How close is the competition at ISC II? The answer is that the division is incredibly competitive with parity across most of the board. Any team that manages to make the playoff round has a legitimate chance to win the ToC.
Here’s a quick comparison between the 2005 & 2004 scores.
Round robin games
During the 2005 round robin, 79% of games were decided by 6 runs or less, compared to 70% in 2004.
2005
1 run: 22 = 29%
2 runs: 19 = 25%
3 runs: 9 = 12%
4 runs: 4 = 5%
5 runs: 4 = 5%
6 runs: 2 = 3%
7+ runs: 16 = 21%
2004
1 run: 12 = 17%
2 runs: 10 = 14%
3 runs: 7 = 10%
4 runs: 12 = 17%
5 runs: 5 = 7%
6 runs: 3 = 4%
7+ runs: 21 = 30%
For the 2005 round robin, 66% of games were decided by three runs or less and over half – 54% – were decided by two runs or less!
In the 2005 playoff round, 19 of the 23 games were decided by 4 runs or less.
The breakdown is as follows:
2005
1 run: 6 = 26%
2 runs: 6 = 26%
3 runs: 4 = 17%
4 runs: 3 = 13%
5 runs: 1 = 5%
6 runs: 0
7+ runs: 3 = 13%
2004
1 run: 7 = 30%
2 runs: 4 = 17%
3 runs: 2 = 9%
4 runs: 3 = 13%
5 runs: 2 = 9%
6 runs: 1 = 5%
7+ runs: 4 = 17%
For 2005, 69% of playoff games were decided by three runs or less, and again, more than half – 52% – were decided by two runs or less!