Selection Sunday Discussion

[BEhomer]

For 1000th time Duke is placed in the softest bracket with the softest #1.

[stever20]

I think the big thing this committee did was value top 50 wins a lot. Syracuse had 5. Tulsa had 4.

that list-
St Bonnie's 3
Akron 0. I'm sorry, but there is just no way they're #34. They were only 9-6 vs 101-200 teams.
St Mary's 2- only because they lost to Gonzaga
Princeton 1
San Diego St 1
UNC Wilmington 0
Valpo 1
Hofstra 2

You can see why St Bonnie's was the 1st team out over the rest of that list...

[stever20]

For 1000th time Duke is placed in the softest bracket with the softest #1.

I think Duke had to go west....
couldn't go in the East or Midwest because UVA and UNC were #1's. You can't have 2 top 4 seeds from same region unless there's more than 4 top 4 seeds from same conference.... Then, since Oregon was #1 in the West, Cal couldn't be #4 in the west due to that same thing.

[DudeAnon]

I think the big thing this committee did was value top 50 wins a lot. Syracuse had 5. Tulsa had 4.

that list-
St Bonnie's 3
Akron 0. I'm sorry, but there is just no way they're #34. They were only 9-6 vs 101-200 teams.
St Mary's 2- only because they lost to Gonzaga
Princeton 1
San Diego St 1
UNC Wilmington 0
Valpo 1
Hofstra 2

You can see why St Bonnie's was the 1st team out over the rest of that list...

Look, I will try not to be vitriolic. But I just can't do not understand the cherry picking of a metric. Just doesn't make sense.

[XUFan09]

This advanced metrics stuff is bullsh--. RPI is really the only fair metric out there. St. Bonaventure should've been in. We need to go BCS model and make the RPI 2/3 of the calculation then human vote for the last 1/3rd.

Stop trying to justify the P5 f---ing over everyone else stever. I know you are new to this, but Georgetown is no longer a member of the P5 and could very easily be fucked just like SBU was tonight.

Considering that the RPI is so inexact that even its creator says that it should only be used for ranges (e.g. 1-25, 101-200, etc), this would be a very bad idea. Also, Kenpom and other advanced metrics are often good to mid-majors, lending future credence to a good profile against a weaker SOS. In the end, though, the advanced metrics didn't have a disproportionate impact on seeding/selection either. They were just another piece of the puzzle, so I don't know why you're railing against them specifically.

The RPI almost tracks perfectly with the NCAA seed list. They just excuse it when they need to make an exception for a P-5 scrub. Whats wrong with the RPI? It values wins and losses, thats all that matters. Advanced metrics favor styles of play and margins of victory, which is pointless.

You railed on advanced metrics like they were the reason for mid-majors' exclusion or mis-seeding. That's simply not the case. Purdue, UConn, and Vanderbilt were all significantly underseeded if we're looking at Kenpom ranks (and there are smaller variations all over the place. There were 9 at-large teams selected after Florida in the Kenpom rankings and there were 6 after Kansas State, South Carolina, Florida State, and Clemson. I'm not suggesting that any specific instance is wrong, but the Selection Committee is clearly not cherry-picking Kenpom when it can benefit a P5 school. If they were, these P5 schools I listed should protest that they didn't get to join that club.

Edit: And you can also see variance between RPI and seeding. They are correlated but not really much more closely correlated than Kenpom with seeding.

[CoachK]

one thing, it does feel to some degree like this year is a turning point in the battle between the AAC and the A10. AAC getting 4 in- 3 of them easily while the A10 only gets 3 in- 1st time that's happened.

Dayton was #26 this year at 25-7
St Joe's was #32 this year at 27-7
but then....
Cincy was #35 this year at 22-9
UConn was #36 this year at 24-10
Temple was #38 this year at 21-11
VCU was #40 this year at 24-10
and Tulsa gets in over St Bonnies...

So Temple wins 6 fewer games, but is only 6 spots behind St Joe's.

The question will be is this a 1 year blip, or is it the start of a trend....

The thing is I think the F5 and BE feel like the AAC is more like them than the A10 is quite frankly....

interested to get folks thoughts here on this....

I'm 50/50 whether you are trolling with this or not, but its so absurd I feel I should respond so no one else reads it and gives it any credence.

No, the Top 6 conferences definitely don't think the AAC is more like them. Only two of the teams you listed above will be hone teams in the 1st round (Top 8 seeds). Both are from the A-10. The committee thought so much of the AAC that their highest seed was a #9 !!
Tell me the last time one of those Top 6 conferences didn't get a team with a Top 8 seed. First off, Tulsa is a joke, and everyone knows it. UConn got in because they hit a 60 footer at the end of a 3rd OT. The league got a bunch of teams because no one was good enough to run away and dominate the league, so they all got wins over each other. So they got a bunch of 9 and 10 seeds. That doesn't make them anything like the Top 6 leagues. Even the SEC only got 3 teams, but 2 of them (Texas A&M / Kentucky) got Top 4 seeds.

[stever20]

I think the big thing this committee did was value top 50 wins a lot. Syracuse had 5. Tulsa had 4.

that list-
St Bonnie's 3
Akron 0. I'm sorry, but there is just no way they're #34. They were only 9-6 vs 101-200 teams.
St Mary's 2- only because they lost to Gonzaga
Princeton 1
San Diego St 1
UNC Wilmington 0
Valpo 1
Hofstra 2

You can see why St Bonnie's was the 1st team out over the rest of that list...

Look, I will try not to be vitriolic. But I just can't do not understand the cherry picking of a metric. Just doesn't make sense.

there's other strikes with these teams as well
Akron- 206 OOC SOS
St Mary's 166 OOC SOS
Princeton 77 OOC SOS - but 146 overall SOS
San Diego St 2 OOC SOS(but only 5-6 vs it), but only 2-3 in conference vs the top teams. Also the conference like I said a month ago killed them...
Valpo 48 OOC SOS- but 4 sub 100 losses total and 161 overall SOS
Monmouth 99 OOC SOS- but 3 sub 200 losses
Hofstra 150 OOC SOS

So SOS alone kills Akron, St Mary's, Princeton, Valpo, Hofstra. the 3 sub 200 losses kills Monmouth, and the only 1 top 50 win kills San Diego St. Even St Bonnie's only had the 152 OOC SOS and 81 overall SOS. Tulsa had 1 more top 50 win, 102 OOC SOS(so +50), and 64 overall SOS(so +17)

[DudeAnon]

I think the big thing this committee did was value top 50 wins a lot. Syracuse had 5. Tulsa had 4.

that list-
St Bonnie's 3
Akron 0. I'm sorry, but there is just no way they're #34. They were only 9-6 vs 101-200 teams.
St Mary's 2- only because they lost to Gonzaga
Princeton 1
San Diego St 1
UNC Wilmington 0
Valpo 1
Hofstra 2

You can see why St Bonnie's was the 1st team out over the rest of that list...

Look, I will try not to be vitriolic. But I just can't do not understand the cherry picking of a metric. Just doesn't make sense.

there's other strikes with these teams as well
Akron- 206 OOC SOS
St Mary's 166 OOC SOS
Princeton 77 OOC SOS - but 146 overall SOS
San Diego St 2 OOC SOS(but only 5-6 vs it), but only 2-3 in conference vs the top teams. Also the conference like I said a month ago killed them...
Valpo 48 OOC SOS- but 4 sub 100 losses total and 161 overall SOS
Monmouth 99 OOC SOS- but 3 sub 200 losses
Hofstra 150 OOC SOS

So SOS alone kills Akron, St Mary's, Princeton, Valpo, Hofstra. the 3 sub 200 losses kills Monmouth, and the only 1 top 50 win kills San Diego St. Even St Bonnie's only had the 152 OOC SOS and 81 overall SOS. Tulsa had 1 more top 50 win, 102 OOC SOS(so +50), and 64 overall SOS(so +17)

Yea, but SOS is a huge part of the RPI metric. So that is still cherry picking.

[XUFan09]

It definitely looks like this Committee was biased against mid-major teams. Monmouth's exclusion in particular is upsetting, even when you account for losses to three sub-200 teams on the road. There probably isn't any one "objective" factor that worked against the mid-majors, though. What people often fail to realize is that the "eye test" and the subjective evaluation of teams play a big part in seeding and selection. People get caught up in the advanced metrics, the records against certain groups, the good wins and bad losses, and so on, but then they forget that there is a lot of subjectivity going on too. These Committee members watch a lot of games, for good or bad. If a certain collection of Committee members is biased toward teams with a certain type of player (e.g. top 100 kids that "look the part"), then this subconscious bias will affect how they view mid-majors with their good players who might be a little less athletic, a little shorter, and so on. A team might have all the numbers and frankly, they might have the talent, just in an non-traditional way, but it just takes enough Committee members saying that they don't "look" like a tournament team, whatever that is.

I do like what Jay Bilas said about non-conference scheduling. Essentially, the Committee has been sending a message to teams for years that they need to go out and schedule tough competition. Now, some of these teams did just that, and then they beat the good teams they scheduled, but apparently it was for nothing.

[stever20]

one thing, it does feel to some degree like this year is a turning point in the battle between the AAC and the A10. AAC getting 4 in- 3 of them easily while the A10 only gets 3 in- 1st time that's happened.

Dayton was #26 this year at 25-7
St Joe's was #32 this year at 27-7
but then....
Cincy was #35 this year at 22-9
UConn was #36 this year at 24-10
Temple was #38 this year at 21-11
VCU was #40 this year at 24-10
and Tulsa gets in over St Bonnies...

So Temple wins 6 fewer games, but is only 6 spots behind St Joe's.

The question will be is this a 1 year blip, or is it the start of a trend....

The thing is I think the F5 and BE feel like the AAC is more like them than the A10 is quite frankly....

interested to get folks thoughts here on this....

I'm 50/50 whether you are trolling with this or not, but its so absurd I feel I should respond so no one else reads it and gives it any credence.

No, the Top 6 conferences definitely don't think the AAC is more like them. Only two of the teams you listed above will be hone teams in the 1st round (Top 8 seeds). Both are from the A-10. The committee thought so much of the AAC that their highest seed was a #9 !!
Tell me the last time one of those Top 6 conferences didn't get a team with a Top 8 seed. First off, Tulsa is a joke, and everyone knows it. UConn got in because they hit a 60 footer at the end of a 3rd OT. The league got a bunch of teams because no one was good enough to run away and dominate the league, so they all got wins over each other. So they got a bunch of 9 and 10 seeds. That doesn't make them anything like the Top 6 leagues. Even the SEC only got 3 teams, but 2 of them (Texas A&M / Kentucky) got Top 4 seeds.

I think they look at the AAC a whole lot better than they to the A10. Just look at Dayton. They had a top 50 SOS, #9 OOC SOS, 3 top 50 wins, 9 top 100 wins, 11-4 road/neutral and only 7 losses. And they're a 7 seed only..

There is no way you can be the A10 today and think anything good of this today. It is very similar to the AAC snubs of the last 2 years, maybe worse.