Feb 28 Committee Rankings

[Alydar]

Really wish I knew anything about seeding and rankings and math so I could understand this thread. I just watch UConn play basketball. How a bracket is made I have no idea

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/championships/sports/basketball/d1/women/D1WBB_BracketPrinciplesandProcedures.pdf

It's 6 pages and if you read it once you'll know more than most.

 

[RedStickHusky]

And, adding onto this, although some might think it blasphemous, I would love both the M&W tourney minimum reqs be at least a winning conference record, and at least 18 wins, the former similar to CFB where you have to be at .500 or above to qualify for a bowl game, not counting this past year where teams had covid issues. Having a higher winning record would make way for more conference involvement, instead of awarding mediocre teams just because they are in a perceived "tough" conference.

That would've locked out the 2011 UConn men.

 

[Calbysdad]

He's not the committee! This is not his personal ranking.
It is his prediction of how the committee will rank the teams. Completely different things.

For the use of italics AND bold, you are now in the Spokane Region.

 

[Byukiok808]

I certainly don’t wanna see SC in the elite 8 and would love to be a 2 or 3 in Bridgeport but I’m not entirely upset with this region. I think we can handle Michigan, I mean look at what Clark and Iowa did to them and UCONN has a better cast than the Hawkeyes do. Several others have also mentioned that this UCONN team is much different than the one SC faced way back in November. Players that weren’t even a factor in that game (Caroline, Azzi, Nika) are way better now. If we keep playing the way we have been since the loss to Villanova I see us being a tough out for any team. I’m sure SC doesn’t want to see us as a 2/3 seed in their region. Also, getting a chance to prevent dawn and SC from getting back to the FF while at the same time continuing our own FF streak makes me a little happy.

 

[LwrcasefaN]

TODAY...part of this reveal is being dictated by the Big Ten having 4 teams in the top 16. The committee isn't going to place them in the same region...so you can toss out stats and the eye test to a degree as far as seeding is concerned. But, Indiana is definitely a head scratcher. Ohio State is feeling salty right about now. Tennessee lost 6 of its last 10 games and is still top 16? I know...they lost Green, BUT Burrell returned and... they still were losing. I think North Carolina will host if they play well next week. Iowa jumped 9 in the AP. I don't get it. If I'm UCONN....I'm telling my kids, pack your bags, we're healthy and we're off to win six games.

 

[mattlow710]

if Uconn Goal of this year is the NC,
I dont care what's seed we will get
Because we just need to win it all
Nomatter SC, Stanford or others are in what's way, we just need to fight and win it
That's all.

 

[RedStickHusky]

Seedings be damned. UConn WBB; they stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast.

 

[PAHuskeyFan]

Something strange that I noticed... through 3 Committee Reveals, UCONN has been in 3 Regions...
Spokane in Reveal #1, Bridgeport in Reveal #2 and Greensboro in Reveal #3. Either they are trying to keep everybody guessing, OR, we're bound for Wichita in the final Bracket.

 

[hoophuskee]

Charlie does not do the committee bracket.

Charlie was on Nat'l TV making a point that iowa State should be the 2 seed, wasn't he? Is he is just the mouthpiece and he is not allowed to have an opinion if he disagrees?

He did disagree about Indiana though, didn't he? But he defended UCONN still being a 3, right?

 

[Plebe]

I guess my question to the committee is "where is the logic"?

Earlier in the season, SC lost to an unranked Missouri team who was playing without their best player. Normally that would mean the #1 team automatically drops out of the top spot.

Instead, the voters used logic saying (essentially) that the 2 teams behind SC had more losses, one of them (NC State) had already lost to SC, so "logic" dictated that SC remain #1 in spite of the bad (at that time) loss.

I've also seen, moreso on the men's side, that teams losing a star player (or key player) just before the selection process, will often drop at least 1 spot in the seedings in spite of their body of work during the rest of the season. The "logic" behind this is even the team in question may be a "__" seed, losing a key player severely impacts the strength of the team for the NCAA tourney, and therefore merited a drop in seeding.

So UCONN is FINALLY 100% healthy. Paige has only been back 2 games. The team is still getting acclimated to having Paige back and she's not played more than 15 minutes in a game yet, but has shown flashes of being ready to be one of the best players in the country again.

So my question - where is the logic? UCONN has been building and rolling. Sure 2 blowouts against middle to lower Big East teams do not merit much in the way of changes, but we only beat PC by 8 a bit ago still missing players. This weekend we blew them out by 50. Earlier in the season, missing players, we only beat SJU by 18. This weekend we beat them by 50.

Earlier in the season we beat Marquette (missing players) by 14 (that game it was ONO, Ducharme and Bueckers). In the rematch, even without Paige, we slaughtered them by 31.

I obviously don't understand the "net" - how they compile it, etc. I know they use it when deciding on seeding, but I don't see any logic being applied. This seems to be one of those seasons where UCONN has WAY improved in the last 2 weeks due to getting a full healthy team back (sans Griffin).

Every loss we had (except SC) was with a depleted team missing key players. Every close game was the same. Even the loss to SC - while not "missing" players, we did not know it at the time, but both Azzi and Nika were injured. Now we are fully back. Maybe a romp thru the BET will change some minds, but either way, I'm disappointed there seems to be no logic applied.

The committee has historically placed heavy emphasis on quality wins and significant losses. Fans tend to overemphasize the importance of the "eye test" -- the committee wants to see proof in the resume of how good a team is.

I'm sure the committee is well aware of UConn's injuries, but the problem is that UConn doesn't have the resume to prove exactly how good they are with everyone healthy. Beating Quad 3 and Quad 4 opponents by 60 points doesn't count as quality wins in the eyes of the committee. It puts the committee in a tough position, in terms of a resume-based evaluation, because the timing of the players' recoveries has not allowed them to evaluate a full-strength UConn team against quality competition.

 

[Monte]

I feel sorry for all the UCONN fans who have tickets for Bridgeport. The way the team is playing now, they deserve to be a #2 (at least).
They should play to demolish the teams they play in the Big East Tourney!

 

[RegisteredUconn]

I guess my question to the committee is "where is the logic"?

Earlier in the season, SC lost to an unranked Missouri team who was playing without their best player. Normally that would mean the #1 team automatically drops out of the top spot.

Instead, the voters used logic saying (essentially) that the 2 teams behind SC had more losses, one of them (NC State) had already lost to SC, so "logic" dictated that SC remain #1 in spite of the bad (at that time) loss.

I've also seen, moreso on the men's side, that teams losing a star player (or key player) just before the selection process, will often drop at least 1 spot in the seedings in spite of their body of work during the rest of the season. The "logic" behind this is even the team in question may be a "__" seed, losing a key player severely impacts the strength of the team for the NCAA tourney, and therefore merited a drop in seeding.

So UCONN is FINALLY 100% healthy. Paige has only been back 2 games. The team is still getting acclimated to having Paige back and she's not played more than 15 minutes in a game yet, but has shown flashes of being ready to be one of the best players in the country again.

So my question - where is the logic? UCONN has been building and rolling. Sure 2 blowouts against middle to lower Big East teams do not merit much in the way of changes, but we only beat PC by 8 a bit ago still missing players. This weekend we blew them out by 50. Earlier in the season, missing players, we only beat SJU by 18. This weekend we beat them by 50.

Earlier in the season we beat Marquette (missing players) by 14 (that game it was ONO, Ducharme and Bueckers). In the rematch, even without Paige, we slaughtered them by 31.

I obviously don't understand the "net" - how they compile it, etc. I know they use it when deciding on seeding, but I don't see any logic being applied. This seems to be one of those seasons where UCONN has WAY improved in the last 2 weeks due to getting a full healthy team back (sans Griffin).

Every loss we had (except SC) was with a depleted team missing key players. Every close game was the same. Even the loss to SC - while not "missing" players, we did not know it at the time, but both Azzi and Nika were injured. Now we are fully back. Maybe a romp thru the BET will change some minds, but either way, I'm disappointed there seems to be no logic applied.

The Committee's problem is that they're job requires subjective standards. Subjective standards = subjective results. Subjective results are incompatible with logic.

For the record, seemingly objective standards like "head-to-head" outcomes aren't objective because they carry a weighting component which makes them subjective.

 

[hoophuskee]

There's a tendency to overreact to the latest result. This game was only about 3% of the season. Yes it was a blowout, but it wasn't like they lost to a bad team. Iowa State isn't going to drop 3 spots just based on this one game.

And there is a tendency to minimize major factors, right? In choosing seedings it clearly states "injuries" are taken into account, doesn't it?

This is NOT the same team (UCONN). And this is NOT fair to South Carolina. Not one iota fair.

As a UCONN fan I'm okay wherever they go- but I'm trying to be fair and wearing SC shoes. They were dominant all year- busted their hump being super -- and then you pit them against the preseason number 2 now back to full strength playing lights out and it's somehow that has logic?

In the history of WCBB, what team has lost what UCONN has and then regained it? Who loses the NPOY for nearly the whole season and 5 other core players? I mean c'mon it's laughable, isn't it? There was a line in a very good movie in which one person trying to convince to another that the computer was wrong and to stop acting like one. And there a business looking for revenue to boot.

You are going to pit two GIANTS before the FF when both are at full strength before the final week of the season? Aren't they playing some of their best basketball and highest revenue generators too? They put teams in regions in order to get fans in seats so to generate excitement and revenue. Yet they aren't going to do it here?

It's not one thing above - it's the combination.

 

[DEpup]

I feel sorry for all the UCONN fans who have tickets for Bridgeport. The way the team is playing now, they deserve to be a #2 (at least).
They should play to demolish the teams they play in the Big East Tourney!

Which is UConn's secret weapon. Money still is the most important thing so they'll get them to Bridgeport so everyone cashes in.

 

[hoophuskee]

The committee has historically placed heavy emphasis on quality wins and significant losses. Fans tend to overemphasize the importance of the "eye test" -- the committee wants to see proof in the resume of how good a team is.

I'm sure the committee is well aware of UConn's injuries, but the problem is that UConn doesn't have the resume to prove exactly how good they are with everyone healthy. Beating Quad 3 and Quad 4 opponents by 60 points doesn't count as quality wins in the eyes of the committee. It puts the committee in a tough position, in terms of a resume-based evaluation, because the timing of the players' recoveries has not allowed them to evaluate a full-strength UConn team against quality competition.

The committee is minimizing the injury impact. Net Rankings measures the quality of the team, does it not? Therefore the resume is there.

In this particular case, Net Rankings for a team that has probably been affected at such an extreme measure, should be used as a dominant factor for UCONN because of the injuries. The injuries are part of the se;lection process.

UCONN's injuries are not near the same as any other team. Let's stop pretending that we are a computer. SC is getting burned. Because we aren't a computer maybe in this circumstance a little more "eye test" would be more applicable.

 

[dabears17]

This is a link to the 'nitty-gritty' stats through Sunday's games the selection committee uses to help seed teams:

NCAA Statistics

 

[hoophuskee]

I certainly don’t wanna see SC in the elite 8 and would love to be a 2 or 3 in Bridgeport but I’m not entirely upset with this region. I think we can handle Michigan, I mean look at what Clark and Iowa did to them and UCONN has a better cast than the Hawkeyes do. Several others have also mentioned that this UCONN team is much different than the one SC faced way back in November. Players that weren’t even a factor in that game (Caroline, Azzi, Nika) are way better now. If we keep playing the way we have been since the loss to Villanova I see us being a tough out for any team. I’m sure SC doesn’t want to see us as a 2/3 seed in their region. Also, getting a chance to prevent dawn and SC from getting back to the FF while at the same time continuing our own FF streak makes me a little happy.

But it's not fair to SC. And just because some of us UCONN fans might like to try to prevent SC from getting to the FF, doesn't make the selection for UCONN being in their region as a 3, right. Plus the illogic of missing out on revenue among other things.

 

[BlueSkyGLW]

Why wring hands now....there are tournaments to be played that could shuffle the seeding even more. And, true, Indiana is a strange one or even Tenn.

After the tournaments, Indiana could fall out of the Top 16, leaving only 3 Big Ten teams.

I still think that the Committee will try to find a way to separate UConn and SC so that they are not in the same regional. They will likely earn more (?) if the marquee match up of a healthy UConn vs #1 SC is in the FF, preferably the title game - certainly, the attention for the FF will be bigger if so.

But if it happens, a healthy UConn team with 6 games to play to prepare for the regional final? It would be foolish to fear SC then.

 

[hoophuskee]

Why wring hands now....there are tournaments to be played and could shuffle the seeding even more. And, true, Indiana is a strange one or even Tenn.

After the tournaments, Indiana could fall out of the Top 16.

I still think that the Committee will try to find a way to separate UConn and SC so that they are not in the same regional. They will likely earn more if the marquee match up of a healthy UConn vs #1 SC is in the FF, preferable the title game.

But if it happens, a healthy UConn team with 6 games to play to prepare for the regional final? It would be foolish to fear SC then.

For me- I just made a comment that I felt Charlie was silly trying to justify UCONN as 3 is all. He can comment on Indiana "in his opinion" though. Just the hypocrisy got me and the illogic.

 

[BlueSkyGLW]

For me- I just made a comment that I felt Charlie was silly trying to justify UCONN as 3 is all. He can comment on Indiana "in his opinion" though. Just the hypocrisy got me and the illogic.

To be fair, he is just following the S-curve and rules that the Committee goes by in seeding and placement into regionals. But the Committee has discretion to change - disregard a rule to follow that they think is right for the tournament.

 

[hoophuskee]

To be fair, he is just following the S-curve and rules that the Committee goes by in seeding and placement into regionals. But the Committee has discretion to change - disregard a rule to follow that they think is right for the tournament.

IS he following the S-Curve with Indiana? He disagreed with the committee, didn't he? Or am I wrong about that?

 

[Plebe]

And there is a tendency to minimize major factors, right? In choosing seedings it clearly states "injuries" are taken into account, doesn't it?

This is NOT the same team (UCONN). And this is NOT fair to South Carolina. Not one iota fair.

As a UCONN fan I'm okay wherever they go- but I'm trying to be fair and wearing SC shoes. They were dominant all year- busted their hump being super -- and then you pit them against the preseason number 2 now back to full strength playing lights out and it's somehow that has logic?

In the history of WCBB, what team has lost what UCONN has and then regained it? Who loses the NPOY for nearly the whole season and 5 other core players? I mean c'mon it's laughable, isn't it? There was a line in a very good movie in which one person trying to convince to another that the computer was wrong and to stop acting like one. And there a business looking for revenue to boot.

You are going to pit two GIANTS before the FF when both are at full strength before the final week of the season? Aren't they playing some of their best basketball and highest revenue generators too? They put teams in regions in order to get fans in seats so to generate excitement and revenue. Yet they aren't going to do it here?

It's not one thing above - it's the combination.

In your zeal to claim the mantle of "fairness" you invoke any number of subjective and/or inapplicable elements.

Preseason poll rankings could not be more irrelevant to the committee's task.

"Playing lights out" over a two-week stretch against Quad 3 and Quad 4 opponents is not impactful in a resume comparison against other top 10 teams.

The committee is not the marketing or PR or revenue optimization department for NCAA or ESPN. They're not supposed to play favorites or show deference to names on a jersey.

I tell ya, for people who were up in arms about accusations of "pro-UConn bias", it's pretty amazing that some seem so outraged that the committee isn't going out of its way to give UConn the most favorable treatment possible.

 

[hoophuskee]

In your zeal to claim the mantle of "fairness" you invoke any number of subjective and/or inapplicable elements.

Preseason poll rankings could not be more irrelevant to the committee's task.

"Playing lights out" over a two-week stretch against Quad 3 and Quad 4 opponents is not impactful in a resume comparison against other top 10 teams.

The committee is not the marketing or PR or revenue optimization department for NCAA or ESPN. They're not supposed to play favorites or show deference to names on a jersey.

I tell ya, for people who were up in arms about accusations of "pro-UConn bias", it's pretty amazing that some seem so outraged that the committee isn't going out of its way to give UConn the most favorable treatment possible.

I'm only making it in context with you on here of the absurdity of the NCAA not using logic.

But I made my point of injuries. I made my point of revenue and excitement. Those are the main factors. The fatc thy have regions adn allow teams to play in their home states it is also about revenue and excitement.

And again you try to point this about UCONN bias when I speak of South Carolina getting burned.

I just don't want to see the pendulum come back at us someday. Again as I have said it' is burning SC. It's not what you seem ot be o9nly making it about - which is only UCONN.

 

[dabears17]

The people who think there is a UConn bias, point to the fact that they get to play 4 games within 140 miles of their campus (except for last year) to get to the Final Four. Half the time within 90 miles of campus without having to leave the state of Conn.

Stanford made the Final Four in 2017 as a two seed and played the first two rounds in Kansas and the regionals in Lexington, Kentucky-- when there was a regionals in Stockton, CA, less than 100 miles from Stanford's campus. South Carolina won the Final Four that year playing in the Stockton, CA regionals.

Is it "fair" to any of the #1 seeds to have to play UConn as a #2 or #3 seed less than 90 miles from Storrs? Excluding last year for Covid, the last time UConn had to get on a plane before the Final Four was 2015.

 

[Monte]

Which is UConn's secret weapon. Money still is the most important thing so they'll get them to Bridgeport so everyone cashes in.

You are right, but most of the tickets are already sold, so they still will rake in the money.