Blog: Here we go again. Current computer rankings for West, DCE bring questions on "correct" way to seed playoffs.

What is the best way to determine seedings for the WIAA playoffs? Whether it's football, basketball, hockey or any of the sports, it's a question that remains a hot topic depending on who you talk to . For the most part, the WIAA has gone to computer seeding for the post-season playoffs. However, hockey still does it "the old fashioned way" with coaches determining the order of their sectional or regional tournaments.

One reason that the computer has been put in charge of seeding is to try and take away any human biases the coaches may have. I recall more than a decade ago a situation that happened in a baseball seeding meeting. The coach of a Division 4 central Wisconsin baseball team decided he didn't want to face a certain opponent in the earliest rounds of the playoffs. To make this happen, he seeded that opponent last in the bracket even though every other coach had that team at the top of their seeding ballot. The scheme didn't work and was an embarrassment for the coach who tried to play the system. However, the idea of coaches skewing their ballot to try and manipulate the seeding in less obvious ways was an issue. The thought was to take away that temptation by moving the seeding to computers seemed to be a sound one.

In the very early days of computer seeding for basketball it became apparent that some of the data put into the algorithm needed adjusting. In the 2022 basketball playoffs one obvious example came in Division 4 where both Marathon and Stratford finished their regular season with 20-4 records. During the season, Marathon beat Stratford in both meetings and finished ahead in the Marawood-South standings. However, the post-season bracket came out from the computer with Stratford the higher seed and the host of a regional final between the two schools. The third time was the charm for Stratford, who won the game and regional title.

In talking to many coaches over the years, head-to-head competition was almost always the determining factor in seeding between teams with similar records during the season. That was not the case in the first seasons of the computer rankings with the Marathon-Stratford example just one of a number of those kind of outcomes with the seedings involving teams with head-to-head match ups. The WIAA heard the complaints and saw the unusual results of the computer and made some adjustments to add more of a head-to-head factor. However, the issue seems to still be there.

Last week Wednesday on the "Big High School Sports Show" on Wausau Area Sports myself and Jason Foster took a look at the "snapshot" of where some area teams would be seeded if the playoffs began at the moment. On Bound Wisconsin they use information from andylavoy.com/football that takes the formula used to determine seedings and let's everyone know what the current lay of the land is. We looked at the current charts to see where are local teams were in the divisional rankings.

One that jumped out was in Division 1 with Wausau West last week 22nd with D.C. Everest 21st. At the time West was 4-2 on the season with the Evergreens 3-3. My co-host Jason Foster asked how that could be with the better record for West in addition to a 24-13 on the field win at Everest in week 3. Then, after West beat winless Eau Claire Memorial and Everest fell to once beaten SPASH on Friday, the expectation was that the 5-2 Warriors could move up above the 3-4 Evergreens in the projected D-1 seedings.

Everest did move down slightly to 23rd and a projected 6th seed in the playoffs. West, however, moved down even more to 26th in D-1 and a projected 7th seed. There are many factors that go into the seeding. Off the top of my head, the fact that West's win over a winless team wouldn't help significantly wasn't a surprise. The Everest loss to a highly ranked team shouldn't hurt them significantly either. The computer also would give Everest credit for a road win a few weeks back against a otherwise unbeaten Marshfield team that then won at Wausau West the next week. So there are factors that could skew the numbers in the favor of DCE.

However, the is no way, in the old system of where the coaches would present their information before a group vote, that a team that beat another team on the road and has a two-game edge in the overall record would not be seeded ahead. Should head-to-head be the "end all" for seeding? Of course not. Through 7 weeks of the regular season D.C. Everest has played a more difficult schedule than Wausau West though that will even out more when West faces Chippewa Falls this week. Everest met Chi Hi back in week 1 on the road. So the numbers will change in someway over the next two weeks before the official seedings are announced. I am curious to see if both the Warriors and Evergreens win out whether there is a change of order for the playoffs. If there is then, maybe, the computer deserves an apology from me.

When Stratford had a better seed than Marathon in the boys' basketball playoffs nearly five years ago it wasn't a criticism of Stratford anymore than it's a criticism of Everest football today to be listed above West today. The teams have nothing to do with how the computer lists them. They just go on the field or court and try to win games. The point is that the continuing process to find the perfect computer algorithm for fairly placing teams into the brackets continues.