SCANDALS AND ANIMALS - The art of ducking

[Unbiased_football_fan]

I like to eat ducks. I like to watch ducks when I fly fish. But I HATE coaches who have their wrestlers duck. We all know it happens, many times hidden behind a "banged up" statement. Some coaches/programs are more prone to it than others. You aren’t penalized for missing matches against top guys. You are only “rewarded” at the end of the year with a higher seed than what you probably deserve. The problem with this is more often than not it doesn’t work (analytically - read on).

If you look at the brackets and where guys in the championship bracket drop based on when they lose, it decreases the over-seeded guys chances of placing in more instances than it helps. It leads to team underperformance which reflects badly on the coach and the team. I give you one example, though many work out this way when you calculate the permutations/probabilities (I checked a bunch of them).

A true #12 guy seeded #6 has about a 11.8% chance of placing.

A true #12 guy seeded #12 has about a 14.5% chance of placing.

The coach thinks he is helping his guy/team but he has actually decreased his chances of being an AA by almost 20%. Protecting a W/L record does not make the wrestler any better. If he is #12 ability getting him a #6 won’t make him perform like a #6.

There is also the psychology of the situation. All of these guys are ultra-talented and ultra-competitive. The wrestler knows he isn’t hurt. Every wrestler is dinged up throughout a year. Coach comes and says “We are going to wrestle so and so this week instead of you.” Okay, the wrestler knows he could go. Now the wrestler has to think that the coach thinks he is probably going to lose that match. In addition, the coach is basically saying “I am not good enough to learn something about the other wrestler that I can use to help you win next time. The opposing coach is better than I.”

Guys that are given a favorable seed doesn’t help them, it helps the guy who is wrestling them.

#STOPDUCKINGITDOESNTWORK

 

[Ski]

I like to eat ducks. I like to watch ducks when I fly fish. But I HATE coaches who have their wrestlers duck. We all know it happens, many times hidden behind a "banged up" statement. Some coaches/programs are more prone to it than others. You aren’t penalized for missing matches against top guys. You are only “rewarded” at the end of the year with a higher seed than what you probably deserve. The problem with this is more often than not it doesn’t work (analytically - read on).

If you look at the brackets and where guys in the championship bracket drop based on when they lose, it decreases the over-seeded guys chances of placing in more instances than it helps. It leads to team underperformance which reflects badly on the coach and the team. I give you one example, though many work out this way when you calculate the permutations/probabilities (I checked a bunch of them).

A true #12 guy seeded #6 has about a 11.8% chance of placing.

A true #12 guy seeded #12 has about a 14.5% chance of placing.

The coach thinks he is helping his guy/team but he has actually decreased his chances of being an AA by almost 20%. Protecting a W/L record does not make the wrestler any better. If he is #12 ability getting him a #6 won’t make him perform like a #6.

There is also the psychology of the situation. All of these guys are ultra-talented and ultra-competitive. The wrestler knows he isn’t hurt. Every wrestler is dinged up throughout a year. Coach comes and says “We are going to wrestle so and so this week instead of you.” Okay, the wrestler knows he could go. Now the wrestler has to think that the coach thinks he is probably going to lose that match. In addition, the coach is basically saying “I am not good enough to learn something about the other wrestler that I can use to help you win next time. The opposing coach is better than I.”

Guys that are given a favorable seed doesn’t help them, it helps the guy who is wrestling them.

#STOPDUCKINGITDOESNTWORK

Does that still hold if the scenario is a #3 that is seeded as a #1 due to ducking? I wouldn’t think so since he would get a #4 in the semis instead of a #2 and his draws should be easier than they would have been in the matches prior to that match. If it didn’t improve the results more often than not then I don’t think coaches would do it. Not condoning it, just understand why some do it.

 

[Unbiased_football_fan]

Does that still hold if the scenario is a #3 that is seeded as a #1 due to ducking? I wouldn’t think so since he would get a #4 in the semis instead of a #2 and his draws should be easier than they would have been in the matches prior to that match. If it didn’t improve the results more often than not then I don’t think coaches would do it. Not condoning it, just understand why some do it.

It holds from an AA standpoint, but it does improve that "#3"s chance of winning (from 7% to 16%). From an AA perspective it is about 88% either way.

I was going by the assumption that if your guy is a 1 to 3 that you can't hide him from a seeding perspective (at least anymore with the data pretty widely available from groups like WrestleStat). I think it happens more with the #16 to #10 guys with an inflated record getting pushed up into #9 to #5.

I would also add that this same thing applies to the rankers if you believe that the rankings influence the coaches who come up with the seeds. The ranking services that may have bias and push certain guys up are not doing them any favors, they are actually hurting them a majority of the time.