2018-19 Bracketology Thread

[stever20]

I think one major thing this year, and this bodes really well for the big east, is records mattering.

Indiana at 17-15 not making the tourney. Continues a trend where if you are less than 4 games over .500 you don't make the tourney.

So how much did the 20 conference game schedule help Indiana?

I really don't think the Big East has to go 11 to get to 20 conference games.

That, and they also didn't favor NET in the selection process. Would've been rough to see NC State chosen over St. John's. I believe St. John's had the worst NET (and in prior years, RPI) of any at large team in history. In my opinion, the formula relied way too much on margins (a major negative for the Johnnies) and I'm glad they decided to base their decision around whether teams won or lost. Winning and losing always needs to be held in the highest regard.

NC State and Clemson being so far off was telling, as both had great NETs in the 30s but awful RPIs (NC State= 97). No way State should have that much of a discrepancy. St. John's RPI was also in the low 50s with a NET of 73.

For next year, I think they need to settle directly in the middle of RPI and NET. The formula is clearly flawed. Don't punish teams that much simply because they won by 2 points rather than 10, and don't reward teams for blowing out cupcakes.

I have no problem with them dinging you if you beat a bad team by only 2 points. And I really don't have a problem with teams getting punished if they get blown out. I think they can and will do something about the big margins of victory.

[GumbyDamnit!]

I think one major thing this year, and this bodes really well for the big east, is records mattering.

Indiana at 17-15 not making the tourney. Continues a trend where if you are less than 4 games over .500 you don't make the tourney.

So how much did the 20 conference game schedule help Indiana?

I really don't think the Big East has to go 11 to get to 20 conference games.

Not so sure that you figured out the secret sauce. I listened to the Committee chair repeat about Q1/Q2 wins especially. Take a look at the below and tell me what you see...

IN:
Temple: Q1 = 2-6; Q2 = 6-2 Total 8-8
ASU: Q1= 3-3; Q2 = 8-3 Total 11-6
SJU: Q1 = 5-7; Q2 = 5-3 Total = 10-10
Belmont: Q1 = 2-2; Q2 = 3-1 Total= 5-3

Out:
TCU: 3-9 / 6-4 = 9-13
NC St.: 3-9 / 5-0 = 8-9
UNCG: 2-6 / 2-0 = 4-6
IU: 6-9 / 2-6 = 8-15
Clem.: 1-10 / 6-3 = 7-13

The last 4 teams all had .500 or better records against Q1 & Q2, and the first 5 out were all under .500 vs. Q1/Q2. Sounds simple but maybe that was how they eventually decided. There are actually a bunch of teams who got in comfortably with losing records vs Q1/Q2 (Syracuse, Florida, Old Miss, Louisville to name a few) but it seems to have played a role when trying to figure out the last few spots.

[stever20]

I think one major thing this year, and this bodes really well for the big east, is records mattering.

Indiana at 17-15 not making the tourney. Continues a trend where if you are less than 4 games over .500 you don't make the tourney.

So how much did the 20 conference game schedule help Indiana?

I really don't think the Big East has to go 11 to get to 20 conference games.

Not so sure that you figured out the secret sauce. I listened to the Committee chair repeat about Q1/Q2 wins especially. Take a look at the below and tell me what you see...

IN:
Temple: Q1 = 2-6; Q2 = 6-2 Total 8-8
ASU: Q1= 3-3; Q2 = 8-3 Total 11-6
SJU: Q1 = 5-7; Q2 = 5-3 Total = 10-10
Belmont: Q1 = 2-2; Q2 = 3-1 Total= 5-3

Out:
TCU: 3-9 / 6-4 = 9-13
NC St.: 3-9 / 5-0 = 8-9
UNCG: 2-6 / 2-0 = 4-6
IU: 6-9 / 2-6 = 8-15
Clem.: 1-10 / 6-3 = 7-13

The last 4 teams all had .500 or better records against Q1 & Q2, and the first 5 out were all under .500 vs. Q1/Q2. Sounds simple but maybe that was how they eventually decided. There are actually a bunch of teams who got in comfortably with losing records vs Q1/Q2 (Syracuse, Florida, Old Miss, Louisville to name a few) but it seems to have played a roll when trying to figure out the last few spots.

Ok, but then you have bubble teams
Florida 8-13
Ohio St 9-13
who not only made it, but avoided Dayton....

It's now 26 years and only 1 team who was less than 4 games over .500 has made the tourney at large. 2000 Georgia at 16-14.

Overall record may not get you in the tourney, but it sure as hell can keep you out of the tournament.

[adoraz]

I think one major thing this year, and this bodes really well for the big east, is records mattering.

Indiana at 17-15 not making the tourney. Continues a trend where if you are less than 4 games over .500 you don't make the tourney.

So how much did the 20 conference game schedule help Indiana?

I really don't think the Big East has to go 11 to get to 20 conference games.

That, and they also didn't favor NET in the selection process. Would've been rough to see NC State chosen over St. John's. I believe St. John's had the worst NET (and in prior years, RPI) of any at large team in history. In my opinion, the formula relied way too much on margins (a major negative for the Johnnies) and I'm glad they decided to base their decision around whether teams won or lost. Winning and losing always needs to be held in the highest regard.

NC State and Clemson being so far off was telling, as both had great NETs in the 30s but awful RPIs (NC State= 97). No way State should have that much of a discrepancy. St. John's RPI was also in the low 50s with a NET of 73.

For next year, I think they need to settle directly in the middle of RPI and NET. The formula is clearly flawed. Don't punish teams that much simply because they won by 2 points rather than 10, and don't reward teams for blowing out cupcakes.

I have no problem with them dinging you if you beat a bad team by only 2 points. And I really don't have a problem with teams getting punished if they get blown out. I think they can and will do something about the big margins of victory.

Regardless of your preference, they didn't value NET as much as most expected. Them putting St. John's/Arizona St in while excluding NC State, Clemson, Creighton, etc from the first four out showed that. They handled the situation the right way and got pretty much every pick correct.

[XUFan09]

I think one major thing this year, and this bodes really well for the big east, is records mattering.

Indiana at 17-15 not making the tourney. Continues a trend where if you are less than 4 games over .500 you don't make the tourney.

So how much did the 20 conference game schedule help Indiana?

I really don't think the Big East has to go 11 to get to 20 conference games.

That, and they also didn't favor NET in the selection process. Would've been rough to see NC State chosen over St. John's. I believe St. John's had the worst NET (and in prior years, RPI) of any at large team in history. In my opinion, the formula relied way too much on margins (a major negative for the Johnnies) and I'm glad they decided to base their decision around whether teams won or lost. Winning and losing always needs to be held in the highest regard.

NC State and Clemson being so far off was telling, as both had great NETs in the 30s but awful RPIs (NC State= 97). No way State should have that much of a discrepancy. St. John's RPI was also in the low 50s with a NET of 73.

For next year, I think they need to settle directly in the middle of RPI and NET. The formula is clearly flawed. Don't punish teams that much simply because they won by 2 points rather than 10, and don't reward teams for blowing out cupcakes.

They're clearly not punishing teams for their own NET ratings if they let SJU in but keep NC State, Clemson, and Texas out. That's because they are using the NET to judge how tough one's opponents are, not how well a team directly is doing. This was again reiterated by the Committee director in an interview on Sunday. There's still the subjective evaluation from Committee members watching a lot of games and reporting on how teams played in regular conference meetings, and that is a lot more impactful for good or bad.

[GumbyDamnit!]

Here where the NET doesn’t make sense to me... Hypothetically let’s say that Creighton knocks off Gonzaga in Omaha. And then has an OOC game at Univ of San Fran. Both carry the same weight. That’s nonsense to me. The Committee chair himself stated that Q1 / Q2 wins were significant. The NET itself did not carry as much weight. If that is the case then why have a NET rating itself at all. Just use Q1/2 wins as another metric along with RPI, KenPom, record, conference standing, etc. ?

[XUFan09]

Here where the NET doesn’t make sense to me... Hypothetically let’s say that Creighton knocks off Gonzaga in Omaha. And then has an OOC game at Univ of San Fran. Both carry the same weight. That’s nonsense to me. The Committee chair himself stated that Q1 / Q2 wins were significant. The NET itself did not carry as much weight. If that is the case then why have a NET rating itself at all. Just use Q1/2 wins as another metric along with RPI, KenPom, record, conference standing, etc. ?

"Just use Q1/Q2 wins." Yeah, and NET is used to calculate what is a Q1 or Q2 win. It's the same way RPI was used before, to group opponents. RPI was not used directly before either.

And concerning the complaint about vs. Gonzaga and @San Francisco being the "same thing," you lose some information whenever you bin numbers into intervals. The opposite extremes of those intervals are going to be a little weird, but the Selection Committee is still spending a lot of time on the subjective evaluation of who a team actually played. When they say Q1 and Q2 team wins, they aren't just talking about record. The team sheets list all games by quadrants and they even break Q1 and Q2 into sub-tiers.

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/med ... selections

[stever20]

Here where the NET doesn’t make sense to me... Hypothetically let’s say that Creighton knocks off Gonzaga in Omaha. And then has an OOC game at Univ of San Fran. Both carry the same weight. That’s nonsense to me. The Committee chair himself stated that Q1 / Q2 wins were significant. The NET itself did not carry as much weight. If that is the case then why have a NET rating itself at all. Just use Q1/2 wins as another metric along with RPI, KenPom, record, conference standing, etc. ?

On the team sheets they started seperating out the Q1 and Q2 wins into top half/bottom half

Q1A- 1-15 home, 1-25 neutral, 1-40 away
Q1B- 16-30 home, 26-50 neutral, 41-75 away
Q2A- 31-55 home, 51-75 neutral, 76-100 away
Q2B- 56-75 home, 76-100 neutral, 101-135 away

I think we're going to see that more formalized into what would now be 6 quads. And I think it was used some already this year... Might have hurt Seton Hall actually- they had 7 Q1 wins, but only 2 were Q1A wins. The other 5 were Q1B wins.

As to your question about why having a NET rating? Because they clearly don't think the RPI was doing a good enough job. And on some things you have got to agree with it. RPI has Kansas #2 this year. Sorry but what planet is this years Kansas team #2? Just because you have a great SOS you shouldn't get rewarded....

[XUFan09]

Complaints about binning of intervals just come off as disingenuous. It's a common practice for a first glance at data before delving into specifics. For example, advertising targets age demographics. One could complain that 18-year-olds are different from 24-year-olds, yet they're put in the same 18-24 category. Sure, but cutoffs need to happen somewhere to talk about broader targeting of age groups (i.e. distinguishing that group from 25-34). Any specific advertising is still going to get into the details of who their ideal target audience is in a more specific manner than just "people 18-24." The Selection Committee follows the same principles.

[stever20]

saw the bracketville guy moved up to #1 now in the bracket matrix standings..... even with a rather poor 2019.....

Lunardi up to #55(out of 133)
Palm down to #85

http://bracketmatrix.com/rankings.html