Bracketology: Top 16 Teams Set?

[Alydar]

Notice that there are 3 SEC teams in the 16 and none in the East. Is ESPN, the owner of the SEC Network, trying to protect the reputation of what they call the toughest and best conference in the country?

I'd like to see UConn play teams they haven't slaughtered already. I'd love to hear the committee say that they intentionally put teams that haven't played UConn in their region. Might change the thinking of the Dukes, Stanfords, Baylors et al around the country.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

Cockhrnleghrn - I have a question about South Carolina attendance. We know your team has a great fan base and are a leader, if not the leader in home attendance. Kudos to Dawn and fans like you for that achievement.

Outside of tournaments, I am wondering if you or any other So. Car fan on the board has a sense of how much support your team has at away games. That's one of the nice things for the Husky women as they play out the regular season - there will usually be a fair number of fans in the stands at most away games.

I wouldn't expect as much support for the Gamecocks away from home compared to UConn because 1) the Huskies have had a strong program for a longer time period with which to build up a fan base, and 2) being a northern school, we have retired fans who live in the south either full-time or part-time, and I can't imagine too many South Carolinians opting to spend their winters in northern states as a high priority. And now that we are in the American, we have so many more games in the south.

I think your point about there being a lot of Connecticut retirees in the South is true. I have been to a number of true road games where we have had a lot of fans in attendance, but it depends on the location. The game at Duke in 2014-15 stands out as we likely had as many fans there as Duke. There were some SEC road games this season where we had quite a few fans in attendance - Tennessee and Auburn stand out. When we played ECU on a neutral court in December we had a large number of fans and when we played at Clemson in November we had a lot of fans. At the SEC Tournament in Jacksonville last weekend, there were a lot of USC fans and a lot of Tennessee fans. During the finals we had a large turnout. UCONN definitely had a lot more fans at the Final Four last season.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

Notice that there are 3 SEC teams in the 16 and none in the East. Is ESPN, the owner of the SEC Network, trying to protect the reputation of what they call the toughest and best conference in the country?

I'd like to see UConn play teams they haven't slaughtered already. I'd love to hear the committee say that they intentionally put teams that haven't played UConn in their region. Might change the thinking of the Dukes, Stanfords, Baylors et al around the country.

It has nothing to do with reputation, it has to do with money. Everything has to do with money. Except for Vanderbilt, every other SEC school is a large state university with a large fan base, which = viewership.

 

[SCGamecock]

In the end, it's all splitting hairs. I'm personally a bit wary of the "eye test" because fans have a tendency to gravitate toward the better offensive team, which in this case is Notre Dame. I know that last year, I didn't think SC would even be able to hang with ND in the national semis, but ND needed a last-second bucket to salvage a 1-point win.

Yep. The "eye test" always favors the more offensive team, especially the uptempo transition teams. Even if you're pretty efficient in a set it up/half court based offense (which SC is), you'll still fail the eye test because your offense isn't flashy or high scoring enough.

 

[UcMiami]

Well - everywhere I look, ND has the strongest RPI and the strongest SOS of the top 4 teams - and in terms of the top end of their opponents, which is all that really matters for these teams - top 50 means nothing when their are 3 losses between four teams.
RPI: ND, Baylor, Uconn, SC
SOS: ND, Baylor, SC, Uconn
Top ranked opponents faced:
Uconn (2,3,5,9), ND (1, 6, 8, 9) SC (1, 9, 10, 11) Baylor (7, 7, 7, 16)
Best RPI wins
Uconn (1, 4, 7, 8) ND (5, 7, 10, 12) Baylor (6, 6, 6, 17) SC (7, 10, 11, 13)
Worst RPI losses:
Uconn (none) ND/SC tied (3) Baylor (31)

If I were ranking them, it would be Uconn, ND, SC, Baylor

And there is change since the last NCAA reveal - ND beat Duke, Miami, and Syracuse; SC beat Auburn, KY, and MissSt; and Baylor beat TX, TTU, OK, and TX - not sure any of that makes any difference, but ... with all those teams having been previous wins for their respective teams, Syracuse and Miami both improved their resumes during the week with wins over Louisville and FSU which improves the quality of those previous wins - none of the others really altered their standing from the Feb 29 reveal. TX may actually have lessened their standing by proving convincingly that they could not compete with Baylor two more times.

 

[UcMiami]

OK - Green Bay is going all bubble teams heart trouble - going to overtime!

 

[Jimbo]

OK - Green Bay is going all bubble teams heart trouble - going to overtime!

And Green Bay pulls it out on a putback with 0.6 seconds left in the second overtime.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

Trying to not be biased, I don't see the committee switching USC and ND in the 2 and 3 spots since both won their conference tournaments in convincing fashion. Since the Final Four is in Notre Dame's home state, it doesn't seem unreasonable for them to travel to Sioux Falls for the Regionals.

 

[mudcat]

I am just not convinced by any of the Pac12 teams - with the exception of Stanford generally Pac12 teams have under-performed in the NCAA for as long as I can remember. So until proven wrong I see all of the top 4 seeded Pac12 teams as being 'easy' compared to any of the other teams on their seed lines. If that perception actually is correct than the Dallas and Bridgeport regions should be the easiest for #1 seeds since they will have a greater chance to face what are deemed 3 seeds in the elite 8.

The questions is whether Stanford is down or the rest of the Pac12 is up. I would agree with you that Stanford is down and the Pac12 is only marginally better (it IS better, but not as much as the committee's rankings would indicate). The same question arises with the Big12: since Baylor's OOC was so poor, are they really that good or is the Big12 only mediocre? The tournament will answer all.

 

[Plebe]

Trying to not be biased, I don't see the committee switching USC and ND in the 2 and 3 spots since both won their conference tournaments in convincing fashion. Since the Final Four is in Notre Dame's home state, it doesn't seem unreasonable for them to travel to Sioux Falls for the Regionals.

Honestly, though, as someone who'd like to see South Carolina get to the championship game this year, I believe I'd rather them get the #3 overall seed if the #2 has to face #7 Maryland or #10 Louisville in the regional final. Who would you rather play for a Final Four spot: Texas or Maryland?

And what would you rather have, an easier path to the Final Four or a more distant site for regionals?

 

[bballnut90]

I don't know if we can assume that. ND is barely ahead of SC in the AP poll (by 5 points), and SC is just ahead of ND in the coaches' poll (by 11 points). And one could also point to A'ja Wilson's injury during the UConn game as a contributing factor. If you look at their common matchups against UCLA, SC has the edge, because ND needed overtime to beat UCLA on a neutral court, whereas SC put away UCLA in regulation time in a true road game.

In the end, it's all splitting hairs. I'm personally a bit wary of the "eye test" because fans have a tendency to gravitate toward the better offensive team, which in this case is Notre Dame. I know that last year, I didn't think SC would even be able to hang with ND in the national semis, but ND needed a last-second bucket to salvage a 1-point win.

Valid points--although if you bring up UCLA, you need to bring up Ohio State, Tennessee, and any other opponent on both teams schedule. Also, when Wilson went down, UCONN was already up 30-15. So take that for what it is.

And I do agree, this argument may be splitting hairs, but I think ND is the more deserving team for the #2 overall seed.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

Honestly, though, as someone who'd like to see South Carolina get to the championship game this year, I believe I'd rather them get the #3 overall seed if the #2 has to face #7 Maryland or #10 Louisville in the regional final. Who would you rather play for a Final Four spot: Texas or Maryland?

And what would you rather have, an easier path to the Final Four or a more distant site for regionals?

You're assuming that the 2 and 3 seeds in the Bracketology posted are correct. Those are just guesses and we don't know where the committee will pace everyone. Maybe Maryland will be the 2 in ND's region and Texas in SC's region.

 

[Sonny44]

I am just not convinced by any of the Pac12 teams - with the exception of Stanford generally Pac12 teams have under-performed in the NCAA for as long as I can remember. So until proven wrong I see all of the top 4 seeded Pac12 teams as being 'easy' compared to any of the other teams on their seed lines. If that perception actually is correct than the Dallas and Bridgeport regions should be the easiest for #1 seeds since they will have a greater chance to face what are deemed 3 seeds in the elite 8.

Truer words were never spoken.

 

[SCGamecock]

Honestly, though, as someone who'd like to see South Carolina get to the championship game this year, I believe I'd rather them get the #3 overall seed if the #2 has to face #7 Maryland or #10 Louisville in the regional final. Who would you rather play for a Final Four spot: Texas or Maryland?

And what would you rather have, an easier path to the Final Four or a more distant site for regionals?

Give me Texas and the "easier" path. I think we have a better shot at beating Texas than Maryland.

 

[UcMiami]

I heard a snippet from Creme yesterday talking about the top four seeds and he said that he has heard from committee members that the decision on SC/ND has definitely not been unanimous and was hotly debated during all of the Feb reveals - and I suspect that those reveals were generated using different procedures than the full blown seeding process with probably fewer people involved.

There really isn't much to choose between the two, and Baylor is sort of strangely off to the side - less easy to compare than the other three having not played any of them.

Of the other 12 teams - Maryland stands out as having both key players and a coach that has been to final fours, and TAMU, Louisville, and Stanford as the coaches who have won elite eight games at their current schools. Interestingly three of those four teams are assigned to Lexington and one to Sioux Falls with none on the Dallas/Bridgeport side of the bracket. It doesn't say anything about the quality of the current teams, but it does speak to the ability of the coaches (and players for MD) to really prepare for the pressures of elite eight games - not an insignificant issue.

 

[Fightin Choke]

So ... an interesting point based on his last four in and first four out - with special reference to my long (very long) 'RPI, SOS ....' thread

The last four in are three Big Ten teams and one SEC team.
The first four out are an AAC, two A10 team, and an Ivy.

Indiana - RPI 45, OOC road games 3, best wins #16 MSU, Chattanooga, worst losses at Wis (7-22/3-15), NW (18-16/4-14)
Purdue - RPI 59, OOC road games 1, best wins #8 Lou*, IND, worst losses (BC 15-16/2-14 ACC), at Wis (7-22/3-15)
Auburn - RPI 57, OOC road games 5, best wins #12 KY, #25 FLA, worst losses at Marq (14-16/9-9 BE), UVA (16-15/6-10 ACC)
Iowa - RPI 65, OOC road games 3, best wins IND, PUR, worst losses PSU x2 (12-19/6-12), at ISU (13-17/5-13 B12)

St Bonaventure - RPI 35, OOC road games 5, 23-7/12-4, best wins GW and DUQ, worst losses at UMass (12-18/5-11 A10), at Drexel (19-12/13-5 CAA)
St Louis - RPI 54, OOC road games 6, 24-7/13-3, best wins DUQ, MEN, worst losses at SIUE (18-13/12-4 OVC), (Tulane 21-11/11-7) or at Ball St (21-9/13-5 MAC)
Temple - RPI 71, OOC road games 5, 20-11/13-5, best wins #25 FLA, #21 USF, worst losses at QUIN (24-8/17-3 MAAC), at SMU (13-18/7-11)
Princeton - RPI 37, OOC road games 5, 23-5/12-2, best wins DUQ, Marist or Michigan, worst losses at DAY (14-14/7-9 A10), at Seton Hall (23-8/12-6 BE)

*This one is a real outlier as Louisville was in an opening stretch of going 1-4 and headed from #8 ranking to being dropped from the rankings by week 4 and not returning to start their climb until week 10. That start has pretty well been discounted from their current ranking, so beating them during that early stretch probably should be as well.

Because of RPI calculations you have to work pretty hard in a P5 to have a 50 range RPI so the last four in worked pretty hard - 25 of the first 40, and 29 of the top 50 are P5 so almost six per conference. And the opposite is true for teams in mid-majors.

Of these eight teams Auburn and Temple stand out for their quality of wins, and Princeton stands out for the quality of their losses.

What strikes me about the losses - the teams that are 'IN' lose to teams that all have losing records either overall or in conference, and the ones on the outside (with the exception of SMU and UMass and Dayton) all are teams that know how to win.

None of these teams scream for inclusion in the field and you can make arguments against any one of them and for any one of them. We will all be surprised if any of these teams actually made it to the second weekend so it isn't going to effect the overall competition and it doesn't matter that much to me - would like Princeton in just because they are a hold-over from an amateur, student athletic tradition, and would like to see Tonya rewarded, but I am not going to have sleepless nights.
I know I used to argue for a Rutgers or a St John's being included in the old BE days, but Rutgers especially used to play brutal OOC schedules and I was usually arguing against another power conference team's inclusion. Right now, looking at these eight teams, I would much rather see the whole slate reversed rather than reward really mediocre P5 teams, and I certainly hope at least a few of Charlie's predictions are proved false.

I'm sure you didn't do this on purpose, but Temple had a couple of bad losses that you omitted. If you are counting losses to Northwestern (RPI 100) as bad for Indiana, than you certainly also have to count Temple's losses to Memphis (RPI 113) and St. Joseph's (RPI 118) in addition to their loss to SMU (RPI 197). (The Temple loss to Quinnipiac (RPI 85) really wasn't that bad.) There is a reason that Temple's RPI is 70: they had 11 losses with a SOS that was 79th toughest in the country.

I agree that Iowa should not be a tourney team, and I do not see why Creme has them pegged as one. I feel the same way about Purdue. They are closer to inclusion than Iowa, but they have a very low chance to make it (IMO).

St. Louis did not beat MEN (???). Their best wins are DUQ (as you listed) and VCU.

Creme may have been excellent at tabbing all the at-large teams the past 2 years, but I think that changes this year.

 

[Fightin Choke]

Apparently they gave the nod to South Carolina for having more top-50 wins than Notre Dame. Interestingly, however, with the latest movement in the RPI, as of today both teams have the same number (15) of top-50 wins, although four of those wins for Notre Dame are over teams 47-50. The committee could still give SC the edge due to having more wins over the tournament field: SC has 16 wins over other at-large-quality teams (if we include Auburn as an at-large team), while ND has only 12.

You are correct that both ND and South Carolina are both 15-1 vs. the top 50, and that ND has 4 wins over teams ranked 47-50th. But if you are going to parse data like that (counting ND wins over teams ranked 1st-46th), why not do more parsing.? I mean the record over top 50 teams is arbitrary (vs. using other numbers of ranked teams), and if you are going to switch that to make it 1-46, then let's look at all the gradation.

Record against top 10: ND 3-1, SC 2-1
Record against top 15: ND 7-1, SC 6-1
Record against top 20: ND 7-1, SC 8-1
Record against top 30: ND 11-1, SC 12-1
Record against top 40: ND 11-1, SC 13-1
Record against top 50: ND 15-1, SC 15-1

Looks pretty close to me. SC faced slightly more teams in the middle of the top 50 pack, but ND faced an extra top 10 team. I would think a win over a top 10 opponent would be valued more than 2 wins over a team ranked 15th-20th.

As for the wins against "at-large quality teams", is it fair to omit ND's wins over Duke (RPI 47) but count SC's wins over Auburn (RPI 57)?

 

[Fightin Choke]

Sioux Falls looks like your classic underdog:
1. Drawing fans from a smaller popuation
2. No local rooting interests among the participating teams
3. I like the idea of tournaments going to cities off the beaten path. It will only continue if fans show up.

I think Sioux Falls will have great attendance, and I do not think that because ND is predicted to play there. We will see.

 

[Fightin Choke]

I don't know if we can assume that. ND is barely ahead of SC in the AP poll (by 5 points), and SC is just ahead of ND in the coaches' poll (by 11 points). And one could also point to A'ja Wilson's injury during the UConn game as a contributing factor. If you look at their common matchups against UCLA, SC has the edge, because ND needed overtime to beat UCLA on a neutral court, whereas SC put away UCLA in regulation time in a true road game.

In the end, it's all splitting hairs. I'm personally a bit wary of the "eye test" because fans have a tendency to gravitate toward the better offensive team, which in this case is Notre Dame. I know that last year, I didn't think SC would even be able to hang with ND in the national semis, but ND needed a last-second bucket to salvage a 1-point win.

What you say is true, but the game against UCLA was the first game for ND without Turner. She was injured in practice a couple of days before the game. ND had little time to alter the gameplan to account for her absence.

 

[Fightin Choke]

I heard a snippet from Creme yesterday talking about the top four seeds and he said that he has heard from committee members that the decision on SC/ND has definitely not been unanimous and was hotly debated during all of the Feb reveals - and I suspect that those reveals were generated using different procedures than the full blown seeding process with probably fewer people involved.

There really isn't much to choose between the two, and Baylor is sort of strangely off to the side - less easy to compare than the other three having not played any of them.

Of the other 12 teams - Maryland stands out as having both key players and a coach that has been to final fours, and TAMU, Louisville, and Stanford as the coaches who have won elite eight games at their current schools. Interestingly three of those four teams are assigned to Lexington and one to Sioux Falls with none on the Dallas/Bridgeport side of the bracket. It doesn't say anything about the quality of the current teams, but it does speak to the ability of the coaches (and players for MD) to really prepare for the pressures of elite eight games - not an insignificant issue.

Here is the snippet to which UCMiami refers: LINK

 

[UcMiami]

I'm sure you didn't do this on purpose, but Temple had a couple of bad losses that you omitted. If you are counting losses to Northwestern (RPI 100) as bad for Indiana, than you certainly also have to count Temple's losses to Memphis (RPI 113) and St. Joseph's (RPI 118) in addition to their loss to SMU (RPI 197). (The Temple loss to Quinnipiac (RPI 85) really wasn't that bad.) There is a reason that Temple's RPI is 70: they had 11 losses with a SOS that was 79th toughest in the country.

I agree that Iowa should not be a tourney team, and I do not see why Creme has them pegged as one. I feel the same way about Purdue. They are closer to inclusion than Iowa, but they have a very low chance to make it (IMO).

St. Louis did not beat MEN (???). Their best wins are DUQ (as you listed) and VCU.

Creme may have been excellent at tabbing all the at-large teams the past 2 years, but I think that changes this year.

Thanks for the corrections -
I was just giving the two worst losses for each team as well as the two best wins - I only added a third when I wasn't sure which of two teams in either category would be considered better. I was not looking up the RPIs for all their losses and while Quinnipiac may have a better RPI they play in a much worse conference and St Joe's with an SOS of 50 and Memphis with a SOS of 135 are both significantly higher than Quin's 196. all three are clearly bad losses.
And St. Louis did beat MEMphis (typo!) though you are correct, I should have put VCU in based on RPI. (I sort of like using OOC in comparisons when it is close just because in conference is less descriptive.)

 

[Fightin Choke]

Thanks for the corrections -
I was just giving the two worst losses for each team as well as the two best wins - I only added a third when I wasn't sure which of two teams in either category would be considered better. I was not looking up the RPIs for all their losses and while Quinnipiac may have a better RPI they play in a much worse conference and St Joe's with an SOS of 50 and Memphis with a SOS of 135 are both significantly higher than Quin's 196. all three are clearly bad losses.
And St. Louis did beat MEMphis (typo!) though you are correct, I should have put VCU in based on RPI. (I sort of like using OOC in comparisons when it is close just because in conference is less descriptive.)

I didn't look up all their RPI's either! I just used this page: LINK All the information is summarized nicely.

 

[UcMiami]

Choke - hadn't seen this site. It is great! Thanks.

Sort of a bizarre anomaly shows up in Baylor's schedule with the complete blank between top 50 and 100+ RPI opponents - you couldn't plan something like that with Kansas State just squeezing in below 50 and TCU just rising above 100 but it does sort of jump out.

 

[UcMiami]

Well a new team added to the back end of the bubble in FGCU - who just lost for the first time in forever on their home court going down in the championship game to Jacksonville. With an RPI of 71 they are unlikely to get in, but they had an interesting win against Auburn. This loss causes a little ripple in the Auburn resume as a bubble team.

 

[UcMiami]

Choke - that site is really illuminating - you look at the resumes of Iowa, Indiana, and Purdue (especially if you actually think about their Louisville win which was during a 1-4 start to the season - not the highly regarded Louisville of March) and it is hard to believe all three deserve inclusion or 2 of three. Heck VCU which isn't even considered bubble worthy looks better as does Villanova even if they have a player injured.
Iowa - best OOC win #91 RPI Northern Iowa (who they probably had to schedule) they played GW RPI 24 and lost, and the rest of their sub 100 OOC was #93 and #99. Only sub 50 win is #46 Indiana
Perdue - played and lost to Stanford OOC and beat three #60-82 RPI teams for their only other sub 100 OOC - if you discount the Louisville win which I do, the only sub 50 RPI win is again #46 Indiana.
Indiana at least played 4 sub 50 RPI teams OOC and beat #40 Chattanooga and played Ohio #51 and GaTech #70 beating the later. Their claim to fame a win against MSU.
And from the SEC we get:
Auburn - played three OOC to sub 100 RPI teams losing to #71 FGCU and #98 Marquette and beating #80 Minn. Add in another loss to the next highest RPI team they played #111 UVA. Their claim to fame, wins against their notoriously inconsistent SEC brethren KY, FL, and Missouri.

You begin to see that the whole strength or these teams is centered around the RPI of their conference - with the exception of Indiana they don't play anyone OOC, and depend on playing playing and generally losing to their stronger conference teammates to hide behind a 'better' RPI.