NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

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SherlocK
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NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

Post by SherlocK » Mon Nov 04, 2013 9:55 pm

Alright, I've Gone over all the Numbers and I'm Completely updated! Here's the top 25 as of this past weekend! (Link to Doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... sp=sharing)

1. Las Plumas Oroville
2. Irvington
3. Armijo
4. Golden Valley
5. Merced
6. Vanden
7. Bencia
8. San Benito
9. Fairfield
10. Lincoln (Stockton)
11. Concord
12. Santa Cruz
13. Buhach Colony
T-14. Franklin (Elk Grove)
T-14. Pitman
16. Cesar Chavez
17. Oakridge
18. Atwater
19. Foothill
T-20. Livingston
T-20. Washington Union
22. Northgate
23. Livermore
24. Mission San Jose
25. Rodriguez

A little bit about the system, the system I set up looks at 4 metrics: The Total Score accumulated, Placement at Tournaments, Average Score, Average Placement. You rank in each of these metrics is added up into your "Master Score" Therefore, the lower your master score, the higher your rank. The lowest possible master score is a 4, The Average Master Score is a 220. LPO currently has a master score of 10, so they are having an incredible year. However, the top 4 are all within 9 points of each other so who knows what will happen!

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Re: NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

Post by Luis » Tue Nov 05, 2013 7:43 am

Thanks for providing these rankings. That's a lot of number crunching. I agree, Las Plumas & Oroville has been doing really good this year. I'm a bit surprised to see GV ranked #4 and Benicia ranked #7. Many bands are bringing their A-game to these competitions so it will be interesting to see how the final ranks look once parade season is over.

-Luis

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Re: NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

Post by JCYS » Tue Nov 05, 2013 9:01 am

I don't understand this system. :(

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Re: NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

Post by 12drummersdrumming » Tue Nov 05, 2013 9:14 am

First, thank you for doing this, however, I'm not sure how accurate this is. :hum:

Take Golden Valley for example. They sit at #4 behing Las Plumas-Oroville, Irvington, and Armijo. But, Golden Valley has not lost to any of these three bands all season.

They went up against Las Plumas-Oroville at Franklin and Santa Cruz and beat them both times.

They went up against Irvington at Antioch and Santa Cruz and beat them both times.

They went up against Armijo at Antioch, Franklin, and Santa Cruz and beat them all three times.

When doing polls I think the first criteria is head to head competition.

Golden Valley's only loss this year is to Benicia at Franklin, yet Benicia is #7. :shock:

I know this is all in fun...............but..............

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Re: NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

Post by Blindman » Tue Nov 05, 2013 9:44 am

While these numbers are quite fascinating and the idea of a ranking system for the NCBA would be interesting to see play out, there are several problems that are coming across in your data:

1.) The NCBA has a philosophy of "different day, different scoring". A band will not get a score at the beginning of the season and continue to see that score grow. Band "A" could get a score of 85.90 at their first competition, get a score of 89.00 at their next competition, then see a score of 83.50 at the following competition, then at their final competition score a 85.50. Depending on the performance of the band that day, that is generally the score they will receive. It's difficult to do rankings because of this philosophy.

2.) A good number of these bands have met up and competed against each other several times this season. According to the scoring, these bands would be higher or lower on the rankings because they have gone head-to-head. With no disrespect to those programs because I'm sure their students work to better themselves as musicians and marchers, their rankings do not match their current level of achievement.

3.) A couple of bands have yet to go to their third or even their SECOND competition of the season, therefore, even if their program has scored above some of the bands in the top 25, they are low ranked because they only have one or two competitions under their belt.

4.) Bands are not placed in divisions by scoring or ranking, but by school size and (sometimes) band size. There are small bands that score and rank high just like the bigger bands do, but because they go so early, it's harder to compare performances to the "big boys" who go later in the day. It goes on what the judges remember of their earlier performances and whether or not they deem that Band "B" scored higher than Band "A", who went earlier in the day. If bands were classified like percussion and guard units are in the winter season, the scoring would probably be better placed, in my opinion.

I would seek to attempt a ranking system myself based on scores throughout the season, but when several bands have yet to compete at more than two or three competitions, it's difficult and somewhat unfair to do a season ranking when it does not reflect the band's achievement. It's much easier to do a ranking at a specific competition because those specific bands are there to rank, but I digress.

However, to be general, based on scores and rankings of the last three big competitions, the ranking would generally look like this, but take this with a grain of salt:

[01] Benicia
[02] Golden Valley
[03] Las Plumas/Oroville
[04] Vanden
[05] Irvington
[06] Franklin (Elk Grove)
[07] Armijo
[08] Fairfield
[09] San Benito
[10] Merced
[11] Lincoln (Stockton)
[12] Mt. Eden
[13] Foothill (Pleasanton)
[14] Vallejo | Mission San Jose
[15] Rodriguez

SherlocK
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Re: NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

Post by SherlocK » Tue Nov 05, 2013 11:02 am

Thanks for the feedback all!

I thought about doing head to head as a method but the problem I ran into is that bands sometimes only encounter each other once, or never at all, which makes it difficult as well (most bands go to 3-4 reviews a year). I also wanted to reward consistency over a one time result so I choose to ignore head to heads. It's worth noting that LPO, Irvington, and Armijo have been to more reviews thus far and therefore have a higher rank currently (Once the season is over, I will probably take 3 competitions to make it a bit more relative). I'm confident though the numbers will start to even out in the next couple of weeks and there will be a shift back.

I will say that regardless of the day a Band should theoretically get a similar score (Within 2 points + or -) regardless of the competition day. In general actually, I've seen a lot of consistency in that regard with Armijo, LPO, Benicia, and GV all hovering in the 92-94 range. Unfortunately, the small band problem in NCBA does make things a little unfair :( but that seems to happen in all other sports as well (I agree it needs to change though, maybe order by past results to even the judging? Randomize the times?)

I'm still tweaking with the numbers and system and I'm planning to try a couple of other things soon. It's a work in progress, so if you have any brainwaves on how to crunch the data (Currently at 109 Bands!) Then feel free to shoot me a message! :)

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Re: NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

Post by JCYS » Tue Nov 05, 2013 11:07 am

Blindman wrote:While these numbers are quite fascinating and the idea of a ranking system for the NCBA would be interesting to see play out, there are several problems that are coming across in your data:

1.) The NCBA has a philosophy of "different day, different scoring". A band will not get a score at the beginning of the season and continue to see that score grow. Band "A" could get a score of 85.90 at their first competition, get a score of 89.00 at their next competition, then see a score of 83.50 at the following competition, then at their final competition score a 85.50. Depending on the performance of the band that day, that is generally the score they will receive. It's difficult to do rankings because of this philosophy.

2.) A good number of these bands have met up and competed against each other several times this season. According to the scoring, these bands would be higher or lower on the rankings because they have gone head-to-head. With no disrespect to those programs because I'm sure their students work to better themselves as musicians and marchers, their rankings do not match their current level of achievement.

3.) A couple of bands have yet to go to their third or even their SECOND competition of the season, therefore, even if their program has scored above some of the bands in the top 25, they are low ranked because they only have one or two competitions under their belt.

4.) Bands are not placed in divisions by scoring or ranking, but by school size and (sometimes) band size. There are small bands that score and rank high just like the bigger bands do, but because they go so early, it's harder to compare performances to the "big boys" who go later in the day. It goes on what the judges remember of their earlier performances and whether or not they deem that Band "B" scored higher than Band "A", who went earlier in the day. If bands were classified like percussion and guard units are in the winter season, the scoring would probably be better placed, in my opinion.

I would seek to attempt a ranking system myself based on scores throughout the season, but when several bands have yet to compete at more than two or three competitions, it's difficult and somewhat unfair to do a season ranking when it does not reflect the band's achievement. It's much easier to do a ranking at a specific competition because those specific bands are there to rank, but I digress.

However, to be general, based on scores and rankings of the last three big competitions, the ranking would generally look like this, but take this with a grain of salt:

[01] Benicia
[02] Golden Valley
[03] Las Plumas/Oroville
[04] Vanden
[05] Irvington
[06] Franklin (Elk Grove)
[07] Armijo
[08] Fairfield
[09] San Benito
[10] Merced,
[11] Lincoln (Stockton)
[12] Mt. Eden
[13] Foothill (Pleasanton)
[14] Vallejo | Mission San Jose
[15] Rodriguez


I would agree in general with this post, particularly in that you must take into account "head to head" competition over strict score averaging though I would say a couple things..1st: pretty much everyone uses band size now for classification, except Santa Cruz. 2nd: I think that "score" climb happens during parades, however, I believe AT TIMES it is overstated. Benicia's success from competing down in division C..early in the parade would tend to prove this. Some judges are more susceptible to end of the parade score climb than others I think. 3rd: Although scores are different from parade to parade/judge to judge each week, and scores can certainly go down and up, scores GENERALLY go up at the last couple competitions in my experience, which would leave bands that traditionally end their season earlier (GV, LPO) at a disadvantage in strict score averaging.

I am kind of a statistics junkie, so I find this fun...and it IS intended to be fun, I don't take it any other way. I always look forward to DR's So Cal rankings at the end of the season, but they always just for fun and taken with several grains of salt. Kind of like the sportswriters NCAA pole.

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Re: NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

Post by Brad » Tue Nov 05, 2013 6:47 pm

SherlocK wrote:nfortunately, the small band problem in NCBA does make things a little unfair but that seems to happen in all other sports as well (I agree it needs to change though, maybe order by past results to even the judging? Randomize the times?
SherlocK wrote:Thanks for the feedback all!
*Opening can of worms* Small bands do have a greater challenge to make higher scores. I judge marching at several NCBA events, and even though we have a caption called "exposure to error" I also look at each caption with difficulty being inherent to the caption. If band x only marches 10 people, but they all march well, you might think they would beat band Y with 100 people, 20 aux, and a Pipe band attached that march well, with crisp lines and files. What also must be considered is how much more difficult it is to put all those things together as a single unit. The comparison is more stark in developing showmanship/Effect for the smaller band. A small band has to have all the pieces, play and march exceptionally well to catch up.
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Re: NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

Post by tooweird » Tue Nov 05, 2013 6:57 pm

hmmm how interesting. not even in the top 25.
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Re: NCBA Parade Rankings - November 2nd, 2013

Post by Hostrauser » Tue Nov 05, 2013 9:11 pm

In my spreadsheets I try to "project" each competition as if it were a season-ending event. For example, I determined that the Lodi Grape Bowl event this past weekend was only 99% of the "potential" score for each band. Thus, LPO's 93.45 turned into a 94.40 in my rankings, Archbishop Riordan's 90.45 became 91.35, etc. I do that with every competition throughout the season. In this fashion I try to equalize the scores across multiple events.

As of right now, my NCBA Parade Top 25 rankings look like...
1. Benicia
2. Golden Valley
3. Las Plumas/Oroville
4. Armijo
5. Franklin (EG)
6. Irvington
7. Fairfield
8. Vanden
9. Foothill
10. Homestead
11-t. Mission San Jose
11-t. Washington Union
13. Merced
14. Vallejo
15. Lincoln (S)
16. San Benito
17. Granada
18. Petaluma
19. Oak Ridge
20. Archbishop Riordan
21. Mount Eden
22. Concord
23-t. Livermore
23-t. Rodriguez
25. Santa Cruz

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