Teams Sandbagging

[southside74]

I was just curious with all of these predictions and such, does anyone think that any teams take this a 100% seriously and will intentionally lose a game for a better matchup? I do not know of anyone that has done this, but was curious what everyone else thought in regards to this?

 

[CCHS-Fan]

Can you tell Fenwick to sandbag a little please?

 

[RameyJacoby]

I was just curious with all of these predictions and such, does anyone think that any teams take this a 100% seriously and will intentionally lose a game for a better matchup? I do not know of anyone that has done this, but was curious what everyone else thought in regards to this?

I don’t know any coaches that will intentionally lose not knowing what the rest of the season will bring!!! IHSA like a box of chocolates) mess around not get in at all.

 

[southside74]

I don’t know any coaches that will intentionally lose not knowing what the rest of the season will bring!!! IHSA like a box of chocolates) mess around not get in at all.

I do not disagree. I was just morbidly curious.

 

[crusader_of_90]

High school kids are not good enough to throw a game and no team would keep everyone quiet. Just not feasible.

 

[olderbytheminute]

I was just curious with all of these predictions and such, does anyone think that any teams take this a 100% seriously and will intentionally lose a game for a better matchup? I do not know of anyone that has done this, but was curious what everyone else thought in regards to this?

How would intentionally losing a game give a team a better matchup when none of the 256 teams in the playoffs know who they are going to play in Round 1 of the postseason until AFTER Week 9 games are played?
Let's just say a team is 6-2 and in the playoffs and cannot win its league title. It could intentionally lose Week 9 by playing its reserves who have practiced a lot and played very little all season to accomplish what? At 6-2, the team does not know who its Round 1 playoff team will be, and deciding whether finishing 7-2 or 6-3 would get you a Chicago Public League playoff opponent or a Mt. Carmel-type team is impossible to project with 100 pct. certainty before the Week 9 games are played.

 

[crazylegs777]

How would intentionally losing a game give a team a better matchup when none of the 256 teams in the playoffs know who they are going to play in Round 1 of the postseason until AFTER Week 9 games are played?
Let's just say a team is 6-2 and in the playoffs and cannot win its league title. It could intentionally lose Week 9 by playing its reserves who have practiced a lot and played very little all season to accomplish what? At 6-2, the team does not know who its Round 1 playoff team will be, and deciding whether finishing 7-2 or 6-3 would get you a Chicago Public League playoff opponent or a Mt. Carmel-type team is impossible to project with 100 pct. certainty before the Week 9 games are played.

King could have played & would have beat Goode. Instead forfeit due to a fight & that win put Goode in the playoffs.

 

[olderbytheminute]

King could have played & would have beat Goode. Instead forfeit due to a fight & that win put Goode in the playoffs.

Ok. But that doesn't benefit King as you suggested "getting a better matchup." That's what we are talking about.
If King was already in the playoffs, they had no way of knowing if letting Goode win and qualify would benefit King in terms of a first-round matchup or hurt it.
That was what you were asking about.

 

[crazylegs777]

Ok. But that doesn't benefit King as you suggested "getting a better matchup." That's what we are talking about.
If King was already in the playoffs, they had no way of knowing if letting Goode win and qualify would benefit King in terms of a first-round matchup or hurt it.
That was what you were asking about.

Yes because they were told it looked like all 5 win teams looked to get in.

 

[olderbytheminute]

Yes because they were told it looked like all 5 win teams looked to get in.

I will try once more. King is in the playoffs. Before week 9. How does intentionally losing a game week 9 improve King’s chances of getting a more favorable playoff draw.
How does King know it will improve King’s playoff draw by finishing 5/4 rather than 6/3?
There is no benefit to King losing on purpose week 9 because it did not know who it’s playoff opponent would be if it finished 6/3 or 5/4.
Goode benefitted by king forfeiting but you said a team Could improve its payoff draw by losing on purpose.
Goode didn’t lose on purpose. King did and king had no way of knowing if losing on purpose if it would get an easier payoff draw or harder playoff draw by doing so. Thus there was zero benefit to king to intentionally lose week 9.
That was your theory.,, king sandbagging to get a better playoff draw. It was impossible for king to know its playoff draw opponent before it’s week 9 game so it could not intentionally improve its playoff draw by winning or losing Goode.
Goode benefited by the forfeit obviously but they did not sandbag and intentionally lose. They won.
Your theory makes zero sense in terms of losing on purpose to improve your own chances of getting a better playoff draw .

 

[RockSoup]

As a St. Rita fan looking up Guilford scores, the Boylan W9 score was weird. Rockford NIUC is usually a plus b equals c. But Boylan at 5-4 has a better path than they would at 6-3.

First I want to say kudos to them if they had intel so good that they purposely used personnel and a game plan in week 9 that could lead to a better path. So I ain’t knocking Boylan, I’m hat tipping them if that’s the case.

So any Rockford people out there that can tell me where by transitive scores, Boylan should have beaten Guilford by a score or two but then actually lost by three. Or was there just a bunch of parity up north or Boylan has injuries that the W9 result is not weird.

 

[olderbytheminute]

As a St. Rita fan looking up Guilford scores, the Boylan W9 score was weird. Rockford NIUC is usually a plus b equals c. But Boylan at 5-4 has a better path than they would at 6-3.

First I want to say kudos to them if they had intel so good that they purposely used personnel and a game plan in week 9 that could lead to a better path. So I ain’t knocking Boylan, I’m hat tipping them if that’s the case.

So any Rockford people out there that can tell me where by transitive scores, Boylan should have beaten Guilford by a score or two but then actually lost by three. Or was there just a bunch of parity up north or Boylan has injuries that the W9 result is not weird.

You may be 100 percent right that boylan has an easier draw at 5-4 than they would have had at 6-3.
But boylan had no way of knowing what the draw would like b4 playing week 9. Hence they had zero way of knowing if losing week 9 would improve their playoff draw or make it harder.
Come on people. The bracket is not drawn until all teams have finished week 9. Boylan did not know what the draw would look like or even the list of all 31 other teams in the bracket until game 9!was played.
Suggesting that boylan knew every result of every week 9 game that could affect playoff brackets in any/all of the 8 classes before the games were played and thus could determine their entire class bracket and thus determine that winning or losing week 9 would be better for their playoff chances is truly ridiculous.

 

[RockSoup]

You may be 100 percent right that boylan has an easier draw at 5-4 than they would have had at 6-3.
But boylan had no way of knowing what the draw would like b4 playing week 9. Hence they had zero way of knowing if losing week 9 would improve their playoff draw or make it harder.
Come on people. The bracket is not drawn until all teams have finished week 9. Boylan did not know what the draw would look like or even the list of all 31 other teams in the bracket until game 9!was played.
Suggesting that boylan knew every result of every week 9 game that could affect playoff brackets in any/all of the 8 classes before the games were played and thus could determine their entire class bracket and thus determine that winning or losing week 9 would be better for their playoff chances is truly ridiculous.

I agree. But could also be as simple as the difference of seed 7 or 8 at 6-3 vs a 9 or 10 burning a home game or guarantee a road game R1 vs a 6, 7, or 8. A decent spreadsheet can show that information to someone interested, saving a home game for later. I also said maybe they have injuries or the NIUC isn’t as transitive as years past.

 

[olderbytheminute]

I agree. But could also be as simple as the difference of seed 7 or 8 at 6-3 vs a 9 or 10 burning a home game or guarantee a road game R1 vs a 6, 7, or 8. A decent spreadsheet can show that information to someone interested, saving a home game for later. I also said maybe they have injuries or the NIUC isn’t as transitive as years past.

I agree. But could also be as simple as the difference of seed 7 or 8 at 6-3 vs a 9 or 10 burning a home game or guarantee a road game R1 vs a 6, 7, or 8. A decent spreadsheet can show that information to someone interested, saving a home game for later. I also said maybe they have injuries or the NIUC isn’t as transitive as years past.

Please. Think. In a 16 team bracket there is no way of knowing who you will play in round 1 before week 9 games are played.
In round 1 seeds 1-8 are always home and seeds 9-16 are always away.
So if a 9/16 seed wins week 1 on the road it will always be home week 2.
But you cannot control the quality of opponent in any round. The worse a team is seeded the beater record your round 1 opponent will be. That’s fact. The week 1 opponent could be from chicago public league or it could be from chicago Catholic league. You don’t know that before week 9 games are played. If losing week 9 gives you chicago senn, congrats on your good luck. If losing week 9 gets you Nazareth academy then shame on you for losing on purpose.
The point is a team does not know it’s draw. Every team in the state wants to play a chicago public team in round 1 and is glad to go to chicago to play it.
Nobody wants to play a Nazareth-type team in any round home or away.
If you look at any of the 8 brackets you can pick a team that has a great draw to win 2-3-4 games.
But that’s after the bracket is drawn. You can’t even predict who is your first and second round opponent could be until the pairings are drawn.
Intentionally losing makes zero sense from any point of view in ihsa football
In a late season nbA game for a team that doesn’t want to face the Celtics in the early playoff rounds it makes sense because the nba playoff bracket can be determined before the end of the season.
In high school football it can’t.
You said you don’t know if boylan intentionally lost but give them credit if they did.
That’s folly. They didn’t even know what their seed would be until after week 9.
It’s all the luck of the ihsa playoff system.
Suggesting any team knows it could benefit from intentionally losing is impossible.
Benefitting from losing week 9 because o f the way the bracket unfolded is definitely possible.
But it’s not cause and effect.

 

[crazylegs777]

I will try once more. King is in the playoffs. Before week 9. How does intentionally losing a game week 9 improve King’s chances of getting a more favorable playoff draw.
How does King know it will improve King’s playoff draw by finishing 5/4 rather than 6/3?
There is no benefit to King losing on purpose week 9 because it did not know who it’s playoff opponent would be if it finished 6/3 or 5/4.
Goode benefitted by king forfeiting but you said a team Could improve its payoff draw by losing on purpose.
Goode didn’t lose on purpose. King did and king had no way of knowing if losing on purpose if it would get an easier payoff draw or harder playoff draw by doing so. Thus there was zero benefit to king to intentionally lose week 9.
That was your theory.,, king sandbagging to get a better playoff draw. It was impossible for king to know its playoff draw opponent before it’s week 9 game so it could not intentionally improve its playoff draw by winning or losing Goode.
Goode benefited by the forfeit obviously but they did not sandbag and intentionally lose. They won.
Your theory makes zero sense in terms of losing on purpose to improve your own chances of getting a better playoff draw .

King knows they’re not winning no matter what their record is

 

[RockSoup]

Please. Think. In a 16 team bracket there is no way of knowing who you will play in round 1 before week 9 games are played.
In round 1 seeds 1-8 are always home and seeds 9-16 are always away.
So if a 9/16 seed wins week 1 on the road it will always be home week 2.
But you cannot control the quality of opponent in any round. The worse a team is seeded the beater record your round 1 opponent will be. That’s fact. The week 1 opponent could be from chicago public league or it could be from chicago Catholic league. You don’t know that before week 9 games are played. If losing week 9 gives you chicago senn, congrats on your good luck. If losing week 9 gets you Nazareth academy then shame on you for losing on purpose.
The point is a team does not know it’s draw. Every team in the state wants to play a chicago public team in round 1 and is glad to go to chicago to play it.
Nobody wants to play a Nazareth-type team in any round home or away.
If you look at any of the 8 brackets you can pick a team that has a great draw to win 2-3-4 games.
But that’s after the bracket is drawn. You can’t even predict who is your first and second round opponent could be until the pairings are drawn.
Intentionally losing makes zero sense from any point of view in ihsa football
In a late season nbA game for a team that doesn’t want to face the Celtics in the early playoff rounds it makes sense because the nba playoff bracket can be determined before the end of the season.
In high school football it can’t.
You said you don’t know if boylan intentionally lost but give them credit if they did.
That’s folly. They didn’t even know what their seed would be until after week 9.
It’s all the luck of the ihsa playoff system.
Suggesting any team knows it could benefit from intentionally losing is impossible.
Benefitting from losing week 9 because o f the way the bracket unfolded is definitely possible.
But it’s not cause and effect.

Seriously? Anyways, by week 8 you have the bank of teams that are 5-14 in 1-16 and the bank of teams that are 10-20 in 1-32. And top third and bottom third. There are 0 to 2 teams bumped up or down a class depending on number of qualifiers, there are 0 to 5 (maybe more) 4-5 teams added. There are not wholesale changes from week 9 results like 20 place seed jumps or a dozen different class changes and even with the 4-5 teams added, you know they’ll be bottom third seeds. Going into week 9, you can know the caliber of team you’ll play and whether you want to open up on the road knowing you’ll get a
higher caliber team at home in R2.
So instead of a five page retort, just say you don’t think there are people out there that use probabilities, Bayesian reasoning, and game theory to make present decisions for future outcomes and that would suffice. For the record, again, I’m not saying Boylan did this, I’m saying if they did roll the probability dice, hat tip, I’m just saying it’s an interesting score. And no team plays to lose, but no one is 100% healthy either so personnel decisions can be made to try to win while lessening your chances to. Not hard to fathom. And my last response. Agree to disagree with the stance that it’s impossible to roll the dice on scenarios.