SGV/Whittier Prep Sports Zone: Escarcega on Preps: Inside CIF Southern Section's Data-Driven Approach
A New Era for High School Playoff Seeding will begin for sports such as basketball, baseball, and softball.
OK, all of you fans of basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, and all other team sports in the CIF Southern Section.
On behalf of those in the high school football universe (which includes yours truly), welcome to the world of real-time competitive equity for sectional playoffs. In our world, what happened last year is that – last year. We wipe the slate clean and start fresh.
Yeah, I know that in past years, playoff divisions were constructed based on your combined rating from the previous two years. While that was great, it didn’t account for the players who transferred from one school to another and are considered game-changing players.
We know there were wild-card games, and teams made it with less than .500 records.
Those years are over.
In today’s world, it’s not about where you are in the league standings but about your power rating and position compared to your fellow membership schools within the section.
I know what you are going to ask. “How come football teams with less than .500 records make the playoffs, but in our sports, we don’t?”
We have the answer – just be patient.
In past years, the coaches' poll was the starting point for seeding and bracket mechanics. While it was great, it became complicated, and seeding became ugly and messy.
With the current data, divisional placement won't be the case starting this year. The section has shifted to be data-driven, ensuring clean transparency when the brackets come out for the playoffs.
And the coaches have learned to adapt and adjust. When the system was rolled out for football, if a team had a .500 and didn’t make the playoffs, coaches would take to social media to complain about the system. These days, those complaints are gone. Is it because some people are banging out the numbers and giving the coaches an idea of where they stand?
100 percent.
We want to think that football coaches like those at Western and Sonora used our projections to get a great idea of where they stood in the At-Large selection process. We believe that our conversations led Western to go for a two-point conversion, which they successfully converted, getting them their fifth win with a thrilling will over Trabuco Hills and their ticket into the playoffs.
Let’s get back to the subject of teams needing a .500 record or better to make the playoffs. The reason teams with a record less than .500 will not make the playoffs is simple: There are more Automatic Qualifiers (AQ) available in basketball and baseball than in football.
Football: 179 AQs
Basketball: approximately 273
Why are there more AQs in basketball and baseball than in football? It’s easy. In basketball, baseball, soccer, etc., the first round starts with 32 teams. Football tournaments begin with 16 teams (or fewer if you are in D1).
So, the number of AQs widens a bit.
- 4 Team Leagues - 2 Entries Guaranteed Only
- 5 Team Leagues - 3 Entries Guaranteed Only
- 6 Team Leagues - 3 Entries Guaranteed Only
- 7 Team Leagues - 4 Entries Guaranteed Only
- 8 Team Leagues - 4 Entries Guaranteed Only
- 9 Team Leagues - 5 Entries Guaranteed Only
That’s different compared to football, which has set the parameters for AQs this way:
- Leagues of 4 or 5 teams will get two guaranteed entries.
- Leagues of 6-8 teams will get three guaranteed entries.
- Leagues of 9 or more teams will get 4 guaranteed entries.
Then, there is the language from CIFSS about the requirements for an at-large team.
FOOTBALL: “At Large teams must have a .500 record or better for their complete schedules to be considered. A tie will count as a ½ win and ½ loss as the criteria for .500 or better record. (A record of 4-4-2 would be considered as qualifying). In the sport of football, in order to alleviate byes, if there are no .500 teams entered or all .500 or better teams have been taken, then the next highest rated sub .500 team in a divisional grouping will be selected. However, no team under .500 will be placed until all .500 at large entries have been placed.”
BASKETBALL/BASEBALL: “Once automatic qualifiers have been placed into a division, and pending space, any remaining spots will go to the highest ranked, .500 overall record or better at-large teams in that grouping. A team MUST be .500 or better to qualify for the playoffs regardless of their power ranking.”
Thanks to the AQs, there are more guaranteed spots, so the section has narrowed the language and said there will be no below .500 teams in the playoffs.
How was the rollout for girls' volleyball this year? If you ask section officials, they are overjoyed with how it played out. In the D2 final, you have a #5 seed (Palos Verdes) squaring off against #2 Murrieta Valley. The D3 final matched #3 Long Beach Poly against the #24 seed in Bishop Diego.
How will this look regarding Selection Sunday (or Monday if you are a baseball/softball team)?
Let’s take a couple of looks at a couple of divisions and walk you through the process.
Let’s take a look at Division 2 in girls volleyball.
After you take the top eight teams from the list for Division 1, Division 2 starts with Saugus and ends with Marlborough after you count 30 AQs.
This leaves us with 3 At-Large teams: Santa Margarita (19-12, 8.171), JSerra (32-20, 8.072), and Chaminade (26-11, 8.012).
With Santa Margarita and JSerra being the top two rated teams, they secure the at-large bids with Chaminade on the outside looking in. With that being done, you can start the seeding and matchup process with #32 Marlborough at #1 Saugus, #31 Burroughs/Ridgecrest at #2 Murrieta Valley (which ended up winning a sectional final on Saturday night), #30 Alemany at #3 Etiwanda, etc.
In this format, parity should be the keyword to keep in mind. Just because you are a top-four seed doesn't mean you’ll automatically make the semifinals. Ask #1 Saugus and #4 Oaks Christian, who lost in the quarterfinals.
This is what the CIF Southern Section wants.
Let’s look at another division and see how it is constructed—how about CIFSS Div. 7?
This division has it all with AQs, At-Large Teams, and teams with below .500 records.
The top-rated team is Paraclete, which becomes the top seed in the division. (Yes, I know they are Camino Real #3, but where you are in league placing has no bearing on the seeding process).
The 30th AQ is San Jacinto Leadership Academy, which becomes the final team to draw into the tournament. Since you can’t start a new division with an At-Large team, Immaculate Heart is on the outside looking in and cannot draw into the tournament. There are six teams in the body of the division that qualify for an AL bid: Apple Valley (1409, 6.33), Brea Olinda (18-15, 6.285), Valley View (13-12, 6.280), San Gabriel (14-11-2, 6.26), Fontana (16-12, 6.069), and Lancaster (17-13, 6.02). Since Apple Valley and Brea Olinda are the two highest-rated AQs, they draw into the tournament.
Parity also ruled this division, as only one of the top four seeds made it to the semifinals. In the final, #5 seed Laguna Beach faced off against #23 St. Paul.
It doesn’t get any more straightforward than that.
The rating system for boys' and girls' basketball will be the Colley Method from SBLive, which has been lauded for its simplicity. For baseball and softball, the CIFSS will use the Massey Ratings system.
“While few people would describe linear algebra and matrix math as simple or intuitive, Colley’s core formula couldn’t be more accessible,” the CIFSS mentioned in its “Season Preview. “The equation for each team’s rating consists only of wins, losses, total games played, and the sum of its opponents’ ratings in a relatively short equation. The better a team’s record and strength of schedule, the better its rating – it’s that simple.”
Here are a couple of things that you have to keep in mind.
- The AQ number is the key number when trying to project the at-large bids. Once you’ve determined how many AQs you have and divided them by the number of divisions, you will get the number of AQs available for each time and the number of At-Large teams to be selected. You have to start there before you begin slotting teams. If you have an open division, you don’t factor that in and subtract the number of AQs pulled into that division from the original AQ number. Once you have done that, you can start doing the math for AQs in available divisions and AL spots.
- In the top divisions (Div. 1, Div. 2, Div. 3), league champions playing each other will be the norm and not the exception. Three games pitted league champions against each other in Division 2 in girls volleyball. Understand that where you finished in your league is irrelevant in this format. It is all about your rating and your seed. If you are on the front side of the seed line (1-16), you will have a home game in the first round. If you are on the backside of the seed line (17-32), you will be on the road.
- At-large teams on the front side of the seed line will be legitimate contenders. In past years, At-Large teams would be slotted against a top-four-seeded team. That is not the case here. For instance, in Div. 7, Apple Valley was seeded fourth as an at-large team and made it to the quarterfinals.
The most prominent hurdle coaches must adjust to is that just because you are a first-place team doesn’t mean hosting a first-round game. In previous years, that was the case. In this new world of real-time competitive equity, it’s where your rating places you that will determine whether you will host a first-round game or not.
One of the other things we learned from the just-concluded basketball season is that coaches should not put too much stock into the first two rating release reports. The reason is simple: not all teams have reported scores on the CIFSSHOME page, which explains why teams moved up and down more than 50 spots from one report to the other.
And, as I’ve always pointed out over the years with football, if you are good enough, prove it. You will have to win on the road at some point – you might as well start now.
The one thing that is not in play here is subjectivity. The ratings are not reflective if your team’s starting center is hurt or if your guard play is not scoring at a high level of productivity.
These days, the CIFSS is data-driven and will use the ratings to seed teams, not your team's health. As I told the baseball coaches last year when they asked about the system, make the playoffs if you want it to work in your favor.
Here is a legitimate example. In past years, if you were a third-place team in your league in a high playoff division (i.e., D1, D2), you had to play a first-place team from another elite team and probably got boat run in the first round.
Where’s the incentive to make the playoffs?
In this current system, you’ll be placed in a less steep division and have the advantage of playing in a tough league that will pay off in dividends in the postseason. If you call a Division (like Div. 8) the JV division, try telling that to those teams when they are getting fitted for rings after they win a sectional title.
If you are an elite team playing in Div. 1 or Div. 2, accept the challenge of playing other “elite” teams and coach your team up. It’ll make winning a sectional title that much sweeter. The other option is to complain to everyone, including the legacy media, feel sorry for yourself, and get eliminated in the first round.
Quit playing the role of a victim and embrace the challenge.
As in football, we will have projected divisions for boys' and girls' basketball, baseball, and softball when league play begins.
Like in football, those projections will be behind a paywall, a great reminder to become a paid subscriber. No one dives into the playoff divisional mechanics better than we do.
Just ask the football coaches at Sonora and Western High Schools.