The Maxwell Ratings playoff projections are based on a Monte Carlo simulation of the 2014 season. The simulation completed 1,000,000 seasons, approximately 51 each second.
While the Maxwell Ratings reflect each team’s strength, the simulation highlights the impact of the season’s structure as defined by the games, region alignments, and playoff brackets.
All out of state opponents were considered equal to the average of the GHSA team’s classification (i.e., out of state opponents of Class AA GHSA teams were treated as an average Class AA team).
Although regions may use different criteria, in the simulation all standings were determined by using recursive head-to-head records with all ties being broken randomly.
Modal Bracket
Although any specific bracket is highly unlikely, the modal bracket represents the most probable of all the possible brackets. In Class AAA, there are 9.78 x 10^31 possible brackets. For comparison, scientists estimate there are 7.5 x 10^18 grains of sand on earth.
Credit: Todd Holcomb
Credit: Todd Holcomb
Playoff Projections by Region
Each region is shown with the number of teams that have a greater than average chance of winning the state championship, the number of times it is represented in the finals out of a possible 2,000,000 times, and the number of times it is represented by the state champion along with the associated odds.
Playoff Projections by Team
Each team is shown with the number of times it made the playoffs, its average depth into the playoffs, the number of times of making it to the finals, and the number of times of winning the state championship along with the associated odds.
About the Author