The Arizona Interscholastic Association is not admitting that the current power point system has a flaw, but it will present local engineer John Carrieres' formula to the AIA Executive Board for analysis on Feb. 21.
The board can decide to implement the new power point system immediately if it so chooses.
According to the Tribune's interpretation of Carrieres' research, nine basketball teams that missed the playoffs this season should have qualified, but did not because a glitch in the formula rewarded teams for playing extra power points games and hurt others for playing fewer.
AIA Chief Operating Officer Chuck Schmidt said he has not done enough research to figure out if there is a flaw.
"Until we analyze what occurs in the seeding process, there's nothing we can do," he said. "Period. End of story. We haven't analyzed that yet."
AIA director of business media Brian Bolitho used Carrieres' alternate formula to cross-reference the one currently in place, and he agreed that four teams which missed the playoffs would have been in under the alternate formula.
Both versions had the Winslow boys, Chinle boys, Marana girls and Sierra Linda girls making the state tournament.
Bolitho's calculations did not agree that the Goodyear Desert Edge boys teams and Marana Mountain View girls teams would make the playoffs if the alternate formula was used.
The Chandler Prep boys, San Pasqual Valley (Calif.) girls and Valley Union girls' placements under the revised formula could not be calculated by Bolitho. To determine the Division IV basketball state tournament seedings, the power points were frozen after last Thursday's sectional championship games for seeding purposes.
Bolitho said that once Division I, II and III sectional tournaments were completed last Saturday night, the final power points in Div. IV were changed and couldn't be compared to Carreries' formula.
The tournament seedings were vastly different between the formulas.
"I think the ultimate question is going to be - if this is, in fact, what they want to look at, our formula against this modification version - ‘Which one seeds teams more accurately by looking at it?'" Bolitho said. "'Is it how we're doing it, or based on this modification?' That ultimately will be their decision."
Schmidt, however, said getting the right 24 teams is the primary concern, while seeding is secondary.
"The goal is to put the top-24 teams in the tournament," Bolitho said.
"That's it," Schmidt added. "...Did it create a seeding of 24 teams? Then it followed its function."
Numerous teams that lost in the first round of the basketball sectional tournaments were given a power point boost, but Bolitho said it came from the strength of schedule increase, not from a perceived flaw.
"The assumption that you could play in a sectional tournament and lose and still increase your power ranking, that doesn't seem right," Bolitho said. "But what it is, for example, Corona had 18 wins on the season and (No. 8 seed Dobson's) strength of schedule just increased on that. So your ranking is influenced based on that."
The "norm" for baseball and softball in the spring is 18 games that count toward power points. In boys volleyball, it's 17 matches.
But if a team doesn't play in any tournaments, it can add two power point games to its schedule (three in boys volleyball). Carrieres claims those schools receive an unfair advantage.
Schmidt said it will be up to the Executive Board to change the system if it so chooses, and while he hasn't studied the power point formula enough to make a recommendation, he defended the current system because it is his responsibility.
"If indeed this is what (the member schools) believe (is the right formula), then that's what they believe, and it's my responsibility to try and explain that and defend that position," Schmidt said. "That's where we're at. Plain and simple."
Reach Kyle Odegard at (480) 898-6834 or kodegard@evtrib.com. Follow his blog at http://blogs.evtrib.com/varsityxtra, or find him on Twitter @Kyle_Odegard.
jonpcar posted at 7:51 am on Tue, Feb 14, 2012.
From my BLOG on this issue:
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=222&f=1138&t=8643291
John Carrieres (much more at link)
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Mark Heller (of the Tribune) called me back Monday (Jan 30) after having delivered my report to the AIA, and I expected to be relieved of the burden I had felt since finding the problem. I expected the AIA to acknowledge a flaw and investigate a fix for it. Would anyone expect otherwise? However, early in that conversation Heller said, “Well, the story isn’t dead yet, but….,” and my heart sank.
My impression from the small amount of detail I received from Heller was that Bolitho and Schmidt played a very heavy card and increased his uncertainty as to whether the error was real. In fact, the AIA was adamant that there was no error or flaw in the formula. Most know that I have been active in Power Rankings for a number of years. It is also probably clear that the AIA was very familiar with me due to my mostly one sided correspondence with them.
The fact that the AIA rendered such a strong verdict to Mark Heller as to the validity of my finding within a couple of hours simply astonished me. In fact, the AIA’s response seemed almost pre-determined.
To me, their response was so unreasonable that it made me beg the question, “HOW LONG HAVE THEY KNOWN ABOUT THIS?” It simply didn’t make any sense that two of the top AIA representatives felt such urgency to squash a legitimate and credible issue unless the problem was already well understood and was being hushed. However, after the story started building momentum I had a change of heart in this belief.
As the story unfolded, these AIA officers didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on in the formula itself and resorted to blaming a committee. From an outside point of view, it seemed they were having a hard time understanding and figuring out the problem, even with a map to it. That almost made me more uncomfortable than if they had actually known about it and were simply trying to hide it until a change could be made later in the year.
Isn’t this the same group that developed the program for geographic scheduling? There would be an algorithm in that program to select appropriate school matchups. Is it right? Many would probably say no…but the AIA's response would probably be that it was approved by the Executive Board and so it must be correct.
Schmidt told the Tribune in that posted article that “he has not done enough research to figure out if there is a flaw.” Apparently Schmidt had done only enough research to loudly proclaim that there was NOT a flaw.
Bolitho continued today to argue that the strength of schedule is what boosted the rankings of the tournament teams who lost in the first round, not a flaw in the formula. It is SCARY that Bolitho (the AIA's Power Points program manager) STILL apparently doesn't understand the FLAW in the formula. It simply does NOT bode well for the future of Power Rankings, geographical scheduling, or any other AIA number crunching such as their accounting practices or their stat keeping.