Illinois 2019

[fiddhantfen]

Second, things are very different between last year states and this year regionals. I don't think that SAA beating MM had a large margin, and Twin Groves almost beating SAA at a regional where MM and/or DW weren't there isn't a good indicator. While Twin Groves does seem likely to beat SAA, either teams beating MM doesn't seem plausible.

MM completely dominated their regional. Kennedy, Butler, and UC Lab all finished in the top dozen places at State last year - they're not MM or DW, but they should be decent teams. MM scored 26. At the U Chicago invite, MM were almost 50 points clear of Twin Groves. I don't think there's much doubt about MM and DW taking the top two spots this year - the only question is which one of them will take first.

Twin Groves, Woodlawn, SAA, and South can compete for the next few places.

Miracles don't happen all the time. MM is a phenomenal team. They almost made Nats last year. However, my research tells me that there is no way the students of TG are going to let themselves get beaten again. Everyone feels this way. After MM's defeat at State, they've been working very hard. The more you lose, the more inclined you are to work hard. I'm not saying that SAA is going to get a big head from their victory. All I'm saying is that they shouldn't blink, or MM and TG will blow right past them. On a second note, Woodlawn and South will have an epic battle for 5th this year, it'll be very close. The UChicago invite was not a clear cut definition of team strengths. There are an end number of factors that can lead to one team being superior to another. The glaring factor being the fact that scores were taken compiling V and JV together, allowing for schools in which JV is better than V to bump down the V. Now all we can do is wait for April 13th, that is when the show starts.

[FermiGod]

Top 5 predictions for state?

[FermiGod]

Top 3 predictions for state?

Stevenson/New Trier
New Trier/ Stevenson
Naperville North

[Skink]

Those CLC results mask the fact that Stevenson Junior Varsity defeated the other schools' Varsity teams; it's really quite impressive. It would take a twenty or thirty point misstep in two events similar to WIDI for them to fall out of the top two. It could happen, but they have no consistently poor events. I think the top three at State are clear with the real battle being four through ten. As far as B division goes, there isn't enough invitational data to make any new predictions, as the two largest, most predictive invites did not happen this season.

[TheChiScientist]

Ok... Seeing how most of the regionals results have come out (both official and unofficial) I'll make my state predicts for top 10.
1-3. New Trier/Stevenson/Naperville North.
All of these teams performed exceedingly well at their regionals coming within range of sub 30 scores. Stevenson is looking strong this year but the same appeared true last year... We all know how that ended with them. New Trier has major potential to have an uncontested 1st if they avoid any slip-ups at state. I'm thinking they take 1st at state simply because when they have encountered Stevenson before they have a habit of taking 1st in quite a few events Stevenson normally performs well in. Naperville North will be just waiting for one of the traditional top 2 teams to slip up and if they do Naperville North will be there ready to steal that bid from them. Naperville North is insanely consistent in placements so I'd watch out if I were New Trier or Stevenson.

4-6. Grayslake North/Crystal Lake Central/Nequa Valley
Both Grayslake North and Crystal Lake Central (<-hehe) had a surprising show of strength at CLC and given the fact that CLC was one of the hardest regionals in the state sets both teams up to be within striking distance of a top 5 bid at state assuming that they have no major slip-ups. Nequea Valley also performed extremely well at a difficult regional with some top 15 teams present so I wouldn't be surprised if they got top 5.

7-10. Hinsdale Central/Naperville Central/UC Lab Schools
Hinsdale has gotten extremely weak over the past year and it can be clearly seen by their regionals results over the past 2 years along with them losing on multiple occasions to JV teams at their regional this year. Still, top 10 material but I think top 5 would be a major stretch given this year's competition. Naperville Central got second at their regionals beating Hinsdale Central and making a major leap from their results at last years regionals. Same can be said for UC Lab Schools. Expect to see these teams in the top 10.

Honorable mentions: Lyons Township, Metea Valley, Waubonsie Valley, Conant, Libertyville, IMSA.
Feel free to ask me to elaborate on or challenge my predictions.

[Skink]

You're underestimating Hinsdale. I did that last season, and it threw my predictions a bit. Go back and look at the Conant results again. They beat you by a more than 100pt margin

[TheChiScientist]

You're underestimating Hinsdale. I did that last season, and it threw my predictions a bit. Go back and look at the Conant results again. They beat you by a more than 100pt margin

Uh, two things here.
1. Conant is a terrible representation. Way too early in the season and even then Hinsdale did poorly.
2. What they beat us by is irrelevant for Conant. This is cause we went in with unstacked teams. (If stacked we got around 170.)
Try again Skink.

[Skink]

Do we actually see that much fluctuation in rankings from December through April? I'm not suggesting that teams don't improve over time, but there aren't generally major ranking shake-ups during the height of the season. I've only personally seen an interesting case like this once (and this was many years ago now). I'll give you the unstacked excuse, though Does anyone have Libertyville results?

[TheChiScientist]

Do we actually see that much fluctuation in rankings from December through April? I'm not suggesting that teams don't improve over time, but there aren't generally major ranking shake-ups during the height of the season. I've only personally seen an interesting case like this once (and this was many years ago now). I'll give you the unstacked excuse, though Does anyone have Libertyville results?

Well, I've noticed that if fluctuation occurs in teams it happens in the build events which is expected if a team is making progress. This can be a major factor in many cases. Example from last year: IMSA was a very well rounded team in all events except builds. This was very clear and it brought down their overall scores significantly when they competed. Events like these that improve from December to April are quite clear and can cause significant impacts. Like I used to get around 20th in boom in November and now I'm placing in the top 5 consistently since February at competitions. What helps a team more? A 20th or a top 5 result? And this is only for one event. Imagine this occurs throughout 5 or more events. Now you've shaved off 60ish points from your overall score by having events improve significantly. Just my insight into how improvements work for teams. I haven't really seen this in Hinsdale Central so I may be underrating them but they haven't given me a good reason for me to rate them higher.

[beaker6]

CLC Division B State Qualification
1. DW-39
2. Woodland Middle-62
3. Grayslake Middle-96
4. Wilmette Junior high -97
5. Woodlawn-102
6. Fredrick-150