Nitty Gritty Report

When the QRF calculated on Monday 1/20/14, an interesting scenario was brought to my attention because of some tweeting with the Crookston Times Sports Editor @DerekDMartin.  The long story short was that it seemed Crookston's QRF was lower than it should be, and that East Grand Forks and Crookston had some similar results (EGF was 9-4, Crookston 13-3...EGF had 6 wins over teams combined 16-65, Crox had 7 wins over teams combined 16-75, etc.)

So what I decided I needed to do was to dive into why these teams were so different in the QRF rankings (at the time EGF was 113.6, #3 and Crox was 73.0, #39 in Class AA Boys Basketball.)

Over the next few days I'll be posting information about one Section (8AA Boys BB) that is using the QRF for seeding again this year.  The hope is that a "real-world" scenario with more than just 2 teams comparing against each other will provide everyone with a better view into what the end results will be.

This first post will specifically look at the numbers that Crookston and East Grand Forks had BEFORE Monday night's game (a game EGF won in Crookston 74-71).

A little background:  the NCAA provides a report to it's tournament selection committee called the "Nitty Gritty Report".  Basically, it combines all the results into specific, identifiable categories so the committee can compare teams easier.

Last year before the coaches seeded the State Tournaments in Boys and Girls BB, I provided each coach with a Nitty Gritty Report so they could be more informed before they voted.  Here are the some of the numbers for Crookston compared to East Grand Forks thru 1/19/14

Record
East Grand Forks (9-4)
Crookston (13-3)

QRF (Class | Overall)
East Grand Forks       3 |   69
Crookston                39 | 151
 
Average Opponent Overall QRF
East Grand Forks              188
Crookston                         255
 
Record against Classes (A | AA | AAA | AAAA)
East Grand Forks            1-0 | 3-0 |  3-2 |    2-0
Crookston                       5-1 | 8-1 |  0-1 |     0-0

Record vs Overall QRF
(vs Top 100 | Top 150 | Top 200 | Top 250 | Top 300 | 300+)
East Grand Forks                
2-2         |     2-2     |    4-2      |    5-2      |    8-2      |  1-0
Crookston                           
0-1         |     1-2     |    2-2      |    6-3      |    6-3      |  7-0

Looking at the Nitty Gritty numbers, the main thing to see is that although the record vs Top 250 is similar (5-2 vs 6-3), Crookston has inflated it's Overall record to 13-3 because of 7 wins vs teams the QRF has rated between 300 and 419.  The spread between the Average Opponent QRF (188-255) is a very large number too.

Essentially Crookston's strength of schedule was A LOT worse than EGF's, and although on the court they may be similar teams - the QRF is giving more credit to EGF for their wins than Crookston for theirs.  Crookston's quality results against teams like Pelican Rapids and East Grand Forks shows their QRF is lower than it probably should be.  My guess is they will end up in the upper 20's to low 30's at the end of the season, while EGF will maintain a Top 10 ranking in Class AA

Wednesday's Blog will explain specifics as to why teams are slotted where they are statewide.  Feel free to leave a comment below or email to comments@minnesota-scores.net


Wednesday's Blog: The Line of Demarcation
Thursday's Blog:  Two common questions answered
Friday's Blog:  Section 8AA as a whole going forward