Feb. 3 "top 16" reveal by the committee | The Boneyard

Feb. 3 "top 16" reveal by the committee

Plebe

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I haven't seen it widely advertised, but at halftime of tomorrow's UConn-Oregon game the committee will give their first "top 16" reveal.



It'll be interesting to catch a glimpse of the committee's thinking, particularly when it comes to how they weigh teams with fewer quality wins and fewer losses against those with more quality wins but more losses (or losses to lower-rated teams).

The committee's top 4 seeds, as of tonight, are almost certainly:
  1. South Carolina. Although I personally think Baylor is the best team in the country, there's no doubt SC has the best résumé. The one loss to Indiana is greatly outweighed by 2 wins over the RPI top 10, 4 wins over the top 25, and 9 wins over the top 50. No other team comes close to that.

  2. Baylor. Despite a weak OOC schedule (#112), Baylor has done enough to secure the #2 overall seed for now, with the big road win at UConn anchoring a résumé that includes 3 top-25 wins and 7 top-50 wins.

  3. Louisville. The neutral-court win over Oregon headlines a résumé that, like Baylor's, includes 3 top-25 wins and 7 top-50 wins, with the only blemish being the road loss at RPI #25 Ohio State.

  4. Oregon. Despite losses to Louisville and Arizona State, Oregon's win over Stanford and sweep of Oregon State, as part of 7 top-50 wins, give the Ducks an edge over other contenders.
After that the picture gets murkier.

I believe that the following teams will be on the #2 and #3 seed lines (listed here alphabetically):
#2 line (in alphabetical order): Maryland, NC State, Stanford, UConn
#3 line (in alphabetical order): Gonzaga, Iowa, Oregon State, UCLA

As for the #4 line, I believe Indiana, Mississippi State and Northwestern will be in the 13-15 range. The #16 spot -- the last coveted hosting berth -- is really up for grabs. I could see it going to any of the following: Arizona, Arizona State, DePaul, Florida State, LSU, Missouri State. Most likely, either Arizona or DePaul.

Please argue away :)
 
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In the post game interview after Baylor's win over UConn Coach Mulkey said she believed there were 6 teams that could go all the way which included both Baylor (Your seed #1) and UConn (#2).

The other presumed 4 teams were: South Carolina (#1), Oregon (#1), Stanford (#2) and Oregon State (#3).

Surprised you have Maryland as a #2. Though not relevant to reveal tomorrow, if Mississippi St. wins out I would expect they would be a #2.

I will be interested to see what impact the recent losses by DePaul and UCLA have.

I assume the lose by DePaul will cost them home court. Similarly if Gonzaga drop a conference game they will probably also lose home court thus continuing the recent history of UConn being the only non P5 team to get home court.
 

Plebe

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In the post game interview after Baylor's win over UConn Coach Mulkey said she believed there were 6 teams that could go all the way which included both Baylor (Your seed #1) and UConn (#2).

The other presumed 4 teams were: South Carolina (#1), Oregon (#1), Stanford (#2) and Oregon State (#3).

Surprised you have Maryland as a #2. Though not relevant to reveal tomorrow, if Mississippi St. wins out I would expect they would be a #2.

I will be interested to see what impact the recent losses by DePaul and UCLA have.

I assume the lose by DePaul will cost them home court. Similarly if Gonzaga drop a conference game they will probably also lose home court thus continuing the recent history of UConn being the only non P5 team to get home court.
Not sure that Mulkey's comments have much bearing on the committee's deliberations.

I must say, I was surprised about Maryland as well. Certain teams rate better in an evaluation of team sheets than they do in the AP polls; others fare worse. Maryland's résumé falls into the former category: a top-10 strength of schedule, no bad losses (none to teams lower than #16 in the RPI), 4 top-25 wins and 7 top-50 wins. That said, I won't be at all surprised if Oregon State or UCLA is ahead of them on the committee's tally. I myself had Iowa ahead of Maryland on the #2 line last night, before today's loss to Michigan.

Mississippi State, as usual, has left the yeoman's work for February and early March. Their resume is actually quite thin right now for a top-16 aspirant: only one top-25 win (over #21 LSU) and only 3 top-50 wins. Plus, their loss at home to West Virginia has turned a darker shade with the Mountaineers' recent slide.

I should clarify: I am only trying to predict (guess) what the committee will say tomorrow, based on how they have historically evaluated teams by body of work (team sheets and nitty-gritty). These predictions do not reflect my personal top 25 ballot for the fortnightly Boneyard poll.
 

Plebe

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I don't know whether the reveals will follow the pattern of last year, where they also placed the top 16 into provisional regional brackets, but what they hey. I'm going to take my conjecture a step further and surmise the following regional seedings in tomorrow's reveal.

1580699311345.png
 
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Not sure that Mulkey's comments have much bearing on the committee's deliberations.

I would hope none. Mentioned it only to show how quickly opinions can change in that you are (more than likely correctly) predicting Louisville as #1 and Oregon St. as #3.
 

SimpleDawg

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Interesting stuff..

*strokes chin*

Don't think Baylor gets any favors getting Mississippi State though. I have to interject that in there. :) Even though they should be superior, but I'm sure they'd rather get someone else for a mere Sweet Sixteen matchup.
 
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I don't know whether the reveals will follow the pattern of last year, where they also placed the top 16 into provisional regional brackets, but what they hey. I'm going to take my conjecture a step further and surmise the following regional seedings in tomorrow's reveal.

View attachment 50521

So the Iowa loss does hurt that much?

Potentially 4 Pac teams seems right. Not certain about Northwestern. Iowa and Maryland may swap after their game and I wouldn't be surprised to see Indiana fall out.
 

Plebe

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Interesting stuff..

*strokes chin*

Don't think Baylor gets any favors getting Mississippi State though. I have to interject that in there. :) Even though they should be superior, but I'm sure they'd rather get someone else for a mere Sweet Sixteen matchup.
I completely agree. MSU made it clear in the South Carolina game that they are no one's easy out. For now, I just think their resume hasn't yet caught up to their quality. More than likely, it will in the next 5 weeks.
 

Plebe

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So the Iowa loss does hurt that much?

Potentially 4 Pac teams seems right. Not certain about Northwestern. Iowa and Maryland may swap after their game and I wouldn't be surprised to see Indiana fall out.
The margins between resumes in the 2 and 3 lines are razor thin, and I can see the committee going any number of ways in its evaluation. Iowa's loss at Michigan (#40 RPI) isn't a really bad loss, but Iowa was already carrying the weight of losses to Northern Iowa, Nebraska and (gulp) Washington. At a minimum, I believe they do fall behind Maryland with that loss.

It's easy to get carried away with recency bias in Indiana's latest struggles, but they still haven't lost to anyone outside the RPI top 25 ... AND they hold the card of the neutral-court win over South Carolina, and no one in the country has a better win than that. I don't believe there are 16 better resumes than Indiana's at this point.
 

SimpleDawg

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I completely agree. MSU made it clear in the South Carolina game that they are no one's easy out. For now, I just think their resume hasn't yet caught up to their quality. More than likely, it will in the next 5 weeks.

Completely agreed. Our best win is LSU. A top 25 team for sure (in my opinion) that we handled easier than I thought (up 22 points at one point), but still only 1 ranked win so far. We still got the whole slate of SEC top 25 teams left to play.... and that possible rematch with South Carolina at Greenville.

I was more commenting on Baylor's bracket which based on that prediction is anything but easy. Since they got a #4 seed who is capable of upsetting them (reliving that 2017 episode Mulkey would like to forget), and Oregon State who has just been their Achilles. Imagine facing Mississippi State then Oregon State before even getting into the Final Four. One could argue Baylor would have a really unfortunate bracket there.
 

Plebe

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Interesting stuff..

*strokes chin*

Don't think Baylor gets any favors getting Mississippi State though. I have to interject that in there. :) Even though they should be superior, but I'm sure they'd rather get someone else for a mere Sweet Sixteen matchup.
The other thing I should point out is that by the time we get to the #4 seed line, regional placement is heavily dictated by certain rules or "principles" (e.g., keeping conference rivals in separate regions, to the extent possible).

But even if the top 3 lines play out as I've guesstimated, MSU as a #4 could just as easily be sent to the Fort Wayne region as the Dallas region. The one region they couldn't go to would be wherever South Carolina is.
 

Plebe

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Completely agreed. Our best win is LSU. A top 25 team for sure (in my opinion) that we handled easier than I thought (up 22 points at one point), but still only 1 ranked win so far. We still got the whole slate of SEC top 25 teams left to play.... and that possible rematch with South Carolina at Greenville.

I was more commenting on Baylor's bracket which based on that prediction is anything but easy. Since they got a #4 seed who is capable of upsetting them (reliving that 2017 episode Mulkey would like to forget), and Oregon State who has just been their Achilles. Imagine facing Mississippi State then Oregon State before even getting into the Final Four. One could argue Baylor would have a really unfortunate bracket there.
Eh, I'd quibble just slightly with the "top 25 team for sure" assessment. This is the same LSU team that looked horrible in losing to Oklahoma and hapless Missouri. I would have both LSU and Tennessee in probably the 26-30 range, and Arkansas I would put somewhere in the 31-40 range. A Carter-less Texas A&M is probably in the 31-40 range as well, and that accounts for two of LSU's "good" wins.

I think the historical memory of, say, Baylor's losses to Mississippi State and Oregon State won't be much of a factor, if at all, in the committee's decision. The committee can refer to the previous two years' brackets as an "additional consideration" to avoid certain scenarios, but helping Baylor avoid a team that it lost to in the regional rounds 2 or 3 years ago isn't one of them.

In any event, whatever the committee comes out with tomorrow is sure to be (a) at least somewhat different than what I've guessed, and (b) quite different than the bracket on selection day.
 
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Eh, I'd quibble just slightly with the "top 25 team for sure" assessment. This is the same LSU team that looked horrible in losing to Oklahoma and hapless Missouri. I would have both LSU and Tennessee in probably the 26-30 range, and Arkansas I would put somewhere in the 31-40 range. A Carter-less Texas A&M is probably in the 31-40 range as well, and that accounts for two of LSU's "good" wins.

I think the historical memory of, say, Baylor's losses to Mississippi State and Oregon State won't be much of a factor, if at all, in the committee's decision. The committee can refer to the previous two years' brackets as an "additional consideration" to avoid certain scenarios, but helping Baylor avoid a team that it lost to in the regional rounds 2 or 3 years ago isn't one of them.

In any event, whatever the committee comes out with tomorrow is sure to be (a) at least somewhat different than what I've guessed, and (b) quite different than the bracket on selection day.
Baylor lost to Oregon State in the Elite 8 in 2016 and again in 2018 in the Sweet Sixteen.

As an ardent OSU fan, I am hopeful that the selection committee doesn't want to tempt fate for a third time in five seasons. We would prefer to stay away from Baylor as long as possible in the postseason and let somebody else have a shot at them.
 

Plebe

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Baylor lost to Oregon State in the Elite 8 in 2016 and again in 2018 in the Sweet Sixteen.

As an ardent OSU fan, I am hopeful that the selection committee doesn't want to tempt fate for a third time in five seasons. We would prefer to stay away from Baylor as long as possible in the postseason and let somebody else have a shot at them.
It should be noted that in 2018 Oregon State was a #6 seed. The #3 seed that was paired to meet #2 Baylor in the Sweet 16 was Tennessee (whom, of course, Oregon State upset to advance to meet Baylor).

The committee can to a large degree do what they want, but they would be going off book if they considered what happened in 2016 and, for that matter, in the Sweet 16 in 2018 as a reason to keep Baylor and Oregon State apart.

If the top 2 lines are as I've projected, Oregon State could possibly be sent to Greenville instead of Dallas. That might end up depending on whether UCLA or Oregon State is higher on the overall board.
 

nwhoopfan

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The committee can to a large degree do what they want, but they would be going off book if they considered what happened in 2016 and, for that matter, in the Sweet 16 in 2018 as a reason to keep Baylor and Oregon State apart.

They love having Cal play Baylor in the 2nd Round, but they won't have that option this year. I think the 2 have met 3 or 4 times in recent years.
 

Plebe

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Based on some of the discussion here, I went back and created an alternate set of regional brackets. I switched Oregon State and UCLA on the #3 line, and then I made 3 changes on the #4 line. Certainly, this bracket would work just as well under my set of assumptions.

1580707973850.png


Edit: I just noticed that this would create a potential rematch of last year's 2nd-round game between Maryland and UCLA. However, this is **not** one of the scenarios that the committee is supposed to try to avoid under the "additional considerations" -- but then again, neither are the scenarios that would pit Oregon State or Mississippi State against Baylor in the second weekend.
 
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eebmg

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Based on some of the discussion here, I went back and created an alternate set of regional brackets. I switched Oregon State and UCLA on the #3 line, and then I made 3 changes on the #4 line. Certainly, this bracket would work just as well under my set of assumptions.

View attachment 50527

Edit: I just noticed that this would create a potential rematch of last year's 2nd-round game between Maryland and UCLA. However, this is **not** one of the scenarios that the committee is supposed to try to avoid under the "additional considerations" -- but then again, neither are the scenarios that would pit Oregon State or Mississippi State against Baylor in the second weekend.


I find it interesting if the above brackets on the 1-2 line hold true if Geno would use that as incentive to his team in the second half to take care of business NOW. Facing OU and Sabrina in an E8 matchup in Portland would be nearly impossible to overcome

I do think I recall CREME putting UConn in the Louisville bracket which is infinitely better for us.
 

TheFarmFan

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I will be very interested to see how the committee treats the PAC-12, not just tonight, but especially in a month's time. The nature of having so many Top 20 team (Oregon, Stanford, OSU, UCLA, Arizona, and arguably ASU) is that there are going to be roughly 50 "good" losses to be dolled out among those six teams between conference games and the tournament.

No matter which way you cut it, one or several among these teams will end up with close to 10 losses just by nature of the quality of the top of the conference. Ordinarily, 10-loss teams would be close to the cut line, but that seems pretty harsh given the strength of the competition. On the other hand, the PAC-12's OOC wins aren't, as a conference, that overly impressive, all things considered. (Which gets back to @Plebe's longstanding point about P5 teams scheduling poorly in the OOC portions.)

Thus, one additional "stake" in the UConn-Oregon game tonight is that the conference could really use another signature OOC win, and this is the last chance. Oregon quacked it away vs. Louisville, OSU's win away win at Miami looks like nothing in retrospect, and ASU didn't do much with their OOC schedule. That leaves Stanford's OOC wins vs. Gonzaga, Miss St., and Tennessee, UCLA's win at Indiana, Arizona's win at Texas, Washington's totally inexplicable win vs. Iowa, and Cal's equally inexplicable win vs. Arkansas as the only really "good" OOC wins against likely non-autobid teams, and some (the Texas and Arkansas) wins aren't even that "good."
 
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I will be very interested to see how the committee treats the PAC-12, not just tonight, but especially in a month's time. The nature of having so many Top 20 team (Oregon, Stanford, OSU, UCLA, Arizona, and arguably ASU) is that there are going to be roughly 50 "good" losses to be dolled out among those six teams between conference games and the tournament.

No matter which way you cut it, one or several among these teams will end up with close to 10 losses just by nature of the quality of the top of the conference. Ordinarily, 10-loss teams would be close to the cut line, but that seems pretty harsh given the strength of the competition. On the other hand, the PAC-12's OOC wins aren't, as a conference, that overly impressive, all things considered. (Which gets back to @Plebe's longstanding point about P5 teams scheduling poorly in the OOC portions.)

Thus, one additional "stake" in the UConn-Oregon game tonight is that the conference could really use another signature OOC win, and this is the last chance. Oregon quacked it away vs. Louisville, OSU's win away win at Miami looks like nothing in retrospect, and ASU didn't do much with their OOC schedule. That leaves Stanford's OOC wins vs. Gonzaga, Miss St., and Tennessee, UCLA's win at Indiana, Arizona's win at Texas, Washington's totally inexplicable win vs. Iowa, and Cal's equally inexplicable win vs. Arkansas as the only really "good" OOC wins against likely non-autobid teams, and some (the Texas and Arkansas) wins aren't even that "good."
Thank you for this speculative post. Very interesting. ASU did beat Creighton at home. This is the Creighton team that just upset DePaul. While Creighton is not ranked and is in the middle of their conference would this be considered a quality win now?

I've been thinking about your point about quality losses within the PAC.

For example while it was a blow out the UCLA loss on the road was to a very good Arizona team. I wonder if ASU gets any benefit from their home upsets of the then ranked second and third Bucks and Beavers. Overall the Pac will put six teams in the big dance.

I contrast this with the Big Ten who still seems to have 8-9 possibilities for the NCAA. This in spite of some really bad in conference losses. I wonder if this focus on the Big 10 shortchanges some of the mid-majors. For example yesterday's Gopher upset over Rutgers a good one for Minnesota is offset by Nebraska's really bad loss at home to Ohio State. While Minnesota is 4 and 7 in conference this good win increases their chances of making the big dance? Nebraska's very weak out of conference schedule gives them an overall solid record but shouldn't the bad lost to Ohio State damage their chances? Not only was it a bad loss but they lost badly. Leading in the fourth quarter at home they let the game go to overtime and lost there.

This type of discussion is very interesting and I think adds to the enjoyment of watching these games. The last month of the season becomes part of a grind not only for the teams but sometimes for the fans.
 
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I will be very interested to see how the committee treats the PAC-12, not just tonight, but especially in a month's time. The nature of having so many Top 20 team (Oregon, Stanford, OSU, UCLA, Arizona, and arguably ASU) is that there are going to be roughly 50 "good" losses to be dolled out among those six teams between conference games and the tournament.

No matter which way you cut it, one or several among these teams will end up with close to 10 losses just by nature of the quality of the top of the conference. Ordinarily, 10-loss teams would be close to the cut line, but that seems pretty harsh given the strength of the competition. On the other hand, the PAC-12's OOC wins aren't, as a conference, that overly impressive, all things considered. (Which gets back to @Plebe's longstanding point about P5 teams scheduling poorly in the OOC portions.)

Thus, one additional "stake" in the UConn-Oregon game tonight is that the conference could really use another signature OOC win, and this is the last chance. Oregon quacked it away vs. Louisville, OSU's win away win at Miami looks like nothing in retrospect, and ASU didn't do much with their OOC schedule. That leaves Stanford's OOC wins vs. Gonzaga, Miss St., and Tennessee, UCLA's win at Indiana, Arizona's win at Texas, Washington's totally inexplicable win vs. Iowa, and Cal's equally inexplicable win vs. Arkansas as the only really "good" OOC wins against likely non-autobid teams, and some (the Texas and Arkansas) wins aren't even that "good."
You forgot OSU beat Depaul and Missouri State, who are both ranked ahead of several of the OOC teams you mentioned. Plus Oregon beat Team USA which was out of conference and they were 5-0 against other Top 15 teams. Might count for something.
 
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Charlie Creme’s update ahead of the reveal.
I just can't believe Creme has Indiana seeded, who has 5 losses including a loss by 10 to UCLA at home, over Arizona who just beat UCLA 92-66, has only 3 losses to top 10 teams, and has beaten 3 ranked teams. If the committee doesn't seed Arizona it's a travesty. They beat Texas, the secod best Big12 team, by 25 at Texas.
 
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"If the committee doesn't seed Arizona it's a travesty."

Hard to believe butCharlie says Arizona's ooc schedule is ranked 337th
 

Plebe

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"If the committee doesn't seed Arizona it's a travesty."

Hard to believe butCharlie says Arizona's ooc schedule is ranked 337th
This has been discussed elsewhere, and it's certainly not hard to believe when you look at who they played. See all those teams in blue in the 3rd and 4th columns, ranked from 180 to 348 ? That's where Arizona played 91% of its OOC.

1580748814672.png
 

Plebe

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I will be very interested to see how the committee treats the PAC-12, not just tonight, but especially in a month's time. The nature of having so many Top 20 team (Oregon, Stanford, OSU, UCLA, Arizona, and arguably ASU) is that there are going to be roughly 50 "good" losses to be dolled out among those six teams between conference games and the tournament.

Not just good losses, but even more importantly, the good wins. (I believe these 6 teams play each other 28 times in the regular season, but that was just some quick counting.)

No matter which way you cut it, one or several among these teams will end up with close to 10 losses just by nature of the quality of the top of the conference. Ordinarily, 10-loss teams would be close to the cut line, but that seems pretty harsh given the strength of the competition. On the other hand, the PAC-12's OOC wins aren't, as a conference, that overly impressive, all things considered. (Which gets back to @Plebe's longstanding point about P5 teams scheduling poorly in the OOC portions.)

The raw number of losses is one of the least helpful ways to assess a resume. Last year, Arizona State had 10 losses on selection day and was given a #5 seed. Missouri was a #7 seed with 10 losses as well. In 2018 Stanford was a #4 seed with 10 losses, and ASU was a #7 seed with 12 losses. A team with a good SOS and, most importantly, some high quality wins can sustain a lot of losses and still be seeded fairly highly.
 
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