Chico—
Good points as always—BUT I was not in any way making a commentary on scsoccer.com and the selection process or the quality of that process—More so I am making a commentary that is descriptive of a larger phenomenon.
Scsoccer.com's Super 22 has been done well and is a solid list; from that basis, I am highlighting a mistake I think we make in general about "best" players. In the general popular view, and in some more narrow avenues, we careless assume more quality in the larger school sports. Other factors such as tradition come into play also. People EXPECT BE to have strong teams so those players get a jump on other small schools.
I think your technical points are dead-on, but I am not making a purely statistical commentary—mainly because I don't buy statistical paradigms as being any better than other arbitrary paradigms. But that's me.
I would argue that in girls soccer, the popular view would be to EXPECT AAAA soccer to be the best; the reality is that across the board, AAA girls soccer is quite probably the best in the state. Many years, I would pick a AAA girls team as the best in the state, not a AAAA. But I have stated hear before, when teams have quality players, classification becomes insignificant. This is much clearer than trying to identify BEST PLAYERS, however, because the contexts are skewed. As I noted earlier, the smaller schools tend to have fewer top ;players, thus those players have different roles; thus, you begin comparing significantly unlike qualities in players.
I want to add here for clarity—I am NOT complaining about the Super 22 selection; I am making descriptions of how I see the reality—not any measurable judgment.
