I was happy to bring back playoff projections this year, and now that they’re done, I thought it would be fun to evaluate just how close my predictions were. Measuring my final projections against the actual brackets, how did I do?
To put it briefly: Pretty good.
I successfully predicted which eight teams would be in the Open Division, and best of all, I didn’t have a single team in the field that ended up getting left out. If that happened, I would feel awful for giving a team false hope that their season would continue. In fact, I had all 87 teams in the field that ended up getting selected, and it would have been a perfect 88-for-88 had Del Mar not curiously declined to apply. I had every team within four spots of its actual placement, and 81 of the 87 within two spots.
Here’s a division-by-division analysis, followed by some fun numbers at the end:
Open Division
I had the top five teams seeded correctly, though I had eventual 8 seed Bellarmine in the 6 spot. I thought the Bells’ win over Clayton Valley was better than any win that either Branham or Half Moon Bay could boast, and I thought a sweep of Sacred Heart Cathedral would carry some weight there as well. I correctly had Branham above HMB, presumably because of the Cougars’ bizarre loss to Hillsdale, but I had each team one spot lower than they ended up.
While I didn’t do formal projections last year, I did have the eight Open teams correct. In 2022, I had seven of eight teams, though I had Santa Cruz in over Valley Christian. As it turned out, the Cardinals didn’t make much of a case for themselves at the seeding meeting.
Division I
My biggest miss here was Cupertino. I knew the Pioneers wouldn’t be seeded above the top two De Anza finishers, but I was surprised they ended up below Mountain View and Milpitas. I had them as the 6, and they were seeded ninth. In fact, I only had two of the 12 seeded teams placed correctly, and they were the top two, but aside from Cupertino, none were off by more than two places.
My other biggest miss here was having one of the unseeded teams with a seed and vice versa: I had Evergreen Valley at 11 and Alvarez unseeded. I correctly called Alisal, Hollister and Salinas as unseeded, which didn’t take much to figure out.
Division II
Woodside was my biggest miss not only in Division II, but was tied for my biggest miss in the entire field, four spots off from my projection. I had the Wildcats at 7, and they were given the 3 seed. However, I can understand why this happened: While I was placing the PAL Ocean Division champion Wildcats below Hillsdale, who finished fifth in the superior PAL Bay Division, Woodside was deemed to be ahead of the Fighting Knights through mutual results against San Mateo and Jefferson.
I had five of the 12 seeded teams placed correctly: No. 1 Valley Christian, No. 2 Christopher, No. 5 Hillsdale, No. 8 Westmont and No. 9 Aragon. I also had three of the four unseeded teams right; however, I had Willow Glen as the 11 and Lynbrook unseeded.
Division III
Even with Del Mar’s unexplained absence, I feel Division III was my best work. I seeded six of 12 teams correctly, and the other six were flip-flopped by just one spot each. It could have been even better, but I thought Sacred Heart Cathedral’s four WCAL wins would put the Fightin’ Irish ahead of Aptos after the Mariners lost to Santa Cruz in the SCCAL Championship.
I had the correct 12 seeded teams and three correct unseeded teams. Had Del Mar applied, the Dons would have certainly been unseeded as well.
Division IV
On one hand, I only had three teams seeded correctly in Division IV. On the other hand, only three were off by more than one spot, and I can explain why Marina was three spots higher than I had projected. Similarly to Woodside’s case in Division II, the PCAL Mission champion Mariners were deemed to be above PCAL Gabilan third place finisher Palma.
I had one unseeded-seeded mix-up, with San Lorenzo Valley getting the 12 seed instead of Oceana.
Division V
I’m just proud that I got the correct 16 teams here. With some schools choosing not to apply and others not putting results online, predicting Division V can be a real mess.
I had the top five seeds correct, and flip-flopped 6 and 7 by valuing number of games played above the computer ranking. Cristo Rey was tied for my biggest miss in the entire field; I had the Lions 12th, but they were seeded eighth. I also missed on North Valley Baptist by three spots, with the Bulldogs getting the 12 seed rather than the 9 that I had projected. But I did get all four unseeded teams correct!
By the Numbers
While there are usually only a couple of teams that enter the seeding meeting unsure if they’ll actually get picked, I’m still quite proud to have been all but perfect on picking who’s actually in the field, as well as the correct eight in the Open Division.
There are 68 seeded teams across the six brackets, and I had 26 of them placed correctly. I also had 16 of the 19 unseeded teams correctly labeled as such. Of the three that I thought would be seeded that weren’t, I had two as an 11 and one as a 12.
Of the 45 seedings that weren’t exact, 39 of them were within two spots of their actual seed. Four were off by three, and two, Woodside in Division II and Cristo Rey in Division V, were off by four places. I hastily made up a point system that assigns one point for each spot I missed, so in the Open Division, I got two points for Bellarmine and one apiece for Branham and Half Moon Bay. I finished with a total score of 72 for 87 teams.
The other most important thing to look at is the bye system. With the double bye system in the enrollment brackets that was used in the old 16-team Big East Tournament (throwback to Syracuse and UConn playing six overtimes), perhaps the most important service I can provide is letting coaches know if they’ll be playing on Friday, Saturday or Tuesday. With the seeding meeting wrapping up just over 48 hours from the first games, this is quite important.
Out of the 87 teams, I had 74 playing on the correct day! Had Del Mar entered, it would have pushed Seaside into a Friday game, and I would have been correct on 76 of 88. Apologies go to Carlmont, Cristo Rey, Cupertino, Gunn, Marina, Milpitas, Pacific Grove, Palo Alto, Palma, Scotts Valley, University Prep Academy and Woodside. Hopefully none of those coaches set any schedules based off of my projections. Seaside gets a half apology, since I had the Spartans in the correct spot but had no clue Del Mar wasn’t going to participate.
Thanks for following, and a huge thanks to the coaches and league reps who were able to help me gain insight on the processes at work here! Here’s to a great postseason. Let’s do this again next year!