Shiprock & Belen & DelNorte, (8)Deming, (9)ABQ Academy, (10)Espanola

BV 3A: (2)StMike's, (7)Pojoaque, (8)SFIS
GV 3A: (1)Pojoaque, (3)SFIS, (6)StMike's

BobW

[bradly]

Originally Posted by rwalkernm

New ratings posted this afternoon.
(NMAA Basketball -- 2008-2009 New Mexico High School Varsity Rankings)

BV 4A rankings: (1)Deming, (2t)Espanola, (2t)ABQ Academy, (4t)Roswell, (4t)Artesia, (6t)StPius, (6t)Los Alamos, (8)Belen, (9)Capital, (10t)Bernalillo, (10t)Santa Teresa.

GV 4A Rankings: (1)StPius, (2)Moriarty, (3)Roswell, (4)Kirtland, (5t)Shiprock & Belen & DelNorte, (8)Deming, (9)ABQ Academy, (10)Espanola

BV 3A: (2)StMike's, (7)Pojoaque, (8)SFIS
GV 3A: (1)Pojoaque, (3)SFIS, (6)StMike's

BobW

You know you love Espanola the last two games they have been on fire and have shocked the heck out of your predictions mister! Tomorrows game against Taos should be a blowout, so If you can go check it out in Espanola... or Next Wednesdays game should the talk of both towns.

Arent you supposed to but "Better" in the area where it says "Expected" for the last two Espanola games, becuase you have to admitt, they shocked your predictions.

[rwalkernm]

Espanola is clearly one of the very best teams in 4A. With the exception of a couple of relatively meaningless blowouts of Goddard and SFHigh, they have regularly scored within 10 points of what the statistics estimate. Their last two games have been at +10 (i.e., they scored 10 more points than the stats predicted). The game before that was at -12. These things even out, but what it tells me is that they have good and bad nights (don't they all?).

But, Espanola has really only had one bad night all season (1/30), and most other 4A teams have had more than one bad night during the season. I think they deserve in every way to be rated right where they are. Deming's rated #1, Espanola #2, but note Espanola's strength of schedule is higher (1017 to Deming's 1015), and if you look at the BCS-style RPI for Espanola, they have one of the strongest schedules in the state (#8), over all teams in all classes. Not too shabby. If Espanola goes into the 4A state tournament seeded #1, I would not complain at all.

And, still Academy (tied with Espanola at #2) will probably go into state seeded well below their strength because of the high number of losses they have -- but that just means we'll have some "surprises" in the state tournament too!

In their last 3 games, Espanola has been playing at both edges of the stats. These things don't shock me, I love surprises, it's what makes it all interesting to me!

Now, my wife thinks I shouldn't do all this rating stuff because it'll discourage the players to thinking they don't have any chance of winning when the stats say they "can't." But you and I know the players have never heard of this stuff, and if they did, we'd be hearing them laughing in disbelief all the way up and down the court, as they cheerfully do everything they can to "surprise" me.

BobW

[bradly]

Originally Posted by rwalkernm

Espanola is clearly one of the very best teams in 4A. With the exception of a couple of relatively meaningless blowouts of Goddard and SFHigh, they have regularly scored within 10 points of what the statistics estimate. Their last two games have been at +10 (i.e., they scored 10 more points than the stats predicted). The game before that was at -12. These things even out, but what it tells me is that they have good and bad nights (don't they all?).

But, Espanola has really only had one bad night all season (1/30), and most other 4A teams have had more than one bad night during the season. I think they deserve in every way to be rated right where they are. Deming's rated #1, Espanola #2, but note Espanola's strength of schedule is higher (1017 to Deming's 1015), and if you look at the BCS-style RPI for Espanola, they have one of the strongest schedules in the state (#8), over all teams in all classes. Not too shabby. If Espanola goes into the 4A state tournament seeded #1, I would not complain at all.

And, still Academy (tied with Espanola at #2) will probably go into state seeded well below their strength because of the high number of losses they have -- but that just means we'll have some "surprises" in the state tournament too!

In their last 3 games, Espanola has been playing at both edges of the stats. These things don't shock me, I love surprises, it's what makes it all interesting to me!

Now, my wife thinks I shouldn't do all this rating stuff because it'll discourage the players to thinking they don't have any chance of winning when the stats say they "can't." But you and I know the players have never heard of this stuff, and if they did, we'd be hearing them laughing in disbelief all the way up and down the court, as they cheerfully do everything they can to "surprise" me.

BobW

Well you sure did encourage a couple players of the Espanola girls basketball team, It only pushed them more to win by alot more.. with that being said it is very upsetting they are not on the new mexico coaches association's top 10 poll yet.