NW District basketball seeds to be determined by Martin RPI

When tournament time arrives for boys and girls basketball in a couple months, there will be a new method for determining seeding in the Northwest District. Gone, at least for this season, is the ranking system that involved votes by each coach in a given district. It'll now be Martin RPI, an analytics tool specifically made for Ohio high school basketball, that will seed the teams. "From the OHSAA's perspective, that was the thing they liked the most about it was getting rid of the coaches' vote," said Brayton Martin, the site's founder, "because they're well aware that those coaches' votes can be a little off." The NW District is the pilot district for this setup. The other districts across the state are still constructing their brackets by their past methods, but this allows the OHSAA to get a sense for what an analytically determined bracket could look like. It's already how football playoff brackets are determined, with the Harbin computer formula fully in charge of that. Basketball coaches will still place their teams on individual bracket lines, but the seed order they do that in will be determined by the Martin RPI algorithm. "I love it," Margaretta boys coach Steve Keller said. "And I love it because it takes any type of politics out. You could go to a district and there might be two leagues very well represented and you're kind of the odd team out." Brayton Martin was a basketball player at Ayersville High School in the Northwest District, so it's fitting for him that his numbers will be officially used first in his home district. "It makes it easier for me just because I'm more familiar with everything, as far as tracking down scores and finding things out," Martin said. Martin RPI, much like the football website JoeEitel.com and the Harbin formula, wants to ensure strength-of-schedule is properly factored in when teams are seeded. "Is it a perfect situation? Nothing is," former coaches association president David Sheldon said. "I think if you look at strength of schedule and who wins and who you play, it's just like what we've been doing with football for years." Martin himself has to enter scores from around the state every day, because the only way to know how good one team is to know how good the team it beat was, and the only way to know how good that team is would be to know who it has played, and so on. It had been a challenge each year of the seeding process for coaches to always have a perfect sense of that. And even the coaches who studied up to put their best votes forward didn't always feel like the whole room followed suit. "We've had pretty tough schedules but there are some schools that schedule cupcakes and aren't who they say they are," Bellevue girls coach Kory Santoro said. "I like it. They're gonna go by strength of schedule and all that, I think it gives it a little more fairness." Martin RPI will unveil its initial rankings at the six-week mark of each season — the week of Jan. 1 for girls basketball and the week of Jan. 8 for the boys. That eliminates some statistical noise that may exist earlier in the season with small sample sizes. "It takes a while for each team to have enough games for the rankings to make a little bit of sense," Martin said. From that point on, the rankings will be continuously updated. That should give teams an idea of where they stand in the seeding race at all times, and also provide a glimpse at how a big win can impact the order. "There's always gonna be positive and negative feedback anytime there's a change with anything, especially something they've done one way the whole time," Martin said. "There's been a handful of coaches wanting to know how it all works." This setup wasn't implemented in the Northwest District without a rigorous approval process. Martin met with Doug Ute, the executive director of the OHSAA, after last season, and continued to meet with the OHSAA board, NW District board and coaches association through the summer. Each needed to sign off on giving Martin's system a shot in the Northwest District. "I don't want to do anything with it that doesn't have the majority approval of all the coaches and administrators," Martin said. "I would never want to just force them to do it if it doesn't have the majority approval." Martin had an advocate in then-coaches association president Sheldon, also the head boys coach at Colonel Crawford, whose OHSBCA presidency ended in October. They met at last season's showdown of unbeatens between Western Reserve and Tiffin Calvert. "I was very intrigued last year just following it throughout the year as he was just doing it on his own," Sheldon said. "Basically, we brought it up last April with 16 district directors across the state of Ohio. Our directors were very in favor. It takes all the bias out. It's like the Harbin ratings in football." Sheldon and his Colonel Crawford boys experienced first-hand last year that maybe the Martin RPI formula knew what it was doing. "Last year, we were No. 1 in the state of Ohio by newspaper writers, but in Martin RPI, Ottawa-Glandorf was ahead of us," Sheldon said. "And in the regional final, we got beat by Ottawa-Glandorf, and they were the better basketball team. We were undefeated, but they played a much harder schedule." The hope for Martin is that the whole state eventually uses his formula to better its brackets. He's been a fan of the state tournament since he was young, and once he became a spreadsheet guru, he wanted to fix what he saw as flaws in the bracket process. A season ago, as his website gained popularity, it was only a tool for comparison with no real power. Now, it could have a very real impact on what happens in the Northwest District once the postseason hits. "I believe that Martin RPI is very good," Keller said. "It's very in-depth. We can still place ourselves. It's not gonna take that strategy out. It's just gonna take the seeding strategy out. There's been a few years you scratch your head as to who seeded somebody what because it's like, wow. I do like it." --- Key dates Jan. 1 – First girls basketball rankings released Jan. 8 – First boys basketball rankings released Jan. 29 – Girls basketball tournament draw Feb. 6 – Boys basketball tournament draw Feb. 12 – Girls basketball final rankings released Feb. 15 – Girls basketball sectionals begin Feb. 19 – Boys basketball final rankings released Feb. 22 – Boys basketball sectionals begin