Last week, we couldn’t really figure out how god-of-statistics Nate Silver called the Maryland gubernatorial election for Democratic candidate Lt Gov Anthony G Brown. All our pointers were telling us Republican businessman Larry Hogan would win. And he did.
But even our predictive statistics called the football game between North Greene and Abingdon-Avon in the second round of the Class 1A Illinois High School Association playoffs for Abingdon-Avon. Our numbers were leaning so strongly in favor of Abingdon-Avon that we weren’t even watching the game.
Then we got a score report showing North Greene winning, and there was an “F” next to the score, indicating it was a final score. We double checked on MaxPreps. Same thing. We reported the score, 58-44, and then started looking for reasons. They came in a local newspaper, the Galesburg Register-Mail, where reporter Jackson White was also stunned by the upset.
“They played a great game,” he quoted Abingdon-Avon head coach Rick Quinn as saying. “Offensively we couldn’t get anything going in the second half. We had two big fumbles on two big drives. It was a big boxing match: we took a big punch and couldn’t respond.”
Ah yes, turnovers will kill a strong team’s charge in a football game just as assuredly as a lackluster campaign will kill a Democrat’s election chances in an exceedingly blue state. Plus, playoffs tend to encourage kids to rise to the challenge, which is what North Greene clearly did here.
So congratulations to the No 10 Spartans from North Greene High School in White Hall, led by coach Tony Rhoades, on a great victory, and on knowing that when you get a break, you have to work to keep it. Their schedule wasn’t that strong this year, which is why our computer program and IHSA’s seeding formula placed them as low as they did. But in week 5 of the regular season, right in the middle, they did hold Carrollton close, losing by only 6 points, 21-15. Carrollton is now one of only 17 teams in the state that remain undefeated after 11 games.
Other upsets in Round 2
We show here the remaining games our mathematical algorithm would consider “upsets” in Round 2 of the IHSA playoffs. The score is shown, followed by the odds of winning the victor had, according to our algorithm.
- [4A] Coal City d. Elgin (St. Edward), 25-20, 5%
- [3A] Byron d. Chicago (Harper), 51-16, 5%
- [3A] Robinson d. Marshall, 27-7, 10%
- [5A] Morris d. Mahomet (M.-Seymour), 35-23, 10%
- [6A] Lake Forest (H.S.) d. Glen Ellyn (Glenbard South), 42-28, 40%
- [2A] Tuscola d. Lawrenceville, 21-7, 40%
- [6A] Wheaton (St. Francis) d. Lake Villa (Lakes), 39-36, 40%
For example, we gave Coal City only a 5-percent chance of beating St Edward, and they won by 5 points. Like Abingdon-Avon in Class 1A, St Edward in 4A fell victim to the turnover monster, giving the ball up 4 times and taking it only once over the course of the game, the Daily Herald reported.
In other words, although our computer algorithm, using apparent offensive and defensive strength and taking into account the strength of a team’s schedule, does a decent job, mistakes like turnovers or penalties during important drives will punt our mathematical model way out of bounds.
