Creme explains how Tennessee benefited from a weak bubble

[FridaFriend]

I believe that Charlie Creme has a strong bias in favor of the SEC and an equal bias against the Big12 and the Pac12. I will use Massey ratings to support my opinion.The ratings have Texas at #22 and Texas A&M at #24, but he has Texas with an 8 seed and Texas A&M with a 4 seed. Massey has Kansas State at #28, Missouri at #29, and Cal at #30, but Kansas State has a 10 seed, Missouri has a 5 seed, and Cal has an 8 seed. #36 West Virginia, #37 TCU, #41 USC, #42 Utah, and #45 Arizona are excluded from his brackets, but Tennessee at #46 has a 11 seed. Indiana, at #51 and Buffalo at #66 also have 10 and 11 seeds, respectively. I hope that the selection committee does not share his bias.

 

[Shmermerer]

I believe that Charlie Creme has a strong bias in favor of the SEC and an equal bias against the Big12 and the Pac12. I will use Massey ratings to support my opinion.The ratings have Texas at #22 and Texas A&M at #24, but he has Texas with an 8 seed and Texas A&M with a 4 seed. Massey has Kansas State at #28, Missouri at #29, and Cal at #30, but Kansas State has a 10 seed, Missouri has a 5 seed, and Cal has an 8 seed. #36 West Virginia, #37 TCU, #41 USC, #42 Utah, and #45 Arizona are excluded from his brackets, but Tennessee at #46 has a 11 seed. Indiana, at #51 and Buffalo at #66 also have 10 and 11 seeds, respectively. I hope that the selection committee does not share his bias.

Then I hope that they use Massey and DePaul becomes a 4 seed

 

[Dillon77]

I feel like Charlie is picking and choosing his reasons at this point to justify putting in Tennessee.

First off, of Tennessee's 6 top 50 wins, 3 of those wins are over 48/49 RPI teams and a 4th is vs 45 RPI. The other 2 are vs. #29 and #31. Compare that to a team like West Virginia, who has a win over #11 Iowa State, #32 Kansas State, and #29 Texas. I'd value 1 win over Iowa State as equivalent or stronger than 4 wins over Belmont, Auburn and Clemson if I'm on the committee.

Then if you look at bad losses, Tennessee has losses to 116 Georgia, 158 Alabama, and 206 Vanderbilt vs. West Virginia's sole bad loss to 155 Oklahoma. Yeah SOS and RPI matter, but notable wins/losses tell you more about a team than their RPI IMO. No way should West Virginia be 8 spots below Tennessee.

Charlie also mentions thinking Tennessee was toast until those other teams lost, but look at their losses:
TCU-lost to Texas, an 8 seed in his bracket
USC-lost to Arizona (non tournament team...this was a bad loss)
West Virginia-lost to Kansas State, 10 seed in his bracket
Meanwhile, Tennessee beats a non-tournament team and then loses to a top 2 seed.

How does a team that looks "toast" and beats a non-tournament team all of a sudden jump several spots over the likes of West Virginia and TCU, teams who were ahead of Tennessee and lost a game they were expected to lose (TCU), or at worst it was expected to be a tossup (West Virginia)? Seems like a big change of opinion without a lot of substance behind it, but that's just my 2 cents.

I've kept your -- and several other -- excellent post in mind while reading Charlie's constant updates. And I feel like Charlie has been media trained with an option to take on any tangible retort in the face of an overriding fact (the Vols really have not had enough success this season to justify inclusion). The latest: they've beaten another of the "debatable eight" twice. That would be Auburn, another team that seems to being force fed into our collective consciousness as "tourney ready."

I almost found myself wishing that Penn would beat Princeton yesterday because Princeton had a better case than a number of the "debatable eight." Maybe that could cut down on some the the pretenders....

Normally, I try to resort to some kind of logical argument building in my posts, but since Charlie and his ilk offer us flim-flam retorts, how about this: many powers that be are selling us on certain teams in P5 conferences that they have vested interests in, whether they be rooting or programming. (Be wary of network coverage that also "cover" conferences where they have a financial interest. BTW, this will also be an issue with the ACC starting next year.)

While WCBB does not quite have the pool of talent that the men's game has, it's growing and there are a lot of mid-majors I'd rather see than mediocre power conference teams. Don't think that will happen, but I'll watch eagerly to see what transpires once the tourney starts.