Another way to rate the final #1's

[DobbsRover2]

UConn and ND are guaranteed #1 seeds, but the question raging now after a recent games is who are the other two top seeds. Those battling over the question have been talking about good wins, bad losses, and a whole lot of other factors, and the degree that one overwhelms another.

Here's another number to throw out there based on Sagarin ratings (some like to point to the RPI as their gospel, I don't). Sum up the Sagarin place ratings of the teams in the 7 best wins of the #1 contenders and also of the teams in any losses, add the totals together and see who has the lowest score. I chose 7 as likely a decent amount, neither too small or ridiculously large, but you could go with 5 or 10 too.

Obviously this is not an end-all measure because there are a lot of weighting factors that should be looked at. For instance, West Virginia had a bad loss in their first game, but does that mean as much now as a recent loss to a bad team? And do the really bad losses skew results too much, like the loss to WA for Stanford? And winning\losing margin, home\away, rancid OOC schedule, etc. is not factored in. FWIW, here are the snapshot scores for 7 teams that I've heard mentioned as at least possible candidates for the #1, though USCar is likely out of the picture now. Numbers in parentheses are first the total for the 7 best wins and second all the losses, and the sum of the two is the total.

Duke (115)(27) ----------142
WVU (112)(78)-----------190
Baylor (110)(88)---------198
UTenn (120)(87)---------207
S.Car (175)(44)-----------219
Lville (218)(14)-----------232
Stanford (158)(118)------276

In the remaining conference tournament games, there is some potential for moves, and obviously WVU and Baylor could switch places. Duke is locked in for by far the best score, and Louisville could move into the 180s with a win in the AACT final.

Note that KY actually has a better top 7 win totals than any of the teams above with 103, but their 7 losses pile up to 205, with one to Alabama being especially bad.

 

[Kibitzer]

This discussion about who geets "in," then how they are seeded and where they are sent is similar to the chatter on sports talk shows or ESPN during the last couple weeks of the NFL season. To say it's lively and opinionated is understatement.

But there is one big difference.

The NFL (and MLB, NBA, and NHL) have exacting criteria based on wins and losses, backed up by precise rules for every imaginable tiebreaking situation. Whereas, the NCAA BB (men and women) brackets, seeds and sites are determined by a committee of people equipped with Charlie Creme mentalities, not to mention individual biases and idiosyncracies. Their ultimate solution will be met with nearly unanimous derision. Exceptions? Maybe Stanford, Notre Dame, Louisville and Nebraska, provided they all get to play at home.

The debate and discussion are enjoyable for participants but the effect is meaningless, since we must await official NCAA word next Monday. Then we can start the dialogue all over as we heap abuse on the NCAA for their brackets and apply individual and collective genius to filling out our brackets as we predict a few dozen winners en route to the NC in Nashville.

Enjoy the conversation. It's free and it's fun.