Mackinbiner
Well-known member
Excellent research and it's great to know that it's from a source that can be trusted.1) For starters, Massillon's own head coach voted Hoover the 5th seed, so he must see something in them. Incidentally, Massillon's head coach also voted Jackson 9th and Dover 10th.
2) I don't see much difference from the 4th to 9th teams in this draw. Those teams could play each other as much they want, and I'm not sold any team in that grouping would dominate any of the others in that same grouping.
3) As a collection, the coaches didn't see much difference between Hoover, Wooster, and Massillon. Only 8 voting pts. separated the 5th and 7th seeds before dropping everyone's highest and lowest point value. Even the non-Fed coaches were split on which team they felt was the best of Hoover, Wooster, and Massillon. The pecking order by non-Fed coaches was:
Alliance - Massillon, Hoover, Wooster
Fitch - Wooster, Hoover, Massillon
Boardman - Wooster, Hoover, Massillon
Dover - Wooster, Massillon, Hoover
Massillon - Hoover, Massillon, Wooster
Wooster - Wooster, Massillon, Hoover
Among Fed coaches, all but GlenOak voted Hoover ahead of Massillon and Wooster. GlenOak voted Massillon, Wooster, Hoover. Of those 6 Feds that had Hoover ahead of Massillon, McKinley was the only one that voted Wooster ahead of Massillon.
4) Hoover's only losses in the last 10 games have come against McKinley 2x and Green, the top 2 seeds in this draw. The losses to McKinley were by 5 pts. and 2 pts. Green is the only team to defeat Hoover by double digits this season. Hoover has a bad loss to Louisville on the card, but it was by 2 pts. instead of by 22 pts. Hoover's loss to Perry was by 1pt. and not 12 pts. Hoover has a pair of losses to McKinley but neither was by 15 pts. Hoover has shown they can play with anybody in this draw but Green. That's worth something when so many teams look to be on the same level. Their 20+ point win over Alliance and 30+ point win over Perry within the last week before the votes were submitted likely resonated with the coaches.
5) There's not much basis for a comparison between Wooster and Hoover. The closest thing we have at the time of the voting is Hoover's 16 pt. win over Mansfield vs. Wooster's 3 pt. win and 2 win over the Tygers. Also, Wooster is dogged by the same scheduling situation that is dogging Dover and Alliance. Big surprise, people generally vote for what they've heard of, as long as what they don't have an unfavorable opinion of what they've heard of.
I don't know if the coaches got it right or not, but I can see what they might have been looking at when trying to decide who should be the 5th seed.
Yappi at its finest.