It’s impossible to find a perfect playoff system in any sport at any level.
Anything that is imperfect has room for improvement.
With the CIF Southern Section girls volleyball playoff brackets to be released Saturday at 10 a.m., it’s a good time to take a look at that playoff system.
As in many other CIF-SS team sports, girls volleyball teams are placed in playoff divisions according to their current season performance. That data is used by the Massey Ratings System to rate each CIF-SS team. This is the second season that the Southern Section has used the Massey ratings to place teams into divisions and to seed them in those divisions.
Like last season, the CIF-SS has 10 playoff divisions.
A discussion of the playoff system with three Orange County coaches with playoff-bound teams carried praise of the system, with some “it could be better” thoughts.
Mater Dei coach Dan O’Dell, whose team won the CIF-SS Division 1 championship last season and just went 6-0 in the four-team Trinity League, offered plenty of praise.
“The biggest positive is that it encompasses all 500-plus CIF teams into one system,” O’Dell said. “You get a good grasp of how every team is performing.”
O’Dell would like to see some human element involved instead of a computer doing all of the evaluation because coaches have insights that a computer lacks. He is concerned that wins over out-of-state teams do not get the vaule they deserve. Mater Dei has played in out-of-state tournaments and beaten some outstanding teams from other states.
“We beat the second-best team in Arizona,” he said, “but nobody else (in the Southern Section) is playing that team, so Massey has no way of knowing how to credit us beating that team in Arizona. And Massey doesn’t know if Redondo Union or Sierra Canyon doesn’t have their best player (in a match).”
San Clemente coach Casey Swenson appreciates the system relying solely on current-season performance.
“I like that each year there is a reset, so if you have a senior-loaded team that does well one year that you don’t get pushed too high into an upper division the next year when those seniors are gone,” said Swenson whose Tritons won the Sea View League championship. “I like the way it resets every year and accounts for how you’re doing this year.”
But Swenson does have a quibble.
“Maybe the system doesn’t take into account head-to-head results enough,” he said.
Pat Eaton, coach of Sunset League champion Newport Harbor, finds the system to be fair.
“It’s fine,” Eaton said. “When I look at the rankings there’s nothing we can be upset about. The teams that beat us are above us and the teams we controlled and took care of are below us.”
CIF Southern Section assistant commissioner Mike Middlebrook, in charge of the section’s management of girls volleyball, said he has discussed the system with coaches and appreciates their input.
His answers came via email.
Regarding O’Dell’s assessment that results against out-of-state teams are not properly valued in the Massey ratings, Middlebrook said: “I can’t confirm or deny if that is true or not, but I do know that the current rankings are taking into account the Maxpreps top 50 nationally ranked volleyball programs.”
And to conclude, Middlebrook said …
“The rankings, now only in year 2, continue to get better. Last year the rankings didn’t give a boost to a best-of-3 match or best-of-5 match. This year with direction from Mr. Massey I know that the best-of-5 matches carry extra weight towards the ranking. This was something the coaches asked for and we have been able to make that happen. In the future, I’ll continue to listen to my advisory coaches group and we’ll adjust or update accordingly if it’s possible. My girls and boys volleyball advisory group is amazing and they always offer great insight.”