Martin Luther King Day and some Class Two Boys analysis

 Varsity Assistant Cory Nicholson of the New Franklin Boys basketball team had a question about New Franklin's rating vs. Harrisburg, who they beat twice, and Salisbury, who they lost by two early in the season.  I thought I would answer that question but first, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Martin Luther King holiday.

Only some people are thrilled with the MLK Holiday.  I think it is an important American Holiday.  It is a reminder of the monumental struggle for civil rights by King and others that brought some advancement of the rights of people of color.  

Yet, we are backsliding on our progress.  Some want to castigate the "Woke" movement.  (If you don't like "woke", then stop here and unfollow me).  I think Woke means being aware.  Aware of others in need, aware of our past and the lessons we should learn from it.  Aware of how we all want to be treated.

Some want to ban books and not teach our history.  We don't want to hear about white privilege.  We don't want our children to feel guilty about our past.  It is not guilt we are teaching when we talk about American History.  It is awareness of where we have been and where we are going.

Enslaved people and immigrants built our nation.  We became and still are a great nation.  A beacon to countries that want to emulate our democracy.  But if we backslide and stop embracing immigrants, stop reading controversial books, and stop the progress of people of color, we will no longer be the nation others want to emulate.

I wish everyone would study our past.  How we enslaved free black men of Africa to build our mansions and plantations and wealth.  How we emancipated the enslaved and then enslaved them as sharecroppers who never quite made a profit because the old master cooked the books.

How we enacted Jim Crow laws to take away new-found freedoms and how we lynched over 5000 people of color for looking at you wrong.  The Lynching Museum is another place everyone should go to hear about our past.  You don't have to feel guilty about this era, but you better understand what WE were doing one hundred-odd years ago.

We sent black soldiers off to fight Hitler and the Japanese and when they came home, we prevented them from using their GI bill to buy houses and create wealth.  The governmental agencies let housing developments put up "NO BLACKS" on their neighborhood signs and the governmental lending agencies went out of their way to turn down blacks for home loans.

We did our damned best to keep blacks from integrating our schools and voting in our elections.  We shouldn't be proud of all of these things, but we should at least learn from them.

My father's ancestors have been in America for nearly four hundred years.  My eighth great-grandfather owned slaves on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  I am not proud of that but I accept it.  I want to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

My mother's ancestors were Germans from the Ukraine who brought their wheat seed to America in the 1870s and created the wheat belt across the Midwest.  My Scots-Irish ancestors fought in the Civil War for the Ohio 71st Infantry.  All five brothers and four brothers-in-law.

Many of us come from immigrants who helped build railroads, bridges, towns, and factories and fought in several world wars.  Immigrants made our country great and new immigrants continue to come to build a better life.  We are better for it.  I want my grandchildren to learn about our past and be proud of who we are as a nation BUT also learn from our mistakes.  We don't need to guilt them.  We just need to prod them along to think about how we want things to be different than the past.

We need to remember Martin Luther King as a great civil rights leader.  We need to remember our past and where we came from and support those who strive to come to our great country to build a new life.

Amen.

Now back to Coach Cory and his question.  I hope I still have a few readers left.

I occasionally look at top teams in a class when ratings are confusing (to me or to the coaches).  Cory indicated that New Franklin (rating 121) lost by two to Salisbury (rating 130) and beat Harrisburg (rating 119) twice by eight and seven.  I did an analysis of all three teams and their strength of schedule.  That table is below:

Salisbury has played a tougher schedule (103 opponent rating), losing only to Hallsville.  With their remaining schedule, I expect they will finish 27-1, beating Hallsville the second time around.  Using their 66-37 PF/PA, the Pythagorean Winning Percentage will be 96.4% (or 27-1).

Harrisburg has also played a decent schedule (106 opponent rating) which will become easier in the second half.  The strong SOS helps their 118 rating even with the losses to New Franklin.  The Pythagorean Winning Percentage suggests a 22-6 record (78.5% PWP).

New Franklin has another great team this year.  Barely losing to Salisbury early in the season, their only other loss is to Westran by five.  With a 73-48 scoring differential, their PWP comes out to a 26-2 (92.8%) projected record. They will have tough games with Schuyler County and Glasgow but they should win out and then go back for revenge against Salisbury in a tough, tough district.  The only thing keeping New Franklin from a higher rating is a softer schedule (SOS =95) and the loss to Westran, where I thought they were favored. 

District Seven will be one of the most competitive of all classes.

Now you know where I stand on MLK Holiday and on Class Two, District Seven boys.