Is past performance a predictor of future success?

[Drumcorpdad62]

I work with predictive analytics for a living.  This is fun stuff for me. I did some basic analysis of 2019 and results are below.  I did not apply any type of advance machine learning to this, all straight statistics.  Bottom line -- Blue Devils, Blue Coats, Blue Knights, Blue Stars and Pacific Crest are the only corps who outperformed their average increase from 1st show to last show.  

Average  6 year increase is an average of the difference between 1st score of the season and last score (I did last score and not high score, even though we know most finals scores go down among the bottom 6).  

Many reasons for this as we know, show design, age and experience of MM, skill of the staff, how the judge was feeling that day, etc. Top 4 were all different, but I hit on 10 out of 20 placements and pretty close on final score for 11 of the 20.  

 

Corps	Avg 6 yr increase	1st Score	2019 Spread	2019 increase/avg	2019 predicted score	Predicted Finish	Actual 2019 Rank	actual 2019 score
Blue Devils	26.138	71.70	26.63	0.49	97.84	2.00	1.00	98.33
Blue Coats	25.65	71.15	27.09	1.44	96.80	4.00	2.00	98.24
Santa Clara	26.35	72.35	24.25	-2.10	98.70	1.00	3.00	96.60
Carolina Crown	26.27	70.90	25.66	-0.61	97.17	3.00	4.00	96.56
The Cavaliers	25.63	70.20	25.20	-0.43	95.83	5.00	5.00	95.40
Boston	25.38	70.05	24.44	-0.94	95.43	6.00	6.00	94.49
Blue Knights	25.52	66.00	26.05	0.53	91.52	8.00	7.00	92.05
Blue Stars	25.67	65.45	25.78	0.10	91.12	9.00	8.00	91.23
The Cadets	25.09	67.10	22.23	-2.86	92.19	7.00	9.00	89.33
Mandarins	23.64	67.10	22.20	-1.44	90.74	10.00	10.00	89.30
Crossmen	24.45	64.00	23.55	-0.90	88.45	11.00	11.00	87.55
Phantom Regiment	24.11	63.25	23.99	-0.12	87.36	12.00	12.00	87.24
Spirit of Atlanta	19.45	66.85	18.74	-0.71	86.30	13.00	13.00	85.59
Pacific Crest	20.11	62.15	23.20	3.09	82.26	18.00	14.00	85.35
The Academy	21.2	64.60	19.70	-1.50	85.80	14.00	15.00	84.30
Colts	23.78	61.90	22.33	-1.46	85.68	16.00	16.00	84.23
Madison Scouts	22.76	63.00	19.14	-3.62	85.76	15.00	17.00	82.14
Troopers	24.09	60.45	21.21	-2.88	84.54	17.00	18.00	81.66
Jersey Surf	16.43	63.95	11.95	-4.48	80.38	19.00	19.00	75.90
Seattle Cascades	15.31	59.35	13.02	-2.29	74.66	20.00	20.00	72.37

[drumcorpsfever]

BD's reign defies statistics. 

Edited August 13, 2019 by drumcorpsfever

[drumcorpsfever]

One thing that I think may impact the scoring improvement for the top 12 on your list is that these corps have been perennial finalists.  Scoring for the top 12 is pretty consistent no matter who the corps is. Look at the scoring jumps from Allentown to Indy.  You'll probably find that the jump in scores for that short period of time for the top 3-4 at Indy is fairly significant. It's always going to take a high 97-98 to finish 1st. 97 is the mark for a medal. You can pretty much count on it.