Sports Line Power Rankings, Week 9

The regular season ended last week with quite a few playoff scenarios playing out across the board. After a Kansas City playoffs, Madison and Skyline are going to the 5A tournament, while Hillcrest lost out on the post season. Same goes at the 2A level as Aberdeen and Bear Lake advanced after a K.C. Playoff, leaving Malad on the outside looking in.

The postseason officially begins with a full slate of games Thursday. Check out the current Power Rankings here.

With the regular season now over, I thought I’d point out the biggest thing I learned about my Power Rankings formula from this season: It’s hard for teams to recover from early season losses. I learned this lesson from the Century Diamondbacks.

Century was blown out in their first five games, all losses. That dropped the Diamondbacks all the way down to No. 28 in the rankings. That’s dead last. But after the D-Backs started 0-5, they’re now going to the playoffs at 4-5. Dave Spillet’s crew is one of the hottest teams in our area, but they finish the regular season at No. 22. Century beat out Preston and Pocatello for the third and final playoff spot from our area in the 4A classification. Logic would dictate the Diamondbacks jump ahead of at least those two schools.

Unfortunately for Century, not so much. The formula is a running output and measures the complete season for a team’s performance. That’s visible by how well teams inside the top six or seven and in the bottom five were locked into their positions in the latter weeks of the season. That means teams were consistently good or consistently bad. The teams in the middle showed the most volatility, moving up or down the rankings each week.