Downers North leads surprise list in playoff Round 2

By
Paul Katula
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Led by coach John Wander, the Trojans from Downers Grove North High School in Class 7A continue to out-perform their regular season averages, according to our statistical tracking. They defeated Thornton Friday, 29-13, which was a little bit of an upset—our model gave Thornton about a 68-percent chance of winning—but the Round 1 game in which the Trojans defeated 9-0 Batavia went against an 80-percent probability that Batavia would win the game.

During the regular season, Downers Grove North turned in an unimpressive 5-4 record, 2-4 in their conference, the West Suburban Silver Conference. Among those five victories, only one defeated opponent made the playoffs (Oak Park-River Forest), and the combined wins of all defeated opponents in the regular season was 14, representing an average of less than three per opponent. The Trojans almost beat Hinsdale Central in Week 8, losing 21-20, but our mathematical models were calling that a close game just a few weeks into the season.

Defense worked on Friday for the Trojans, as they held Thornton scoreless through three and a half quarters.

The Chicago Tribune quoted Wander as saying, “Until the last four minutes of the game, our defense had one of the best defensive performances I’ve seen for Downers Grove North. I can’t say enough for the first three-and-a-half quarters of defense we played.”

Analysis of the ‘combined wins by defeated opponents’ statistic

The 14 mark achieved by Downers Grove North, referenced above, is equal to or greater than 334 teams this year, out of 580 varsity teams we tracked (58th percentile). One might interpret this as meaning that the Trojans, during the regular season, defeated mainly “easy” teams, teams that didn’t win many games.

If we limit our analysis to the 256 teams that made the playoffs, Downers Grove North looks even worse on the stat sheet. Only 30 teams had a lower number of combined wins by defeated opponents statistic and 10 had the same value of 14. This puts Downers Grove North in the 16th percentile among playoff teams, using only this one statistic. Furthermore, Downers Grove North is the only team to have a combined wins by defeated opponents statistic of 14 or lower and still be in the playoffs. Four of those 40 teams were eliminated in Round 2 (Bartlett, 13; Geneseo, 13; Steinmetz, 12; Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland Coop, 12), and the other 36 teams, 90 percent of them, fell in Round 1.

Our models don’t use this statistic or any statistic based on wins and losses in assessing team strength—maybe they should—but the Illinois High School Association uses this number to break ties in determining which teams get a playoff berth. Our predictive statistics, on the other hand, use points scored and points allowed by teams and their opponents. We use two models for games, one that puts more weight on the performance of a team’s opponents, and one that puts more weight on the performance of the team itself.

Brooks 49, Austin Coop 12 [4A]

Our mathematical models gave the Austin Coop at VOISE Academy in Chicago about a three in four chance of winning their game against Brooks. Brooks overcame similar odds in Week 8 of the regular season to defeat CPS Heartland Conference rival, Harper, and in Round 2, they rose to the challenge of a tougher team once again.

Notre Dame (Niles) 35, Steinmetz 8 [6A]

Like Downers Grove North, Notre Dame continues to defy the probability models used by our computers and win playoff games. In Round 1, the Dons defeated Grayslake North despite an 80-plus percent chance of the game going the other way. And in Round 2, the Dons convincingly defeated Steinmetz, leaving no doubt that this team is also the real thing in playoff action.

It happens from time to time that the playoffs invigorate an otherwise mediocre-performing team. The Dons ended the season with a one-touchdown loss to 3-6 Carmel, while the Trojans from Downers Grove North ended it with three straight losses. The playoffs, though, seem to breathe new life into teams, and we have found that our models, which are based on the large number of games that take place during the regular season, sometimes miss badly when it comes to the playoffs. That “playoff effect” may be part of the reason.

Does a state championship series inspire teams?

Based on the performance of Notre Dame and Downers Grove North in the early playoffs this year, we can see that being in the playoffs sometimes inspires teams to perform better than they would if the regular season had continued into weeks 10 and 11. That is, teams sometimes rise to the challenge offered by competition in a state championship tournament or series.

Because so few games are played in the playoffs, I would caution anyone against using this information to make a claim that statistics support the idea that playoffs inspire teams to raise the level of their play. However, anecdotal evidence—note the quote from John Wander at Downers Grove North above—and much of our own analysis do support this hypothesis.

An analysis of our predictions in Round 2

Our computer models predicted victories in Round 2 for all 64 games. Of those games, we were incorrect in predicting 20 and correct in predicting 44 (69 percent).

Breaking down the 20 we got wrong, our models called five (8 percent) “too close to call.” This means our nu statistic for the two teams showed a difference of less than 5. Of the 15 remaining incorrect games, five (8 percent) were decided by a touchdown or less, meaning that they actually were close games. Three games are described above in the analysis portion of this post, and the remaining seven games are listed below: