I’ve received lots of questions concerning the rankings recently. Most of the questions deal with why their team is ranked lower than another team or teams that they have beaten during the year. The best ones come with a list of results, lots of which I didn’t have. Between the time I spend gathering and entering the results, I have looked into why some of these things are happening. I hope this helps. Overall the response I’ve been getting is positive. Although many can debate the concept behind them, the rankings have generated lots of interest across the state. It’s nice to know how your team stacks up with other teams you don’t usually wrestle.

The biggest problem is still missing results. An assistant coach at Covington high school sent me a complete list of their results. I was missing most of the list, which included Covington’s results at Springfield Northeastern. Even after entering the results, however, Covington’s ranking still seemed low.

One of the teams in that dual, Springfield Catholic Central, has no ranking points. I only have six match results for them, all duals, all losses. Yet they won three matches at the dual event, none of which I have results for. These are level 2 points that Covington is not receiving because I don’t have the results.

Another problem is ‘B’ teams. The most recent one that slipped my attention was East Liverpool’s ‘B’ squad at the Wellsville Buck Bailey Memorial. It would be fun to see how some of these ‘B’ squads stack up, especially St. Eds. Maybe after the season when there’s more time. For now, I can only hope that I’ve caught them all.

Now the dilemmas:

First of all dual matches versus tournaments. When I originally put this together, It was an attempt to predict team placement at the state tournament. In doing so, I had to consider how dual matches fit into the equation. I’ve had suggestions to provide two separate rankings, one for duals and one for tournaments. For now, I’m stuck.

The way it works now is each dual match counts as one match. Each tournament counts as one match against all competing teams. Thus an eight team tournament counts as seven matches. For a dual match, level 1 points equal to three times the margin of victory. For a tournament, level 1 points are equal to the margin of victory (with scores adjusted to 250 point ceiling).

I’ve had suggestions to count dual matches the same as tournament matches. Your thoughts on this subject would be appreciated. What happens is that good dual match teams who wrestle lots of dual matches rack up lots of level 1 points. For most teams, however, level 1 points make up only about ten percent of the total ranking points. Level 2 points are what determine the final ranking. To gain level 2 points you have to beat good teams. It’s where the strength of schedule comes into play. There is a fine line, however. You have to win. The points are all averaged over a one hundred match season. You get zero points for a loss. Whether you’ve wrestled over or under the one hundred matches, your rating will go down. Despite all the experience gained by wrestling against let’s say a St. Eds, a loss is still worth zero rating points.

Finally, the why am I rated behind this team question. I wish I could explain them all, each one is unique. What I can tell you is that all teams started equal, and are evaluated using the same set of rules. The rankings are based on each teams performance over the entire year. Except for St. Eds, everyone has been beaten by someone. Lots of cases can be made for or against a particular rankings. But things happen during the course of a season that no computer can account for.

Had Ott wrestled for Graham the entire season, they would be very close, if not number one in Division 2.

How many extra points would Kenston have picked up if Duebel had wrestled at North Canton. There are many other instances where teams have had injuries and sickness that have affected their placement in the rankings. No computer can accurately account for all the intangibles, but it’s fun to make them try.

My most vivid example is Strongsville. At the Ironman, they had a couple of wrestlers out of action, and a couple wrestling up in weight. As a result, they finished down in the pack (behind Eastlake North, another example of good result one week, terrible results the next). As an experiment, I deleted Strongsville from the Ironman tournament and ran the calculations. The result was that Strongsville’s total points went over 200,000, and their ranking in Division 1 went from fifteen to seven. I hate to see a team hurt by being hurt, but what else can a computer program do?

I’ll be posting a page that contains all the statistics per team. It will include all the statistics: division, district, level 1 points, level 1 average, level 2 points, level 2 average, total points, number of matches.

Feel free to look it over. I’m open to any suggestions you may have.

To all the coaches out there. Thanks for all the support you’ve been giving these rankings. Please make sure I’ve got your dual matches. If you know of a tournament I’m missing, see if you can get me the results. I’d like to have the final results in before the sectionals next Friday so that I can post the final rankings by district. Sectionals will not count towards the rankings.