Puppet shows and St. Louis Area Boys High School rankings 12/03/2020

 

I feel very lucky.  

My youngest daughter sent us a story that our 2nd grade granddaughter had written for her teacher this week.  The assignment was for the student to write about their favorite summer memory.  After much hand wringing, she wrote about a puppet show that she and I conducted for Grama and her family at our Minnesota cabin this summer.  When we read her story, both Grama and I began to tear up.  Could life be any better for us during the pandemic crisis?  We feel very lucky that we have stayed safe and maintained our health when so many others have fallen ill or died from Covid-19.

I hope we continue to be lucky.  I hope and pray that the Missouri high school 2020-2021 basketball season, which began in full force this past week, will be able to continue.  If players and their families remain diligent to the pandemic guidelines, they might just get a season in.  One slip-up by one family flaunting the guidelines and their player might infect the entire team, require isolation/quarantine and end up with canceled games or an entire season.

For now, St. Louis County is holding off on more severe pandemic guidelines.  We thought we had it bad in April but the pandemic is exploding, with record illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths over the past few weeks.  The next few weeks will be critical.  Will there be another surge from Thanksgiving gatherings?  Will the numbers start to tail off because people are finally waking up about wearing masks and limiting gatherings?

I am hopeful.  Hopeful that "Anti-maskers" will finally see that their "right" to not wear a mask is actually a very selfish act that could kill other Americans.  Hopeful that new restrictions will start to show a dampening of the virus spread.  Hopeful that the basketball season can continue through all of this.  Hopeful that a vaccine will arrive soon enough to squelch this horrible virus and hopeful that people will actually get vaccinated when they can.

So life goes on.  We remain vigilant and act like like can go on living "normally", when the new normal feels so strange.  For our younger daughter, staying safe is important.  Puppet shows are important.  Basketball is not.  For our oldest daughter, with two sons playing high school ball, this season IS.

For many young players, basketball is life.  Basketball is their ticket to college and a better life.  Let's hope we can do both.... Stay safe and play.  We can watch the puppet shows and basketball on live streaming.

Enough of that.  Here's a look at the large and small schools in the St Louis Area.  I have included some schools that have put their basketball programs on hold until January and may not play at all.  I will include them in rankings until those districts totally cancel their season.  The ratings will be more robust and relevant as I get more games in the rating calculations.  I have not included Illinois teams in these rankings.  If the Illinois teams get to play, I will include them at that time.

 Stay safe, folks.  I remain hopeful we will survive these times.  We might even get to see some hoops.


Girls ratings are listed at:

https://gramps2021missourihoops.blogspot.com/2020/12/puppet-shows-and-st-louis-area-girls.html





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Missouri Boys class one high school basketball ratings 12/22/2020

Image
 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, ...
Read more

Missouri Boys High School Basketball Ratings - All Classes 12/07/2020

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 ...
Read more

VPS as a metric for winning seasons - March 29th, 2021

Image
  Premise:   If VPS (Value Point System) directly correlates to a team’s winning percentage, why not use it as a metric to drive team improvement? What is VPS?   VPS stands for Value Point System.   It is calculated by adding the points and rebounds plus two times the Assists, Charges taken, Steals and Blocks and dividing that product by the Number of Free Throw misses plus two times the Field Goal misses plus Fouls and Turnovers. Most players focus on two things, scoring, and sometimes, rebounding.   Kids grow up with parents asking, “how many points did you get today”?   The emphasis is on scoring, but scoring is only part of the game.   If more emphasis was placed upon passing, shot selection and defense, individuals would be more likely to contribute to a team-oriented game rather than accumulating points. The best player on the team is not necessarily the top scorer.   The best player of the team is the player who gets high percenta...
Read more