Gramp's Braggin' Rights 2023-2024 Missouri Boy's Basketball Ratings

Updated March 12th, 2024

Gramps Final Missouri Boys Class Three Basketball ratings are no surprise. New Madrid County Central has been on top of the heap all season long and the rest of the top ten is really no surprise to Gramps, although the Coaches poll was a real mishmash.

I was looking back at the MBCA Coaches poll from February 5th and wondered what they were smoking in their Class Three rankings. Their top ten included Lafayette County (#2 vs. Gramps #14), KIPP KC (#5 vs Gramps #18), Palmyra (#6 vs. Gramps #15), and Malden (#10 vs. Gramps #20). Summit Christian Academy, the Runner-up finisher, and Montgomery County (the fourth-place finisher), were not even honorable mentions in the coaches' poll. Lafayette County, KIPP and Malden did not even win their districts. Ouch!

Gramps had Summit Christian at #6 in the February 13th rating and #11 in the January ratings. I guess the coaches are not reading Gramp's blog.

Maybe the MBCA should just take over Gramps' calculations and not ask the coaches to stuff the ballot box for their team?

Anyway, enough of the "Gotcha Again" stuff.

Congrats to New Madrid County Central on a great season and their second straight State Title, and a great run by Summit Christian, Montgomery County, and third-place Thayer.

Updated February 26th, 2024

Gramps continues to hit about 83% on his district picks with Class Three Boys being no different at 82%. In addition, Gramps hit 11 of 16 district titlists for 69%. #30 Kingston edged #26 Greenville in District Three, #10 Greenwood knocked off #5 Sparta and #4 Fair Grove in a tight and stacked District 11, #60 Southwest Washburn beat #41 Lamar in District 12, #36 Butler edged #16 Adrian in District 13 and #18 East Buchanan knocked off Bishop LeBlond after LeBlond had eliminated a fine #7 KIPP KC team in District 15.

Besides KIPP, Fair Grove and Sparta, the rest of the top ten survived to play again in the State Tournament. More on Class Three Boys before the tournament starts.

Updated February 13th, 2024, update February 15th for Fatima missing in district 9

Special teams come along only so often, and New Madrid County Central (22-1) seems to be one of those types of teams. NMCC's only loss this year was a two-point defeat to Sikeston, another really special Class Five team. The only problem with NMCC's journey to a state title is that it weaves through the heart of Gramps Class three boys' ratings.

The State Tournament brackets are set up with Districts 1-4 and 9-12 in the top bracket and Districts 5-8 and 13-16 in the bottom bracket. When you look at the top ten in this class, #2 through #5 rated teams are in Districts 9, 10 and 11. So for NMCC to win out, they will have to play the best teams from opening to final round.

That will leave #6 Summit Academy, #7 Kipp KC, #8 Versailles and #9 Palmyra to fight it out in the lower bracket.

But you have to win them all to be state champ, so NMCC will have to work hard the entire tournament to really be called one special team.

Below the Class Three Boys ratings are the teams by district with a summary of those contests.

Here are my thoughts on all 16 districts:

District 1: New Madrid Co. Central is a 26-point favorite over several good teams.
District 2: Charleston is a slight favorite over Kelly and Saxony Lutheran
District 3: Greenville should squeak by Kingston
District 4: Jefferson (Festus) is favored over St. Pius X of Festus
District 5: Toss-up between Priory and Whitfield, two backyard Ladue neighbors
District 6: Palmyra takes the cake
District 7: Montgomery County and Hermann are neck and neck
District 8: Versailles runs the table
District 9: Fatima
District 10:Thayer, for sure
District 11: Fair Grove, Sparta and Greenwood battle it out
District 12: Lamar has the edge
District 13: Yo, Adrian. (What movie?)
District 14: Summit Christian Academy must get by Lafayette County
District 15: Kipp has the inside track but watch out for St. Pius X, East Buchanan and Bishop LeBlond
District 16: Lawson and Trenton fight each other in a lower-rated district

Update January 27th, 2024 Revised 9pm

I found a formula error with Fair Grove, which moved them up from 104 rating to 129. I wouldn't have found it if I hadn't seen their win over Sparta and my spreadsheet gave some strange data.

Apologies to the mighty Eagles.

Team A beats Team B, Team B beats Team C, Team C beats Team A.... Who rates higher?

Well, if I am dealing with a top-five or -ten teams, I dig into the score differential, the strength of schedule, and results for common opponents. So often these outstanding teams keep knocking each other off and it gets darn hard to rate teams statistically. I might weight several game results in a team's rating to end up with fair ratings.

It is all in the eyes of the beholder as to what is fair and what is not fair. I know that the fans for whichever team falls below the top competitors will be harranging me about their team's rating.

For the middle and bottom groups of teams, I don't have the time to split hairs and I use a straight rating. So if your team falls in that middle or bottom group, I have not analyzed the head-to-head results sufficiently to catch all the possibilities. The team rating is based on their season average of opponent ratings plus/minus the winning or losing margin.

So if I ignore your pleas to adjust your team's rating, it might be that their #68 rating impacts my lack of interest in comparing them to #67 and #69.

Teams that I can't ignore are New Madrid County Central, Thayer, and KIPP Academy of Kansas City. Fatima, Sparta, and Palmyra are lurking in the #4 to #6 spots. A couple of teams the coaches poll continue to ignore include Fair Grove, who I had found a math formula error, Summit Christian Academy, Caruthersville, East Buchanan, and Adrian.

What does the State Tournament shape up to be? Well, Districts 1-4 and 9-12 face off in the upper bracket, and Districts 5-8 and 12--16 form the lower bracket. That means New Madrid County and the Thayer/Fatima/Sparta/Greenwood quarterfinal winner might end up meeting in one semi-final and KIPP KC and any number of District 5-8 teams (Palmyra, Versailles, Montgomery County) in the other semi. There is a good chance that the Class Three final will have two of the top five teams in the state playing each other, which is a good thing. Too often, the district assignments leave the best teams fighting it out in a district final or an opening-round game.

Updated January 13th, 2024

Where, oh, where, have you been hiding Thayer boy's basketball? Playing lots of games in Arkansas and making life miserable for Gramps because I have to rate half the teams in Arkansas to get a rating on the Thayer Bobcats. They say that Bobcats are shy cats and it is hard to find them although I did have one hanging around the summer home last winter (photo below).

But I got a good look at you and you are coming up in Gramps ratings, slowly catching up to New Madrid Country Central for the #1 spot.

Who else looks good? Well, EVERYONE over in Kansas City is telling about KIPP and there are some good teams the MBCA has voted in their top ten, but a few were missing.... Summit Christian Academy, St. Pius X KC, East Buchanan and Adrian to name a few.

Revised 12/18/2023

This is the time of year when Gramp's is wrong about as often as I am right. Just about the time I post a class of ratings, several teams face off in a contest and prove me wrong. The other day, I posted girl's class three with Centralia and South Shelby tied in the top ten with a 138 rating. That night, those two teams played each other and Jay O'Bannon let me know that Centralia routed South Shelby 62-28. Not only was it not close, it was a total blow-out by Centralia. So it was back to the drawing board for Gramps on those class three teams.

I am okay with the feedback as long as it is kind and informative. It's the "In-your-face" feedback that bugs me. I know and I remind followers that early ratings are less dependable than later ratings because there are not sufficient games to fully establish a team's power rating. By mid-January, the ratings stack up well.

That does not mean there won't be upsets. These are 15, 16, and 17-year-olds playing a sport with many moving parts. A key player gets hurt and the whole game or even the whole season is in question. The other night, the Eureka boys played Liberty Wentzville, and the Eagles big 6'6" center, Aiden King, sprained an ankle and it changed the complexion of the game. It should have been a 5 to 8-point difference but Eureka clamped down on the Eagles, held them to 12 shots and 20 points, and won 51-20. Ouch!

So when Gramps is rating teams, I don't often see those key players going down. I only look at the scoreboard and calculate power ratings on the score differential. Experts like Earl Austin Jr can tell you who the key players were and who is out. I am just a statistician. No more, no less, and if a team loses a key player, it will show up in the score differential for the rest of the season but I only worry about the power rating for the whole year, regardless of who's hot and who's hurt.

So, the class three boys ratings are a work in progress. I know New Madrid County Central is a very good team and Sparta is not too far behind. Fatima has been strong too. Thayer has been traveling to Florida and Arkansas for games that are outside of my rating pool so I don't know if they are better or worse than their current rating (based on last year).

There are some great teams in the top 15 but I don't know if any of them will come close to New Madrid.

Enjoy the Holiday!

If you find an error in my teams or district assignments, let me know. I am still trying to sort through the MSHSAA class and district realignment in my report page.