The second round of the Class 3A playoffs presents several classic matchups that should provide an atmosphere not unlike a championship game.
One of the best games is between top-ranked Cedar Grove and an upset-minded No. 7 Rockmart team. Other meetings between ranked teams include No. 3 Peach County hosting No. 10 Thomson and No. 4 Crisp County traveling to No. 9 Richmond Academy.
In the bottom-right quadrant, Rockmart will play at home against Cedar Grove, the two-time defending state champions. “My own opinion is, if you are going to be the best, you have to beat the best,” Rockmart coach Biff Parson said. “The last two years, they have been the best. I feel our bracket might be the toughest road, because if we take care of business this week, next week we likely will have Crisp County.”
The other game in that quadrant is Crisp County at Richmond Academy. Should Cedar Grove and Crisp advance, the quarterfinal game will be a rematch of last year’s state title game.
In the bottom-left quadrant, Peach County meets Thomson. Should the Trojans advance, Peach likely will face No. 2 Oconee County in the quarterfinals. In the top-right quadrant of the bracket, No. 5 Pierce County is the favorite and will have to beat Central-Macon before facing the winner of Carver-Atlanta/Cherokee Bluff. In the top-left quadrant, No. 7 Appling County will face an unranked Upson-Lee program and likely will face No. 6 Greater Atlanta Christian in the quarters, if GAC beats North Hall in the second round.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the Maxwell projections for each game in the second round. The Maxwell Projections are explained as such:
“The projections are a combination of the current Maxwell ratings and actual scoring patterns. For example, in football, scores of 0, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 are significantly more likely than scores such as 1, 2, 4, 5, and 11, and a score of 28 is much more likely than a score of 29.
“Aside from the team information, shown below is each game’s rating, the probability of the favorite winning, the median score for each team, and the median margin of victory for the favorite.
“The game rating is the rating required to win 50 percent of all games in an infinite round robin competition against the expected rating of the loser of the game in proportion to how often each team would win. This rating favors games with highly rated and closely matched opponents.
“The median score for each team is the score that team would achieve both less than and more than at least 50 percent of the time if the game was infinitely repeated. For example, if a team’s median score is 20, then at least 50 percent of the time the team would score 20 points or less and at least 50 percent of the time the team would score 20 points or more. The median margin of victory is the difference between each team’s median score and thus the margin that the favorite would achieve both less than and more than at least 50 percent of the time if the game was infinitely repeated.”
Here are the Maxwell Projections for Round 2:
-- Upson-Lee at No. 8 Appling County: Appling is projected to win 34-7.
-- North Hall at No. 5 Greater Atlanta Christian: GAC is projected to win 35-6.
-- Dawson County at No. 2 Oconee County: Oconee County is projected to win 36-0.
-- No. 10 Thomson at No. 3 Peach County: Peach County is projected to win 29-13.
-- Carver-Atlanta at Cherokee Bluff: Carver is projected to win 27-14.
-- Central-Macon at No. 6 Pierce County: Pierce County is projected to win 31-0.
-- No. 4 Crisp County at No. 9 Richmond Academy: Crisp County is projected to win 24-6.
-- No. 1 Cedar Grove at No. 7 Rockmart: Cedar Grove is projected to win 28-12.
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