Revisiting Missouri Girl's Classes One, Two and Three basketball playoffs - March 12th, 2021

 We have a heavy slate of MSHSAA games today and tomorrow and I wanted to catch up on previous predictions.  Some of these were made before sectional games so I do not feel bad about updating my picks when everyone else is making picks on current game lineups.

The big game today is the class two Girl's championship between upstart Ellington and Wellington-Napoleon.  I will tell you this, a team with "ellington" in their name will be state champion this year.  I guarantee it.  

I had picked Blue Eye as my favorite over a month ago with Wellington-Napoleon as a close second but Ellington has been on the rise, moving from a 109 rating in early February to a 121 rating to date.  And then, Ellington upset my favorite, Blue Eye, in yesterday's semi-final, 68-58.

I went back to look at both teams again on opponent strength, margin of victory and a revised rating.  So, how did these two teams look on a revised evaluation?

Ellington had a 121 rating with an opponent rating of 103 and margin of victory of 15 points.  Wellington-Napoleon had a rating of 128 with an opponent rating of 95 and a margin of victory of 30 points.  But statistics are mis-leading.  If you recall what Mark Twain said (or Disraeli), there are  "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics".  So Wellington-Napoleon should be a 7 to 9 point favorite, but hold on here.  Wellington-Napoleon had SIX blow-out games.  Take those games out, and the ratings are much, much closer.

Why, you ask?  You know how those go, don't you?  I know this is how Delta Girls went over 100 points a game.... they ran a full court press most of the game and beat opponents by 80 or 90 points.  Makes for a nice rating, but when they faced a solid team like South Iron, they lost 66-64 because the Panthers could break a press.

I have not seen Well-Nap play but I would think it was similar to Delta.  Smother the other team in the back court for easy baskets.  Take those six blow out games out of the mix and the class two title game is a PickEm game.  I will still go with Well-Nap but I will not be surprised if Ellington wins.  Should be a lot of fun.

Class one and three semi-finals are also today.  I am posting my picks below but I reserve the right to come back tomorrow and revise them for the championship game.  With the 50% prediction on the class two girls semis, my playoff percentage for both boys and girls still stands at  78% (325 correct out of 417 total class one through six boys and girls games).

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