As the boys season heads into the traditional mid-season holiday break from meets, it's worth a mention to encourage boys coaches to submit times to the WISCA coaches website, which compiles top-30 times for both D1 and D2 and uses those times to calculate its poll of the top 10 teams in the state.
The first poll is out (http://www.wisca.net/polls), and although (conflict alert -- my son swims for Monona Grove) I'd like to think Monona Grove has improved enough to rank 2nd in the state for D2, I'm objective enough to think that's not an accurate reflection of the pecking order in D2 this year.
As previously mentioned, the beauty of the WISCA poll -- as opposed to polls in other sports like football and basketball -- is that it's totally merit-driven, based solely on times. But the poll can only be accurate if a full complement of coaches are submitting their team's times. So coaches --if you have a few minutes during the holiday break -- submit those times!
Here's the first WISCA poll of the season:
D1
1 -- Arrowhead
2 -- Madison Memorial
3 -- Sauk Prairie-Wisconsin Heights
4 -- New Berlin West-Eisenhower
5 -- Madison West
6 -- Janesville Craig
7 -- Fond du Lac
8 -- DeForest-Sun Prairie
9 -- Waukesha North-Kettle Moraine
D2
1 -- McFarland
2 -- Monona Grove
3 -- Plymouth
4 -- Grafton
5 -- Medford
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6 comments:
It's a real shame that some coaches are either 1) Uninformed about the site, 2) Lazy, or 3) Playing games, trying to hide their times from potential rivals.
I would add "technically challenged" to that list as well. I know a few high school coaches who are not very computer proficient, so uploading results to a website might not be something they're used to doing.
Sometimes coaches simply don't have time and after calling newspapers and local radio stations etc., the priority is to their families, athletes and real jobs. Also, this blog offers far greater insight and result reporting than the coaches site which is only updated once a week. From a competetive standpoint the WHSCA site finishes a distant second.
It's also somewhat early in the season -- some teams have done only relays meets and maybe one dual meet (quite a few meets in the Madison area were cancelled two weeks ago because of the snowstorm), so maybe there's not much yet to report. But it was meant to be a somewhat gentle reminder, because I know the top-30 times in particular are watched pretty closely by coaches and swimmers (and parent!). Most coaches/teams on the girls side this past fall were pretty good about getting results in.
I'm pretty sure that MG wouldn't rank any higher than 4th out of the 6 teams in their conference, so yeah, these polls are obviously missing something.
Whitefish Bay and Shorewood -- two of the top-tier teams in D2 this year -- have added times in recent days, which is good to see. Still could use more, especially from the aforementioned Badger Conference (North and South). I'd also like to see some of the stronger "out-state" programs like Ashwaubenon, Sturgeon Bay/Southern Door, and Berlin/Green Lake reporting.
The D1 side is missing nearly all of the Fox Valley schools -- severl of whom have very good swimmers -- along with Greenfield/Greendale and Marquette from the Milwaukee area.
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