Metro added new tryout dates

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The Metro regional teams are actually pretty good if you look at AES rankings. Metro North and Metro East frequently rank ahead of other travel teams in the region.

Metro North has historically been the second best Metro team after Travel. Their location plus history has allowed them to attract good players.

East has been extremely variable, sometimes good but just as often at the bottom of the Metro teams and the lower third of the region.

South PW and South FX are similar to East but with even more variability across ages and a lower level of performance when they do well.

Central is historically the worst region in terms of performance. They usually take players that are receiving low level offers from other clubs or no offers at all.

Generally, no one would consider the Metro regionals expect North close to the performance of other travel teams, unless you count the clubs that travel when they really shouldn’t.

What are regional ranks?

Regional ranks only take into account your performance against other teams in the region, and ignore results from any other matches played against non regional teams. Also, I believe they also ignore any matches played against teams at a lower or higher age group.



WOW is that some serious MISinformation! Please, share your source for this? We have a family member who's coached metro regional teams in last 5 years, (not Central), but they have helped with Central tryouts up to last year and you are SO wrong that they take players getting low level offers or none at all! The line is usually out the door for those coach conferences and most players offered a spot take it on the spot and there is no trend of accepting on the spot then rejecting when the written offer comes in.

But since you said this, please, what is your source for that? You're also wrong about Central usually being on bottom of the regional performance rankings, but anyone can look in AES over the last 4 or 5 yrs to see that for themselves that they're almost never last of Metro's regional clubs.

I'm not the person you are responding to, but for fun, I did look at AES from last year, looking only at Metro teams:
18s: 18 Central was lowest rated (44 overall)
17s: no Central team. North was lowest rated (12 overall)
16s: Central was 2nd lowest (77 overall), ahead of South FX (107 overall)
15s: Central was 2nd lowest (76 overall), ahead of East (79 overall)
14s: Central was 3rd lowest (52 overall), ahead of South PW (82 overall) and East (119 overall)
13s: Central was 2nd lowest (28 overall), ahead of South PW (69 overall)
12s: Central was 2nd lowest (28 overall), ahead of East (29 overall)

Based on this, they are consistently on the low end, though not always the *lowest*. I am a data geek by trade and fast with a spreadsheet, so I also combined the results across age groups from last season to derive this:

Branch Avg Win % Performance Tier
Travel 92.9% 🟩 Elite
North 65.3% 🟧 Strong
Central 55.7% 🟨 Moderate
East 53.9% 🟨 Moderate
South FX 50.4% 🟥 Low
South PW 49.6% 🟥 Low

Wow PP, you are my new Favorite Poster! This is GREAT! And yeah, you sure did prove my point: While North is definitely consistently the strongest Metro Regional/Select team, Central is literally the next best team (followed very closely behind by East). It's true, this last season East beat Central in a couple of age groups, so East and Central are very close though Central historically was usually better and ranked higher.

You also proved that the MISinformation PP was wrong that Central is consistently below the Metro South 2 teams. Though one of those teams last season did really well in a couple of age groups.

I appreciate you PP. DCUM is often a wild ride because when you do know something factual about the topic, and someone else posts utter BS or pure fiction, yes you can speak to the factual truth and see who believes you, but rarely do you actually get data gathered to show the status of the situation. You did that though, thanks! Maybe at least one PP now in these convos will think twice before posing made up stuff as "fact" in a compellingly factual-seeming way

Me again, I got so excited I didn't reflect the data shown well. Central was posed by the BS poster as consistently LAST. That is not true, as stated by this data. And the last data there shows Metro as 2nd below North (not including Travel in this since this part of convo was about regional teams) with East very close behind.

Overall, Central is on the lower end but literally never last. That was what I really meant to write, but I got excited and only focused on 2nd data set. And that was incorrect, which I can admit to because I like facts and data too, unlike the "Central is consistently last!" PP.

Thanks for the data, love that we can have this discussion based on that. Lets focus on U15-U18 because that's what this thread is about -- the new tryouts for those age groups.

First, we can't use regional ranks. They are meaningless. Also, winning percentage only matters when you consider the competition. An open level team playing in a club tournament will win almost every match, a club level team playing open will lose most. That's what national rankings take into account. That's why CHRVA only uses national ranks for bid qualification and why it requires at least one open tournament in the region to qualify -- so teams can't play easy schedules and still qualify for bids over much better teams.

Second, lets look over multiple years and compare Metro Central's finishing position relative to the other Metro teams based on those national ranks.

2025
15: 6th out of 6 teams (#4159)
16: 5th out of 6 teams (#3604)
17: No Team
18: 5th out of 5 teams (#1983)

2024
15: 6th out of 6 teams (#2863)
16: 6th out of 6 teams (#3262)
17: No Team
18: 3rd out of 5 teams (#1680)

2023
15: 3rd out of 6 teams (#1636)
16: 5th out of 6 teams (#2924)
17: No Team
18: 3rd out of 6 teams (#1281)

In 2025, Metro Central's three teams finished last, last and next to last out of all of the Metro teams. In 2024 Central's teams finished last, last and 3rd out of 5th. The last year Metro Central was really competitive compared to other Metro teams was 2023, and that year their teams were still in the middle to bottom part of the rankings.

For the previous two years, based on National ranks, 4/6 Metro Central teams were last in ranking across all Metro teams in their age group. A fifth one was next to last.

"First, we can't use regional ranks. They are meaningless." LOL PP, thanks for saying this early on so we know to dismiss whatever comes next. You made a lot of effort there to justify your original erroneous comments. You're still not fooling us, but if it makes you feel better, cool, you do you

The question of national vs. regional rankings has been covered extensively in many other threads here. No tournaments use regional rankings for seeding, they all use national rankings. CHRVA bids uses national rankings for acceptance--EVEN THOUGH IT IS A REGIONAL ONLY TOURNAMENT--into the bid tournament and does not use regional rankings. Without the additional information provided below, its enough to know that when tournament seeding and bid entrances are being determined, national ranks are used. And FYI -- national rankings are also used for seeding any qualifier tournaments, national competititons and any out of region tournament where a CHRVA team participates against other teams from a different region. If all the Metro teams registered for the same division in the same tournament they would be seeded based on their national rank -- and Metro Central would have been seeded last 7/11 times.

What are regional rankings?
Regional rankings only take into account the games played against other teams in the region. Regional rankings suffer from multiple data problems, including small data set issues and strength of schedule bias. AES rankings are power weighted by direct competition -- if you play a few matches against weak competition and win you are ranked high. If you play a lot of matches against tough competition you can be ranked lower. And if you never play a good team but win all your matches against poor performing teams you will be ranked well above your actual performance.

For example, GO Volley 15 N went 5-0 against regional teams, ranking 9th in the region with 100% win rate. Based on National rankings they were 24th, ranking #1283 with a 43% win rate. In other words, they played in a lower level regional tournament and won it (hence the 5-0 record) but when they play in higher level tournaments they lose more than half of their matches. None of their other matches were against CHRVA opponents. Same thing for PSVBC (11-0) - 14th in region, 100% win rate, but 60% win rate nationally, #1595 rank and ~30th in region. If I rank of either of them on just regional play they would show up as "ELITE" with 100% win rate and equal to Metro Travel in the table with the colors above. No one believes that either team are a Metro Travel level team, or anywhere close.

Why are national rankings better?
They aren't perfect, but they are the standard for comparison now. Generally, a team ranked higher in national rankings is expected to win against a lower ranked team. The closer the ranking difference the closer the match is expected to be. Losing to a highly ranked team in a close match will actually improve your ranking. Beating the 6000th team in the country can actually hurt it if you don't win by a large margin. This is why national rankings are generally used for seeding -- they incorporate more data and are much more predictive of team performance in tournaments.

All of this is summarized from other threads, with recent examples thrown in.

TLDR: Tournaments don't uses regional rankings for seeding, CHRVA bids don't use them to determine qualification. Its easy to get an artificially high or low regional ranking due to small data set issues. And the consensus on every thread on this board that national rankings are much more indicative of performance than regional rankings.

I'm the newbie who asked, and it's possible you did answer my original question, but honestly I don't see the answer. I didn't ask "Why are national rankings better than regional?" What I DID ask is: "Why would the ORDER of ranking (who's 1st, 2nd, 47th, etc) change when comparing regional teams based on national vs. regional?

So please break it down a little bit more for those of us newer to all this (and btw I don't care how Central shows up in all this, but since that's the team this part of conversation was focused on, that's the data shared in the way that makes me ask this): If you take this data:

"I'm not the person you are responding to, but for fun, I did look at AES from last year, looking only at Metro teams:
18s: 18 Central was lowest rated (44 overall)
17s: no Central team. North was lowest rated (12 overall)
16s: Central was 2nd lowest (77 overall), ahead of South FX (107 overall)
15s: Central was 2nd lowest (76 overall), ahead of East (79 overall)
14s: Central was 3rd lowest (52 overall), ahead of South PW (82 overall) and East (119 overall)
13s: Central was 2nd lowest (28 overall), ahead of South PW (69 overall)
12s: Central was 2nd lowest (28 overall), ahead of East (29 overall)"

This person seems to understand the assignment and is showing how Central compared to the other Metro regional teams. IF you do this exact same data based on Regional rankings vs. National rankings, we all understand that your actual rank will be very different, but the "Central is the worst & East is usually 2nd after North" poster seems to say the order of these teams compared to each other CHANGES when you use national rankings. So staying with this example, is Central somehow always last if you use national rankings, even though in this dataset they were never last?

Is that the case? If so, why or how is that true?

I’m not the PP but wanted to answer to the newbie’s question “ Why the ranking is changed between teams on regional scale versus national scale?”.
First of all, sometimes the regional ranking matches national ranking for those teams in questions. Other time, they do not match.
Secondly, why the difference when they do not match?
For example: 12”s : regional ranking : Metro 12 Travel (1) Metro 12 North (12) Metro Central (28) Metro East (29).
National ranking: Metro 12 Travel (96) Metro 12 North (1179) Metro 12 East (2138) Metro Central (2252)
So on the National Ranking scale Metro Central is last.
13’s : regional ranking : Metro 13 Travel (1) Metro 13 North (13) Metro 13 East (14) Metro 13 Central (28) Metro South PW (69)
National ranking: Metro 13 Travel (67) Metro 13 East (556) Metro 13 North (1138) Metro 13 Central (1818) Metro South PW (3466)
Notice the swapped ranking between 13 East and 13 North on the National ranking. Regional ranking is so far off between ranking of 13 East (556) and 13 North (1138)

Club and Coaches often boast about their regional ranking (easy to show) to compete with other clubs in the same area, but the true performance is always showed in National ranking. Of course, there are exceptions as some very good local teams who do not want to travel far to compete but this is very rare.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We have a family member who's coached metro regional teams in last 5 years, (not Central), but they have helped with Central tryouts up to last year and you are SO wrong that they take players getting low level offers or none at all! The line is usually out the door for those coach conferences and most players offered a spot take it on the spot and there is no trend of accepting on the spot then rejecting when the written offer comes in.

Quick check on your statement: Line out the door + immediate accepts should mean an easy job filling a 12 person roster. In fact, based on this comment they should have been done on day 1. So why did they add extra tryouts for most of the regions?

As a Metro regional parent with several years of experience the posts here really aren't that off base. With the exception of North, most players good enough to play above the Metro regional level go to other club tryouts on Friday and Saturday. Many of those clubs have multiple teams that you try out for at the same time. Those tryouts overlap with the first round of Metro tryouts which is why Metro typically adds tryouts for most of their teams on Tuesday.

Half of those make-up tryouts this year ended at the same time the open tryout period ended at 10 PM (15 & 17s). The players there either didn't have an offer or were willing to give up an existing offer to take a chance at making a Metro Regional team. The players that had an offer from a close equivalent or even lower team would never be willing to give up a certain offer for a chance of an offer at a Metro regional.

None of this means that those Metro teams are bad. We've enjoyed our time with them. But the PP wasn't really wrong, even if it was an aggressive comment. Based on national ranks Central really is the lowest ranked Metro region. And there are certainly examples of players with low level club offers or no offers at all taking Metro offers, because the Metro makeup tryout schedule actually forces that to happen for certain age groups.

Newbie again, so not PP: I guess I'll ask you the same question, because no one else has posted it this way: where is the National ranking data that shows Metro Central as below North, East and the 2 Souths, age group by age group, for maybe the last 5 years? When you say they're the "lowest ranked Metro region", can you please link to the data you're looking at that compares the teams that way so we can all see what you're looking at?

Sure, happy to. I'll send them as different posts because there is a lot of data. This data pull is directly from AES using national ranks for the last 4 years (Central did run teams in 2021 and South was still one region instead of 2). I used AI to format for easy text reading, so if any data is wrong its because of the AI transcription errors that sometimes occur.

2025 Metro results
National Ranks, Ordinal = absolute ranking vs. Metro teams.
+------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+ | Rank | Teams | Team Code | Wins | Losses | Matches | Win % | Ordinal | +------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+ | 96 | Metro 12 Travel | g12metro1ch | 41 | 13 | 54 | 0.759 | 1 | | 1179 | Metro 12 North | g12metro2ch | 23 | 13 | 36 | 0.639 | 2 | | 2138 | Metro 12 East | g12metro3ch | 17 | 20 | 37 | 0.459 | 3 | | 2252 | Metro 12 Central | g12metro4ch | 12 | 14 | 26 | 0.462 | 4 | | 67 | Metro 13 Travel | g13metro1ch | 59 | 14 | 73 | 0.808 | 1 | | 556 | Metro 13 East | g13metro4ch | 35 | 11 | 46 | 0.761 | 2 | | 1138 | Metro 13 North | g13metro2ch | 22 | 12 | 34 | 0.647 | 3 | | 1818 | Metro 13 Central | g13metro5ch | 22 | 18 | 40 | 0.55 | 4 | | 3466 | Metro 13 South PW | g13metro3ch | 9 | 21 | 30 | 0.3 | 5 | | 48 | Metro 14 Travel | g14metro1ch | 60 | 20 | 80 | 0.75 | 1 | | 2336 | Metro 14 North | g14metro2ch | 21 | 21 | 42 | 0.5 | 2 | | 2873 | Metro 14 Central | g14metro3ch | 17 | 15 | 32 | 0.531 | 3 | | 3203 | Metro 14 South FX | g14metro6ch | 15 | 10 | 25 | 0.6 | 4 | | 4295 | Metro 14 South PW | g14metro5ch | 15 | 16 | 31 | 0.484 | 5 | | 6210 | Metro 14 East | g14metro4ch | 10 | 23 | 33 | 0.303 | 6 | | 25 | Metro 15 Travel | g15metro1ch | 74 | 10 | 84 | 0.881 | 1 | | 1706 | Metro 15 North | g15metro2ch | 26 | 22 | 48 | 0.542 | 2 | | 2427 | Metro 15 South PW | g15metro5ch | 18 | 17 | 35 | 0.514 | 3 | | 3005 | Metro 15 East | g15metro4ch | 17 | 24 | 41 | 0.415 | 4 | | 3354 | Metro 15 South FX | g15metro6ch | 15 | 15 | 30 | 0.5 | 5 | | 4159 | Metro 15 Central | g15metro3ch | 16 | 26 | 42 | 0.381 | 6 | | 39 | Metro 16 Travel | g16metro1ch | 66 | 21 | 87 | 0.759 | 1 | | 412 | Metro 16 North | g16metro2ch | 30 | 17 | 47 | 0.638 | 2 | | 2051 | Metro 16 South PW | g16metro5ch | 16 | 13 | 29 | 0.552 | 3 | | 2578 | Metro 16 East | g16metro4ch | 27 | 23 | 50 | 0.54 | 4 | | 3604 | Metro 16 Central | g16metro3ch | 17 | 24 | 41 | 0.415 | 5 | | 3952 | Metro 16 South FX | g16metro6ch | 13 | 20 | 33 | 0.394 | 6 | | 20 | Metro 17 Travel | g17metro1ch | 77 | 20 | 97 | 0.794 | 1 | | 937 | Metro 17 North | g17metro2ch | 27 | 23 | 50 | 0.54 | 2 | | 30 | Metro 18 Travel | g18metro1ch | 50 | 23 | 73 | 0.685 | 1 | | 532 | Metro 18 North | g18metro2ch | 29 | 19 | 48 | 0.604 | 2 | | 1463 | Metro 18 South PW | g18metro5ch | 16 | 19 | 35 | 0.457 | 3 | | 1932 | Metro 18 East | g18metro4ch | 15 | 23 | 38 | 0.395 | 4 | | 1983 | Metro 18 Central | g18metro3ch | 9 | 13 | 22 | 0.409 | 5 | +------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+

I also ran the regional ranking data same way and ran a t-test for the regression (testing how predictive the regional rank was vs the national rank in overall win %, total wins, etc). The p-value was high indicating that regional ranks did little to predict the overall performance of the team. It appears that the regional data set suffers from data insufficiency issues discussed by multiple PP above. For example, in 2025 U15 only Metro South teams played more than half their matches against regional opponents. The other Metro teams played fewer than half of their matches in region, with Metro North plays just 16 matches against regional opponents compared to 48 total matches for the season in the national ranks. The disparity in games played means that teams with lots of regional matches ranked artificially higher than those with comparably fewer regional matches played. In other words the teams that played mostly local schedules appear stronger in the regional rankings even though the national data shows they are well below the performance of those teams that played more out of region matches.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The Metro regional teams are actually pretty good if you look at AES rankings. Metro North and Metro East frequently rank ahead of other travel teams in the region.

Metro North has historically been the second best Metro team after Travel. Their location plus history has allowed them to attract good players.

East has been extremely variable, sometimes good but just as often at the bottom of the Metro teams and the lower third of the region.

South PW and South FX are similar to East but with even more variability across ages and a lower level of performance when they do well.

Central is historically the worst region in terms of performance. They usually take players that are receiving low level offers from other clubs or no offers at all.

Generally, no one would consider the Metro regionals expect North close to the performance of other travel teams, unless you count the clubs that travel when they really shouldn’t.

What are regional ranks?

Regional ranks only take into account your performance against other teams in the region, and ignore results from any other matches played against non regional teams. Also, I believe they also ignore any matches played against teams at a lower or higher age group.



WOW is that some serious MISinformation! Please, share your source for this? We have a family member who's coached metro regional teams in last 5 years, (not Central), but they have helped with Central tryouts up to last year and you are SO wrong that they take players getting low level offers or none at all! The line is usually out the door for those coach conferences and most players offered a spot take it on the spot and there is no trend of accepting on the spot then rejecting when the written offer comes in.

But since you said this, please, what is your source for that? You're also wrong about Central usually being on bottom of the regional performance rankings, but anyone can look in AES over the last 4 or 5 yrs to see that for themselves that they're almost never last of Metro's regional clubs.

I'm not the person you are responding to, but for fun, I did look at AES from last year, looking only at Metro teams:
18s: 18 Central was lowest rated (44 overall)
17s: no Central team. North was lowest rated (12 overall)
16s: Central was 2nd lowest (77 overall), ahead of South FX (107 overall)
15s: Central was 2nd lowest (76 overall), ahead of East (79 overall)
14s: Central was 3rd lowest (52 overall), ahead of South PW (82 overall) and East (119 overall)
13s: Central was 2nd lowest (28 overall), ahead of South PW (69 overall)
12s: Central was 2nd lowest (28 overall), ahead of East (29 overall)

Based on this, they are consistently on the low end, though not always the *lowest*. I am a data geek by trade and fast with a spreadsheet, so I also combined the results across age groups from last season to derive this:

Branch Avg Win % Performance Tier
Travel 92.9% 🟩 Elite
North 65.3% 🟧 Strong
Central 55.7% 🟨 Moderate
East 53.9% 🟨 Moderate
South FX 50.4% 🟥 Low
South PW 49.6% 🟥 Low

Wow PP, you are my new Favorite Poster! This is GREAT! And yeah, you sure did prove my point: While North is definitely consistently the strongest Metro Regional/Select team, Central is literally the next best team (followed very closely behind by East). It's true, this last season East beat Central in a couple of age groups, so East and Central are very close though Central historically was usually better and ranked higher.

You also proved that the MISinformation PP was wrong that Central is consistently below the Metro South 2 teams. Though one of those teams last season did really well in a couple of age groups.

I appreciate you PP. DCUM is often a wild ride because when you do know something factual about the topic, and someone else posts utter BS or pure fiction, yes you can speak to the factual truth and see who believes you, but rarely do you actually get data gathered to show the status of the situation. You did that though, thanks! Maybe at least one PP now in these convos will think twice before posing made up stuff as "fact" in a compellingly factual-seeming way

Me again, I got so excited I didn't reflect the data shown well. Central was posed by the BS poster as consistently LAST. That is not true, as stated by this data. And the last data there shows Metro as 2nd below North (not including Travel in this since this part of convo was about regional teams) with East very close behind.

Overall, Central is on the lower end but literally never last. That was what I really meant to write, but I got excited and only focused on 2nd data set. And that was incorrect, which I can admit to because I like facts and data too, unlike the "Central is consistently last!" PP.

Thanks for the data, love that we can have this discussion based on that. Lets focus on U15-U18 because that's what this thread is about -- the new tryouts for those age groups.

First, we can't use regional ranks. They are meaningless. Also, winning percentage only matters when you consider the competition. An open level team playing in a club tournament will win almost every match, a club level team playing open will lose most. That's what national rankings take into account. That's why CHRVA only uses national ranks for bid qualification and why it requires at least one open tournament in the region to qualify -- so teams can't play easy schedules and still qualify for bids over much better teams.

Second, lets look over multiple years and compare Metro Central's finishing position relative to the other Metro teams based on those national ranks.

2025
15: 6th out of 6 teams (#4159)
16: 5th out of 6 teams (#3604)
17: No Team
18: 5th out of 5 teams (#1983)

2024
15: 6th out of 6 teams (#2863)
16: 6th out of 6 teams (#3262)
17: No Team
18: 3rd out of 5 teams (#1680)

2023
15: 3rd out of 6 teams (#1636)
16: 5th out of 6 teams (#2924)
17: No Team
18: 3rd out of 6 teams (#1281)

In 2025, Metro Central's three teams finished last, last and next to last out of all of the Metro teams. In 2024 Central's teams finished last, last and 3rd out of 5th. The last year Metro Central was really competitive compared to other Metro teams was 2023, and that year their teams were still in the middle to bottom part of the rankings.

For the previous two years, based on National ranks, 4/6 Metro Central teams were last in ranking across all Metro teams in their age group. A fifth one was next to last.

"First, we can't use regional ranks. They are meaningless." LOL PP, thanks for saying this early on so we know to dismiss whatever comes next. You made a lot of effort there to justify your original erroneous comments. You're still not fooling us, but if it makes you feel better, cool, you do you

The question of national vs. regional rankings has been covered extensively in many other threads here. No tournaments use regional rankings for seeding, they all use national rankings. CHRVA bids uses national rankings for acceptance--EVEN THOUGH IT IS A REGIONAL ONLY TOURNAMENT--into the bid tournament and does not use regional rankings. Without the additional information provided below, its enough to know that when tournament seeding and bid entrances are being determined, national ranks are used. And FYI -- national rankings are also used for seeding any qualifier tournaments, national competititons and any out of region tournament where a CHRVA team participates against other teams from a different region. If all the Metro teams registered for the same division in the same tournament they would be seeded based on their national rank -- and Metro Central would have been seeded last 7/11 times.

What are regional rankings?
Regional rankings only take into account the games played against other teams in the region. Regional rankings suffer from multiple data problems, including small data set issues and strength of schedule bias. AES rankings are power weighted by direct competition -- if you play a few matches against weak competition and win you are ranked high. If you play a lot of matches against tough competition you can be ranked lower. And if you never play a good team but win all your matches against poor performing teams you will be ranked well above your actual performance.

For example, GO Volley 15 N went 5-0 against regional teams, ranking 9th in the region with 100% win rate. Based on National rankings they were 24th, ranking #1283 with a 43% win rate. In other words, they played in a lower level regional tournament and won it (hence the 5-0 record) but when they play in higher level tournaments they lose more than half of their matches. None of their other matches were against CHRVA opponents. Same thing for PSVBC (11-0) - 14th in region, 100% win rate, but 60% win rate nationally, #1595 rank and ~30th in region. If I rank of either of them on just regional play they would show up as "ELITE" with 100% win rate and equal to Metro Travel in the table with the colors above. No one believes that either team are a Metro Travel level team, or anywhere close.

Why are national rankings better?
They aren't perfect, but they are the standard for comparison now. Generally, a team ranked higher in national rankings is expected to win against a lower ranked team. The closer the ranking difference the closer the match is expected to be. Losing to a highly ranked team in a close match will actually improve your ranking. Beating the 6000th team in the country can actually hurt it if you don't win by a large margin. This is why national rankings are generally used for seeding -- they incorporate more data and are much more predictive of team performance in tournaments.

All of this is summarized from other threads, with recent examples thrown in.

TLDR: Tournaments don't uses regional rankings for seeding, CHRVA bids don't use them to determine qualification. Its easy to get an artificially high or low regional ranking due to small data set issues. And the consensus on every thread on this board that national rankings are much more indicative of performance than regional rankings.

I'm the newbie who asked, and it's possible you did answer my original question, but honestly I don't see the answer. I didn't ask "Why are national rankings better than regional?" What I DID ask is: "Why would the ORDER of ranking (who's 1st, 2nd, 47th, etc) change when comparing regional teams based on national vs. regional?

So please break it down a little bit more for those of us newer to all this (and btw I don't care how Central shows up in all this, but since that's the team this part of conversation was focused on, that's the data shared in the way that makes me ask this): If you take this data:

"I'm not the person you are responding to, but for fun, I did look at AES from last year, looking only at Metro teams:
18s: 18 Central was lowest rated (44 overall)
17s: no Central team. North was lowest rated (12 overall)
16s: Central was 2nd lowest (77 overall), ahead of South FX (107 overall)
15s: Central was 2nd lowest (76 overall), ahead of East (79 overall)
14s: Central was 3rd lowest (52 overall), ahead of South PW (82 overall) and East (119 overall)
13s: Central was 2nd lowest (28 overall), ahead of South PW (69 overall)
12s: Central was 2nd lowest (28 overall), ahead of East (29 overall)"

This person seems to understand the assignment and is showing how Central compared to the other Metro regional teams. IF you do this exact same data based on Regional rankings vs. National rankings, we all understand that your actual rank will be very different, but the "Central is the worst & East is usually 2nd after North" poster seems to say the order of these teams compared to each other CHANGES when you use national rankings. So staying with this example, is Central somehow always last if you use national rankings, even though in this dataset they were never last?

Is that the case? If so, why or how is that true?

I’m not the PP but wanted to answer to the newbie’s question “ Why the ranking is changed between teams on regional scale versus national scale?”.
First of all, sometimes the regional ranking matches national ranking for those teams in questions. Other time, they do not match.
Secondly, why the difference when they do not match?
For example: 12”s : regional ranking : Metro 12 Travel (1) Metro 12 North (12) Metro Central (28) Metro East (29).
National ranking: Metro 12 Travel (96) Metro 12 North (1179) Metro 12 East (2138) Metro Central (2252)
So on the National Ranking scale Metro Central is last.
13’s : regional ranking : Metro 13 Travel (1) Metro 13 North (13) Metro 13 East (14) Metro 13 Central (28) Metro South PW (69)
National ranking: Metro 13 Travel (67) Metro 13 East (556) Metro 13 North (1138) Metro 13 Central (1818) Metro South PW (3466)
Notice the swapped ranking between 13 East and 13 North on the National ranking. Regional ranking is so far off between ranking of 13 East (556) and 13 North (1138)

Club and Coaches often boast about their regional ranking (easy to show) to compete with other clubs in the same area, but the true performance is always showed in National ranking. Of course, there are exceptions as some very good local teams who do not want to travel far to compete but this is very rare.

I'm Newbie, thanks for this very specific example. I now see that this happens, but I still don't understand WHY? What is different about what the criteria are for regional vs. national rankings that make Metro 13 East #556 and Metro 13 North #1138 in national rankings (so East better than North), but on regional North is 13 and East 14, so North better than East)? It seems like the order should still stay the same, so what is considered or weighted differently that changes the order? Totally appreciate you taking the time to post and explain all of this!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a family member who's coached metro regional teams in last 5 years, (not Central), but they have helped with Central tryouts up to last year and you are SO wrong that they take players getting low level offers or none at all! The line is usually out the door for those coach conferences and most players offered a spot take it on the spot and there is no trend of accepting on the spot then rejecting when the written offer comes in.

Quick check on your statement: Line out the door + immediate accepts should mean an easy job filling a 12 person roster. In fact, based on this comment they should have been done on day 1. So why did they add extra tryouts for most of the regions?

As a Metro regional parent with several years of experience the posts here really aren't that off base. With the exception of North, most players good enough to play above the Metro regional level go to other club tryouts on Friday and Saturday. Many of those clubs have multiple teams that you try out for at the same time. Those tryouts overlap with the first round of Metro tryouts which is why Metro typically adds tryouts for most of their teams on Tuesday.

Half of those make-up tryouts this year ended at the same time the open tryout period ended at 10 PM (15 & 17s). The players there either didn't have an offer or were willing to give up an existing offer to take a chance at making a Metro Regional team. The players that had an offer from a close equivalent or even lower team would never be willing to give up a certain offer for a chance of an offer at a Metro regional.

None of this means that those Metro teams are bad. We've enjoyed our time with them. But the PP wasn't really wrong, even if it was an aggressive comment. Based on national ranks Central really is the lowest ranked Metro region. And there are certainly examples of players with low level club offers or no offers at all taking Metro offers, because the Metro makeup tryout schedule actually forces that to happen for certain age groups.

Newbie again, so not PP: I guess I'll ask you the same question, because no one else has posted it this way: where is the National ranking data that shows Metro Central as below North, East and the 2 Souths, age group by age group, for maybe the last 5 years? When you say they're the "lowest ranked Metro region", can you please link to the data you're looking at that compares the teams that way so we can all see what you're looking at?

Sure, happy to. I'll send them as different posts because there is a lot of data. This data pull is directly from AES using national ranks for the last 4 years (Central did run teams in 2021 and South was still one region instead of 2). I used AI to format for easy text reading, so if any data is wrong its because of the AI transcription errors that sometimes occur.

2025 Metro results
National Ranks, Ordinal = absolute ranking vs. Metro teams.
+------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+ | Rank | Teams | Team Code | Wins | Losses | Matches | Win % | Ordinal | +------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+ | 96 | Metro 12 Travel | g12metro1ch | 41 | 13 | 54 | 0.759 | 1 | | 1179 | Metro 12 North | g12metro2ch | 23 | 13 | 36 | 0.639 | 2 | | 2138 | Metro 12 East | g12metro3ch | 17 | 20 | 37 | 0.459 | 3 | | 2252 | Metro 12 Central | g12metro4ch | 12 | 14 | 26 | 0.462 | 4 | | 67 | Metro 13 Travel | g13metro1ch | 59 | 14 | 73 | 0.808 | 1 | | 556 | Metro 13 East | g13metro4ch | 35 | 11 | 46 | 0.761 | 2 | | 1138 | Metro 13 North | g13metro2ch | 22 | 12 | 34 | 0.647 | 3 | | 1818 | Metro 13 Central | g13metro5ch | 22 | 18 | 40 | 0.55 | 4 | | 3466 | Metro 13 South PW | g13metro3ch | 9 | 21 | 30 | 0.3 | 5 | | 48 | Metro 14 Travel | g14metro1ch | 60 | 20 | 80 | 0.75 | 1 | | 2336 | Metro 14 North | g14metro2ch | 21 | 21 | 42 | 0.5 | 2 | | 2873 | Metro 14 Central | g14metro3ch | 17 | 15 | 32 | 0.531 | 3 | | 3203 | Metro 14 South FX | g14metro6ch | 15 | 10 | 25 | 0.6 | 4 | | 4295 | Metro 14 South PW | g14metro5ch | 15 | 16 | 31 | 0.484 | 5 | | 6210 | Metro 14 East | g14metro4ch | 10 | 23 | 33 | 0.303 | 6 | | 25 | Metro 15 Travel | g15metro1ch | 74 | 10 | 84 | 0.881 | 1 | | 1706 | Metro 15 North | g15metro2ch | 26 | 22 | 48 | 0.542 | 2 | | 2427 | Metro 15 South PW | g15metro5ch | 18 | 17 | 35 | 0.514 | 3 | | 3005 | Metro 15 East | g15metro4ch | 17 | 24 | 41 | 0.415 | 4 | | 3354 | Metro 15 South FX | g15metro6ch | 15 | 15 | 30 | 0.5 | 5 | | 4159 | Metro 15 Central | g15metro3ch | 16 | 26 | 42 | 0.381 | 6 | | 39 | Metro 16 Travel | g16metro1ch | 66 | 21 | 87 | 0.759 | 1 | | 412 | Metro 16 North | g16metro2ch | 30 | 17 | 47 | 0.638 | 2 | | 2051 | Metro 16 South PW | g16metro5ch | 16 | 13 | 29 | 0.552 | 3 | | 2578 | Metro 16 East | g16metro4ch | 27 | 23 | 50 | 0.54 | 4 | | 3604 | Metro 16 Central | g16metro3ch | 17 | 24 | 41 | 0.415 | 5 | | 3952 | Metro 16 South FX | g16metro6ch | 13 | 20 | 33 | 0.394 | 6 | | 20 | Metro 17 Travel | g17metro1ch | 77 | 20 | 97 | 0.794 | 1 | | 937 | Metro 17 North | g17metro2ch | 27 | 23 | 50 | 0.54 | 2 | | 30 | Metro 18 Travel | g18metro1ch | 50 | 23 | 73 | 0.685 | 1 | | 532 | Metro 18 North | g18metro2ch | 29 | 19 | 48 | 0.604 | 2 | | 1463 | Metro 18 South PW | g18metro5ch | 16 | 19 | 35 | 0.457 | 3 | | 1932 | Metro 18 East | g18metro4ch | 15 | 23 | 38 | 0.395 | 4 | | 1983 | Metro 18 Central | g18metro3ch | 9 | 13 | 22 | 0.409 | 5 | +------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+

I also ran the regional ranking data same way and ran a t-test for the regression (testing how predictive the regional rank was vs the national rank in overall win %, total wins, etc). The p-value was high indicating that regional ranks did little to predict the overall performance of the team. It appears that the regional data set suffers from data insufficiency issues discussed by multiple PP above. For example, in 2025 U15 only Metro South teams played more than half their matches against regional opponents. The other Metro teams played fewer than half of their matches in region, with Metro North plays just 16 matches against regional opponents compared to 48 total matches for the season in the national ranks. The disparity in games played means that teams with lots of regional matches ranked artificially higher than those with comparably fewer regional matches played. In other words the teams that played mostly local schedules appear stronger in the regional rankings even though the national data shows they are well below the performance of those teams that played more out of region matches.

Aaaahhh ok, NOW I get it, thank you! Sorry, didn't see this part when wrote previous message. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

2024 Data

+------+---------------------+-------------+------+--------+---------+-----------+---------+ | Rank | Teams | Team Code | Wins | Losses | Matches | Winning % | Ordinal | +------+---------------------+-------------+------+--------+---------+-----------+---------+ | 442 | Metro 12 North | g12metro1ch | 30 | 11 | 41 | 0.732 | 1 | | 674 | Metro 12 East | g12metro2ch | 29 | 15 | 44 | 0.659 | 2 | | 1776 | Metro 12 Central | g12metro3ch | 17 | 22 | 39 | 0.436 | 3 | | 46 | Metro 13 Travel | g13metro1ch | 46 | 15 | 61 | 0.754 | 1 | | 1113 | Metro 13 North | g13metro2ch | 23 | 16 | 39 | 0.59 | 2 | | 2377 | Metro 13 South PW | g13metro3ch | 20 | 22 | 42 | 0.476 | 3 | | 3688 | Metro 13 East | g13metro4ch | 11 | 26 | 37 | 0.297 | 4 | | 46 | Metro 14 Travel | g14metro1ch | 49 | 21 | 70 | 0.7 | 1 | | 365 | Metro 14 South PW | g14metro5ch | 35 | 8 | 43 | 0.814 | 2 | | 1179 | Metro 14 North | g14metro2ch | 22 | 18 | 40 | 0.55 | 3 | | 2834 | Metro 14 South FX | g14metro6ch | 20 | 19 | 39 | 0.513 | 4 | | 3020 | Metro 14 East | g14metro4ch | 19 | 20 | 39 | 0.487 | 5 | | 4085 | Metro 14 Central | g14metro3ch | 13 | 24 | 37 | 0.351 | 6 | | 87 | Metro 15 Travel | g15metro1ch | 48 | 24 | 72 | 0.667 | 1 | | 781 | Metro 15 North | g15metro2ch | 30 | 26 | 56 | 0.536 | 2 | | 2680 | Metro 15 South FX | g15metro6ch | 22 | 18 | 40 | 0.55 | 3 | | 2784 | Metro 15 East | g15metro4ch | 28 | 25 | 53 | 0.528 | 4 | | 2849 | Metro 15 South PW | g15metro5ch | 17 | 19 | 36 | 0.472 | 5 | | 2863 | Metro 15 Central | g15metro3ch | 23 | 21 | 44 | 0.523 | 6 | | 86 | Metro 16 Travel | g16metro1ch | 50 | 27 | 77 | 0.649 | 1 | | 907 | Metro 16 South PW | g16metro5ch | 31 | 10 | 41 | 0.756 | 2 | | 1227 | Metro 16 North | g16metro2ch | 33 | 31 | 64 | 0.516 | 3 | | 2998 | Metro 16 East | g16metro4ch | 27 | 32 | 59 | 0.458 | 4 | | 3007 | Metro 16 South FX | g16metro6ch | 20 | 20 | 40 | 0.5 | 5 | | 3262 | Metro 16 Central | g16metro3ch | 19 | 27 | 46 | 0.413 | 6 | | 86 | Metro 16 Travel | g16metro1ch | 50 | 27 | 77 | 0.649 | 1 | | 907 | Metro 16 South PW | g16metro5ch | 31 | 10 | 41 | 0.756 | 2 | | 1227 | Metro 16 North | g16metro2ch | 33 | 31 | 64 | 0.516 | 3 | | 2998 | Metro 16 East | g16metro4ch | 27 | 32 | 59 | 0.458 | 4 | | 3007 | Metro 16 South FX | g16metro6ch | 20 | 20 | 40 | 0.5 | 5 | | 3262 | Metro 16 Central | g16metro3ch | 19 | 27 | 46 | 0.413 | 6 | | 80 | Metro 17 Travel | g17metro1ch | 56 | 22 | 78 | 0.718 | 1 | | 279 | Metro 17 North | g17metro2ch | 47 | 15 | 62 | 0.758 | 2 | | 15 | Metro 18 Travel | g18metro1ch | 49 | 19 | 68 | 0.721 | 1 | | 496 | Metro 18 North | g18metro2ch | 34 | 15 | 49 | 0.694 | 2 | | 1680 | Metro 18 Central | g18metro3ch | 18 | 22 | 40 | 0.45 | 3 | | 1701 | Metro 18 South PW | g18metro5ch | 16 | 23 | 39 | 0.41 | 4 | | 1760 | Metro 18 East | g18metro4ch | 18 | 29 | 47 | 0.383 | 5 | +------+---------------------+-------------+------+--------+---------+-----------+---------+

FYI - You can expand the white box using the pull out on the lower right corner. This will help see the data better. Sorry the forum doesn't really allow for large data posts.

[Anonymous]

2023 Data
+------+---------------------+-------------+------+--------+---------+-----------+---------+ | Rank | Teams | Team Code | Wins | Losses | Matches | Winning % | Ordinal | +------+---------------------+-------------+------+--------+---------+-----------+---------+ | 242 | Metro 12 North | g12metro1ch | 31 | 7 | 38 | 0.816 | 1 | | 591 | Metro 12 East | g12metro2ch | 24 | 13 | 37 | 0.649 | 2 | | 3089 | Metro 12 Central | g12metro3ch | 4 | 26 | 30 | 0.133 | 3 | | 80 | Metro 13 Travel | g13metro1ch | 46 | 17 | 63 | 0.73 | 1 | | 606 | Metro 13 North | g13metro2ch | 27 | 9 | 36 | 0.75 | 2 | | 1208 | Metro 13 South PW | g13metro3ch | 21 | 13 | 34 | 0.618 | 3 | | 134 | Metro 14 Travel | g14metro1ch | 49 | 25 | 74 | 0.662 | 1 | | 2178 | Metro 14 North | g14metro2ch | 19 | 15 | 34 | 0.559 | 2 | | 2198 | Metro 14 South PW | g14metro5ch | 19 | 13 | 32 | 0.594 | 3 | | 3049 | Metro 14 East | g14metro4ch | 17 | 17 | 34 | 0.5 | 4 | | 3533 | Metro 14 South FX | g14metro6ch | 18 | 17 | 35 | 0.514 | 5 | | 5353 | Metro 14 Central | g14metro3ch | 7 | 24 | 31 | 0.226 | 6 | | 76 | Metro 15 Travel | g15metro1ch | 58 | 23 | 81 | 0.716 | 1 | | 318 | Metro 15 North | g15metro2ch | 40 | 11 | 51 | 0.784 | 2 | | 1636 | Metro 15 Central | g15metro3ch | 26 | 17 | 43 | 0.605 | 3 | | 2454 | Metro 15 East | g15metro4ch | 14 | 20 | 34 | 0.412 | 4 | | 2778 | Metro 15 South PW | g15metro5ch | 16 | 20 | 36 | 0.444 | 5 | | 3048 | Metro 15 South FX | g15metro6ch | 17 | 20 | 37 | 0.459 | 6 | | 79 | Metro 16 Travel | g16metro1ch | 48 | 24 | 72 | 0.667 | 1 | | 741 | Metro 16 North | g16metro2ch | 30 | 16 | 46 | 0.652 | 2 | | 1774 | Metro 16 South PW | g16metro5ch | 18 | 10 | 28 | 0.643 | 3 | | 2395 | Metro 16 East | g16metro4ch | 15 | 15 | 30 | 0.5 | 4 | | 2924 | Metro 16 Central | g16metro3ch | 15 | 19 | 34 | 0.441 | 5 | | 3357 | Metro 16 South FX | g16metro6ch | 11 | 14 | 25 | 0.44 | 6 | | 17 | Metro 17 Travel | g17metro1ch | 68 | 17 | 85 | 0.8 | 1 | | 395 | Metro 17 North | g17metro2ch | 40 | 14 | 54 | 0.741 | 2 | | 17 | Metro 18 Travel | g18metro1ch | 51 | 20 | 71 | 0.718 | 1 | | 711 | Metro 18 North | g18metro2ch | 24 | 17 | 41 | 0.585 | 2 | | 1281 | Metro 18 Central | g18metro3ch | 21 | 16 | 37 | 0.568 | 3 | | 1658 | Metro 18 South PW | g18metro5ch | 13 | 14 | 27 | 0.481 | 4 | | 2069 | Metro 18 East | g18metro4ch | 10 | 24 | 34 | 0.294 | 5 | | 2288 | Metro 18 South FX | g18metro6ch | 4 | 27 | 31 | 0.129 | 6 | +------+---------------------+-------------+------+--------+---------+-----------+---------+

[Anonymous]

2022 Data

+------+---------------------+-------------+------+--------+---------+-----------+---------+ | Rank | Teams | Team Code | Wins | Losses | Matches | Winning % | Ordinal | +------+---------------------+-------------+------+--------+---------+-----------+---------+ | 466 | Metro 12 North | g12metro1ch | 24 | 8 | 32 | 0.75 | 1 | | 779 | Metro 12 East | g12metro2ch | 21 | 14 | 35 | 0.6 | 2 | | 111 | Metro 13 Travel | g13metro1ch | 33 | 20 | 53 | 0.623 | 1 | | 917 | Metro 13 North | g13metro2ch | 20 | 7 | 27 | 0.741 | 2 | | 2259 | Metro 13 South PW | g13metro3ch | 14 | 15 | 29 | 0.483 | 3 | | 67 | Metro 14 Travel | g14metro1ch | 45 | 21 | 66 | 0.682 | 1 | | 378 | Metro 14 North | g14metro2ch | 24 | 4 | 28 | 0.857 | 2 | | 2000 | Metro 14 East | g14metro5ch | 16 | 7 | 23 | 0.696 | 3 | | 2443 | Metro 14 Central | g14metro3ch | 14 | 10 | 24 | 0.583 | 4 | | 4027 | Metro 14 South FX | g14metro6ch | 7 | 17 | 24 | 0.292 | 5 | | 4641 | Metro 14 South PW | g14metro4ch | 8 | 23 | 31 | 0.258 | 6 | | 49 | Metro 15 Travel | g15metro1ch | 56 | 21 | 77 | 0.727 | 1 | | 438 | Metro 15 North | g15metro2ch | 25 | 10 | 35 | 0.714 | 2 | | 1225 | Metro 15 East | g15metro5ch | 19 | 8 | 27 | 0.704 | 3 | | 1566 | Metro 15 Central | g15metro3ch | 18 | 11 | 29 | 0.621 | 4 | | 2450 | Metro 15 South PW | g15metro4ch | 11 | 12 | 23 | 0.478 | 5 | | 5 | Metro 16 Travel | g16metro1ch | 83 | 7 | 90 | 0.922 | 1 | | 687 | Metro 16 North | g16metro2ch | 21 | 9 | 30 | 0.7 | 2 | | 1874 | Metro 16 South PW | g16metro4ch | 18 | 10 | 28 | 0.643 | 3 | | 1908 | Metro 16 Central | g16metro3ch | 17 | 11 | 28 | 0.607 | 4 | | 2852 | Metro 16 East | g16metro5ch | 16 | 12 | 28 | 0.571 | 5 | | 3397 | Metro 16 South FX | g16metro6ch | 10 | 15 | 25 | 0.4 | 6 | | 28 | Metro 17 Travel | g17metro1ch | 58 | 18 | 76 | 0.763 | 1 | | 912 | Metro 17 North | g17metro2ch | 15 | 14 | 29 | 0.517 | 2 | | 11 | Metro 18 Travel | g18metro1ch | 58 | 10 | 68 | 0.853 | 1 | | 205 | Metro 18 North | g18metro2ch | 26 | 8 | 34 | 0.765 | 2 | | 1518 | Metro 18 Central | g18metro4ch | 15 | 12 | 27 | 0.556 | 3 | | 1554 | Metro 18 South PW | g18metro3ch | 13 | 23 | 36 | 0.361 | 4 | | 1732 | Metro 18 East | g18metro5ch | 15 | 17 | 32 | 0.469 | 5 | +------+---------------------+-------------+------+--------+---------+-----------+---------+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a family member who's coached metro regional teams in last 5 years, (not Central), but they have helped with Central tryouts up to last year and you are SO wrong that they take players getting low level offers or none at all! The line is usually out the door for those coach conferences and most players offered a spot take it on the spot and there is no trend of accepting on the spot then rejecting when the written offer comes in.

Quick check on your statement: Line out the door + immediate accepts should mean an easy job filling a 12 person roster. In fact, based on this comment they should have been done on day 1. So why did they add extra tryouts for most of the regions?

As a Metro regional parent with several years of experience the posts here really aren't that off base. With the exception of North, most players good enough to play above the Metro regional level go to other club tryouts on Friday and Saturday. Many of those clubs have multiple teams that you try out for at the same time. Those tryouts overlap with the first round of Metro tryouts which is why Metro typically adds tryouts for most of their teams on Tuesday.

Half of those make-up tryouts this year ended at the same time the open tryout period ended at 10 PM (15 & 17s). The players there either didn't have an offer or were willing to give up an existing offer to take a chance at making a Metro Regional team. The players that had an offer from a close equivalent or even lower team would never be willing to give up a certain offer for a chance of an offer at a Metro regional.

None of this means that those Metro teams are bad. We've enjoyed our time with them. But the PP wasn't really wrong, even if it was an aggressive comment. Based on national ranks Central really is the lowest ranked Metro region. And there are certainly examples of players with low level club offers or no offers at all taking Metro offers, because the Metro makeup tryout schedule actually forces that to happen for certain age groups.

Newbie again, so not PP: I guess I'll ask you the same question, because no one else has posted it this way: where is the National ranking data that shows Metro Central as below North, East and the 2 Souths, age group by age group, for maybe the last 5 years? When you say they're the "lowest ranked Metro region", can you please link to the data you're looking at that compares the teams that way so we can all see what you're looking at?

Sure, happy to. I'll send them as different posts because there is a lot of data. This data pull is directly from AES using national ranks for the last 4 years (Central did run teams in 2021 and South was still one region instead of 2). I used AI to format for easy text reading, so if any data is wrong its because of the AI transcription errors that sometimes occur.

2025 Metro results
National Ranks, Ordinal = absolute ranking vs. Metro teams.
+------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+ | Rank | Teams | Team Code | Wins | Losses | Matches | Win % | Ordinal | +------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+ | 96 | Metro 12 Travel | g12metro1ch | 41 | 13 | 54 | 0.759 | 1 | | 1179 | Metro 12 North | g12metro2ch | 23 | 13 | 36 | 0.639 | 2 | | 2138 | Metro 12 East | g12metro3ch | 17 | 20 | 37 | 0.459 | 3 | | 2252 | Metro 12 Central | g12metro4ch | 12 | 14 | 26 | 0.462 | 4 | | 67 | Metro 13 Travel | g13metro1ch | 59 | 14 | 73 | 0.808 | 1 | | 556 | Metro 13 East | g13metro4ch | 35 | 11 | 46 | 0.761 | 2 | | 1138 | Metro 13 North | g13metro2ch | 22 | 12 | 34 | 0.647 | 3 | | 1818 | Metro 13 Central | g13metro5ch | 22 | 18 | 40 | 0.55 | 4 | | 3466 | Metro 13 South PW | g13metro3ch | 9 | 21 | 30 | 0.3 | 5 | | 48 | Metro 14 Travel | g14metro1ch | 60 | 20 | 80 | 0.75 | 1 | | 2336 | Metro 14 North | g14metro2ch | 21 | 21 | 42 | 0.5 | 2 | | 2873 | Metro 14 Central | g14metro3ch | 17 | 15 | 32 | 0.531 | 3 | | 3203 | Metro 14 South FX | g14metro6ch | 15 | 10 | 25 | 0.6 | 4 | | 4295 | Metro 14 South PW | g14metro5ch | 15 | 16 | 31 | 0.484 | 5 | | 6210 | Metro 14 East | g14metro4ch | 10 | 23 | 33 | 0.303 | 6 | | 25 | Metro 15 Travel | g15metro1ch | 74 | 10 | 84 | 0.881 | 1 | | 1706 | Metro 15 North | g15metro2ch | 26 | 22 | 48 | 0.542 | 2 | | 2427 | Metro 15 South PW | g15metro5ch | 18 | 17 | 35 | 0.514 | 3 | | 3005 | Metro 15 East | g15metro4ch | 17 | 24 | 41 | 0.415 | 4 | | 3354 | Metro 15 South FX | g15metro6ch | 15 | 15 | 30 | 0.5 | 5 | | 4159 | Metro 15 Central | g15metro3ch | 16 | 26 | 42 | 0.381 | 6 | | 39 | Metro 16 Travel | g16metro1ch | 66 | 21 | 87 | 0.759 | 1 | | 412 | Metro 16 North | g16metro2ch | 30 | 17 | 47 | 0.638 | 2 | | 2051 | Metro 16 South PW | g16metro5ch | 16 | 13 | 29 | 0.552 | 3 | | 2578 | Metro 16 East | g16metro4ch | 27 | 23 | 50 | 0.54 | 4 | | 3604 | Metro 16 Central | g16metro3ch | 17 | 24 | 41 | 0.415 | 5 | | 3952 | Metro 16 South FX | g16metro6ch | 13 | 20 | 33 | 0.394 | 6 | | 20 | Metro 17 Travel | g17metro1ch | 77 | 20 | 97 | 0.794 | 1 | | 937 | Metro 17 North | g17metro2ch | 27 | 23 | 50 | 0.54 | 2 | | 30 | Metro 18 Travel | g18metro1ch | 50 | 23 | 73 | 0.685 | 1 | | 532 | Metro 18 North | g18metro2ch | 29 | 19 | 48 | 0.604 | 2 | | 1463 | Metro 18 South PW | g18metro5ch | 16 | 19 | 35 | 0.457 | 3 | | 1932 | Metro 18 East | g18metro4ch | 15 | 23 | 38 | 0.395 | 4 | | 1983 | Metro 18 Central | g18metro3ch | 9 | 13 | 22 | 0.409 | 5 | +------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+

I also ran the regional ranking data same way and ran a t-test for the regression (testing how predictive the regional rank was vs the national rank in overall win %, total wins, etc). The p-value was high indicating that regional ranks did little to predict the overall performance of the team. It appears that the regional data set suffers from data insufficiency issues discussed by multiple PP above. For example, in 2025 U15 only Metro South teams played more than half their matches against regional opponents. The other Metro teams played fewer than half of their matches in region, with Metro North plays just 16 matches against regional opponents compared to 48 total matches for the season in the national ranks. The disparity in games played means that teams with lots of regional matches ranked artificially higher than those with comparably fewer regional matches played. In other words the teams that played mostly local schedules appear stronger in the regional rankings even though the national data shows they are well below the performance of those teams that played more out of region matches.

Aaaahhh ok, NOW I get it, thank you! Sorry, didn't see this part when wrote previous message. Thanks!

Happy to help. As they say "Lies, D**n lies and statistics". In this case the claim that started all this was based on the national ranks and the generally understood fact that national ranks are much more accurate than regional ranks, at least in CHRVA. The rebuttal to that used the regional ranks to try to prove their point, but as we've covered extensively now that rebuttal fell into the "statistics" bucket of the statement above.

Often on DCUM there is an assumption that there are ulterior motives for posts and for some posters there definitely is. Some parents can get very wrapped up in their club and will defend it vigorously, others will have a bad experience or feel slighted when their DD doesn't make a team and trash a club constantly. Add in the anonymous club staff posts and you get a wide range of opinion that can be heavily biased. Without understanding the bias we sometimes take information shared at face value when we should be skeptical of it. Generally when you see over the top responses to statements of fact it's because that bias exists and they are trying to prove someone wrong in defense of their club. A big hint is all caps responses and attacking the post as completely invalid, FYI.

But there's a small group of posters that generally have a "let the data tell us" approach. Those posters tend to have a sound understanding of the way rankings work, the relative performance of the teams and a good grasp of the strength of schedule impacts on rankings. They also know a lot of the players and some have been around the game for a long time, and their posts reflect that. They are biased some too, but they generally change their minds when presented with data (See the discussion re: recruiting for example). If you read through the threads you'll see these posters sharing data in a variety of threads like the metro vs. paramount debates, helping new families understand the difference between a 1 team at Club A and a 2s team at Club B, etc. I'm not sure how many of them responded in this thread, but it feels like at least 3 and they all said versions of the same thing: Use national ranks, the data is sound, and here's the proof.

Thanks for joining us in the "let the data tell us" group, at least for this discussion!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a family member who's coached metro regional teams in last 5 years, (not Central), but they have helped with Central tryouts up to last year and you are SO wrong that they take players getting low level offers or none at all! The line is usually out the door for those coach conferences and most players offered a spot take it on the spot and there is no trend of accepting on the spot then rejecting when the written offer comes in.

Quick check on your statement: Line out the door + immediate accepts should mean an easy job filling a 12 person roster. In fact, based on this comment they should have been done on day 1. So why did they add extra tryouts for most of the regions?

As a Metro regional parent with several years of experience the posts here really aren't that off base. With the exception of North, most players good enough to play above the Metro regional level go to other club tryouts on Friday and Saturday. Many of those clubs have multiple teams that you try out for at the same time. Those tryouts overlap with the first round of Metro tryouts which is why Metro typically adds tryouts for most of their teams on Tuesday.

Half of those make-up tryouts this year ended at the same time the open tryout period ended at 10 PM (15 & 17s). The players there either didn't have an offer or were willing to give up an existing offer to take a chance at making a Metro Regional team. The players that had an offer from a close equivalent or even lower team would never be willing to give up a certain offer for a chance of an offer at a Metro regional.

None of this means that those Metro teams are bad. We've enjoyed our time with them. But the PP wasn't really wrong, even if it was an aggressive comment. Based on national ranks Central really is the lowest ranked Metro region. And there are certainly examples of players with low level club offers or no offers at all taking Metro offers, because the Metro makeup tryout schedule actually forces that to happen for certain age groups.

Newbie again, so not PP: I guess I'll ask you the same question, because no one else has posted it this way: where is the National ranking data that shows Metro Central as below North, East and the 2 Souths, age group by age group, for maybe the last 5 years? When you say they're the "lowest ranked Metro region", can you please link to the data you're looking at that compares the teams that way so we can all see what you're looking at?

Sure, happy to. I'll send them as different posts because there is a lot of data. This data pull is directly from AES using national ranks for the last 4 years (Central did run teams in 2021 and South was still one region instead of 2). I used AI to format for easy text reading, so if any data is wrong its because of the AI transcription errors that sometimes occur.

2025 Metro results
National Ranks, Ordinal = absolute ranking vs. Metro teams.
+------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+ | Rank | Teams | Team Code | Wins | Losses | Matches | Win % | Ordinal | +------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+ | 96 | Metro 12 Travel | g12metro1ch | 41 | 13 | 54 | 0.759 | 1 | | 1179 | Metro 12 North | g12metro2ch | 23 | 13 | 36 | 0.639 | 2 | | 2138 | Metro 12 East | g12metro3ch | 17 | 20 | 37 | 0.459 | 3 | | 2252 | Metro 12 Central | g12metro4ch | 12 | 14 | 26 | 0.462 | 4 | | 67 | Metro 13 Travel | g13metro1ch | 59 | 14 | 73 | 0.808 | 1 | | 556 | Metro 13 East | g13metro4ch | 35 | 11 | 46 | 0.761 | 2 | | 1138 | Metro 13 North | g13metro2ch | 22 | 12 | 34 | 0.647 | 3 | | 1818 | Metro 13 Central | g13metro5ch | 22 | 18 | 40 | 0.55 | 4 | | 3466 | Metro 13 South PW | g13metro3ch | 9 | 21 | 30 | 0.3 | 5 | | 48 | Metro 14 Travel | g14metro1ch | 60 | 20 | 80 | 0.75 | 1 | | 2336 | Metro 14 North | g14metro2ch | 21 | 21 | 42 | 0.5 | 2 | | 2873 | Metro 14 Central | g14metro3ch | 17 | 15 | 32 | 0.531 | 3 | | 3203 | Metro 14 South FX | g14metro6ch | 15 | 10 | 25 | 0.6 | 4 | | 4295 | Metro 14 South PW | g14metro5ch | 15 | 16 | 31 | 0.484 | 5 | | 6210 | Metro 14 East | g14metro4ch | 10 | 23 | 33 | 0.303 | 6 | | 25 | Metro 15 Travel | g15metro1ch | 74 | 10 | 84 | 0.881 | 1 | | 1706 | Metro 15 North | g15metro2ch | 26 | 22 | 48 | 0.542 | 2 | | 2427 | Metro 15 South PW | g15metro5ch | 18 | 17 | 35 | 0.514 | 3 | | 3005 | Metro 15 East | g15metro4ch | 17 | 24 | 41 | 0.415 | 4 | | 3354 | Metro 15 South FX | g15metro6ch | 15 | 15 | 30 | 0.5 | 5 | | 4159 | Metro 15 Central | g15metro3ch | 16 | 26 | 42 | 0.381 | 6 | | 39 | Metro 16 Travel | g16metro1ch | 66 | 21 | 87 | 0.759 | 1 | | 412 | Metro 16 North | g16metro2ch | 30 | 17 | 47 | 0.638 | 2 | | 2051 | Metro 16 South PW | g16metro5ch | 16 | 13 | 29 | 0.552 | 3 | | 2578 | Metro 16 East | g16metro4ch | 27 | 23 | 50 | 0.54 | 4 | | 3604 | Metro 16 Central | g16metro3ch | 17 | 24 | 41 | 0.415 | 5 | | 3952 | Metro 16 South FX | g16metro6ch | 13 | 20 | 33 | 0.394 | 6 | | 20 | Metro 17 Travel | g17metro1ch | 77 | 20 | 97 | 0.794 | 1 | | 937 | Metro 17 North | g17metro2ch | 27 | 23 | 50 | 0.54 | 2 | | 30 | Metro 18 Travel | g18metro1ch | 50 | 23 | 73 | 0.685 | 1 | | 532 | Metro 18 North | g18metro2ch | 29 | 19 | 48 | 0.604 | 2 | | 1463 | Metro 18 South PW | g18metro5ch | 16 | 19 | 35 | 0.457 | 3 | | 1932 | Metro 18 East | g18metro4ch | 15 | 23 | 38 | 0.395 | 4 | | 1983 | Metro 18 Central | g18metro3ch | 9 | 13 | 22 | 0.409 | 5 | +------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+

I also ran the regional ranking data same way and ran a t-test for the regression (testing how predictive the regional rank was vs the national rank in overall win %, total wins, etc). The p-value was high indicating that regional ranks did little to predict the overall performance of the team. It appears that the regional data set suffers from data insufficiency issues discussed by multiple PP above. For example, in 2025 U15 only Metro South teams played more than half their matches against regional opponents. The other Metro teams played fewer than half of their matches in region, with Metro North plays just 16 matches against regional opponents compared to 48 total matches for the season in the national ranks. The disparity in games played means that teams with lots of regional matches ranked artificially higher than those with comparably fewer regional matches played. In other words the teams that played mostly local schedules appear stronger in the regional rankings even though the national data shows they are well below the performance of those teams that played more out of region matches.

Aaaahhh ok, NOW I get it, thank you! Sorry, didn't see this part when wrote previous message. Thanks!

Happy to help. As they say "Lies, D**n lies and statistics". In this case the claim that started all this was based on the national ranks and the generally understood fact that national ranks are much more accurate than regional ranks, at least in CHRVA. The rebuttal to that used the regional ranks to try to prove their point, but as we've covered extensively now that rebuttal fell into the "statistics" bucket of the statement above.

Often on DCUM there is an assumption that there are ulterior motives for posts and for some posters there definitely is. Some parents can get very wrapped up in their club and will defend it vigorously, others will have a bad experience or feel slighted when their DD doesn't make a team and trash a club constantly. Add in the anonymous club staff posts and you get a wide range of opinion that can be heavily biased. Without understanding the bias we sometimes take information shared at face value when we should be skeptical of it. Generally when you see over the top responses to statements of fact it's because that bias exists and they are trying to prove someone wrong in defense of their club. A big hint is all caps responses and attacking the post as completely invalid, FYI.

But there's a small group of posters that generally have a "let the data tell us" approach. Those posters tend to have a sound understanding of the way rankings work, the relative performance of the teams and a good grasp of the strength of schedule impacts on rankings. They also know a lot of the players and some have been around the game for a long time, and their posts reflect that. They are biased some too, but they generally change their minds when presented with data (See the discussion re: recruiting for example). If you read through the threads you'll see these posters sharing data in a variety of threads like the metro vs. paramount debates, helping new families understand the difference between a 1 team at Club A and a 2s team at Club B, etc. I'm not sure how many of them responded in this thread, but it feels like at least 3 and they all said versions of the same thing: Use national ranks, the data is sound, and here's the proof.

Thanks for joining us in the "let the data tell us" group, at least for this discussion!

I'm Newbie, and you're the data expert between the 2 of us for sure! But seems like the data sets you just posted actually do support the person who said Central doesn't finish last all the time, since in 2024 Central seems to have had a bad year and finished last in 3 of the 4 age groups they had (one being the 1st year they had 12s it seems); but in 2022 and 2023 they were almost never last, and Metro East who the same original poster who brought this up said was usually 2nd to North, that wasn't true either.

I've got no dog in this fight, but it seems above you just said the data shows the person defending Central was wrong, which maybe is true for 2024 but based on the data you provided, can't at all be said to be true in the 2 yrs before that, where Central mostly were not last and sometimes were 2nd to Travel (actually they're 2nd to travel for 18s every year it seems - anyone know why that is?)

Fascinating stuff! In the end though, all the national data in this thread says Central is a middling team among the Metro regional teams, and other than Travel being 1st, the only other "trend" among the 2022 - 2024 data is that North is usually 2nd. Lots and lots of moving around between the other 4 regional teams (East, Central, South PW & South FX).

Ok now can I give you some questions related to my actual job (nothing to do with volleyball) and can you please do data analysis for me for projects? Your anonymous feedback is way cheaper than the consultant I use LOL!
(Kidding, in case that's not clear!)

[Anonymous]

Also, I will never know how you embedded a scroll-able data set into these fields... many here can barely embed their new comment in the right place and it ends up as part of the previous comment

[Anonymous]

You guys are really wrapoed up on rankings and stats.
And to the point of going down rabbit holes to boot.

Does it really matter (that much)?

I would have thought practice location, tournament schedule, and price are things to compare abd contrast? Logistics and all?

Not nitpicking if Team XYZ North for Age123 is better than Team ABC South for Age456.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a family member who's coached metro regional teams in last 5 years, (not Central), but they have helped with Central tryouts up to last year and you are SO wrong that they take players getting low level offers or none at all! The line is usually out the door for those coach conferences and most players offered a spot take it on the spot and there is no trend of accepting on the spot then rejecting when the written offer comes in.

Quick check on your statement: Line out the door + immediate accepts should mean an easy job filling a 12 person roster. In fact, based on this comment they should have been done on day 1. So why did they add extra tryouts for most of the regions?

As a Metro regional parent with several years of experience the posts here really aren't that off base. With the exception of North, most players good enough to play above the Metro regional level go to other club tryouts on Friday and Saturday. Many of those clubs have multiple teams that you try out for at the same time. Those tryouts overlap with the first round of Metro tryouts which is why Metro typically adds tryouts for most of their teams on Tuesday.

Half of those make-up tryouts this year ended at the same time the open tryout period ended at 10 PM (15 & 17s). The players there either didn't have an offer or were willing to give up an existing offer to take a chance at making a Metro Regional team. The players that had an offer from a close equivalent or even lower team would never be willing to give up a certain offer for a chance of an offer at a Metro regional.

None of this means that those Metro teams are bad. We've enjoyed our time with them. But the PP wasn't really wrong, even if it was an aggressive comment. Based on national ranks Central really is the lowest ranked Metro region. And there are certainly examples of players with low level club offers or no offers at all taking Metro offers, because the Metro makeup tryout schedule actually forces that to happen for certain age groups.

Newbie again, so not PP: I guess I'll ask you the same question, because no one else has posted it this way: where is the National ranking data that shows Metro Central as below North, East and the 2 Souths, age group by age group, for maybe the last 5 years? When you say they're the "lowest ranked Metro region", can you please link to the data you're looking at that compares the teams that way so we can all see what you're looking at?

Sure, happy to. I'll send them as different posts because there is a lot of data. This data pull is directly from AES using national ranks for the last 4 years (Central did run teams in 2021 and South was still one region instead of 2). I used AI to format for easy text reading, so if any data is wrong its because of the AI transcription errors that sometimes occur.

2025 Metro results
National Ranks, Ordinal = absolute ranking vs. Metro teams.
+------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+ | Rank | Teams | Team Code | Wins | Losses | Matches | Win % | Ordinal | +------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+ | 96 | Metro 12 Travel | g12metro1ch | 41 | 13 | 54 | 0.759 | 1 | | 1179 | Metro 12 North | g12metro2ch | 23 | 13 | 36 | 0.639 | 2 | | 2138 | Metro 12 East | g12metro3ch | 17 | 20 | 37 | 0.459 | 3 | | 2252 | Metro 12 Central | g12metro4ch | 12 | 14 | 26 | 0.462 | 4 | | 67 | Metro 13 Travel | g13metro1ch | 59 | 14 | 73 | 0.808 | 1 | | 556 | Metro 13 East | g13metro4ch | 35 | 11 | 46 | 0.761 | 2 | | 1138 | Metro 13 North | g13metro2ch | 22 | 12 | 34 | 0.647 | 3 | | 1818 | Metro 13 Central | g13metro5ch | 22 | 18 | 40 | 0.55 | 4 | | 3466 | Metro 13 South PW | g13metro3ch | 9 | 21 | 30 | 0.3 | 5 | | 48 | Metro 14 Travel | g14metro1ch | 60 | 20 | 80 | 0.75 | 1 | | 2336 | Metro 14 North | g14metro2ch | 21 | 21 | 42 | 0.5 | 2 | | 2873 | Metro 14 Central | g14metro3ch | 17 | 15 | 32 | 0.531 | 3 | | 3203 | Metro 14 South FX | g14metro6ch | 15 | 10 | 25 | 0.6 | 4 | | 4295 | Metro 14 South PW | g14metro5ch | 15 | 16 | 31 | 0.484 | 5 | | 6210 | Metro 14 East | g14metro4ch | 10 | 23 | 33 | 0.303 | 6 | | 25 | Metro 15 Travel | g15metro1ch | 74 | 10 | 84 | 0.881 | 1 | | 1706 | Metro 15 North | g15metro2ch | 26 | 22 | 48 | 0.542 | 2 | | 2427 | Metro 15 South PW | g15metro5ch | 18 | 17 | 35 | 0.514 | 3 | | 3005 | Metro 15 East | g15metro4ch | 17 | 24 | 41 | 0.415 | 4 | | 3354 | Metro 15 South FX | g15metro6ch | 15 | 15 | 30 | 0.5 | 5 | | 4159 | Metro 15 Central | g15metro3ch | 16 | 26 | 42 | 0.381 | 6 | | 39 | Metro 16 Travel | g16metro1ch | 66 | 21 | 87 | 0.759 | 1 | | 412 | Metro 16 North | g16metro2ch | 30 | 17 | 47 | 0.638 | 2 | | 2051 | Metro 16 South PW | g16metro5ch | 16 | 13 | 29 | 0.552 | 3 | | 2578 | Metro 16 East | g16metro4ch | 27 | 23 | 50 | 0.54 | 4 | | 3604 | Metro 16 Central | g16metro3ch | 17 | 24 | 41 | 0.415 | 5 | | 3952 | Metro 16 South FX | g16metro6ch | 13 | 20 | 33 | 0.394 | 6 | | 20 | Metro 17 Travel | g17metro1ch | 77 | 20 | 97 | 0.794 | 1 | | 937 | Metro 17 North | g17metro2ch | 27 | 23 | 50 | 0.54 | 2 | | 30 | Metro 18 Travel | g18metro1ch | 50 | 23 | 73 | 0.685 | 1 | | 532 | Metro 18 North | g18metro2ch | 29 | 19 | 48 | 0.604 | 2 | | 1463 | Metro 18 South PW | g18metro5ch | 16 | 19 | 35 | 0.457 | 3 | | 1932 | Metro 18 East | g18metro4ch | 15 | 23 | 38 | 0.395 | 4 | | 1983 | Metro 18 Central | g18metro3ch | 9 | 13 | 22 | 0.409 | 5 | +------+-------------------------+-------------+----------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+

I also ran the regional ranking data same way and ran a t-test for the regression (testing how predictive the regional rank was vs the national rank in overall win %, total wins, etc). The p-value was high indicating that regional ranks did little to predict the overall performance of the team. It appears that the regional data set suffers from data insufficiency issues discussed by multiple PP above. For example, in 2025 U15 only Metro South teams played more than half their matches against regional opponents. The other Metro teams played fewer than half of their matches in region, with Metro North plays just 16 matches against regional opponents compared to 48 total matches for the season in the national ranks. The disparity in games played means that teams with lots of regional matches ranked artificially higher than those with comparably fewer regional matches played. In other words the teams that played mostly local schedules appear stronger in the regional rankings even though the national data shows they are well below the performance of those teams that played more out of region matches.

Aaaahhh ok, NOW I get it, thank you! Sorry, didn't see this part when wrote previous message. Thanks!

Happy to help. As they say "Lies, D**n lies and statistics". In this case the claim that started all this was based on the national ranks and the generally understood fact that national ranks are much more accurate than regional ranks, at least in CHRVA. The rebuttal to that used the regional ranks to try to prove their point, but as we've covered extensively now that rebuttal fell into the "statistics" bucket of the statement above.

Often on DCUM there is an assumption that there are ulterior motives for posts and for some posters there definitely is. Some parents can get very wrapped up in their club and will defend it vigorously, others will have a bad experience or feel slighted when their DD doesn't make a team and trash a club constantly. Add in the anonymous club staff posts and you get a wide range of opinion that can be heavily biased. Without understanding the bias we sometimes take information shared at face value when we should be skeptical of it. Generally when you see over the top responses to statements of fact it's because that bias exists and they are trying to prove someone wrong in defense of their club. A big hint is all caps responses and attacking the post as completely invalid, FYI.

But there's a small group of posters that generally have a "let the data tell us" approach. Those posters tend to have a sound understanding of the way rankings work, the relative performance of the teams and a good grasp of the strength of schedule impacts on rankings. They also know a lot of the players and some have been around the game for a long time, and their posts reflect that. They are biased some too, but they generally change their minds when presented with data (See the discussion re: recruiting for example). If you read through the threads you'll see these posters sharing data in a variety of threads like the metro vs. paramount debates, helping new families understand the difference between a 1 team at Club A and a 2s team at Club B, etc. I'm not sure how many of them responded in this thread, but it feels like at least 3 and they all said versions of the same thing: Use national ranks, the data is sound, and here's the proof.

Thanks for joining us in the "let the data tell us" group, at least for this discussion!

I'm Newbie, and you're the data expert between the 2 of us for sure! But seems like the data sets you just posted actually do support the person who said Central doesn't finish last all the time, since in 2024 Central seems to have had a bad year and finished last in 3 of the 4 age groups they had (one being the 1st year they had 12s it seems); but in 2022 and 2023 they were almost never last, and Metro East who the same original poster who brought this up said was usually 2nd to North, that wasn't true either.

I've got no dog in this fight, but it seems above you just said the data shows the person defending Central was wrong, which maybe is true for 2024 but based on the data you provided, can't at all be said to be true in the 2 yrs before that, where Central mostly were not last and sometimes were 2nd to Travel (actually they're 2nd to travel for 18s every year it seems - anyone know why that is?)

Fascinating stuff! In the end though, all the national data in this thread says Central is a middling team among the Metro regional teams, and other than Travel being 1st, the only other "trend" among the 2022 - 2024 data is that North is usually 2nd. Lots and lots of moving around between the other 4 regional teams (East, Central, South PW & South FX).

Ok now can I give you some questions related to my actual job (nothing to do with volleyball) and can you please do data analysis for me for projects? Your anonymous feedback is way cheaper than the consultant I use LOL!
(Kidding, in case that's not clear!)

Like any trend analysis the time period you choose is important to the analysis. Objectively it is fair to say the following:
Over the last two years of club volleyball (2024 & 2025), Metro Central was the a) The region most likely to have teams with the lowest national rank of any of the Metro teams, b) Had the most "last place" finishes in national ranking when compared to their peer group, and c) Had the least amount of variability in the data (e.g. were most consistently the lowest ranked team when compared to other regionals except Metro North (who is equally consistent in being 2nd in the group).

If you expand the time period to include 2022 & 2023, you can also credibly say that Metro Central's performance has: a) Declined relative to other Metro regions, and b) has a declining trend in national ranking between between 2021 and 2025. This declining trend has occurred at the same time the overall performance of CHRVA teams has been improving relative to the rest of the country.

Posting the chart that shows the decline from 2021-2025 is hard in this forum, but if you scatter plot the rankings of all Central teams by year you will see that the best national ranking for any Central team has declined by about ~600 ranks and the worst national ranking has increased by around ~1700 ranks since 2022. Said another way, in 2022 the best Central team was ranked #1281 (U18) and the worst Central team was ranked #2443. In 2025 the best team was ranked #1818, and the worst team was ranked #4159.

What you can't do is use the 2022 & 2023 data to skew the average performance of 2024 & 2025 in favor of the argument that Metro Central is actually in the middle of the pack against other Metro teams. 2 years is an eternity in club volleyball especially when the clubs in Metro Central's direct geography have been expanding. There were a lot fewer teams in the central DC Metro area in 2022 than there are today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys are really wrapoed up on rankings and stats.
And to the point of going down rabbit holes to boot.

Does it really matter (that much)?

I would have thought practice location, tournament schedule, and price are things to compare abd contrast? Logistics and all?

Not nitpicking if Team XYZ North for Age123 is better than Team ABC South for Age456.

100% those things are important. Discussing one thing doesn't mean the other isn't important. And none of this means the teams are bad or wrong or to be avoided. But if you've been around volleyball for a while you know that lots of parents are confused by the relative performance of a club "1" team versus another club "1" or "2" or even "3" team. Threads like these can help parents understand the complexity and make a more informed decision.

[Anonymous]

Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Omg who cares?! Just enjoy playing the game!

You can do that at any level you play at. But you enjoy the game more if you play at a higher level. To get at a higher level, you need to pay attention to little things like coaching, teammates, results (and implicitly rankings). It's fine if you personally don't care - not everyone has to.