As part of my Boys Sectional Forecast #4 posted the other night I mentioned a couple games, the first being one that wasn't yet played between Averill Park and Gloversville and the second between Berne-Knox and Voorheesville. We now know that Averill Park beat Gloversville for the second time this season on Saturday night. We also know that Berne-Knox played and was subsequently crushed by Green Tech on Sunday afternoon. Voorheesville also played and lost, but to an out of section team so the game was not logged into the model.
These two new games in the database caused a four seed swing in the forecast. As I have previously stated the model isn't a tool to tell you who would necessarily win a head to head meeting, nor does it even tell you who is better. Its goal is to tell you who is most likely to win sectionals. So, even though Averill Park had previously beaten Gloversville prior to the last forecast, it wasn't unheard of for them to be ranked one spot ahead. Sometimes on the floor match-ups are more favorable than the numbers give them credit for. I have never claimed I can break down x's and o's and since this isn't my full time job, I don't have time to watch very many games. That being said, Saturday's game cleared up that problem for me as the Averill Park has moved ahead of Gloversville in the model and while the scores still remain close I'm optimistic it will stay that way. Of the 6 remaining league games Gloversville will play, they were 2-4 against those teams the first time through. Averill Park was 1-4 the first time through the teams remaining on their schedule with one against Shen they haven't met yet. If that holds, both teams would fare one game worse than historically expected as Gloversville has a 3.240 expected win total and Averill Park has a 2.073 expected win total. It's still too early to run a forecast assuming the winners of the remaining games, but I expect this to remain close with Averill Park finishing slightly ahead.
The other game between Berne-Knox and Green Tech resulted in a two spot drop for Berne-Knox from #3 to #5. Voorheesville remained the same at #8, but now the double OT game between the two has brought them to within .052 of each other in the model. This lies just outside the mean square error which makes me feel a lot better about it than two days ago. It's also a lot closer to what you might expect right now. The reason Berne-Knox lost so much ground was because of how the model evaluates the private schools and where Green Tech is in relation to Berne-Knox in enrollment. Typically when a private school plays a public school and they are relatively close in enrollment the public school has been more likely to win. That is mostly due to who the private schools are, i.e. not CBA. Not only did the public school lose, they lost by 53 points so their scores against expected win percentage and against expected MOV took huge hits.
Finally, there was a change I did not expect and that is Green Tech moved ahead of Troy in the AA bracket. They now lead Troy by .013 and that is due to the exact opposite reason Berne-Knox took such a large hit to their score. This is still really close and honestly, they probably should be, but again, we'll know a lot more with each in-section game Green Tech plays, and after Troy plays CBA again. For now though, it's amazing how much havoc can be created from just two games.
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