PH Northern Measures Up Among State's Best
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
January 4, 2017
It wasn’t long ago that Port Huron Northern’s girls basketball team started scheduling measuring stick games.
The Huskies put teams like Detroit Country Day, Flint Powers and Detroit Martin Luther King on the schedule to see what it was like to play against the best in the state.
Now, in coach Mark Dickinson’s ninth season, the Huskies still have those games on the schedule. They’re just looking more like the “measuring stick” team for their opponents, instead.
“It’s a great feeling,” Northern senior Kendyl Keyes said. “A couple years ago, it’s hard to believe that we would have been at this point, because you’re coming in, you’re so young, and it’s like, ‘Wow, we really did make it.’
“All this work that we put in, that the coaches put in, it’s paid off.”
Northern is 7-0 to start the season, with big early-season wins against Farmington Hills Mercy and Williamston. The Huskies are ranked No. 2 in Class A and No. 4 in the Super 10 by Tom Markowski of State Champs! Sports Network.
The biggest early-season game, however, comes tonight when Northern plays host to reigning Class A champion Warren Cousino, a team it defeated twice a year ago to prove it belongs in the conversation of the state’s best teams.
“I think the kids are more and more confident that we can play with anybody as a team,” Dickinson said. “We pride ourselves on having a team. We don’t have Miss Michigan, but we have a lot of good players from top to bottom.”
It’s a long way from where the Huskies were less than 10 year ago.
Point Guard University
Dickinson’s tenure as varsity coach had humble beginnings. In his first season (2008-09), the Huskies went 1-20, and he and his coaching staff decided to focus on basic fundamentals.
“The first year, we were limited because three kids moved away,” Dickinson said. “We were playing with people who were out of position, so we said, ‘Hey, we’re going to play good D, we’re going to start with that. It’s like building a house, and laying the foundation.’ The first two or three years, that’s what we talked about, that we were going to lay one layer of bricks, lay another layer of bricks.
“The first two years, I had a segment of practice called Point Guard University, where we had them all do tons of ball-handling. We were having some struggles with ball-handling, so we made everybody improve their ball-handling, and it started growing from there.”
It worked. Over the next six seasons, Northern managed to win more games than it had the year before: 9-12 in 2009-10, then 11-10, 17-4 (with a conference title), 18-5 (conference title), 19-7 and 21-4 in 2014-15. Last season also saw 21 wins (21-5), and a co-Macomb Area Conference Red title shared with that eventual Class A champion Cousino.
While it was an entirely different set of girls doing the winning, Dickinson gives a lot of credit for the recent success to the girls who came before them.
“Even the groups before that that didn’t win Districts, they really started to compete and put themselves in position to win games. We just didn’t have quite enough depth at that time, or enough shooters,” Dickinson said. “They were the building blocks of the program. I look back at those early teams, those kids were the ones that kind of set the tone that we’re working in March and April; instead of sitting home and watching TV on Sunday, we’re going to be up here working. Those kids started it, and then it just kind of snowballed.”
Breaking through
While the program started taking off in 2012, its postseason breakthrough didn’t come until 2014 when it won a Regional title, its first under Dickinson. It was also the first District title under Dickinson, and the first of three straight.
Last season, Northern repeated the feat, winning another Class A Regional title before falling in the Quarterfinal against St. Johns. All of that in a season many saw as a rebuilding year, as Northern had graduated a strong senior class the year before.
Thanks to the foundation the Huskies have built, however, rebuilding has turned into reloading.
“I think, partly, we’ve got a really good coaching staff from top to bottom,” Dickinson said. “That’s huge for skill development during the season. During the offseason, we put a lot of time in, and the kids have bought into that. We’ve had kids that have made a commitment to come in year-round and work on their shot, work on their ball-handling. When we do our team stuff in the summer, I know a lot of teams have trouble getting their whole teams there, but I usually have everybody there.”
While the talent and depth continues to grow for the Huskies, the work ethic instilled on those early teams has remained the same.
“We’ve just been in the gym a lot together as a whole,” senior Jenna Koppinger said. “Whenever you want to come in, the coaches are here. If you want to go at 6 a.m., they’re here. If you want to go at 6 at night the same day, they’re back again. That’s really what’s founded it.”
The early-season tests against top-level competition have helped take the Huskies to their current level, but so has playing in the Macomb Area Conference Red, which Dickinson considers one of the best conferences in the state. The Huskies also have traveled throughout the summer to play against the best and in big venues, including at the legendary St. Cecelia’s in Detroit.
All of that combined has created a team that isn’t afraid to play on the biggest stages or wildest environments.
“It’s so exciting – it’s fun,” senior Bree Bauer said. “It gives you a lot of adrenaline, and I think it makes me play better.”
This year’s team features six seniors – Keyes, Koppinger, Bauer, Cassidy Koschnitzke, Brooke Austin and Kathleen O’Connor – as well as an experienced, play-making junior in Sami Klink. But beyond the experience, there’s a large group of girls waiting for their turn.
Dickinson said several members of his junior varsity team would be varsity players most years, but with his current depth he simply can’t bring them up. His JV squad was a perfect 20-0 a year ago, and spent the summer holding its own against varsity teams, so don’t expect the Huskies to fade away any time soon.
Of course, there’s still plenty to accomplish in the present. With its foundation solidly built, Northern can now look to break through its ceiling, something recent results show it’s more than capable of doing.
“A lot of people think you can’t win a state championship in Port Huron,” Dickinson said. “I’m not going to go that far. We have to keep getting better, and it would nice to make a run at it – we’ve been close. If you get to Breslin Center, you never know what’s going to happen, so we’re knocking on the door. I don’t know if we’re ever going to get there, but we’re working towards it. If you don’t have a goal like that, you’re never going to achieve it.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Northern's Sami Klink moves the ball around the perimeter against Detroit Cass Tech on Dec. 28 at the Motor City Roundball Classic. (Middle) The Huskies hoist the championship trophy after defeating Croswell-Lexington on Dec. 22 to win the Port Huron Holiday Tournament. (Photos by Jill O'Connor.)
Soccer, Hoops Next to Seed Using MPR
August 6, 2019
By Rob Kaminski
MHSAA benchmarks editor
As the topic of seeding for MHSAA Tournaments continues to swirl in the air of numerous committee meetings on an annual basis, one of the primary concerns continues to focus on the simple question: “How?”
The MHSAA for years has been working behind the scenes on potential formulas which could best be used as a standardized tool to assist in measuring strengths of teams in a given sport.
This spring, the MHSAA introduced the Michigan Power Rating in the sport of Boys Lacrosse. The Representative Council approved limited seeding beginning in 2019-20 for girls and boys soccer and girls and boys basketball, and MPR will be the metric to determine which two teams must be seeded on opposite sides of District brackets in those sports.
“The boys lacrosse tournament has been seeded since it was added as an MHSAA-sponsored sport in 2005. The seeding is done by committee based on several criteria, one of which was statewide power rankings generated by a third-party website. In the Fall of 2018, that website ceased operation – it was the perfect opportunity for the MHSAA to develop its own data-driven, purely objective ratings system and incorporate that data into the seeding criteria,” said Cole Malatinsky, administrative assistant for the sport.
“The benefits of the new MPR system have been already mentioned – it is MHSAA controlled, simple, objective, and transparent, and it can be used by other MHSAA sports in the future.”
MPR is a computer rating formula similar to the popular RPI rating. MPR provides a way to measure a team’s strength relative to other teams, based on games played against other MHSAA tournament teams, largely on the strength of their opponents’ schedules. MPR is purely objective using only the game results listed on MHSAA.com – there is no subjective human element.
What is the basic MPR formula?
MPR is calculated using wins, losses and ties for games played between teams entered into the MHSAA tournament. The final MPR number is 25% of the team's winning percentage, plus 50% of its opponent's winning percentage, plus 25% of its opponent's opponent's winning percentage.
MPR = (.25 x W%) + (.50 x OW%) + (.25 x OOW%)
The MPR formula can be applied easily to other MHSAA team sports.
What game data is included in the formula? What game data is not?
MPR looks only at results between opponents entered into the MHSAA postseason tournament. Wins, losses and ties in multi-team shortened game tournaments (lacrosse, soccer) also count. Forfeits also are counted as wins and losses.
MPR does not use the specific scores of a game or the margin of victory in a game. The location of a game is not included in the MPR formula, and the formula weighs results at the beginning of the season the same as results at the end of the season. Scrimmages are not included.
Why use the MPR formula?
Different rating systems have been used in the past or have been recommended to the MHSAA. We wanted to have a rating system where the data was controlled and stored in house and could be used for any sport featuring head-to-head competitions.
With its own rating system the MHSAA also can control the different components of the formula, thus keeping the tenets of scholastic competition at the forefront (like not including margin of victory in the formula). Finally, by listing all scores and team schedules online, as well as showing the MPR calculator on each team schedule page, the ratings are transparent and can be replicated easily.
CALCULATING MPR
What are the detailed components of the MPR formula?
You need three numbers to calculate your MPR: winning percentage (W%), opponent’s winning percentage (OW%) and opponent’s opponent’s winning percentage (OOW%).
How do you calculate winning percentage (W%)?
Divide the number of wins by the number of total games played. A tie is worth half a win. For MPR purposes, find the winning percentage against all teams that will play in the MHSAA tournament (MPR W%). Games played against out-of-state teams, varsity “B” teams, junior varsity teams, non-school club teams, and any other non-MHSAA tournament participants should not be included when calculating winning percentage. W% should be an easy number to calculate.
How do you calculate opponent’s winning percentage (OW%)?
Average the winning percentages of a team's opponents. When calculating the winning percentage of a specific opponent, use the opponents "Adjusted Winning Percentage" (ADJ W%). Adjusted winning percentage eliminates all games the team played against that opponent (as well as its games against non-MHSAA opponents).
For instance, if the team beat an opponent with an overall record of 4-1, use a record of 4-0 (1.000) for that opponent. If the team lost to an opponent, use a record of 3-1 (.750). Find the ADJ W% for all opponents, and then take the average. If a team plays an opponent team twice, that opponent’s ADJ W% will be counted twice.
OW% is not calculated via the combined record of the opponents; instead take the average of all opponent’s winning percentages.
How do you calculate opponent’s opponent’s winning percentage (OOW%)?
Use the same process described above, except calculated for the opponents of a team's opponents. This number is much harder to manually calculate, so the OW% for every team is listed on the MPR page of the MHSAA website.
Again, simply take the average of all opponent’s OW%.
How often is MPR calculated?
MPR is calculated about every five minutes. Enter a score and a minutes later the team MPR and the MPR of all the team's opponents will update.
How much will my MPR change throughout the season?
You will see wild MPR swings in the beginning of the season, but after about 10 games played your MPR will start to level out. At 20 games played you will see very little movement with each additional game played.
My score is missing. How can it be added?
This is a crowd-sourced system. Any registered user of MHSAA.com can add a missing score. ADs, coaches, parents, students and fans all can login and enter a score for any game.
What are some common errors when calculating MPR?
When calculating your team’s winning percentage, only include games against MHSAA-tournament teams. When calculating your opponent’s winning percentage, don’t include the games they played against you. When calculating ties, count the game as a half-win and half-loss.
What happens if a game is cancelled?
Because the MPR system works off of averages, it will not make a difference in the final MPR if a game cannot be rescheduled. It would not penalize, nor benefit, any team involved in that scenario.
USING THE WEBSITE
Where can I find game scores?
A list of statewide scores for all sports can be found in the MHSAA Score Center. To find a schedule for any team click on “Schools & Schedules” in the top navigation bar, search for the school, then once on the school page click the sport. You can also see a list of all schools (with links to schedules), on the statewide MPR list.
“We continue to have great success in score reporting for varsity boys lacrosse contests. While we state that schedule submission and score reporting to MHSAA.com are required, athletic directors and coaches understand that in order for MPR data to be accurate, we need consistent and accurate score reporting,” said Malatinsky. “MHSAA.com is now the primary site for high school boys lacrosse schedules, results and ratings in the state.”
How should I use the statewide list of teams and MPR?
Linked to the boys soccer page (and eventually to be added for both basketball pages and girls soccer) is a statewide listing of all Michigan Power Ratings (MPR) for teams entered into the MHSAA postseason tournament for that sport. Linked on the MPR page is an explanation of the District draw formula, describing when and how teams will be placed on the bracket.
The MPR data updates every five minutes. Click on the column headings to sort the data. You also can use the drop-down menu to show teams in one Division, or type a District number in the box to filter teams for that District (Region for boys lacrosse).
You also can click on any school name to go to its schedule page.
How do I read the school schedule page?
The schedule at the top of the page shows the date and opponent for all scheduled games, and results for games already played. If results are missing, click “Submit Score” to add a game score.
Below the game schedule is the MPR Calculator. The calculator is split into three sections. The first section shows the three MPR component scores for the team, as well as the team’s current MPR score. The second section shows the MPR information for the team’s opponents – specifically, for the opponents the team already has played (actually, for games where scores have been submitted). Only these games are included in the MPR calculation.
The third section highlights future opponents. The MPR data for future opponents are not used in the MPR calculation for the team.
PHOTO: East Kentwood and Ann Arbor Skyline play for last season’s Division 1 boys soccer championship.