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Creating brackets is difficult. I get that. There will always be gripes, some of them legitimate. Still, is it really necessary to establish guidelines so at odds with the notion that each team enjoy a reasonably fair path to the ultimate objective that following those rules results in patently unfair paths?
The AP poll is probably one of the better overall rankings of the nation's top teams. Charlie Crème is likely a skilled and well-meaning practitioner of the bracketological arts. So, how well do the brackets devised by applying NCAA selection principles match one that uses a simple S-curve of the AP poll? Not all that well, that's how.
I've limited my observations to the top 16 teams. In a perfectly fair world, each region/bracket would have a top group of four teams whose ranks would sum to 34, or an average rank of 8.5. For example, the region with the top overall team would consist of the nation's #1, #8, #9, and #16 teams. Another region would have #2, #7, #10, and #15. A third would have #3, #6, #11, and #14. The region with the lowest number 1 seed would consist of #4, #5, #12, and #13.
Instead of fair paths for all, we get:
Louisville Region: #1 Connecticut, #3 Louisville, #10, Duke, and #13 North Carolina.
South Bend Region: #2 Notre Dame, #6 Tennessee, #8 Maryland, and #17 Purdue.
Lincoln Region: #5 South Carolina, #9 Baylor, #15 Texas A&M, and #16 Nebraska.
Stanford Region: #4 Stanford, #7 West Virginia, #11 Penn State, and #12, Kentucky.
Louisville region has an average rank of 6.75
South Bend region has an average rank of 8.25.
Stanford region has an average rank of 8.5.
And the Lincoln region has an average rank of a whopping 11.25. Can you say WTF? I knew that you could.
I seriously wonder if the selection committee will deliver such grossly unequal pairings (garbage out) by assiduously applying their goofy (no offense to Stewie) rules (garbage in).
The AP poll is probably one of the better overall rankings of the nation's top teams. Charlie Crème is likely a skilled and well-meaning practitioner of the bracketological arts. So, how well do the brackets devised by applying NCAA selection principles match one that uses a simple S-curve of the AP poll? Not all that well, that's how.
I've limited my observations to the top 16 teams. In a perfectly fair world, each region/bracket would have a top group of four teams whose ranks would sum to 34, or an average rank of 8.5. For example, the region with the top overall team would consist of the nation's #1, #8, #9, and #16 teams. Another region would have #2, #7, #10, and #15. A third would have #3, #6, #11, and #14. The region with the lowest number 1 seed would consist of #4, #5, #12, and #13.
Instead of fair paths for all, we get:
Louisville Region: #1 Connecticut, #3 Louisville, #10, Duke, and #13 North Carolina.
South Bend Region: #2 Notre Dame, #6 Tennessee, #8 Maryland, and #17 Purdue.
Lincoln Region: #5 South Carolina, #9 Baylor, #15 Texas A&M, and #16 Nebraska.
Stanford Region: #4 Stanford, #7 West Virginia, #11 Penn State, and #12, Kentucky.
Louisville region has an average rank of 6.75
South Bend region has an average rank of 8.25.
Stanford region has an average rank of 8.5.
And the Lincoln region has an average rank of a whopping 11.25. Can you say WTF? I knew that you could.
I seriously wonder if the selection committee will deliver such grossly unequal pairings (garbage out) by assiduously applying their goofy (no offense to Stewie) rules (garbage in).