Fellow Coaches,
I know that there is NO perfect system that has been created for North Carolina High School Tennis but this NCHSAA RPI system is clearly not any better than the previous dual team seeding systems. There has to be some sort of input from actual tennis coaches who know what they are looking at when it comes to seeding teams in the dual team state playoffs! I mean its fine to keep the RPI but let a panel of actual tennis coaches go through and discuss changes that need to made. Does anyone really believe the 2 time defending 3A state champs are the 9th best team in the East? If so, we may have one of the strongest high school tennis regions in the country!
I mean yes, something HAD to be done, but this is no better than before and maybe even worse. Again, it comes down to strength of conferences and strengths of individual teams! A team in one conference can go through the regular season 20-0 and not lose a single court, but in other conferences you have the top teams going 20-0 but losing courts to the 5th placed team. You can go out and schedule the most difficult teams in the state but your conference opponents in the end are the majority of your matches in most occasions! No offense to any teams but who in the top 16 of the 3A East RPI rankings would like to draw Cape Fear in the first round? I am not sure of the right answer but something has to be done to make the dual team state playoffs seeding more accurate!
Coach Jay James, West Johnston High School
RPI
I do think it's better than what we've had before, but it's still far from perfect. I still think a system based on a team World Tennis Number or a team UTR would be much better. Hendersonville is #3 in the western 2-A, and I think they have all six starters back from the 2022 state championship team. I also think that automatically giving conference champions priority seeding really messes up the playoff bracket because that assumes that every conference champion is better than every other team in the state, and that's simply not true. Few conference champions in 2-A would be in the top four of the Super Six 1-A/2-A Conference that includes Science and Math, Research Triangle, Raleigh Charter School, and Franklin Academy. I also believe that if we are going to keep RPI, then tennis (where running up the score is not possible) needs to use the final score as a factor.Guess Dixon heeded your warning and forfeited?
Clarification
Cape Fear was 7th in the final RPI in the 3A East. They were as high as 5th before losing a late-season match to Terry Sanford. They're in a group of four teams (Cape Fear, Hunt, J.H. Rose, and Williams) separated from one another by .004.Cape Fear was seeded 6th, (Hunt, as a second-place team, was seeded 12th). As the 6th seed, no one in the top 16 would have been slated to play them in the first round.
As for Dixon, their forfeit was unfortunate, but it was due to a misunderstandin g and miscommunicatio n, and not to a decision to avoid a tough first-round opponent.
Cape Fear is really good, no doubt. But, there are several really good teams in the 3A East. We'll see how it plays out.
Missing MaxPreps Data
Neill is right ... the RPI system is dependent on complete data, and I guarantee there are matches that weren't posted. But, at a certain point, the NCHSAA staff has to go with what it's got.We spent a lot of time chasing down missing matches in our area, and most coaches and AD's were responsive to the need to get their data posted, once it was explained.
All these problems go away if we migrate to the USTA High School Digital Platform. Using that platform, coaches enter their scores as their match is being played. The team score calculates automatically based on the individual results posted. No post-match data entry is required. Paper scorebooks become obsolete ... or a matter of personal preference.
It's not ready for prime time yet. But, it's coming.
My biggest issue with the RPI right now is OOWP. How am
I being punished due to the winning percentage of the teams that play the teams that I have scheduled. I think their should be multiple things weighted. RPI system shouldn’t be the only factor. Should be RPI and some sort of panel with their own ranking system then we average out the two
The problem isn't with the formula, it's a lack of data.
Jay ... I appreciate your frustration. Let me make a couple of points in response.First, midseason ratings are going to be inaccurate. They are also meaningless. The only ratings that matter are those at the end of the season. So, let's wait and see.
Second, you're right that RPI doesn't measure the margin of victory. A win is a win, period. That's a choice which NCHSAA has made in all sports to avoid sportsmanship issues in regard to running up the score.
Third, there's just very little data to work with. For instance, Cape Fear has one non-conference match, a loss to New Hanover. Rocky Mount has two, both with D.H. Conley, both wins. Terry Sanford has none. Of the top ten teams, only Fike, Carrboro, and Croatan have more than four.
It doesn't matter what system we use for seeding ... if there's no data to work with, the results won't be very accurate ... even if it's done subjectively by a seeding committee.
Coach Jay James, West Johnston High School
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