Gramps 2020-2021 Missouri Hoops

 One and Done.  It is that time of year for many teams.  You play a whole season with a goal of winning your district and maybe moving on to the play-offs.  It seems so abrupt.  Down in Oklahoma, where my second cousin's grandson plays for Oklahoma Christian School, in Edmond, they have a play-back option so if you lose the first game, you still have a back door to get to the state playoffs. For most coaches, this season has been played like they were standing on eggs.  Move too quickly or step sideways too fast and the eggs break.  Covid made every day, every practice, every game very special because you did not know if your team would have to quarantine tomorrow.  As the season wound to a close, more teams were out for two weeks at a time, following the pandemic protocol.  I am sure that coaches were feeling more and more stressed as they got closer to the district playoffs.  What could be any worse than having a great season and then losing everything right before districts? For

  When I was a working stiff, I developed a philosophy that helped me overcome my desire for perfectionism.  I invented a sage professor of philosophy whom I named Dr, Gudenov (pronounced good enough).  When I worked on a project, rather than polishing feathers, I would say this work output is good enough and others will accept it as satisfactory, even if my perfectionism told me it could be better.  I would say "If it is good enough for Dr. Gudenov, it is good enough for me too". That is sort of how I feel about these Missouri Boys and Girls high school basketball ratings.  They could always be better but sometimes, it is good enough for Dr. Gudenov and I will post what I have rather than what I would ideally like. I have received wonderful feedback from a number of readers, even if I don't feel like I have it totally right yet.  Several readers thought I should take over the job of seeding districts for boys and girls, although I would just be happy if they might look a

When I was a working stiff, I developed a philosophy that helped me overcome my desire for perfectionism.  I invented a sage professor of philosophy whom I named Dr, Gudenov (pronounced good enough).  When I worked on a project, rather than polishing feathers, I would say this work output is good enough and others will accept it as satisfactory, even if my perfectionism told me it could be better.  I would say "If it is good enough for Dr. Gudenov, it is good enough for me too". That is sort of how I feel about these Missouri Boys and Girls high school basketball ratings.  They could always be better but sometimes, it is good enough for Dr. Gudenov and I will post what I have rather than what I would ideally like. I have received wonderful feedback from a number of readers, even if I don't feel like I have it totally right yet.  Several readers thought I should take over the job of seeding districts for boys and girls, although I would just be happy if they might look at

 Updated 6pm Feb 26th This morning, before heading down to Caruthersville for our second covid shot, I hastily pull boys scores off the MSHSAA site.  If I am going to keep the rating model robust, I need to check my work.  I have said that a good model should predict 70% or better.  I would like to hit 80% but then, there are a lot of things that we like, that we do not get.  As the playoffs progress, teams with closer ratings are harder to predict and the percentage drops slightly. How am I doing?  For those of you who like to noodle numbers, I have documented my results below. Well, in last night's MSHSAA games, I predicted the winner right at nearly70% but I had not included any Post Dispatch games.  I wish it was higher but, then again, these are not professional athletes.  These are 15 to 17-year-old kids and performing to the same level every game would be nice but it is not realistic.  So I will take 70% and I will tweak the ratings. After we returned home, I calculated the