WW Boys - wk of Dec 24

One of the charter schools making its IHSAA debut this year, Fall Creek 21st Century has embarked on what could be the most ambitious, adventurous schedule in the state. When compiling its schedule for the season, the Indianapolis-based Engineers' philosophy seemed to be, "Need a game? We'll play!" without regard to geography, size of opponent or off-days.

With only 5 home games slated for the season, the Engineers have already made road trips to New Harmony, Madison, and Fort Wayne. Later this season, their schedule will also include trips to Evansville, Auburn (in the northeast corner of the state, north of Fort Wayne), and Clinton (on the western edge of the state, north of Terre Haute).

Perhaps the most daring portion of the Engineers' slate of games will come this weekend, the 28th and 29th of December, where they will play four games in two days. On Friday, they will play two games in a one-day tournament at Covenant Christian High School in Indianapolis. The following day, they'll get on a bus and take a two-hour trek on I-70 over to Richmond, just inside the Indiana-Ohio border, and play two more games in the Red Devils' holiday tournament (opening against 4A Richmond). (If they are gassed by about halftime of their second game that day, tough – the school's mission statement includes a "no excuses" philosophy!)

The good news is that Fall Creek has met its schedule head-on with some success thus far. The Engineers carry a 4-2 record into the holidays, and their marquee win thus far has been against recent sectional champions Shawe Memorial on the Hilltoppers' home court. There are bound to be some bumps along the way as Fall Creek attacks the meat of its schedule – in addition to the aforementioned game against Richmond, the Engineers also face 4A Evansville Reitz, who is #3 in the latest Sagarin ratings, and 3A South Vermillion later this season – but thanks to its ruthless schedule, they should be a tough out come tournament time.

*****

Winless Watch #1 for the boys finds 26 teams statewide without a win to their credit this season (not to mention 26 undefeated teams – how's that for parity?), with a little over two months of basketball left to play before the state tournament begins. All of the teams who appeared in the last two seasons' final Winless Watch rankings have posted at least one victory this season – 2006-07's representatives Indianapolis Tindley and North Newton posted early wins this season, while Cannelton, Howe Military and Cowan have combined to post 9 more wins this season than they did in 2005-06, when each went 0-for-their-schedule.

The Winless Watch Top 10 through games of December 22 (with record and average margin of defeat included for informational purposes only) – minimum 5 losses to be included:

1. Evansville Day (0-8 record, average margin -34.0 ppg)
2. Shoals (0-6, -34.2)
3. South Putnam (0-6, -11.6)
4. Whiting (0-8, -22.0)
5. Eminence (0-7, -11.4)
6. South Vermillion (0-6, -24.4)
7. Bethesda Christian (0-6, -19.0)
8. North Harrison (0-5, -23.6)
9. Hamilton (0-6, -18.2)
10. Adams Central (0-8, -18.2)

The Winless Watch rankings are determined by a formula that takes into account number of losses, margin of defeat and strength of schedule according to Sagarin. Margin of defeat is weighted according to strength of schedule; if a Class A school is losing by 20 points a game but has a 4A-level SoS, that weighs in their favor. This explains why a Class A school like Tri-Central doesn't appear in the top 10 – their average margin of defeat is over 22 points a game, but they've played the 70th-strongest schedule in the state (out of 401 teams).

However, if a 3A school is losing by 15 points a game with a Class A-level SoS, that weighs heavily against them. South Putnam is a 2A school losing by an average of under 12 points a game, but their strength of schedule is ranked at 372, which penalizes them to the point where they are listed "ahead" of other teams with worse average margins of defeat.

Other winless teams (in order of WW rating formula) include Milan, Pioneer, Randolph Southern, Sheridan, Hammond Morton, Highland, Lebanon, Indianapolis Scecina, North Posey, Tri-Central, Boonville, Greenfield, Elkhart Central, Westfield and Lawrence Central. Also not included in the list above is Terre Haute Holy Cross, who is losing by 48 points per game and would have assumed the top spot in the rankings but have gotten a pass this week thanks to the fact that they are but 0-4 (and I included an entirely arbitrary cutoff of minimum 5 games).