Baylor beat Arizona State and South Carolina on the road. Those are certainly wins of note.
I did not invent these criteria to somehow benefit my own team. These are the criteria that the committee uses, and we have seen many times over the years that they value a high volume of good wins over all other criteria, even if a team takes more losses. I have my opinions about the top teams, but that isn't what I'm listing here. These are the facts that will be used by the committee when the ranking is made.
Bull. I've lived through 25 years of these selection shows and the committee picks and chooses through their impossibly complex "policies & procedures" every year. One year "they were bound by geography" Next year it was the "sanctity of the S curve". Or it was "maintaining balance within the bracket". Very little consistency.
It is commonly said in March that you just have to "beat the one in front of you" and not care about seeding. This is true in the literal sense
, and the appropriate attitude once the real bracket is revealed. But in reality, it is a series of games, each one with a chance of losing and winning. Increasing your odds by even a little bit in each individual game is important. A beneficial bracket can have a significant effect on a team's chances, even if they are the favorite going in.
You should have stopped at the bolded part. You never know who will raise their game and who will play badly.
It is not unreasonable for the number one overall seed to expect to be given the benefit of the bracket.
Yeah, like 2008, when UConn was the overall 1 seed and the committee sent overall 5 seed Rutgers to UConn's region. The 4th 1 seed was between Rutgers and some other team. UConn was playing Rutgers for the 3rd time and won in a battle. Five days later they lost to Stanford in the famous Montgunnery meltdown. The reasoning that year was that the committee was bound by geography. There is the value the committee places on the S curve when it doesn't suit their desires.
For instance, Creme currently has Mississippi State in Baylor's region. That would be a terrible bracket. Massey currently says that Baylor would beat MSU 56% of the time. It also says Baylor beats NC State 87% of the time. It is only reasonable to want to face the lesser team.
There you go again trying to associate "reasonable" to the committee. I would be very happy to just select all 32 at large teams using Massey and then seed them using Massey.
If anyone has questions about the benefits of a good bracket, ask the 2017 South Carolina team.