What decides LHGCL tourney seeding?

Tourney results factor in, but how much? Does league play factor in? I have heard yes and no. What all do the LHGCL officials go by when seeding for the tourney next summer. It prob won't matter to the top five teams but if you are 20-30 it could be big. Anyone have input?

The King tut was huge in determining our QT ranking! We were able to produce a #4 ranking for QT's when the board barely had us in the top ten!

They review recent league (small %), and tourneys (small %), etc.

They have 'spotters' who pay attention an who really start locking in after contracts. Get your games in, tourneys etc after signing. Spotters are everywhere for tune-up tourneys.

Lastly, almost every large club has some influence inside LHGCL....so that's how they get a good feel for things.

Thanks you guys. Very helpful.

The so called "spotters" are soccer moms so completely subjective opinions, nothing more. The FBR rankings on this board carry alot of weight for seedings, the bigger clubs have a say, and tournaments and league play count. The big reason the FBR counts is the SOS (strength of schedule) component, prevents people from being over-ranked by beating up on easy teams.

soccerman75 wrote:The so called "spotters" are soccer moms so completely subjective opinions, nothing more. The FBR rankings on this board carry alot of weight for seedings, the bigger clubs have a say, and tournaments and league play count. The big reason the FBR counts is the SOS (strength of schedule) component, prevents people from being over-ranked by beating up on easy teams.

Don't know if "soccerman75" truly believes what he is saying or is trying to stir some stuff up, but as last years owner of the FBR rankings, I'm pretty certain that LHGCL pays absolutely 0 attention to what we say on this forum.

When we asked all of these questions last year, we were told by the parents who had been through it before that performance in the post-signing, pre-QT tourneys (King TUT, Puma Cup, etc...) had the biggest impact. Based on how the '01 seedings came out, I would tend to agree.

At the end of the day, LHGCL will have some hits and misses, but overall, they have a pretty good track record with their seeding process, whatever it is.

Not pot stirring, I absolutely believe they consider the FBR rankings in the seeding process. One of many factors, yes, but I feel there is too much correlation between FBR and seeding for it not to have been considered.

Here's the LH QT Seeding for the '01's vs. the final FBR rankings I published leading into signing day last year.

As you see, there are some significant discrepancies, even within the top 10, that would suggest that FBR plays little to no factor in the QT seedings.

Any ranking method is somewhat performance based, so FBR, Power Rankings, Human polls, Club input, etc... are going to follow league standings and tournament results to some degree.

You could use any of those I mentioned above as an initial starting point. I'm sure the LHGCL reps probably use some combination of any or all of the above to get an initial read on where the teams should be.

However, the data just doesn't back up the statement that the QT seedings are based in any significant manner on the FBR rankings, or any other other rankings for that matter.

I would love to be arrogant enough to think that what I put together really mattered, but in the end, the data just doesn't back that up.

Gophers - can you add an additional 3 columns to your chart?

List 1) Current LH standing, 2) Delta from LH seed, 3) Delta from FBR seed

(just in case you had any doubts who fourfourtwo is)

bwgophers wrote:Here's the LH QT Seeding for the '01's vs. the final FBR rankings I published leading into signing day last year.

As you see, there are some significant discrepancies, even within the top 10, that would suggest that FBR plays little to no factor in the QT seedings.

So I'd be interested in who was more accurate in the end, on the teams with 5+ spot discrepancies between FBR and LH Seeders.

Where did these teams qualify?
Diamonds
Fusion
AFC Red
NTX Strikers
Cosmos
Sting West
FCD 01
Oak Cliff

Was FBR a better predictor of success, or was the seeding a better predictor?

deepthoughts wrote:

bwgophers wrote:Here's the LH QT Seeding for the '01's vs. the final FBR rankings I published leading into signing day last year.

As you see, there are some significant discrepancies, even within the top 10, that would suggest that FBR plays little to no factor in the QT seedings.

So I'd be interested in who was more accurate in the end, on the teams with 5+ spot discrepancies between FBR and LH Seeders.

Where did these teams qualify?
Diamonds LH D3 FBR Correct
Redstar LH D1 LH Correct
Fusion LH D3 LH Correct
AFC Red PPL D1 FBR Correct
NTX Strikers PPL D1 BOTH Correct
Cosmos LH D3 FBR Correct
Sting West Arlington D1 BOTH Correct
FCD 01 PPL D1 LH Correct
Oak Cliff Arlington D1 BOTH Correct

Was FBR a better predictor of success, or was the seeding a better predictor?

You also left out Redstar...

As I've said in the past, all of the '01 ranking systems + LH Seeding were pretty much an overall wash on accuracy.

fourfourtwo wrote:Gophers - can you add an additional 3 columns to your chart?

List 1) Current LH standing, 2) Delta from LH seed, 3) Delta from FBR seed

(just in case you had any doubts who fourfourtwo is)

I can, but won't, as they really wouldn't be particularly meaningful. Not only would you be comparing outdated data (FBR and LH seedings are based on results/observations that are >6 months old), but LH D1 teams have also played an unbalanced schedule so far, so the standings may still be somewhat skewed for some teams.

If someone else want to do it, go ahead. All of the data is either in my previous post, or on the LH website.

bwgophers wrote:

deepthoughts wrote:

bwgophers wrote:Here's the LH QT Seeding for the '01's vs. the final FBR rankings I published leading into signing day last year.

As you see, there are some significant discrepancies, even within the top 10, that would suggest that FBR plays little to no factor in the QT seedings.

So I'd be interested in who was more accurate in the end, on the teams with 5+ spot discrepancies between FBR and LH Seeders.

Where did these teams qualify?
Diamonds LH D3 FBR Correct
Redstar LH D1 LH Correct
Fusion LH D3 LH Correct
AFC Red PPL D1 FBR Correct
NTX Strikers PPL D1 BOTH Correct
Cosmos LH D3 FBR Correct
Sting West Arlington D1 BOTH Correct
FCD 01 PPL D1 LH Correct
Oak Cliff Arlington D1 BOTH Correct

Was FBR a better predictor of success, or was the seeding a better predictor?

You also left out Redstar...

As I've said in the past, all of the '01 ranking systems + LH Seeding were pretty much an overall wash on accuracy.

Not sure I buy that conclusion. One has to consider LH seeding has a huge impact on where a team qualifies considering their method for bracketing. Redstar seeded at 17 did a great job qualifying, and yes they now hold their own in D1, but teams like Cosmos or FCD were seeded lowand ende d up in much tougher QT brackets the second weekend. If LH had put Cosmos, FWFC or Texans Red up at 17 each of those teams would likely have made D1. The only team LH was clearly more accurate than the ranking systems was Fusion Navy, and that was due to Fusion having lost 5 or 6 key players a few weeks before QT.

IMO if you're evaluating how accurate the various methods were you'd look at not only where the teams qualified, but how they've performed since qualifying.

fourfourtwo wrote:

bwgophers wrote:

deepthoughts wrote:

bwgophers wrote:Here's the LH QT Seeding for the '01's vs. the final FBR rankings I published leading into signing day last year.

As you see, there are some significant discrepancies, even within the top 10, that would suggest that FBR plays little to no factor in the QT seedings.

So I'd be interested in who was more accurate in the end, on the teams with 5+ spot discrepancies between FBR and LH Seeders.

Where did these teams qualify?
Diamonds LH D3 FBR Correct
Redstar LH D1 LH Correct
Fusion LH D3 LH Correct
AFC Red PPL D1 FBR Correct
NTX Strikers PPL D1 BOTH Correct
Cosmos LH D3 FBR Correct
Sting West Arlington D1 BOTH Correct
FCD 01 PPL D1 LH Correct
Oak Cliff Arlington D1 BOTH Correct

Was FBR a better predictor of success, or was the seeding a better predictor?

You also left out Redstar...

As I've said in the past, all of the '01 ranking systems + LH Seeding were pretty much an overall wash on accuracy.

Not sure I buy that conclusion. One has to consider LH seeding has a huge impact on where a team qualifies considering their method for bracketing. Redstar seeded at 17 did a great job qualifying, and yes they now hold their own in D1, but teams like Cosmos or FCD were seeded lowand ende d up in much tougher QT brackets the second weekend. If LH had put Cosmos, FWFC or Texans Red up at 17 each of those teams would likely have made D1. The only team LH was clearly more accurate than the ranking systems was Fusion Navy, and that was due to Fusion having lost 5 or 6 key players a few weeks before QT.

IMO if you're evaluating how accurate the various methods were you'd look at not only where the teams qualified, but how they've performed since qualifying.

I am curious by your argument, so please gather up the data that is available on the LH web site and BWGophers posts, and let us know how it looks.

fourfourtwo wrote:

bwgophers wrote:

deepthoughts wrote:

bwgophers wrote:Here's the LH QT Seeding for the '01's vs. the final FBR rankings I published leading into signing day last year.

As you see, there are some significant discrepancies, even within the top 10, that would suggest that FBR plays little to no factor in the QT seedings.

So I'd be interested in who was more accurate in the end, on the teams with 5+ spot discrepancies between FBR and LH Seeders.

Where did these teams qualify?
Diamonds LH D3 FBR Correct
Redstar LH D1 LH Correct
Fusion LH D3 LH Correct
AFC Red PPL D1 FBR Correct
NTX Strikers PPL D1 BOTH Correct
Cosmos LH D3 FBR Correct
Sting West Arlington D1 BOTH Correct
FCD 01 PPL D1 LH Correct
Oak Cliff Arlington D1 BOTH Correct

Was FBR a better predictor of success, or was the seeding a better predictor?

You also left out Redstar...

As I've said in the past, all of the '01 ranking systems + LH Seeding were pretty much an overall wash on accuracy.

Not sure I buy that conclusion. One has to consider LH seeding has a huge impact on where a team qualifies considering their method for bracketing. Redstar seeded at 17 did a great job qualifying, and yes they now hold their own in D1, but teams like Cosmos or FCD were seeded lowand ende d up in much tougher QT brackets the second weekend. If LH had put Cosmos, FWFC or Texans Red up at 17 each of those teams would likely have made D1. The only team LH was clearly more accurate than the ranking systems was Fusion Navy, and that was due to Fusion having lost 5 or 6 key players a few weeks before QT.

IMO if you're evaluating how accurate the various methods were you'd look at not only where the teams qualified, but how they've performed since qualifying.

The conclusion was based solely on the accuracy of each method to predict who qualified for LHGCL. We ran a whole "contest" to see who/what was the best, human opinion polls from forum users, computer rankings (FBR and Power Rankings), consolidated Human + Computer (BCS), and Lake Highlands seeding...

The bottom line was that everybody got 8 out of 11 1st week qualifiers correct. Everybody got either 17 or 18 D1 teams correct. Everybody got 27 or 28 out of 30 total D1 + D3 teams correct. The exact teams that were correct/incorrect varied, but overall, it was basically a wash.

Your statement about the actual seeding impacting whether a team qualified or not may be true, but now you are going on pure speculation. No one can say with certainty that if FC Dallas had Redstar's draw and vice/versa that the results would have been swapped exactly, and we can't go back and change the results, so what's the point.

...and just because FC Dallas, Sting West O'Keefe, AFC, and Sting West Sampaio are cleaning up on everyone in PPL and APL, doesn't predict how they would be doing in LH D3.

So again, if you want to do the leg work, go ahead, but I think it's a moot exercise and won't really provide any value, or any insight as to who did a better job predicting success 6 months after the fact. It would still all be conjecture or coincidence at this point.

At the end of the day, LHGCL doesn't publicize their methodology and the only thing you can do is put your team together, sign up for QT, play your games, and hope your team shows up and performs to expectations. There will be some surprise teams that qualify higher than expected, and there will be some surprise teams that don't qualify where everyone expected them to.

bwgophers wrote:

fourfourtwo wrote:

bwgophers wrote:

deepthoughts wrote:

bwgophers wrote:Here's the LH QT Seeding for the '01's vs. the final FBR rankings I published leading into signing day last year.

As you see, there are some significant discrepancies, even within the top 10, that would suggest that FBR plays little to no factor in the QT seedings.

So I'd be interested in who was more accurate in the end, on the teams with 5+ spot discrepancies between FBR and LH Seeders.

Where did these teams qualify?
Diamonds LH D3 FBR Correct
Redstar LH D1 LH Correct
Fusion LH D3 LH Correct
AFC Red PPL D1 FBR Correct
NTX Strikers PPL D1 BOTH Correct
Cosmos LH D3 FBR Correct
Sting West Arlington D1 BOTH Correct
FCD 01 PPL D1 LH Correct
Oak Cliff Arlington D1 BOTH Correct

Was FBR a better predictor of success, or was the seeding a better predictor?

You also left out Redstar...

As I've said in the past, all of the '01 ranking systems + LH Seeding were pretty much an overall wash on accuracy.

Not sure I buy that conclusion. One has to consider LH seeding has a huge impact on where a team qualifies considering their method for bracketing. Redstar seeded at 17 did a great job qualifying, and yes they now hold their own in D1, but teams like Cosmos or FCD were seeded lowand ende d up in much tougher QT brackets the second weekend. If LH had put Cosmos, FWFC or Texans Red up at 17 each of those teams would likely have made D1. The only team LH was clearly more accurate than the ranking systems was Fusion Navy, and that was due to Fusion having lost 5 or 6 key players a few weeks before QT.

IMO if you're evaluating how accurate the various methods were you'd look at not only where the teams qualified, but how they've performed since qualifying.

The conclusion was based solely on the accuracy of each method to predict who qualified for LHGCL. We ran a whole "contest" to see who/what was the best, human opinion polls from forum users, computer rankings (FBR and Power Rankings), consolidated Human + Computer (BCS), and Lake Highlands seeding...

The bottom line was that everybody got 8 out of 11 1st week qualifiers correct. Everybody got either 17 or 18 D1 teams correct. Everybody got 27 or 28 out of 30 total D1 + D3 teams correct. The exact teams that were correct/incorrect varied, but overall, it was basically a wash.

Your statement about the actual seeding impacting whether a team qualified or not may be true, but now you are going on pure speculation. No one can say with certainty that if FC Dallas had Redstar's draw and vice/versa that the results would have been swapped exactly, and we can't go back and change the results, so what's the point.

...and just because FC Dallas, Sting West O'Keefe, AFC, and Sting West Sampaio are cleaning up on everyone in PPL and APL, doesn't predict how they would be doing in LH D3.

So again, if you want to do the leg work, go ahead, but I think it's a moot exercise and won't really provide any value, or any insight as to who did a better job predicting success 6 months after the fact. It would still all be conjecture or coincidence at this point.

At the end of the day, LHGCL doesn't publicize their methodology and the only thing you can do is put your team together, sign up for QT, play your games, and hope your team shows up and performs to expectations. There will be some surprise teams that qualify higher than expected, and there will be some surprise teams that don't qualify where everyone expected them to.

Lake highlands seeding was about 4% better than FBR @ predicting where the teams would qualify. I would've expected LH to be much better given the bracketing was based on LH seeding and not FBR. It has to be expected LH seeding will drive where teams qualify since they are setting up who plays who.

Half way through the season, FBR is about 10% better than LH seeding at predicting performance. If you balance out Fusion Navy which was probably the only significant outlier (major roster changes before QT that computer rankings couldn't adjust for but puma cup did), you get FBR performing close to 20% better than LH seeding. It will be interesting to run the #s at the end of the season.

fourfourtwo wrote:

bwgophers wrote:

fourfourtwo wrote:

bwgophers wrote:

deepthoughts wrote:

bwgophers wrote:Here's the LH QT Seeding for the '01's vs. the final FBR rankings I published leading into signing day last year.

As you see, there are some significant discrepancies, even within the top 10, that would suggest that FBR plays little to no factor in the QT seedings.

So I'd be interested in who was more accurate in the end, on the teams with 5+ spot discrepancies between FBR and LH Seeders.

Where did these teams qualify?
Diamonds LH D3 FBR Correct
Redstar LH D1 LH Correct
Fusion LH D3 LH Correct
AFC Red PPL D1 FBR Correct
NTX Strikers PPL D1 BOTH Correct
Cosmos LH D3 FBR Correct
Sting West Arlington D1 BOTH Correct
FCD 01 PPL D1 LH Correct
Oak Cliff Arlington D1 BOTH Correct

Was FBR a better predictor of success, or was the seeding a better predictor?

You also left out Redstar...

As I've said in the past, all of the '01 ranking systems + LH Seeding were pretty much an overall wash on accuracy.

Not sure I buy that conclusion. One has to consider LH seeding has a huge impact on where a team qualifies considering their method for bracketing. Redstar seeded at 17 did a great job qualifying, and yes they now hold their own in D1, but teams like Cosmos or FCD were seeded lowand ende d up in much tougher QT brackets the second weekend. If LH had put Cosmos, FWFC or Texans Red up at 17 each of those teams would likely have made D1. The only team LH was clearly more accurate than the ranking systems was Fusion Navy, and that was due to Fusion having lost 5 or 6 key players a few weeks before QT.

IMO if you're evaluating how accurate the various methods were you'd look at not only where the teams qualified, but how they've performed since qualifying.

The conclusion was based solely on the accuracy of each method to predict who qualified for LHGCL. We ran a whole "contest" to see who/what was the best, human opinion polls from forum users, computer rankings (FBR and Power Rankings), consolidated Human + Computer (BCS), and Lake Highlands seeding...

The bottom line was that everybody got 8 out of 11 1st week qualifiers correct. Everybody got either 17 or 18 D1 teams correct. Everybody got 27 or 28 out of 30 total D1 + D3 teams correct. The exact teams that were correct/incorrect varied, but overall, it was basically a wash.

Your statement about the actual seeding impacting whether a team qualified or not may be true, but now you are going on pure speculation. No one can say with certainty that if FC Dallas had Redstar's draw and vice/versa that the results would have been swapped exactly, and we can't go back and change the results, so what's the point.

...and just because FC Dallas, Sting West O'Keefe, AFC, and Sting West Sampaio are cleaning up on everyone in PPL and APL, doesn't predict how they would be doing in LH D3.

So again, if you want to do the leg work, go ahead, but I think it's a moot exercise and won't really provide any value, or any insight as to who did a better job predicting success 6 months after the fact. It would still all be conjecture or coincidence at this point.

At the end of the day, LHGCL doesn't publicize their methodology and the only thing you can do is put your team together, sign up for QT, play your games, and hope your team shows up and performs to expectations. There will be some surprise teams that qualify higher than expected, and there will be some surprise teams that don't qualify where everyone expected them to.

Lake highlands seeding was about 4% better than FBR @ predicting where the teams would qualify. I would've expected LH to be much better given the bracketing was based on LH seeding and not FBR. It has to be expected LH seeding will drive where teams qualify since they are setting up who plays who.

Half way through the season, FBR is about 10% better than LH seeding at predicting performance. If you balance out Fusion Navy which was probably the only significant outlier (major roster changes before QT that computer rankings couldn't adjust for but puma cup did), you get FBR performing close to 20% better than LH seeding. It will be interesting to run the #s at the end of the season.

Winning!

OMG.......butt3r.........awesome.

butt3r wrote:

I couldn't understand how this "blind choice" image makes sense given the data. I'll expand on this more and maybe you'll see the light.

Let's consider all cases where there was a difference of 3 or greater spots between where LH seeded a team and FBR had them ranked.

1) Andro Powers. LH Seed 4, FBR rank 8. Qualified 8. Current LH Standings 9.
This team had a 2 year history of being in the 8 to 14 range. They had a huge King Tut: tied Sting flanagan, beat FCD grubb and lost to TFC.

LH jumped them all the way to #4 based on that one tourney, so clearly LH puts a huge emphasis on pre-QT tourney results. During first weekend of QT, this team scored a very late goal to tie against #19 seed FWFC to qualify D1. Had Andro not gotten that tie FWFC would've qualified first weekend as a #19 seed - which is probably unheard of. FBR clearly had it right.


2) FCD Grubb. LH Seed 5. FBR Rank 2. Qualified 3. current LH in 3 way tie for 1.
FBR had it right. Grubb had a two year history of being the #1 or #2 team. One poor weekend (to their standards) at King tut and LH dropped them to a 5 seed.

3) Dfeeters. LH Seed 8. FBR rank 9. Qualified 16. current LH standings 11.
Both missed, but given their first half schedule schedule, this is a team that will likely end up in top 10 by end of season. There was not much delta between where LH and FBR had them, but I included them here because of the delta in where they qualified.

4) Solar Monte. LH Seed 10. FBR rank 6. Qualified 11. Current LH standings 8. It's too early to tell, but FBR will probably end up right on this one. Monte played a tough fall schedule and most expect them to be at or very near top 5 by season's end. This one is a poster child for LH seed driving where a team qualified.

5) DT North. LH Seed 15. FBR rank 19. Qualified 9. Current standing 15. LH got this one right. Like Fusion Navy, both the DT Hollis teams had significant roster changes shortly before QT. (with both being beneficiaries of the Sting Shephard implosion).
This team became much stronger shortly before QT and were better than their historical record.

6) Blue Diamonds. LH Seed 16. FBR Rank 28. Qualified 24. Current LH Standing 25. Clear as day. I won't beat up on this team anymore than they've already been over the years.

7) Redstar. LH Seed 17. FBR Rank 24. Qualified 20. Current LH Standing 20. Too soon to tell on this one, though I will admit I've been very impressed with this team's development. They are far better now than they were at QT. I've seen them play futsal and they do have a couple players who could start on top 5 teams.

Fusion Navy. LH seed 21. FBR Rank 12. Qualified 25. Current LH standing 28. Already discussed what happened here.

9) AFC Red. LH seed 26.FBR rank 33. Did not Qualify. FBR right.

10) Cosmos Black. LH seed 33. FBR rank 23. Qualified 29. Current standing 23. This team is poster child for FBR. LH seeds this team 10 spots lower than FBR says they earned with historic results, but they still manage to qualify. They are now one of the top D3 teams and in the hunt with a handful others for moving to D2 for U12.

11) FCD Pratt. LH seed 35. FBR Rank 26. DNQ. Like cosmos, LH team seeded this FCD team far lower than their historic results. Down At 35, LH seeded them so low they ended up with their 2nd weekend bracket consisting of TSN (current LH #13), FWFC (current LH#21), and Cosmos Black (current LH#23). FCD didn't make it out of the week 2 "G bracket of death" that had 4 teams with historical performance indicating they were top 30. Of course the girls have to do it on the field, but I'd say LH hurt this team's qualifying potential.

All the others were outside top 30 in both LH and FBR. Overall the evidence is clear both FBR and LH did a VERY good job with '01 seeding/ranking, but LH was not a huge delta from FBR in the first place.

However, if you use the criteria of how well those teams subsequently performed relative to each other, LH was typically wrong where it deviated from FBR. The exceptions were those few teams that had major roster movement near signing and proved they were significantly improved (or worse) in the pre-QT tournaments.

This reflects the biggest achilles heel of FBR - it doesn't currently weight recent games more heavily than historical games. Should that flaw be corrected, LH would be well-advised to use FBR or something similar as a primary factor in their seeding. Given how few major discrepancies existed between the two, wouldn't surprise me if they already did.