We are almost there:
Anyone want to speculate who makes the cut for Open Division through Division 1?
I’ll take a crack at it:
Newport
JSerra
Newport’s 2nd Line Change
Oaks Christian
Newport’s 3rd Line Change
Harvard Westlake
Loyola
Corona del Mar
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I think we need at least 12 for this years open division and although agree that Newport is the hand down #1, to round out the 12, my opinion, is you include these:
Laguna
Buena
San Clemente
Foothill
If you are including Laguna you have not watched enough of the games. San Clemente beat Laguna soundly; also Westlake beat Laguna by 10 at Laguna’s pool. Mater Dei is better, San Marcos is better, Long Beach Wilson is better… but hey, I agree with the other three you posted.
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Yes, there was a portion of the text that was cutoff that did include the teams you mentioned however yes I did include that Laguna. Please note the open division is 12 teams this year.
CDM might be a dark horse in this new format!
The announcement seems to indicate the Open division could be 8 to 12 teams and isn’t locked at 12 yet. Maybe an old announcement.
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Assuming 12 teams, my prediction is: 1) Newport Harbor, 2) JSerra, 3) Oaks Christian, 4) Harvard-Westlake, 5) Corona del Mar, 6) Mater Dei, 7) Loyola, 8) Foothill, 9) San Clemente, 10) Westlake, 11) Mira Costa and 12) Long Beach Wilson.
NOTE: Mira Costa and Long Beach Wilson play each other on Wednesday, which may help organize the bottom of Open Division or the top of Division 1.
NOTE: Also, Loyola is now 10-14. I know things are being done differently this year, but if this was years past, their league game against Harvard-Westlake on Wednesday would be must-win. They would have had to be a league champ to get into the playoffs with a sub-.500 record.
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Good list. Surprised at Loyola’s record. Seen them play and they seemed stronger than that.
The coaches I spoke with in the last few days told me the Southern Section will not decide the final make-up of the Open Division and Division 1 tournaments until after this week’s games. The Open Division Tournament could still be a 12-school tournament or an 8-school tournament. Most of the coaches think it will be 12 schools. More than one coach told me the Southern Section intends to use the polocoach.com poll to seed the schools. Not one coach I spoke with is happy about this decision.
As of October 13, this is how polocoach.com ranks the Southern Section schools:
- Newport
- JSerra
- HW
- CdM
- Oaks
- MD
- Loyola
- Buena
- San Clemente
- Foothill
- Santa Margarita
- Long Beach Wilson
- Westlake
- San Marcos
This is correct. It seems the computer gets it in the general ballpark, but there will definitely be teams out of place without the human hand making the correction.
Loyola only needs to finish top 3 in their league to make playoffs. They should finish second without trying. First place used to guarantee you a home game but that is not the case this year.
I’ll take a crack at this too. Because with 28 regular season games and the tournament results we don’t need to guess and we certainly don’t need a poorly used computer system that fails massively in just the basic data collection of the games and the results.
Water polo does NOT need a computer system; it’s ridiculous to even consider for this sport. The computer ranking systems gained popularity by filling a need in the college football non-playoff era. I can even see a use for them in high school football — limited games, teams all over place.
But water polo has enough games and enough tournaments that all we need is eye balls. They are playing each other, some multiple times, and I respect the eye balls of a group of coaches over bad data in a computer program.
OPEN:
- Newport
- JSerra
- Oaks- pending result vs JSerra, could be 2.
- Harvard Westlake
- CDM
- Mater Dei
- Loyola
- Foothill
After those 8 it does get murky with 6 teams all having a decent claim. But what should that tell us? There’s an easy break off after 8 and the rest should be able to compete H2H in D1 to see who is better. Especially considering the regional playoff selection takes 4,2,2 from Open, D1, D2 respectively.
Next teams in no particular order IMO after 9-10.
9.Buena (of Ventura)
10. San Clemente
Westlake
Mira Costa
San Marcos
LB Wilson
Guess we all find out together on Saturday.
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I would like to add my concern to computer ranking models and the growth of players.
When the computer decides the ranking, and scores are added to that decision algorithm, coaches will take these factors into playing time decisions. Coaches may end up playing their starters more, versus less experienced players. I see this as a detriment to growing the sport and the continued growth of early players.
There is no need for a computer model here. Coaches will adapt to the model, and unintended consequences will ensue. There are enough games, and enough human eyes, to decide water polo rankings at the section level. If you want a computer model to rank teams across the US, for the sake of ranking, so be it. Only for that.
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Unfortunately this has been a computer driven thing for a few years now. Figuring out the 8-14 will require human intervention. No one will spend the time figuring out if the 20-300 places are correct.
In the past with predetermined divisions, CIF would update the rankings every week with a poll and Polocoach. You could monitor your potential seed into the playoffs because you knew your division. This season it seems to me that they are hiding the info as much as possible to keep teams from throwing games to try to secure a high seed in a lower division rather than a low seed in a higher division.
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This was my thought on the matter. If you are bottom of DII and have an AQ in your league, why not throw a few games here and there in a tourney to get to the top of DIII?
I mean would a way to deter this be to have CIF now oversee rosters for tournaments and have each team have their Varsity rosters entered on CIF Home prior to the start of the season? Creates more paperwork and things like moving kids up and down a little more tedious, but if you want coaches/programs to stop throwing games, seems like a way. Curious on others thoughts.
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Coaches/teams are really throwing games to get into a lower division? They should be outed if that’s true.
I don’t know why this issue is so upsetting for people, but the blatant illegal recruiting is not.
What’s worse: illegally recruiting transfers to stack teams in order to potentially win an Open Division championship, or losing a couple of games so your non-recruiting team can play other teams that don’t recruit and try to win a CIF championship? This has been going on for years, and why certain programs were always on the cusp of old Div. 1/Div. 2, yet somehow always made it into Div. 2.