Gramps Grassroots 2021

 I touted Brad Beal Elite 17U and their outstanding program in the EYBL League early today.  How's your Missouri boys 17U team measure up with Beal?  Take a look below and if you missed my national ratings post early, go HERE .

 Updated 6/2/2021 I saw the Tweet about Brad Beal 17U and 16U both winning their divisions of the Nike Memorial Day Class and the 15U team coming in as runners-up.  Is there a better program in the Midwest today, than @BradBealElite?  Yep, BradBeal is one of the top five programs in the country. I have updated all The Circuit ratings for teams that have played games.  There are still a few that are listed with no record and I have not found any BallerTV results for them either.  I cannot believe the level of activity this Spring.  So many teams and so many tournaments.  It is like someone let the dogs out, after being cooped up for a full year.  I love the activity. The EYBL is still the top league by far and can throw Brad Beal and about six other teams into a hat, pick out one and have a pretty solid #1 US 17U team.  I feel pretty good about the EYBL ratings but some of the other leagues have top teams with just a few games and I am not sur...

 Seems like I am spending three or four hours a day pulling data from The Circuit website to add to my Grassroots 17U boys ratings.  I have a pretty good handle on the top three leagues but cannot seem to find time to dig down into the Prep Hoops, HoopsGroup, HoopSeen and Zero Gravity leagues.  It might take all summer to catch up but with the June High School period, I may clear up some game scores to add more teams to the list. So, you might wonder which leagues are the toughest?  You may hear that EYBL or UAA or Adidas are the best leagues.  I have taken the average score for the teams in each league and averaged them out.  Looks like Nike EYBL is the best by far.  You could throw the top ten teams in a hat and any one of them could beat the rest, and it appears that they are doing just that.  I think Phenom U is the only undefeated team but that won't last long with the strength of competition in that league.  The bottom leagues on the li...

 Here's my 17U boys basketball ratings by rank.  There is a lot of noise near the top with teams that have just played a game or two.  Ratings will solidify with more data.

 I have been working in the dark ages, I guess.  I have spent the past three summers searching tournaments for boys basketball scores to put together my "Sagarin-style" ratings and then I came across The Circuit website, which has every team in the country in one website.  EYBL, UAA, Prephoops, Recruit-Look, Zero Gravity.... you name it, they have got it. So my life is easier and more difficult.  I used to concentrate on a few big leagues but now, I end up down in the weeds, checking basketball scores and calculating ratings for even the worst team in a state.  It might take me all summer, fall and winter to catch up on ratings!  LOL So this is what I have....  If there is no rating, the team has either not played or I have not caught up with their scores.  The difference in rating would be the spread if two teams played.  The ratings for the EYBL are pretty solid... it gets dicier with teams that have not played a lot of games. I have it li...

 Here are the teams I have rated for the Kansas City Recruit Look tournament.  I will add more teams as I analyze more Recruit Look tournaments, assuming time available.

 As I said in the last post, early team rankings are always difficult.  Wait until July before they firm up.  Until then, here are my 15 through 17U ratings for the Prep Hoops teams that participated in Kansas City on April 23-25. Here are the ratings for the Kansas City teams.  I will add more teams as I find time to analyze more PrepHoops tournaments and get more cross competition.

 Have you ever worked on a project and someone, unaware of the complexity in the construction, stops by and say, "Is that the way it is going to look?" My wife does that with my woodworking projects, sometimes between cutting, glueing, sanding and staining.  Inevitably, she asks me that question.  She is always satisfied with the final outcome but shows no confidence in me early on. So, as I look at trying to "build" boys 15, 16 and 17U Grassroots/AAU ratings, I suspect that some reader will also ask the same question. It is not easy.  There is a lot of detective work involved in building a rating for teams from many different states.  Developing a rating algorithm involves comparative scores and head-to-head competition.  It is not hard to rate a bracket in Prep Hoops if several teams have known ratings, but what if you have no game data for any of the teams in the bracket? The process starts by finding a team you have rated previously.  For me, I sta...