Cincinnati D-1 Sectional

C

CometCountry

Well-known member
Cincy D-1 Sectional Records as of 1/25/2020--2 weeks until the draw on 2/9--3 weeks left in the regular season--big games next 2 weeks:

LaSalle -- 16-1

Moeller -- 15-1

Turpin -- 14-2

Mt. Healthy -- 13-1
Lakota East -- 13-2
West Clermont -- 13-3

Princeton -- 12-4
Edgewood -- 12-4
Walnut Hills -- 12-5

St. Xavier -- 11-4
Oak Hills -- 11-5
Goshen -- 11-5

Hamilton -- 10-5
Western Brown -- 10-6

Loveland -- 9-6

Mason --8-6
Western Hills -- 8-7
Milford -- 8-9


Elder -- 7-8
Lakota West -- 7-9

Harrison -- 6-8
Fairfield -- 6-10
Middletown -- 6-10
Sycamore -- 6-10
Anderson--6-11

Northwest -- 4-12
Kings -- 4-13

Winton Woods -- 3-9
Talawanda -- 3-11
Withrow -- 3-14

Colerain -- 1-14
Little Miami -- 1-18
 
 
As of 1/26/20 these are the current top 15 in my seeding--very hard to split #5,#6 and #7--basically went with overall record, place in league play, and who has played who and beat who/lost to:

1--Moe 15-1---1st place GCL and beat LaSalle, St. X, Elder
2--LaSalle 16-1--2nd place GCL and beat Cov. Cath, Oak Hills, St. X, Hamilton, Elder--lost to Moe by 2
3--East 13-2--1st place GMC and beat St. X, Princeton, Hamilton, Mason 2 times--lost to @Oak Hills by 7
4--Turpin 14-2--1st place ECC and beat Elder, West Clermont 2 times--lost to Cov Cath by 4
5--Oak Hills 11-5--2nd place GMC and beat Lakota East by 7, Hamilton by 9, Elder by 22--lost to Princeton by 1, @Mason, @LaSalle by 5
6--Princeton 12-4--3rd place GMC and beat Oak Hills, St. X,--lost to Lakota East by 10, Lakota West by 5, Hamilton by 3
7--St. X 11-4--3rd place GCL and beat West Clermont, Toledo Rogers, Elder--lost to LaSalle by 3, East by 6, Princeton by 2, Moe by 16
8--Hamilton 10-5--4th place GMC and beat Princeton by 3, Mason by 16, Mt. H by 14--lost to LaSalle by 6, OH by 9, East by 2, Sycamore and FF
9--West Clermont 13-3--2nd place in ECC and beat Walnut 2 times, Loveland--lost 2 times to Turpin, St. Xavier by 20
10--Mt. Healthy 13-1--1st place in SWOC and beat Edgewood, Aiken---lost to Hamilton by 14
11--Walnut Hills 12-5--3rd place ECC
12--Mason 8-6 --5th place GMC
13--Loveland 9-6--5th place ECC
14--Edgewood 12-4--2nd place SWOC
15--Elder--7-8--4th place GCL

I'm sure the next two weeks will change the order before the votes are totaled on 2/8/20!!
 
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OldSchoolPanther said:
Can anyone briefly explain how the draw works and what strategy teams use? Doesn't have to be a book, just the basic premise.
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Teams are seeded and each seed picks the slot in the bracket they want to play, starting with the top seed to the last seed. Kind of a weird way of seeding a tournament, and I've got plenty to say on all the reasons I don't like it, but it is what it is and apparently is never changing.

With that said, strategy for a setup like this is pretty much the top seeds take their own sectional, while also keeping in mind which sectional champions play who. Depending on the disparity in talent in Cincinnati for a particular year, and Dayton since their sectionals are mixed in, you may see higher seeds run to opposite sides of the bracket in order to stay away from a dominate team or teams in hopes to not see them until a regional semifinal or final.

Some teams will even be willing to get a matchup against a fairly high seed that will be a tough early round game just so they don't have to see that one dominate the team. Moeller over recent years has had that type of affect on the brackets. Leaving them to not even getting a tough game for a district championship.

But this is why I have a problem with this this type of setup. Because the strategy of running from the top team or two, you will have average teams that get to say they won a sectional, made it to a district championship, and thus had a successful playoff run. But truth is they made it that far because everyone else, except the bottom seeds that had no other choice, avoided the top seed in order to actually win a district championship and not just say they made it to one. Meanwhile they got to a district game by beating a bunch of teams that probably had a handful of wins on the whole season between them all.

End rant. Lol
 
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If I had to guess how this year will go I'd say that Moeller will get its district to itself, East and Lasalle will take the two districts on the opposite side of the tournament from Moeller, and the district opposite Moeller will become the wildcard district. It won't be as bad as years past, because while Moeller is still good and the top team in the region, they are not rediculously dominate like they have been in recent years. But most if not all of the top 10-15 teams will not pick a spot in the same district as Moeller.
 
Second loss in a row for the Owls, guess the Owls got tired of hooting after all those early wins.
 
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My guess with the Regional

Moeller, and La Salle have the strongest chance to win
Lakota East, Sidney, and St. Xavier could have an outside shot
 
Some friends of mine attended the Mt.Healthy game last night vs Walnut Hills. Out coached, out played, outclassed was their analysis. The Owls played with zero energy and the disciplined Eagles prevailed! Second straight game Mt.Healthy student athletes have received technical fouls for jawing to officials....Zero discipline program and will be lucky to win a game in the tournament
 
GCL and GMC are way ahead vs the SWOC and ECC. SWOC and ECC are just big D2 talent level basketball teams in D1.
 
America said:
GCL and GMC are way ahead vs the SWOC and ECC. SWOC and ECC are just big D2 talent level basketball teams in D1.
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Well yes... because most of the SWOC and ECC are schools that are half the size of the GMC and GCL schools. Several of the SWOC schools (Mt. Healhty, Northwest, Talawanda) are only a few boys away from being D2, Ross is D2. And Harrison and Edgewood aren't much bigger. And most of the ECC schools are similar size to Harrison and Edgewood.
 
Lancer_Reups said:
My guess with the Regional

Moeller, and La Salle have the strongest chance to win
Lakota East, Sidney, and St. Xavier could have an outside shot
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Centerville will be there when it's all said and done is my guess... unless it ends up being an all Cincy regional.
 
Philly_Cat said:
Teams are seeded and each seed picks the slot in the bracket they want to play, starting with the top seed to the last seed. Kind of a weird way of seeding a tournament, and I've got plenty to say on all the reasons I don't like it, but it is what it is and apparently is never changing.

With that said, strategy for a setup like this is pretty much the top seeds take their own sectional, while also keeping in mind which sectional champions play who. Depending on the disparity in talent in Cincinnati for a particular year, and Dayton since their sectionals are mixed in, you may see higher seeds run to opposite sides of the bracket in order to stay away from a dominate team or teams in hopes to not see them until a regional semifinal or final.

Some teams will even be willing to get a matchup against a fairly high seed that will be a tough early round game just so they don't have to see that one dominate the team. Moeller over recent years has had that type of affect on the brackets. Leaving them to not even getting a tough game for a district championship.

But this is why I have a problem with this this type of setup. Because the strategy of running from the top team or two, you will have average teams that get to say they won a sectional, made it to a district championship, and thus had a successful playoff run. But truth is they made it that far because everyone else, except the bottom seeds that had no other choice, avoided the top seed in order to actually win a district championship and not just say they made it to one. Meanwhile they got to a district game by beating a bunch of teams that probably had a handful of wins on the whole season between them all.

End rant. Lol
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Based on your rant you are proving the point of avoiding the better teams even if you have a top 5 seed. If you’re saying average teams winning sectionals is bad they are theoretically playing in tougher brackets as every bracket bar the #1 teams will have multiple top 10 teams. So a 14 seed winning a bracket with say the 3 and 8 seeds isn’t bad at all that’s actually impressive.

The only team beating multiple teams with very few wins is the #1 seed. I think it was 2 years ago when Moeller‘s first two opponents had a combined 3 wins or something like that. In all I don’t think the rest of the teams in their bracket matched their win total all combined.
 
cincyhoops said:
Well yes... because most of the SWOC and ECC are schools that are half the size of the GMC and GCL schools. Several of the SWOC schools (Mt. Healhty, Northwest, Talawanda) are only a few boys away from being D2, Ross is D2. And Harrison and Edgewood aren't much bigger. And most of the ECC schools are similar size to Harrison and Edgewood.
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Agreed. We both see that there is big size difference which leads to a smaller pool of talent to pull from come November tryouts.
 
America said:
Agreed. We both see that there is big size difference which leads to a smaller pool of talent to pull from come November tryouts.
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Not to mention, other than maybe Walnut Hills, I can't think of another SWOC or ECC school that I would say recruits, sorry... I mean "attracts talent" in basketball. Obviously we know that happens in the GCL and some in the GMC. Different schools of different sizes really playing by a different set of rules, but still competing at the same level come tournament time.
 
cincyhoops said:
Well yes... because most of the SWOC and ECC are schools that are half the size of the GMC and GCL schools. Several of the SWOC schools (Mt. Healhty, Northwest, Talawanda) are only a few boys away from being D2, Ross is D2. And Harrison and Edgewood aren't much bigger. And most of the ECC schools are similar size to Harrison and Edgewood.
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Well said Cincy---the gap in D-1 in enrollment #'s is huge compared to D2,D-3, and D-4---the small D-1 schools that you referenced have basically no shot come tourney-time vs. the large enrollment D-1's from year to year. Ohio Basketball Coaches Association has advocated for years to go to 5 divisions--football has 7 divisions--but OHSAA has not wanted to run 5 semi-finals/final on championship weekend. Many of the small D-1 enrollment schools in the ECC and SWOC just are lucky to get 1 tourney victory per year and occasionally put up 2 wins. D-1 is 356 boys and up--so a school at 356 could play a school with well over 1000 boys in the D-1 tourney while D-2 #'s are from 208-355 which is a much smaller gap from biggest to smallest in that division. I'm sure the ECC and SWOC schools will be thrilled to get a shot to win a tourney game and maybe a few schools can pick up a 2nd one. Need a 5th division if football can have 7 IMO!!
 
CometCountry said:
Well said Cincy---the gap in D-1 in enrollment #'s is huge compared to D2,D-3, and D-4---the small D-1 schools that you referenced have basically no shot come tourney-time vs. the large enrollment D-1's from year to year. Ohio Basketball Coaches Association has advocated for years to go to 5 divisions--football has 7 divisions--but OHSAA has not wanted to run 5 semi-finals/final on championship weekend. Many of the small D-1 enrollment schools in the ECC and SWOC just are lucky to get 1 tourney victory per year and occasionally put up 2 wins. D-1 is 356 boys and up--so a school at 356 could play a school with well over 1000 boys in the D-1 tourney while D-2 #'s are from 208-355 which is a much smaller gap from biggest to smallest in that division. I'm sure the ECC and SWOC schools will be thrilled to get a shot to win a tourney game and maybe a few schools can pick up a 2nd one. Need a 5th division if football can have 7 IMO!!
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Yep. In the SWOC I believe Mt. Healthy, Northwest, and Talawanda are all in the 360-370 range in boys enrollment.
 
CometCountry said:
Well said Cincy---the gap in D-1 in enrollment #'s is huge compared to D2,D-3, and D-4---the small D-1 schools that you referenced have basically no shot come tourney-time vs. the large enrollment D-1's from year to year. Ohio Basketball Coaches Association has advocated for years to go to 5 divisions--football has 7 divisions--but OHSAA has not wanted to run 5 semi-finals/final on championship weekend. Many of the small D-1 enrollment schools in the ECC and SWOC just are lucky to get 1 tourney victory per year and occasionally put up 2 wins. D-1 is 356 boys and up--so a school at 356 could play a school with well over 1000 boys in the D-1 tourney while D-2 #'s are from 208-355 which is a much smaller gap from biggest to smallest in that division. I'm sure the ECC and SWOC schools will be thrilled to get a shot to win a tourney game and maybe a few schools can pick up a 2nd one. Need a 5th division if football can have 7 IMO!!
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Or keep 4 divisions and distribute teams differently. Not sure why there has to be 200 teams in each division. Why can't D1 have 100, D2 & D3 have 300 each, and D4 100. Just using those numbers as an example... distribute teams on a bell curve so that teams are in divisions where the biggest and smallest schools fall within a certain range. I am sure someone smarter than me could figure out a mathematical formula to do this. Adding 100 teams to D2 and D3 would simply add one more round in the tournament in those divisions... not a big deal at all.
 
Boys #'s for 2019-20 are:
ECC--Anderson 459; Kings 521; Loveland 576; Milford 794; Turpin 498; Walnut Hills 765; WClermont 960; Withrow 422
GMC--Colerain 754; Ffield 1243; Hamilton 1041; East 1001; West 1002; Mason 1305; Middletown 698; Oak Hills 917; Princeton 700; Syc 657
SWOC--Edgewood 517; Harrison 448; Little Miami 541; Mt. H 375; Northwest 372; Ross D2; Talawanda 436
GCL-Moeller 949; Elder 587; LaSalle 517; St. X 1220

So for SW D-1 Sectional you have the smallest Goshen-362, Western Brown-370, Mt. H.-372 and Northwest-375 all the way up to Mason-1305, Fairfield-1243, St. Xavier-1220, Hamilton-1041, West-1002, East-1001, and Moe-949--many of these D-1's have 1/2 the boys or less to choose from as the biggest schools---massive disparity that OHSAA should address in some fashion!!
 
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CincyBballFTW said:
Based on your rant you are proving the point of avoiding the better teams even if you have a top 5 seed. If you’re saying average teams winning sectionals is bad they are theoretically playing in tougher brackets as every bracket bar the #1 teams will have multiple top 10 teams. So a 14 seed winning a bracket with say the 3 and 8 seeds isn’t bad at all that’s actually impressive.

The only team beating multiple teams with very few wins is the #1 seed. I think it was 2 years ago when Moeller‘s first two opponents had a combined 3 wins or something like that. In all I don’t think the rest of the teams in their bracket matched their win total all combined.
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That's actually not what I'm saying. I'm saying an average team that wants to skate by, goes into the bracket with the powerhouse that everyone has avoided, and thus cruises to a district championship game with damn near as easy of a road as that top seed. Then they can say to their fans that don't know any better, "Look how we made it to Dayton!"

Force the seeds into the brackets (1v16, 2v15, 3v14, etc) and you don't have that happening. Will the first round or two be crappy? Certainly, but the first couple of rounds are already horrible now anyway. The true remedy to that is everyone not making the tournament, but that's another one of my rants for another day.
 
CometCountry said:
Well said Cincy---the gap in D-1 in enrollment #'s is huge compared to D2,D-3, and D-4---the small D-1 schools that you referenced have basically no shot come tourney-time vs. the large enrollment D-1's from year to year. Ohio Basketball Coaches Association has advocated for years to go to 5 divisions--football has 7 divisions--but OHSAA has not wanted to run 5 semi-finals/final on championship weekend. Many of the small D-1 enrollment schools in the ECC and SWOC just are lucky to get 1 tourney victory per year and occasionally put up 2 wins. D-1 is 356 boys and up--so a school at 356 could play a school with well over 1000 boys in the D-1 tourney while D-2 #'s are from 208-355 which is a much smaller gap from biggest to smallest in that division. I'm sure the ECC and SWOC schools will be thrilled to get a shot to win a tourney game and maybe a few schools can pick up a 2nd one. Need a 5th division if football can have 7 IMO!!
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I like the idea of 5 divisions. Anyone want to run the numbers to see the what the breakdown would be if 5 were implemented right now? I'm curious, just not curious enough to take the time to figure it out lol
 
Another way to look at it....the gap in size between Anderson and West Clermont....same league and both Division 1....is greater than between Anderson and the smallest D4 school in Ohio. Yet if Anderson scheduled all D4's they'd be ridiculed for it! The smaller D1's are simply trying to win a game or 2...and hoping to have all the stars align once in a blue moon at the perfect time when they have their best talent. Its what made the Turpin Baseball run to the Regional so fun. Smallest school, hot pitcher, stars aligned.
 
Vinegar said:
Another way to look at it....the gap in size between Anderson and West Clermont....same league and both Division 1....is greater than between Anderson and the smallest D4 school in Ohio. Yet if Anderson scheduled all D4's they'd be ridiculed for it! The smaller D1's are simply trying to win a game or 2...and hoping to have all the stars align once in a blue moon at the perfect time when they have their best talent. Its what made the Turpin Baseball run to the Regional so fun. Smallest school, hot pitcher, stars aligned.
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Vinegar I can see your reasoning, but certainly the gap now between West Clermont and other ECC schools like Withrow (leaving ECC after 2020) and Anderson is because Glen Este and Amelia combined 3 years ago---Glen Este was much the same numbers as other ECC schools until then--and hopefully West Clermont seeks moving to the GMC where their #'s align with schools much better. Also as you say in baseball a team can get a "hot" pitcher and make a deep tourney run as Turpin did last year--happens few and far between now in D-1 basketball. I just think going to 5 divisions still keeps all of the big D-1's together and certainly gives the current smaller D-1's a fighting chance, but no sure thing because, let's face it, there are many D-2 teams that are very good year after year---I just think when you have 800-900 more boys than other schools in the same division going to 5 divisions would be a more equitable way to do basketball at this point. I played when our school went from 2 divisions in Ohio of AA and A and then in 1972 went to 3 divisions of AAA, AA, A---we were AA District runner-ups in 1974 because we were in with schools that were much more our size than when only 2 divisions existed. I just believe if football can have 7 divisions then boys basketball can have 5 IMO!!
 
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CometCountry said:
Vinegar I can see your reasoning, but certainly the gap now between West Clermont and other ECC schools like Withrow (leaving ECC after 2020) and Anderson is because Glen Este and Amelia combined 3 years ago---Glen Este was much the same numbers as other ECC schools until then--and hopefully West Clermont seeks moving to the GMC where their #'s align with schools much better. Also as you say in baseball a team can get a "hot" pitcher and make a deep tourney run as Turpin did last year--happens few and far between now in D-1 basketball. I just think going to 5 divisions still keeps all of the big D-1's together and certainly gives the current smaller D-1's a fighting chance, but no sure thing because, let's face it, there are many D-2 teams that are very good year after year---I just think when you have 800-900 more boys than other schools in the same division going to 5 divisions would be a more equitable way to do basketball at this point. I played when our school went from 2 divisions in Ohio of AA and A and then in 1972 went to 3 divisions of AAA, AA, A---we were AA District runner-ups in 1974 because we were in with schools that were much more our size than when only 2 divisions existed. I just believe if football can have 7 divisions then boys basketball can have 5 IMO!!
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Is this something tgat OHSAA is considering or would?
 
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