Bracketology 2011

Collegiate Sports
21

[quote=“Normmm, post:18, topic:25107”]Now the validity of the RPI is a whole different discussion.

I think the BE is the best conference. But do they deserve 11 bids, probably not. I feel RPIs for teams like Marq, Cincy, Georgetown and Nova all really benefited from playing in the BE. Put them in another conference and they’d all be more on the bubble, or worse RPIs.[/quote]
I barely pay attention to the RPI at all. Not exaggerating either. And I felt the BE deserved all 11.

The B10 teams, on the other hand, probably were in because of inflated RPI and did not deserve that many bids.

22

[quote=“CharSFNiners, post:20, topic:25107”][quote=“Normmm, post:18, topic:25107”]Now the validity of the RPI is a whole different discussion.

I think the BE is the best conference. But do they deserve 11 bids, probably not. I feel RPIs for teams like Marq, Cincy, Georgetown and Nova all really benefited from playing in the BE. Put them in another conference and they’d all be more on the bubble, or worse RPIs.[/quote]

I think the Pac10, SEC, and ACC having down years contributed to this[/quote]

If half of the BCS is having a ‘down year’, does this mean the other BCS get those bids, ala Big10 and BE? If so, time to admit the NCAA trnm(s) are biased irrespective of RPI or any other ‘hard data’.

23

[quote=“NinerFan, post:22, topic:25107”][quote=“CharSFNiners, post:20, topic:25107”][quote=“Normmm, post:18, topic:25107”]Now the validity of the RPI is a whole different discussion.

I think the BE is the best conference. But do they deserve 11 bids, probably not. I feel RPIs for teams like Marq, Cincy, Georgetown and Nova all really benefited from playing in the BE. Put them in another conference and they’d all be more on the bubble, or worse RPIs.[/quote]

I think the Pac10, SEC, and ACC having down years contributed to this[/quote]

If half of the BCS is having a ‘down year’, does this mean the other BCS get those bids, ala Big10 and BE? If so, time to admit the NCAA trnm(s) are biased irrespective of RPI or any other ‘hard data’.[/quote]

I think Marquette and Cincy do not get in during a more robust year in basketball. They’re usually teams for good discussion of on the bubble. I think Penn. St. was rewarded way too well for making the B10 conf. championship game, and I think Illinois was seeded awfully high. The SEC usually has 6-8 teams, as does the ACC, and the Pac10 usually gets 5, 6 sometimes. This year the ACC had 4, SEC 5 (?), and Pac10 had 4. So you’re looking at adding 8 to 9 bids back into the equation.

I seriously think it came down to them sitting around the table saying… “shit, we expanded the tournament in the wrong year, but we have to put SOMEONE in”.

24

[quote=“NinerFan, post:22, topic:25107”][quote=“CharSFNiners, post:20, topic:25107”][quote=“Normmm, post:18, topic:25107”]Now the validity of the RPI is a whole different discussion.

I think the BE is the best conference. But do they deserve 11 bids, probably not. I feel RPIs for teams like Marq, Cincy, Georgetown and Nova all really benefited from playing in the BE. Put them in another conference and they’d all be more on the bubble, or worse RPIs.[/quote]

I think the Pac10, SEC, and ACC having down years contributed to this[/quote]

If half of the BCS is having a ‘down year’, does this mean the other BCS get those bids, ala Big10 and BE? If so, time to admit the NCAA trnm(s) are biased irrespective of RPI or any other ‘hard data’.[/quote]
It’s not that. Here’s basically what happened. Take a “normal year” where let’s say the BE get’s 7 instead of 11 and those 4 bids were with the ACC, SEC, Pac10, and B12. The conferences beat up on the non-BCS guys and exchange W-Ls at around a 1:1 ratio. All that happened here is the BE won most of their games with the other bigger conferences and maybe more of their games against non-BCS guys. Everything would remain the same, just the BE gets 11 because the whole league is strong.

The little guys still have their chance to keep the BCS schools from getting all these bids. Just beat them.

25

[quote=“CharSFNiners, post:19, topic:25107”][quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:15, topic:25107”]

Bottom line, if you’re good and handle your business, you should make it.

Isn’t the evdience the exact opposite? Richmond wins 27 games and only gets in cause they won the A10?

Utah State wins 30 freaking games and is a 12 seed?

I keep seeing this argued both ways, and its confusing me. From my point of view, you can’t say winning is enough then say some of these teams don’t deserve to be in, and that them winning games in the tournament is not important.[/quote]

I said handle your business which means win the games you’re supposed to and beat some good/great teams along the way. [/quote]

That’s two different things - scheduling and winning. And here’s the rub - Richmond’s schedule, prior to the season, looked much stronger than it turned out to be. Ga Tech, Arizona State, and Wake were all much weaker than expected (Richmond has been playing Wake for years), and they won 2 of those 3 games. They also beat a solid Seton Hall club, and lost a close game at ODU. So winning/beatingt he teams you should isn’t enough, because you are discounting those wins.

Same too with USU. Yes, I can see that it would have helped their cause tremendously to beat Georgetown or BYU. But they won 30 games. Their coach was on the radio last night talking about how hard it is to schedule more elite teams. They will not come on campus and play them and they apparently have a hard time even getting road games. Yet they’ve been in the dance I think the last 3 years or 3 of the last 4…

Compare that to a BE team that automatically has 10-15 chances to play a top 50 RPI team in conference. They can lose half of those games and still have a handful of quality wins. How does USU compete with that? Richmond tried, but a bunch of their usually stronger opponents were bad this year. That’s their fault? Even when they beat them?

So, if I am interpreting your (and many other people’s) similar argument correctly, you’re saying that UofR and USU have a very small margin for error, which they’d better not blow, or they dont deserve in or deserve a cruddy seed. Meanwhile, a BE team has an enormous margin of error/ numerous opportunities to look good/atone. How is that actually fairly measuring the strength of both teams?

That’s my problem with Bilas’ entire argument. He wants to discuss body of work, and toss out any wins against weaker competition and only count bad losses against the same. Well, that argument contains/reinforces the same old BCS bias.

26

One other thing, we’re talking about USU (30 wins) and Richmond (27 wins) getting 12 seeds in a DOWN year… when the committee “couldn’t find teams” to invite.

: scratching head :

27

[quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:26, topic:25107”]One other thing, we’re talking about USU (30 wins) and Richmond (27 wins) getting 12 seeds in a DOWN year… when the committee “couldn’t find teams” to invite.

: scratching head :[/quote]

I think there were teams with good wins, but those teams also had horrible losses to compound things (Bama, Colorado, etc.). You pick your poison at that point. Stop getting hung up on the amount of wins, with the way you can play pre-season tourneys and conf. tourneys getting 25 wins isn’t what it used to be. I showed you USU’s giant killer of a schedule… if that was our schedule everyone would b****. UConn is 26-9, b/c of the BE tourney and a preseason tourney. That’s 35 games and they haven’t even played a tourney game yet. You used to play 35 games not too long ago and you were in the championship game.

28

[quote=“49or bust, post:24, topic:25107”][quote=“NinerFan, post:22, topic:25107”][quote=“CharSFNiners, post:20, topic:25107”][quote=“Normmm, post:18, topic:25107”]Now the validity of the RPI is a whole different discussion.

I think the BE is the best conference. But do they deserve 11 bids, probably not. I feel RPIs for teams like Marq, Cincy, Georgetown and Nova all really benefited from playing in the BE. Put them in another conference and they’d all be more on the bubble, or worse RPIs.[/quote]

I think the Pac10, SEC, and ACC having down years contributed to this[/quote]

If half of the BCS is having a ‘down year’, does this mean the other BCS get those bids, ala Big10 and BE? If so, time to admit the NCAA trnm(s) are biased irrespective of RPI or any other ‘hard data’.[/quote]
It’s not that. Here’s basically what happened. Take a “normal year” where let’s say the BE get’s 7 instead of 11 and those 4 bids were with the ACC, SEC, Pac10, and B12. The conferences beat up on the non-BCS guys and exchange W-Ls at around a 1:1 ratio. All that happened here is the BE won most of their games with the other bigger conferences and maybe more of their games against non-BCS guys. Everything would remain the same, just the BE gets 11 because the whole league is strong.

The little guys still have their chance to keep the BCS schools from getting all these bids. Just beat them.[/quote]

NA’s kind of hitting on what I’m referring to. Yes the early season, out of conference games matter. But once you get in conference it’s a little easier for a middle tier team in the BE to better their RPI, than say a team like Duquesne. If Cincy gets a chance to play ND, Georgetown and Pitt, etc, their SOS is going to be much better than Duquesne playing Xavier, Temple and Richmond.

29

Maybe for some teams, but it certainly wasn’t used to allow USC to get in. A #67 RPI and three losses to teams with +200 RPI’s. Cleveland State, Missouri State, and St. Mary’s were all 20+ spots better than USC in the RPI and they all got left out. Basically the Committee is saying “we’re going to take a certain number of non-BCS teams, and after that the rest aren’t going to be considered”. Only one non-BCS team (VCU) outside of the Top 35 of the RPI received an at-large berth, yet 13 BCS teams outside of the Top 35 got at large berths. Five non-BCS schools were in the Top 50 of the RPI and got snubbed, and 2 BCS schools outside of the Top 60 got berths. Richmond would have likely been snubbed had they not won the A10 Tourney.

I keep hearing the heads of the Selection Committee tell us every year that there are X number of factors that they consider when selecting the at-large teams. Gene Smith said last night, “we went through our list of 15 criteria when selecting teams”. WHAT IS THE CRITERIA? Why is it so secretive, and why does it seem to change every season? Make it known to everyone before scheduling begins and again prior to the start of the regular season so everyone will know and so there will be no surprises come Selection Sunday (unless the Committee totally screws up). I would rather a computer formula of some sort be used to actually determine the at-large teams than for biased humans to keep selecting teams that they “think” deserve to be in the Tournament. For all of the flaws of the BCS and the fact that I hate it so much, at least the two teams that the computer spits out 1-2 are the teams that get to play for the “National Title”.

30

I’ve yet to see a formula for rating teams account for home advantage to the level I think it should. Not every home game is a huge advantage for the home team, but most of them give at least some benefit. Some teams get a huge benefit from playing at home (E.g. Duke, Wisconsin, Kansas, Chapel Hill, etc.). The newer version of the rpi is the closest I’ve seen that accounts for that, but even this one gets skewed when dealing with in-conference games because it doesn’t adjust the opponents and opponents-opponents for number of home-road games.

Because of this, the bigger issue in my view is the unfair advantage the bigger schools have in scheduling home games for their OOC. Then they can do mediocre in their conference and still end up with high ratings (along with extra chances for that one or two “big” wins on their home court). Because everyone else in their conference is also playing lots of home games, metrics and records get inflated beyond the quality of that collection of teams. Unless the lower conferences also try to play this game (e.g. the MVC), it’s not fair. Sure, for the most part those conferences that get all the attention have somewhat better teams in them, but not enough better to explain the current discrepancy. The talent level difference is not as different as we’re led to believe.

Notice how disdainful all the announcers and commentators got of the MVC the year they “gamed” the system (by essentially trying to schedule to overcome the advantage the BCS teams had). This despite the fact that those teams did fairly well in the tournament that year, clear evidence that they were higher quality teams. That tells me these announcers are being influenced by big money in giving their opinion. I’d view any ESPN or network commentator as paid spokesmen for the BCS teams.

31

No doubt it’s still flawed, and probably biased. I imagine the committees justification for USC is SOS. But that goes back to how does a Cleveland St get a SOS comparable to USC.

I only mentioned the BCS schools because Alabama, Colorado and VT seem to be the teams most mentioned as being snubbed.

32

Chris Mack not a big fan of Kenny Smith, which isn’t surprising considering some of the inane comments made by the latter during the CBS broadcast of the A-10 championship game.

Cincinnati.com: Chris Mack calls out Kenny Smith

33

[quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:11, topic:25107”][quote=“49or bust, post:10, topic:25107”]Picks wrong:
Lunarid - 3[/quote]

Can they please stop with the 98.4% or whatever stat for him. As Bilas has said in the past (64 &65 team fields), anyone can get the top 60 or so teams right. It’d the last 4 that are the tough part.

He 1 for 4 this year. 2 for 5 at best. A coin flip was more accurate.

After my typical initial knee jerk about low seeding for A10 teams, etc, I feel a little better about the committee this year. And it was Digger, of all people, who pointed this out, though not this directly or conclusively: the committee did exactly what we, the public, as a whole, wanted them to do with those last few play in at large bids: they made sure they went to “mid majors”. Especially after last season, when there were what, 4? 5? non BCS at large teams, everyone was worried that the extra bids would just go to mid run BCS schools. After already installing a record 11 Big East teams in the tournament, there is no way they were gonna stick in Colorado and VT ahead of VCU and UAB, though I was a little confused why those two over St Mary’s.

Anyway, they actually listened, for good or for worse.

As a Niner fan, here’s where your allegiance needs to lie in this tournament:

Cheer on VCU and UAB like they were us. We need them to win in the worst way and validate the committee. As bad or worse than we need Temple or Rich or X to advance. In general, root on every non BCS school, and hope they all win. It only helps our cause for the future.

If UAB and VCU get bounced immediately, the howling from the talking heads is gonna be loud and you’d better believe next year those spots will go to BCS schools.[/quote]

Toldya:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/14817343/how-to-avoid-letting-another-uab-into-the-ncaa-field

34

Good article. UAB was rewarded for mediocrity. Colorado had wins over Texas, Missouri, Colorado State, and 3 over Kansas State. UAB had no wins anywhere close to this good.

35

[quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:33, topic:25107”][quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:11, topic:25107”][quote=“49or bust, post:10, topic:25107”]Picks wrong:
Lunarid - 3[/quote]

Can they please stop with the 98.4% or whatever stat for him. As Bilas has said in the past (64 &65 team fields), anyone can get the top 60 or so teams right. It’d the last 4 that are the tough part.

He 1 for 4 this year. 2 for 5 at best. A coin flip was more accurate.

After my typical initial knee jerk about low seeding for A10 teams, etc, I feel a little better about the committee this year. And it was Digger, of all people, who pointed this out, though not this directly or conclusively: the committee did exactly what we, the public, as a whole, wanted them to do with those last few play in at large bids: they made sure they went to “mid majors”. Especially after last season, when there were what, 4? 5? non BCS at large teams, everyone was worried that the extra bids would just go to mid run BCS schools. After already installing a record 11 Big East teams in the tournament, there is no way they were gonna stick in Colorado and VT ahead of VCU and UAB, though I was a little confused why those two over St Mary’s.

Anyway, they actually listened, for good or for worse.

As a Niner fan, here’s where your allegiance needs to lie in this tournament:

Cheer on VCU and UAB like they were us. We need them to win in the worst way and validate the committee. As bad or worse than we need Temple or Rich or X to advance. In general, root on every non BCS school, and hope they all win. It only helps our cause for the future.

If UAB and VCU get bounced immediately, the howling from the talking heads is gonna be loud and you’d better believe next year those spots will go to BCS schools.[/quote]

Toldya:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/14817343/how-to-avoid-letting-another-uab-into-the-ncaa-field[/quote]

Regardless of BCS affiliation or not, they were a horrible team to get included.

36

Colorado beat 6 teams with +294 RPI. They shouldn’t be complaining about any team making it over them when they played such weak teams in non-conference. They played no heavyweights in non-conference, and Georgia and New Mexico are the only only teams that they scheduled that aren’t traditionally bad. They tried to rely on their conference to bring their RPI up, and it did not work. “No bad losses” sure, but take away those 6 cupcake victories and their record is not that impressive.

37

It is just one game, but maybe the UAB thing will help bring up the topic of reviewing the RPI because it is insufficient and overly used.

38

[quote=“CharSFNiners, post:35, topic:25107”]
Regardless of BCS affiliation or not, they were a horrible team to get included.[/quote]

I dont disagree. But unfortuantely, I suspect in the future an actually worthy A10 team (gulp - us?) will get left out and the reason given will be UAB/VCU. I hate that these two teams are setting the precedent for those new bids.

I hadn’t seen UAB play this year, but I have seen VCU, twice. They struggle to score against big teams/teams that play D. Skeen in particular has issues with big players, and he is the focal point of their offense.

I hope VCU wins tonight, regardless.

39

[quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:38, topic:25107”][quote=“CharSFNiners, post:35, topic:25107”]
Regardless of BCS affiliation or not, they were a horrible team to get included.[/quote]

I dont disagree. But unfortuantely, I suspect in the future an actually worthy A10 team (gulp - us?) will get left out and the reason given will be UAB/VCU. I hate that these two teams are setting the precedent for those new bids.

I hadn’t seen UAB play this year, but I have seen VCU, twice. They struggle to score against big teams/teams that play D. Skeen in particular has issues with big players, and he is the focal point of their offense.

I hope VCU wins tonight, regardless.[/quote]

If there own shitty selection leaves a bad taste in their mouth that’s on them, but it should no way effect a good team. It’d be one thing if they had a decent resume and laid an egg, but their resume was atrocious. This is another reason why they need basketball people to make up the committee IMO, a rep from each league maybe?

40

[quote=“CharSFNiners, post:39, topic:25107”][quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:38, topic:25107”][quote=“CharSFNiners, post:35, topic:25107”]
Regardless of BCS affiliation or not, they were a horrible team to get included.[/quote]

I dont disagree. But unfortuantely, I suspect in the future an actually worthy A10 team (gulp - us?) will get left out and the reason given will be UAB/VCU. I hate that these two teams are setting the precedent for those new bids.

I hadn’t seen UAB play this year, but I have seen VCU, twice. They struggle to score against big teams/teams that play D. Skeen in particular has issues with big players, and he is the focal point of their offense.

I hope VCU wins tonight, regardless.[/quote]

If there own shitty selection leaves a bad taste in their mouth that’s on them, but it should no way effect a good team.[/quote]

You completely lost me there. I, in no way am trying to justify UAB’s inclusion. I am speaking entirely to the anti-“mid major” bias them sucking is going to cause the committee, and so yeah, I do care about that.

Go VCU! :gulp: