2017-18 WINTER PREVIEW • MITCHELL NEWS-JOURNAL • 5 Breaking down the playoff system and MaxPreps rankings RALEIGH – The North more important. That process weighted in the formula. If you given in a MaxPreps document Carolina High School Athletic also changed. beat a team by five points, does obtained by HighSchoolOT.com: Association Board of Directors it count the same as if you win Team A’s rating is 10. approved a new Explaining the by points? Are other statis- Team B’s rating is 0. for the 2017-2018 school year. seeding process tics go into the formula? Does Team C’s rating is -5. Things are going to be much Buckle up. This one is a little out-rebounding an opponent Team D’s rating is -8. different for football, soccer, complicated. mean anything? What about de- Team E’s rating is -10. , , The NCHSAA will give auto- Nick fense? What about out-of-state The way our program works and , especially in the 1A matic berths to the top teams in STEVENS or games against teams is as follows. It systematically and 4A classifications, where 48 each conference, but the number who don’t use MaxPreps? These sorts through all the results teams only will qualify for the of automatic bids is determined 24 or 32 furthest west in the are all legitimate questions that for the (season-to-date instead of 64. by the number of teams in a West region, while the other coaches and athletic directors results if we’re dealing with an So why did the NCHSAA conference. half will go to the East. have. in-progress season). It takes make these changes? A conference with 1-4 teams After the regions are deter- I don’t know the MaxPreps each result and compares it to The drop from 64 to 48 teams will get one automatic bid (reg- mined the NCHSAA will seed formula, but I have been able to what “should” have happened in 1A and 4A playoffs is due ular-season champion), a con- each region 1-24 or 1-32. gather some information about given the ratings of the teams. to realignment. The NCHSAA ference made up of 5-8 teams All regular season conference what the MaxPreps rankings It knows that if A played C, adopted the 20-30-30-20 realign- will get two automatic bids champions and highest finish- consider. A should have handled them ment concept for the upcoming (regular-season champion and ing teams in each classification First, the MaxPreps rankings easily. If A lost that , or school year, which means the second place), and a conference of a split conference will be seed- are done solely by mathematical even squeaked by with a narrow largest 20 percent of the mem- with nine or more teams will get ed first based on the MaxPreps formulas. There is no human victory, its rating is hurt, while bership will go to the 4A classi- three automatic bids (regular ranking for each school. All subjectivity in the rankings. So, C’s is helped. The system keeps fication, the smallest 20 percent season-champion, second and second-place automatic berths coaches, fans, message board checking through all the results will go to the 1A classification, third place). will be seeded next, followed by posters, tweeters, writers, tele- for every team. Sticking with and the remaining 60 percent In a split conference, the high- all third place automatic berths. vision people – no one gets to team A though, let’s say they will be divided between the 2A est team from a given classifica- Once those teams are seeded, give their opinions to MaxPreps also played D and won by 15 and 3A classes. tion will be given an automatic conference champi- to influence the rankings. It’s (that’s about what they should In short, there are fewer berth, regardless of where they ons and at-large teams will be math. have done- no real impact on teams in the 1A and 4A classifi- finish in the overall conference seeded based on their MaxPreps Second, MaxPreps does not either teams’ rating there), de- cations. That is why the NCH- standings. But the overall ranking. consider previous seasons, molished team B by 22, which SAA decided to drop the number conference standings are still Once the seeding is deter- school history, the size of the helps their rating, and beat D of teams. important in a split conference. mined, byes will be given to the school, rivalries, or anything by 10 (not doing quite as well Think 48 isn’t enough? An If two teams from the same clas- highest seeds possible. else of the sort. Again, it’s all as could have been expected- initial proposal gave just 40 sification finish first and second But what about that Max- math and they take the subjec- another “ding” against their teams playoff berths. An ad hoc in the overall standings, the Preps ranking? It was used this tivity out of it. All teams start rating.) When all is said and committee put together by the second-place team will also get a past year to break ties, but not the season with a rating of 0 done, it takes the aggregate of NCHSAA, which was made up bid regardless of the number of to seed the playoffs. Seeding and move over the course of the how much better or worse they of coaches, athletic directors and teams in the conference. has always been done by over- season. did than expected in all their administrators, helped to push You’ll likely see more confer- all winning percentage. But no MaxPreps uses the data that games, divides that by the num- the number up to 48. ence in the future more. is accumulated in its system ber of games played, and adjusts Next school year there will too. Conference tournament over the course of the season to their rating accordingly. For be 101 schools in the 1A classi- champions automatically qual- Interpreting the calculate the rankings. example, if they averaged per- fication, 116 schools in the 2A ify for the playoffs. The confer- MaxPreps rankings The most basic part of the forming two points worse than classification, 113 schools in the ence tournament champion will When it was announced on formula: The more you win, the expected, their rating drops 3A classification, and 77 schools be seeded as an at-large team, Wednesday that the NCHSAA more you go up in the rankings from a 10 to an 8. in the 4A classification. which means they’ll be lower would begin using a computer (for the most part). The for- Obviously this does not an- The numbers look a little off, than all regular season cham- ranking to determine playoff mula considers the quality of swer all the potential questions right? pions, second place and third qualifiers and seed the playoffs, wins and coaches may have, but hopefully When the NCHSAA did the place teams. social media erupted with reac- too though. That means wins it’s a start. new alignment, they took out So how will the rest of the tion. against other highly ranked op- I think taking strength of all the non-football schools and field be determined? This is the Before we get into the issues, ponents carry a heavier weight schedule into consideration is a broke the classifications out in biggest change. At-large berths let’s talk about why the NCH- than wins against lower-ranked good move, and it is something the 20-30-30-20 format. Then to the playoffs are no longer SAA decided to use MaxPreps. opponents. A team who loses to many coaches have told me they the non-football schools were being determined by overall Simply put, by using a computer a team ranked below them will also support. added back in. Most non-football winning percentage. Instead, ranking system instead of over- be hurt more in the rankings How will this all play out? I schools, but not all, are in the the NCHSAA will use the Max- all winning percentage, teams than a team who loses to a team don’t think we really know. We 1A classification though, and Preps rankings to determine the are rewarded for their strength ranked ahead of them. will have to watch it over the that has created a potential remaining qualifiers. of schedule. Since the NCHSAA Margin of victory will be used course of the school year to see real problem for 1A schools in If there are too many teams went to a seeding system in- in the formula to generate the how things evolve. sports not named football. In who qualify automatically for stead of predetermined brackets rankings, but MaxPreps does I think there will likely be soccer, volleyball, basketball, the playoffs, the NCHSAA a few years ago, we’ve seen not encourage blowouts to help changes, but who knows how baseball and softball, 48 of the would adjust the number of many teams in all sports soften a team’s rating. many and to what parts. 101 schools only will make the spots in the playoffs to accom- their schedules to have a better There is a point at which If you have more questions playoffs. modate the teams. winning percentage when play- margins are no longer consid- about the new playoff structure In the 4A classification, 62 When the NCHSAA deter- off time comes around. ered. We don’t know what those and seeding process that I didn’t percent of the schools will make mines the qualifiers for the Teams who challenged them- specific margins are for each answer, feel free to tweet me @ the state playoffs. That’s still different playoffs, they will then selves in the non-conference . If you look at the ratings, NickStevensHSOT. significantly higher than the 2A seed the brackets. The first step were not rewarded. the difference between the two Nick Stevens is senior ed- (55 percent) and 3A (56 percent) in this process is to break the Using MaxPreps will, in theo- teams is roughly considered to itor of HighSchoolOT.com. classifications. brackets up into East and West ry, fix this problem. But there is be the predicted margin of vic- He has been covering high This means 1A and 4A play- regions by longitude. No school one major issue – no one knows tory. school sports at WRAL since offs will now include first round is predetermined to be in the what the MaxPreps formula For example, a team with a 2006. In 2008, he helped cre- byes for the top teams in the East or West. The NCHSAA is. That means coaches don’t rating of 80 should beat a team ate what became HighSchoo- playoffs, and that means the will sort the 48 or 64 qualifying know exactly what the criteria with a rating of 60 by 20 points. lOT.com, which launched in seeding process is that much teams by longitude and put the is and how much things are The following example is August of that year.