7 max from the ACC? sorry but that is dumb as hell. Va Tech and Miami were no brainers this year who the hell should have gotten in instead of them? Illinois St with 6 top 100 games all year long? no thank you...

(03-20-2017 12:28 AM)stever20 Wrote:  7 max from the ACC? sorry but that is dumb as hell. Va Tech and Miami were no brainers this year who the hell should have gotten in instead of them? Illinois St with 6 top 100 games all year long? no thank you...

I don't refute any of the ACC's bids, but this line of thinking is why we have such a dud of a tournament.

The tourney is a dud because the bottom 21 conferences send single bid, one and done teams. That accounts for most of the lousy first round games.

The sweet 16 has 15 P6 schools (3 SEC, 3 B12, 3 P12, 3 B1G, 2 BE, 1 ACC) and Gonzaga. 11 of the top 16 seeds are though (Purdue is a 5, and a 5 over a 4 ND is not much of an upset). All of the "lower" seeds who got through were from the P6. This tells me they seeded correctly, and they gave bids to schools who had a shot. The mid-majors recorded only three victories over the P6, one by Gonzaga (a #1 seed), and two by Rhode Island and Middle Tennessee in the first round. All this says they got it right

(03-20-2017 12:40 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(03-20-2017 12:28 AM)stever20 Wrote:  7 max from the ACC? sorry but that is dumb as hell. Va Tech and Miami were no brainers this year who the hell should have gotten in instead of them? Illinois St with 6 top 100 games all year long? no thank you...

I don't refute any of the ACC's bids, but this line of thinking is why we have such a dud of a tournament.

The only way you could define it as a dud is if you want to see nothing but a buzzer-beating miracle win by a team from some tiny school you've never heard of. Those are fun, but if you're going to hate the tournament unless you see a dozen of those every single year, then the tournament isn't your cup of tea.

5 out of 8 games on Sunday were decided in the final two minutes. There were major upsets. There were should-have-been-upsets. And there were upsets before Sunday: A 12 seed beat a 5 seed, again. Three of the four 6-seeds lost to 11-seeds. A First Four team pulled off an upset in its second game -- that's happened every year the First Four has been played, 2011-2017. It was an entertaining weekend of basketball.

Right. Because placing a #7 KenPom 39th on the S-curve and them losing by 1 possession to #4 KenPom in Rof32 validates the committee's seeding. The top 4 midmajors couldn't register 1st Round upsets because they all magically played each other.

You mention Rhode Island was one.
You mention Middle Tennessee (71-48 victors over Vandy) was another. The same Middle Tennessee that handled a B1G team. And to think if MTSU didn't win their conference tourney, the committee would've left them out.

I bet Illinois State yields a similar result to RI/MTSU. Top 10 kenpom D, 2 losses when healthy, co-title with a #7 kenpom, 33 rpi, 17-1 in a conference with history of overachieving in this tourney. But we'll never know.

So, no, those numbers prove nothing against any of the top midmajors except Saint Mary's. The committee set the bracket up so only 4 top midmajors would get a crack. Middle Tennessee won comfortably. Rhode Island won very comfortably. Wichita lost by a possession to Kentucky. Saint Mary's didn't hold up their end of the bargain. That's a sample size of 4 and the track record is decent. Odds are 2 of Dayton/VCU/IlSt deliver if afforded the opportunity.

(03-20-2017 01:32 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  So, no, those numbers prove nothing against any of the top midmajors except Saint Mary's. The committee set the bracket up so only 4 top midmajors would get a crack. Middle Tennessee won comfortably. Rhode Island won very comfortably. Wichita lost by a possession to Kentucky. Saint Mary's didn't hold up their end of the bargain.

Check the bracket again.

Saint Mary's won their first game and then lost their second game to a higher seed, just like Wichita, MTSU, and Rhode Island.

I think he's saying that St. Mary's lost in their only opportunity to play a major conference foe. The rest that had a shot among the best non-majors excluding the AAC and MWC did fine.

You could point to the collapse of the ACC on Sunday and say the committee got the seeding very wrong this year. But if the committee was wrong, so was just about everyone else.

What the seeding process doesn't do well is take into account teams gelling late in the season. So two "hot" teams get #7 seeds and knock off #2's. If those two games go the other way on Sunday, 14 of the top 16 seeds would have advanced. Three P6 conferences would have had 3 teams each, the other three would have had 2 each, and #1 seed Gonzaga rounds out the field.

We, and the talking heads on ESPN and Fox, were all convinced the ACC was clearly the best conference this year. We, and they, and the selection committee were all looking at most of the same "metrics" to reach that conclusion. So, the question is were the metrics flawed, or did we just have two flukes in Louisville-Michigan and Duke-South Carolina that shattered our perception?

With conference expansion, there is very little room for significant inter-league play after New Year's. Whatever impressions were formed before that tend to dictate our analysis of what happens after that. And often, those impressions are based on the play of teams that barely resemble what they will have become by March. But the computer models can't factor in improvement over time. To them, a win in November counts as much as one in February.

Maybe that needs to change.

right now thru 2 rounds there have been 10 upsets by seeds in the 1st 2 rounds.....
by conference-
Big Ten 3 upsets- 2 upset losses
Big East 2-2
Pac 12 1-0
SEC 1-0
CUSA 1-0
MVC 1-0
A10 1-1
AAC 0-1
ACC 0-4

(03-20-2017 01:28 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-20-2017 12:40 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(03-20-2017 12:28 AM)stever20 Wrote:  7 max from the ACC? sorry but that is dumb as hell. Va Tech and Miami were no brainers this year who the hell should have gotten in instead of them? Illinois St with 6 top 100 games all year long? no thank you...

I don't refute any of the ACC's bids, but this line of thinking is why we have such a dud of a tournament.

The only way you could define it as a dud is if you want to see nothing but a buzzer-beating miracle win by a team from some tiny school you've never heard of. Those are fun, but if you're going to hate the tournament unless you see a dozen of those every single year, then the tournament isn't your cup of tea.

5 out of 8 games on Sunday were decided in the final two minutes. There were major upsets. There were should-have-been-upsets. And there were upsets before Sunday: A 12 seed beat a 5 seed, again. Three of the four 6-seeds lost to 11-seeds. A First Four team pulled off an upset in its second game -- that's happened every year the First Four has been played, 2011-2017. It was an entertaining weekend of basketball.

Yes, the tournament has been fantastic so far. Many close, down to the wire games. And if you like upsets, it doesn't get much bigger than Villanova, Duke, and Louisville not making the Sweet 16.

Not sure why anyone would think it a dud?

(03-20-2017 08:32 AM)ken d Wrote:  You could point to the collapse of the ACC on Sunday and say the committee got the seeding very wrong this year. But if the committee was wrong, so was just about everyone else.

What the seeding process doesn't do well is take into account teams gelling late in the season.

I think this is correct, and if anything, the bias is *against* the hot teams. The committee seems to bend over backward to disregard the conference tournaments and emphasize what happened at the Maui Invitational four months ago.

It won't happen, but I'd love to see a bracket made completely on the basis of RPI ranking.

People would scream that it's not a good evaluator of the field. Well, it's not like the committee does a good job at it, either.

VVV There you go again.

yeah a bracket with 6 lower seeded teams winning in rd 1- with 1 of those being 8/9 game- and
then in sweet 16 we have 12 of 16 top 4 seeds- that just shows how awful the committee did. NOT. They did one of the best jobs they've ever done quite frankly.

The one change they need to do is ignore geography and do it as a true S curve. So if you are the #1 overall seed, you get the worst 2 seed in your bracket. And the worst 4 seed. And the worst 8 seed.

(03-20-2017 10:22 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-20-2017 08:32 AM)ken d Wrote:  You could point to the collapse of the ACC on Sunday and say the committee got the seeding very wrong this year. But if the committee was wrong, so was just about everyone else.

What the seeding process doesn't do well is take into account teams gelling late in the season.

I think this is correct, and if anything, the bias is *against* the hot teams. The committee seems to bend over backward to disregard the conference tournaments and emphasize what happened at the Maui Invitational four months ago.

Well, to cover themselves, when you snub an Illinois State, Arlington, or Monmouth, you can cover yourself and say those guys weren't hot enough.

And then you have someone looking like they are puttering out, like Xavier, coming back to life, while Michigan is still hot as anything.

I don't know. It doesn't look like momentum is factored in any direction when the committee just reaches into the pot and only pulls major programs. Marquette, Providence, Kansas State, Vanderbilt, Wake, and OSU...with any of them, what is this momentum you speak of, you know?

(03-20-2017 12:28 AM)stever20 Wrote:  7 max from the ACC? sorry but that is dumb as hell. Va Tech and Miami were no brainers this year who the hell should have gotten in instead of them? Illinois St with 6 top 100 games all year long? no thank you...

Wake Forest had no business being in the Tourney.

And Yes, Illinois State would have been a far better pick.

The committee, and many looked at wins by Syracuse/Miami the wrong way. Instead of saying, look how good those two are, the question should have been "Look how mediocre the rest are to keep losing games to the likes of Syracuse, etc.


The whole ACC was overseeded by 1-4 lines. Duke was a 4 seed at best. Miami was a play-in team, at best, along with VT. Wake should be in the NIT. Virginia maybe an 8 seed.

They really blew the NIT seeding. So far 11 of 20 lower seeds have won. The elite 8 include a 4,5,6 and 6 (the 6s beat 7s). Only one 1, one 2 and one other 4 are still alive (2nd round games tonight are 1-4, 6-7, 2-6 and 4-8). P5 schools are only 9-9 so far even though they had 9 of the top 12 seeds (meaning home games).

(03-20-2017 02:53 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  I think he's saying that St. Mary's lost in their only opportunity to play a major conference foe. The rest that had a shot among the best non-majors excluding the AAC and MWC did fine.

Saint Mary's only tournament win was over A-10 team VCU.

Wichita State's only tournament win was over A-10 team Dayton.

(03-20-2017 10:38 AM)stever20 Wrote:  yeah a bracket with 6 lower seeded teams winning in rd 1- with 1 of those being 8/9 game- and

By "lower", I'll assume you mean a higher number (like 12, as opposed to 5). Like I did in my analysis, there were only two games where the team with the lower seed got screwed by a team with a higher seed being mis-seeded. Minnesota v MTSU being the prime example.

The first round was very boring.

(03-20-2017 10:38 AM)stever20 Wrote:  then in sweet 16 we have 12 of 16 top 4 seeds

The second round was awesome. Many close, fun to watch games ... even if the upstarts came up just short.

(03-20-2017 10:38 AM)stever20 Wrote:  yeah a bracket with 6 lower seeded teams winning in rd 1- with 1 of those being 8/9 game- and
then in sweet 16 we have 12 of 16 top 4 seeds- that just shows how awful the committee did. NOT. They did one of the best jobs they've ever done quite frankly.

The one change they need to do is ignore geography and do it as a true S curve. So if you are the #1 overall seed, you get the worst 2 seed in your bracket. And the worst 4 seed. And the worst 8 seed.

LOL, sure they did, like ranking Vandy ahead of teams they lost to like MTSU, who had almost four times fewer losses.

The Tournament is a crapshoot and results indicate little. It's a virtual lock each year that the top 12 teams (e.g. 3-seeds and above) should go no worse than 11-1 and overall that the top 16 should be 13-3 or 14-2 if not better. So that they went 16-0 in the first round is actually an anomaly, not to mention a few almost lost games, hence the crapshoot factor.

The committee obviously stressed heavy weight toward playing in a major conference, which helps explains Wichita's seed as well as Middle Tennessee's and the AAC duo's seeds. I'm surprised St. Mary's had such a good seed.

(03-20-2017 12:14 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(03-20-2017 10:38 AM)stever20 Wrote:  yeah a bracket with 6 lower seeded teams winning in rd 1- with 1 of those being 8/9 game- and

By "lower", I'll assume you mean a higher number (like 12, as opposed to 5). Like I did in my analysis, there were only two games where the team with the lower seed got screwed by a team with a higher seed being mis-seeded. Minnesota v MTSU being the prime example.

The first round was very boring.

(03-20-2017 10:38 AM)stever20 Wrote:  then in sweet 16 we have 12 of 16 top 4 seeds

The second round was awesome. Many close, fun to watch games ... even if the upstarts came up just short.

the reason why the 2nd round was so awesome was the 1st round didn't have much carnage at all. I mean I know ESPN calls a giant killer as an upset of 5 lines or more. Well in rd 1, we had exactly 4 of those- with 3 of those being 6/11 upsets which aren't really that huge upsets. So had only 4 games in rd 2 which were like a 3 vs a 11 or a 4 vs a 12. Of those 4 games- 3 were single digit wins, and then the 4th was a blowout win by the 11(Xavier).