Section 1’s qualifying standard and seeding criteria
-
- January
- 27
Below are the criteria for qualifying for the playoffs, as well as how points will be awarded to teams to rank them for seeding purposes.
Clearly, several more teams will qualify for the playoffs under the new qualifying standards, which will ask teams in some leagues to win as few as two games. I’d like to hear how everyone feels about it. I have stated in the past my affinity for an open tournament where every team is invited regardless of record. This practically ensures that.
As for the point system, it does, at least in theory, reward teams for playing stronger opponents because those games earn them bonus points, win or lose. With an 18-game schedule, two bonus points are rewarded for playing a team that finishes the season 14-4 or better, while, obviously, one point is rewarded for facing a team between 9-9 and 13-5.
Your thoughts?
QUALIFYING STANDARDS —
Teams must meet one, and only one, of the following winning percentages:
• 25% overall record
• 25% of league record
• 25% of class record (games against teams in team’s class)
• 25% of class, and above, record (combined games against teams in class and above classes)
SEEDING POINT VALUES —
Teams will be awarded the following:
• Four points for every win, regardless of class
• Two points for every tie, regardless of class
• No deduction of points for losses
• Two bonus points for playing a team who has a winning percentage of .750, or above — teams receive this if they win or lose, and it will be determined at seeding day
• One bonus point for playing a team who has a winning percentage between .500 and .749 — teams receive this if they win or lose, determined at seeding day
Note: Bonus points are awarded for games played against teams within the New York state Federation, which includes: NYSPHSAA (Sections 1 thru 11), PSAL (New York city publics), CHSAA (catholic), and independent schools.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 6:00 am by Josh Thomson.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
Josh Thomson has done some of everything since joining The Journal News in March 2003. He began working for the Gannett weeklies during the winter of 2002 as a freelance writer. He joined the daily staff soon after and has since covered various high school and pro sports. Away from sportswriting, Josh lives in Westchester and spends his free time either with his wife, Sarah, or expertly managing his various championship-winning fantasy sports teams. He's visited 21 major-league baseball stadiums and insists that Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are the best by far. Josh graduated from Carmel High School in 1998, then went to Boston University, where, in 2002, he received a degree in communications with a minor in history.
This is a stupid system. Not that it would happen, but Mt. Vernon or Peekskill could go play Clark Academy who has a .750 winning percentage and get extra points for it. That is ridiculous. Plus you get no points for playing out of state teams, like Mt. Vernon does every year and Peekskill did with Narbonne coming in this year. What is the incentive to play tough games now besides getting your team ready for the states? You should only get extra points for beating a higher class team, and since AA can’t do that, they should get extra points for beating teams outside of Section 1, who are also AA. This system, for example, would place Lakeland as a higher seed than Peekskill if they played Class C and D teams with above .750 records and Peekskill played AA teams with below .750 records, regardless if they lost or not and they both were undefeated. That is ridiculous.
Hey Josh.
That’s very interesting (and a lot of good work on your part.) I thought they gave teams in a lower class extra points if they knocked off bigger schools, or some extra consideration just for playing bigger schools. Guess not.
Regardless, I’m with you; the more the merrier. Let ‘em play.
Peekfatdaddy,
Clark Academy is not .750 or better
Find me any D team that is .750 or better
Most C Schools are not near .500, let alone .750
YOur point is dumb
Now now, Mike Hoops. No need to be so critical of Peekfatdaddy. It wasn’t a dumb point.
As far as your comment about C teams, Valhalla is 10-3. That’s over .750. Go Valhalla!
I like what Mike Hoops was saying about Mount Vernon not getting consideration for all of the tough games they play out of section.
When Ben Gordon was a senior, they had to play the sectional quarterfinal at Poughkeepsie, because M V had a lot of nationally ranked teams on their schedule. Clearly, M V was a better team that year (than poughkeepsie.) They made it to Glens Falls.
As Mike Hoops said, the only motivation for Cimmino to play the tougher (nationally ranked) teams is to be more ready for the postseason. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all that matters.
simple solution: go play in the chsaa – 24 games and your seeding for play-offs is based on your league record – pretty straight forward.
This system was created by Roman Catalino and Mark Tanzi to ensure that Somers has a home game during the playoffs.
can you do the standing right now for class B?
Fun for everyone!! Hooray!
Here’s a thought:
I’ll park my ice cream truck outside of the gym too after the games and Section 1 can treat all the kiddies. They can sit in a circle and sing Kum ba yah too.
What a charade. Just let every team in the playoffs and have byes. this system is a meaningless joke that excludes only a handful of teams and should be scrapped.
Let everybody qualify. Seeding is based on where you place in your league only. Non league games don’t count towards seeding, so schedule whoever you like. League champions are guaranteed home games the whole way until you get to the County Center. Let the playoffs determine who is the most “powerful” team in each Classification. Why try to pre-determine “power” of teams with all of these cockamamie systems? Simplicity rules.
So according to Section 1 playing Valhalla 9 – 3 and playing Mt Vernon 9 – 3 is equivalent.
ko… That would not work. Winning some leagues is a bigger accomplishment than winning others.
Say What?... Um, yes. But if Mount Vernon drops, say, both to New Ro, than beating Valhalla will actually be worth more than beating Mount Vernon.
Not knockin Valhalla, but WOW!
Mike Hoops you are an idiot. I was just making a general example but your small mind couldn’t handle it.
AdackJack, Mike Hoops didn’t make any points, I was the one that made them.
The point I’m trying to make is that if you let everybody qualify and if the league champs all get home field advantage, you’re doing as well as you can without trying to predetermine power before the playoffs. To me, the playoffs are where you determine who was the most powerful. If you’re in a tough league, but you didn’t finish first, then you don’t get any perks going into the playoffs. In a sense, you are lucky to be in the playoffs because you’ve already finished second once.
I BELIEVE SCHOOLS WITH WINS AGAINST HIGHER CLASS TEAMS GET EXTRA POINTS TOWARD THE SECTIONALS. SOMERS YOUR STATEMENT ABOUT TANZI AND ROMAN SHOWS YOUR IQ IS NOT QUITE AS HIGH AS SOMERS WIN TOTAL SO FAR THIS YEAR.
This is clearly better than last year’s format, which gave extra points for wins against bigger schools. So beating MV gave you the same bonus as beating Clarkstown North, because they are both AA. Now extra points is based on opponent records, which is much more indicative of how good a team is than their class. After the power schools of AA, there is not a big difference between the talent of the A, B, and the rest of AA schools.
Does anyone know how many teams are in Class B? Are JFK and Putnam Valley ‘B’ schools this year?
Peekfatdaddy,
I made the point that there are barely any .750 Class C teams. I think only Valhalla is at that level.
Bonus Points by Class is dumb, because beating Saunders would get you more bonus points then beating Peekskill or Pleasantville.
There is no perfect system, but this is closest.
Peekfatdaddy- Sorry, I know the difference between you guys. I am just a little challenged by names! I must learn to proofread!
I’m still trying to figure out why you want a complicated system to get into the playoffs. Why bother to play off at all? Why not go the BCS route and vote for who’s best and settle it all on paper? A better idea than all of this mental prestigitation is to keep it really simple and just let the kids play. Let them all in, give the league champs home court advantage, and have at it.
This system penalizes teams who play out of state schools. White Plains recently lost to St. Joseph’s (13-2) of New Jersey, for scheduling this game they will be penalized. They will not receive 4 points since they lost, they will not receive 2 points because they were from Jersey. Somers will receive full credit for wins over Pawling, Ardsley, Rye Neck and Westlake though. Once again, teams who don’t travel will be rewarded. Those who seek out the best competition will be punished, by having to travel to play at the court on an inferior opponent come the playoffs. Records alone do not tell you much about a team. Section 1 continues to use records alone as a key element, when who you played should be more prominent.
wp pAT,
You don’t get Bonus Points for Winning, you get them for playing an opponent with a .500 or .750 winning percentage.
Also, the NJ game will have zero affect on White Plains. For seeding purposes the game doesn’t exist.
Section 1 guy,
Thank you…I am capable of reading and comprehending. Instead of playing Pawling, Ardsley, Rye Neck or Westlake, White Plains played St Joseph’s. So instead of getting the 4 points (or 16 in Somers case), they get O. No points because they lost, no points because bonus points aren’t given for games vs. out of state schools, O. Section 1 punishes teams which play a challenging schedule and teams from out of state. The new system, like the old one, rewards teams like Somers and Harrison, who play a schedule which is a little lighter.
Who from outside the state should Somers and Harrison play? what an assinne statement. There are only a handful of schools that play teams outside of NY we change the whole system for them. The system works fine for 95% of the schools.The bottom line is this the best teams always win no matter what the schedule.
Seeding should be based on record and degree of difficulty as well as standing in their league. It should make no difference whether the game was out of state or not. Degree of difficulty would be class of school (AA,A,B,C,D,) public/private (more to choose from)and record.
This year, Peekskill has an extremely difficult schedule, even playing private AA schools.
You are right!!! The best teams always do win. So therefore the system must work!!!
Only an utter fool would make this statement.
The system regularly (this means more than 5% of the time) makes superior teams have to travel to the courts of inferior teams to move on. While I do applaud this year’s effort to improve the system, it still has a ways to go. I don’t know where your 95% figure comes from, probably the same place you got your 2 and 1 point bonus points. I really don’t mean to single out the Somers squad, I’m sure they all play the game as hard as they can. They just happen to be this years’s poster child for what will be a highly ranked playoff impostor. I’m sure they will receiven a home matchup with a 1 win team so some of us can say afterwards, “I told you so!”
So turn us off, turn the fans off, censor us. If you don’t like what we say, then shut us up. The truth will set you free brother.
Maybe they are trying to get schools like Mount Vernon, White Plains, Peekskill, etc, to play “Quality Opponents” that exist “IN STATE” (Like playing schools such as Jamesville DeWitt, Iona Prep, and such powerhouse Class AA and A Schools upstate, rather than traveling out of state to play in Tournament in Washington DC, Hawaii, etc, to play competition. If schools want to play in the McDonalds Classic in New Jersey, well thats fine, but the only benefit would be to get its team prepared for Sectionals, but not for any seedin purposes.
It’s ridiculous that for example Mt. Vernon could play the National Champions, like St. Anthony’s for example, and get less points and a lower seed then say a Greeley who plays an A schedule and lower but plays AA for sectionals, if they had the same record because Greeley gets points for losing to Peekskill and Port Chester, while Mt. Vernon gets none for playing the highest of competition. And Morabito, why would you not want to travel to Hawaii or Washington, D.C., or New Jersey to play against the highest competition and get your top players college exposure instead of staying home and playing lower talent. The travel is all about the exposure for these kids.
Congrats to the Somers juggernaut for soundly beating the 0-12 Keio Unicorns, you can only hope to contain them. Please give them 4 more seeding points for the win.
what’s the difference:
the final results are the same almost every year:
AA = MVERNON
A = PEEKSKILL
...ETC…ETC…ETC…
I suggest taking a seeding point away from schools for each win versus teams with a sub .250 winning percentage. This would prevent “home playoff game fever” during the scheduling process.
The difference is an early exit against stiffer competition, or a real opportunity to do something special in a tournament. When you have to beat 3 quality teams to win, versus 2 makes all the difference. Seeding plays a huge part in this equation. Look at last year’s Yorktown team, their opportunity to play Mt. Vernon in the Final Four was a direct result of faulty seeding. They played quite well and gave Mt. Vernon all they could handle.
So let me get this straight? This league is limited to high school kids? How is that fair?
[...] 1. The committee will determine which teams qualified for the playoffs in each class. If you don’t know the qualification standards, check you this post for them. [...]