Gramps 2020-2021 Missouri Hoops

 I am not going to say a lot about these ratings other than they are early and the more games I get, the better they will be.  I have not seen anything from the Post Dispatch or Prep Hoops Missouri, but Gateway Sports Venue has their ratings out and you can compare. I may have missed a game or two, as I spent a good part of the last two weeks patching up my spreadsheet after entering the boy's classes and district assignments and then sorting it and losing all of my formulae. So if you don't like what you see here, please be polite and don't do a Donald Tweet on me.  We have enough negativity on Twitter and we are all living through a once in a lifetime pandemic.  I promise to do better with your team next week. Hope you have had a nice holiday and see you next year.

 It has been a while since I came out with pre-season St. Louis Area girls basketball ratings for large and small schools.  Part of that was going back and editing the girl's teams with the new MSHSAA districts and classes.  I did not make the same mistake I made with the boy's spreadsheet, where I sorted the boys by the new classes/districts and all of my embedded formulae had to be revised. I took a little time off for Christmas and now I have the unenviable task of digging through nearly 500+ Missouri girls teams to catch up on scores.  The mathematical model is only as good as the number of games I rate for each team, so I have caught up a bit on the St. Louis area and am posting here. I know that the Post Dispatch poll is based on 1000 students for a large school and less than 1000 for small but with the girl's private schools, I think that they must base it on MSHSAA class.  That being assumed,  Incarnate Word, the top team in the state, is in class six but listed as

 Class one clearly belongs to the vaunted South Iron squad.  The only thing keeping the Panthers from winning a state championship trophy this year would be the pandemic, which could, unfortunately, end the season at any time. Last year, Dora "upset" the Panthers in the sectional game.  I honestly believe that South Iron would beat Dora this year, except that Dora was moved to class two and Coach Luna and his four sons are now in Viola Arkansas and Isaac Haney transferred to Kickapoo.  South Iron's coach Dinkins has taken on an aggressive schedule with Vashon, CBC, Cardinal Ritter, Helias, and several other top-rated schools in class five and six.  Hats off to the Panthers for taking on the big dogs. In class two, Dora will be lucky to win ten games.  I don't know the specifics on Rick Luna's firing last spring but the school board's kids are getting a lot of playing time this season with the Luna family in Arkansas and Haney gone to Kickapoo.  Viola, under co

  Class 2 Missouri boys appear to be wide open.  St. Vincent and Bishop LeBlond of St. Joseph appear to the leading contenders with Valle Catholic, Billings, Mid-Buchanan and Albany not too far behind.  Dora, a perennial class one dynasty is now in class two but is falling on hard times with the Luna family moving from Dora to Viola, Arkansas.  That's another story but I will make you search for over on the class one ratings. You can find the other boys teams class ratings at: Class one:     Class Three:   Class Four:   Class Five:   Class Six: 

 There are some excellent teams in Missouri class three with Greenwood and Georgetown bound Animu Mohammed, leading the charge.  Not too far behind Greenwood are excellent teams from Hartville and Christian in O'Fallon, MO.  The class three ratings are listed below. I continue to hope and pray for a full season of basketball.  What's the old saying?  "What goes around, comes around"?  I had one commenter on a rating posting tweet "how can you rate teams with covid going around"?  I told him that I try to discount the spread on a game where it is public knowledge that covid is impacting the strength of the teams involved. For instance, a few weeks back, Marquette played a Covid-depleted St. Charles West squad and won by 45 points or so.  I could not rate St. Charles West down or rate Marquette up as much as the spread for the final score.  It was an anomaly, as most teams were keeping safe.  Last night, the shoe was on a different foot, as a mostly full stren

 If anyone has any doubt about how to spell dynasty, you can look it up under V in the dictionary.  Just Google "Vashon High School", St. Louis, MO and you should find the word dynasty .  I noticed a few polls had Vashon as a second or third-rated team.  I know that Cardinal Ritter is outstanding but what would make anyone think Tony Irons would not have an outstanding squad again this year.   I watched a little of their game with small-school powerhouse, South Iron, and they left no doubt that they have speed, skills, leaping ability, and a high powered offense that features a full-court press.   I congratulate class one South Iron for coming into the Wolves building to play the best program in the state.  They did well for about 28 minutes, trailing 42-32, before the Wolves wore them out with their press, winning by 23, 72-49.  Expect great things from Vashon again this season.  No third place poll placement for them. And the Wolves and Cardinal Ritter squads are not the on

 I don't know who is more surprised to be in class 5, De Smet or Cardinal Ritter?  I don't understand the criteria that was used to place these two schools together in the new class five.  I know school size is one factor and district performance is another.  De Smet has not won a district title in a few years because they always had to face CBC, one of the top schools in the state.  CBC might have been #1, De Smet #2, but the Spartans never got past the Cadets.  Thus, their placement in class five was influenced by that district's performance and only slightly by the 924 students in their school.  Cardinal Ritter has only 262 students, so their elevation to class five had more to do with their excellent performance in state play-offs than school size.  That is a big difference but not such a difference when you realize that Ritter attracts a lot of talented young men in the city who want to play with an outstanding program. So far, Ritter has already made a statement with

 Here are my first rankings for Missouri Boys class 6, since the MSHSAA district and class assignments came out last week.  Hopefully, I have everyone in the right class or district.  It took quite a bit of work to add the new assignments to my spreadsheet AND keep up with nightly scoreboards.  Thanks to the MSHSAA Scoreboard , Post-Dispatch Prep Scoreboard , KC Hoops and 810 Varsity , and, of course, Scoreboard Guy , for posting scores from around the state.  I may miss a few along the way but will try and add them into the rating model as I go. This rating is still a work in progress, as some teams have not played yet, so I am basing their rating on last year's final rating.  I will post the other boys' classes over the next several days and then go back and pick up the girls by class. Once I have gone through all the classes, I will come back with an all-class ranking.  Expect to see class rankings and state rankings about every two weeks. There are some outstanding class s

On this 79th anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day, let us remember the brave men and women who gave their lives for our great country. I posted Pre-Season rankings for Boys and Girls Missouri High School teams in mid-November.  A bunch of Thanksgiving and early December tournaments have provided me with data to populate the statistics for a robust ranking.  Robust it is not.  I won't have a good handle on team ratings until the end of December when most teams should have five or six games under their belt. I am still waiting for MSHSAA to post classifications and district assignments, so I will not post class rankings until that info is known. The other day, I noticed that the esteemed Earl Austin, Jr. had apologized on Twitter for omitting a great performance by an up and coming sophomore, after an outstanding performance.  I didn't think he should need to apologize.  When you think about all the kids and games he is watching on the tube, there is only so much that a man can do.  R