How close are the top 4 seeds to being locked?

[ucmiami2]

Well ... the answer to the OP is clearly not everything is locked up based on tonight!

Vandy just beat TX at home by 16, meaning TX isn't looking all that secure as the 4th #1 seed, while Vandy just keeps winning. They had a crap OOC, but they have now beaten TX, LSU, Michigan, OK, and KY. Interestingly all but KY were home games. They have two losses, at SC by 29, and home to OleMs, but I did not expect them to breeze to the finish line. They are up to 5-2 in Quad 1 (maybe more, haven't checked), and it looks like a three way race for the 4th one seed between LSU, TX, and Vandy.

Elsewhere - no idea why Baylor got up to 12/11 in the AP/coaches polls - they have lost all their games against currently ranked teams and had an SOS of 29, and they lost to TCU at home by 16 tonight.

Saturday we get SC at LSU, and then a full slate of meaningful names on Sunday.

 

[bballnut90]

Well ... the answer to the OP is clearly not everything is locked up based on tonight!

Vandy just beat TX at home by 16, meaning TX isn't looking all that secure as the 4th #1 seed, while Vandy just keeps winning. They had a crap OOC, but they have now beaten TX, LSU, Michigan, OK, and KY. Interestingly all but KY were home games. They have two losses, at SC by 29, and home to OleMs, but I did not expect them to breeze to the finish line. They are up to 5-2 in Quad 1 (maybe more, haven't checked), and it looks like a three way race for the 4th one seed between LSU, TX, and Vandy.

Elsewhere - no idea why Baylor got up to 12/11 in the AP/coaches polls - they have lost all their games against currently ranked teams and had an SOS of 29, and they lost to TCU at home by 16 tonight.

Saturday we get SC at LSU, and then a full slate of meaningful names on Sunday.

UCLA and UCONN appear to have theirs locked up.

Right now, IMO, Vandy is fully in the #1 seed race with their win over Texas. If LSU beats South Carolina this weekend, they also enter the conversation. SEC is an absolute bloodbath with potentially 4 teams competing for 2 number one seeds. I'm guessing the dust wont settle here until after the SEC tournament, and even then it could be a compelling race.

Louisville is out of the conversation after losing to Duke. Michigan and Ohio State are long shots, but if either wins out in B1G play and upsets UCLA in the Big Ten tournament, they could have an interesting case depending on what happens in the SEC.

 

[meyers7]

UCLA and UCONN appear to have theirs locked up.

Right now, IMO, Vandy is fully in the #1 seed race with their win over Texas. If LSU beats South Carolina this weekend, they also enter the conversation. SEC is an absolute bloodbath with potentially 4 teams competing for 2 number one seeds. I'm guessing the dust wont settle here until after the SEC tournament, and even then it could be a compelling race.

Louisville is out of the conversation after losing to Duke. Michigan and Ohio State are long shots, but if either wins out in B1G play and upsets UCLA in the Big Ten tournament, they could have an interesting case depending on what happens in the SEC.

Looking like UCONN, UCLA and 2 from SEC. Maybe the two in the SEC Championship game in a couple of weeks.

 

[visitingcock]

Looking like UCONN, UCLA and 2 from SEC. Maybe the two in the SEC Championship game in a couple of weeks.

Possibly the regular season champ and the tournament champ (if they are different.)

 

[BRS24]

And here you go:

Post in thread 'Bracketology - Week of Feb 10'

Yesterday at 9:51 AM

Women's Bracketology: There's a new No. 1 seed

For the first time this season, there's a shake-up on the top line. Vanderbilt beat Texas to unseat the Longhorns.

www.espn.com

For the first time this season, there is a shake-up on the top line. Propelled by its 86-70 win over Texas on Thursday, Vanderbilt unseated the Longhorns and is now the fourth No. 1 seed. Change seemed unlikely heading into Thursday. Texas had an advantage across most metrics: NET, wins above bubble, strength of schedule, Quad 1 wins, common opponents (the Longhorns are 3-2 against South Carolina, Ole Miss and LSU; Vanderbilt is 1-2). Texas might...​

• BRS24

 

[Stagnant]

No offense to Vanderbilt. But if they are the 4th one seed. Being the number one overall seed becomes pretty important.

You can get to the national championship game with your top obstacle being Vanderbilt? Wow!

 

[oldude]

No offense to Vanderbilt. But if they are the 4th one seed. Being the number one overall seed becomes pretty important.

You can get to the national championship game with your top obstacle being Vanderbilt? Wow!

Yes, that was my initial impression. But after watching Vandy take apart TX and listening to Shea’s postgame comments, many of which are right out of Geno’s playbook, I certainly wouldn’t sleep on Vandy in the national semifinals.

 

[Stagnant]

Yes, that was my initial impression. But after watching Vandy take apart TX and listening to Shea’s postgame comments, many of which are right out of Geno’s playbook, I certainly wouldn’t sleep on Vandy in the national semifinals.

I am not saying they are not good. But I am saying for a spot in the national championship game; UConn would love to see them.

 

[oldude]

I am not saying they are not good. But I am saying for a spot in the national championship game; UConn would love to see them.

Maybe. I think I’d rather see UCLA and their big, slow team, coached by underachieving Cory Close in the national semifinals than the hot new team coached by the best young coach in WBB.

 

[Bone Dog]

Looks like Texas may not be a lock.

 

[Phil]

Elsewhere - no idea why Baylor got up to 12/11 in the AP/coaches polls - they have lost all their games against currently ranked teams and had an SOS of 29, and they lost to TCU at home by 16 tonight.

The simplest explanation (I'm a big fan of Occam's razor) is that the AP voters don't know what they are doing. I see multiple examples of rankings or movements that don't make sense based on the facts. LSU and Duke are the examples I've noticed but I'll start paying attention to Baylor.

Massey has Baylor ranked 19 a fair way below the AP ranking of 12

Baylor lost to Iowa. Highly expected as the 19th -ranked team but close to a pick 'em if they were truly the 12th
Baylor lost to Texas which was likely no matter whether they were 12 or 19 but they lost by 35 which is easier to believe if they are number 19
Baylor lost to Texas Tech with a 27 ranking in Massey. That was a one point win so a minor upset they deserve to be 19, head scratching upset if they deserve to be number 12
Baylor lost to West Virginia with a 17 ranking in Massey. That's an upset if they are a 12 but expected if they are in 19.
Baylor loss to TCU with a 14 ranking in Massey. That's an upset if they are a 12 but expected if they are 19.

In other words, if you accept the Massey ranking of 19 almost all of those losses make a lot of sense and only one, a one point upset, seems out of character. If you think they are 12 seed there are a whole lot of losses that don't make much sense.

Maybe they truly deserve to be at 20 or a 22, there is no way to definitively say where they are, but 12 is a major stretch.

 

[fomalhaut]

IF LSU wins at home Saturday night the cart is overturned and apples will be spilling everywhere.

 

[Phil]

Looking at Baylor's AP location over time:
They started with the preseason ranking of 16.
They opened with a good win over highly ranked Duke which propelled them up to number seven.
Then they played nobody until Iowa which was a loss.
They also escaped a potential bad loss by winning it over time against Davidson. They did drop to 15 in the poll but my oversimplified guess is the voters punish them for the loss to Iowa but ignored the close call against Davidson. That should've been a wake-up call.
Then they played nobody until they played Texas. The voters didn't so much move Baylor up as move other teams down past them, so they are over ranked but easing up in the rankings when they beat nobodies.
Then they got into conference play, with opponents in the 28 to 50 range, all resulting in wins but these are teams they should beat if the ranked 19th, but the voters move them up because they are winning even though they are games they ought to win and they get back up into the 12-15 range.
Recently they moved up again, Not because the winds were against good teams but because those ranked near them were playing tougher teams and losing.

They are now 21 – 5, and they have exactly one win against teams deserving to be in the top 25 and that's the opening game which ought to be partially discounted.
The next best win is Iowa State which seemed impressive at one time but now doesn't look so hot.

 

[ucmiami2]

Looking at Baylor's AP location over time:
They started with the preseason ranking of 16.
They opened with a good win over highly ranked Duke which propelled them up to number seven.
Then they played nobody until Iowa which was a loss.
They also escaped a potential bad loss by winning it over time against Davidson. They did drop to 15 in the poll but my oversimplified guess is the voters punish them for the loss to Iowa but ignored the close call against Davidson. That should've been a wake-up call.
Then they played nobody until they played Texas. The voters didn't so much move Baylor up as move other teams down past them, so they are over ranked but easing up in the rankings when they beat nobodies.
Then they got into conference play, with opponents in the 28 to 50 range, all resulting in wins but these are teams they should beat if the ranked 19th, but the voters move them up because they are winning even though they are games they ought to win and they get back up into the 12-15 range.
Recently they moved up again, Not because the winds were against good teams but because those ranked near them were playing tougher teams and losing.

They are now 21 – 5, and they have exactly one win against teams deserving to be in the top 25 and that's the opening game which ought to be partially discounted.
The next best win is Iowa State which seemed impressive at one time but now doesn't look so hot.

That was my thinking - easy to explain their losses as a 20 ranking, but the Duke game is against a team on its way out of the top 25 at the start of the season, and the same is true for Iowa State. And beyond that, they have the resume of an 'also receiving votes' team. No win against a currently ranked team except Duke on Nov 3 last year.

And you left out a loss to WV rank #22 on Feb 1st by 10. Anyhow - yeah the voters are not to be trusted.

And while TCU had a long unbeaten run, their signature win was against NCSt at the start of the season who is currently unranked and had recently lost to USC (currently unranked) and was about to lose to RI (never ranked.) The Baylor game was the first ranked win for them which likely means they will now move up to #12 in the voters minds.

 

[Bills Fan]

Yes, that was my initial impression. But after watching Vandy take apart TX and listening to Shea’s postgame comments, many of which are right out of Geno’s playbook, I certainly wouldn’t sleep on Vandy in the national semifinals.

If you haven't seen Shea's TX post game interview, along side her 2 stars (a FR and a SOPH) it is worth going to you tube and watching. All three of them were very polished and articulate, probably the best post game interview that I have seen.
It sure doesn't seem like Shea will have any interest in the UCONN job when it opens up. She's building something special at a SEC school with all the tools she learned in her days at Storrs.

 

[Phil]

And you left out a loss to WV rank #22 on Feb 1st by 10. Anyhow - yeah the voters are not to be trusted.

I did look at the loss to West Virginia , but failed to include the sentence which I created in my head but didn't add to the list, which is interesting because it's probably the most perfect example. A lost to a team with a Massey ranking of 17 is understandable if your ranking is 19 but it is an upset if your ranking is 12.

So yes I'd say we are in pretty much agreement. It could easily be the resume of a team also receiving votes. I accept that 19 is plausible but 12? not really.

 

[rugbymate]

Assuming Vandy is the 4th seed , my recollection Is that the5th seed would be in their bracket . As of now, that would probably be Texas or LSU. Assuming we get through to the Final Four, we will have a difficult team to play. Probably rather play Vandy.

 

[Phil]

I'll add that Baylor is yet another example of something that I think exemplifies the way AP voters address their "job". Each week they look at the wins and losses in the last week and use that to justify moving teams up in the case of a major upset win, down a lot if it's a loss that shouldn't have happened but may be even down if it's sort of understandable but it still a loss. Some teams such as Baylor move up not because the voter affirmatively move them up but because they moved teams ahead of them down.
I don't say this in the context of its being a horrible approach, but it does mean this seems to be little evidence that every once in a while you take a hard look at each team and decide if they really deserve to be where you have them. That's why I wrote that meandering text, looking at Baylors ranking in week one and monitoring what happened each subsequent week. Each movement on its own seem defensible, but in the aggregate it left them just outside the top 10, but as you say with the resume of a team getting some votes.

 

[Phil]

Assuming Vandy is the 4th seed , my recollection Is that the5th seed would be in their bracket . As of now, that would probably be Texas or LSU. Assuming we get through to the Final Four, we will have a difficult team to play. Probably rather play Vandy.

I still think Vandy's on the outside looking in (in terms of one seeds). They aren't there yet, and I don't think they can possibly be viewed as a one seed unless they run the table. By that I don't just mean regular-season I mean win the conference tournament, which means Texas, LSU and South Carolina all will have to have at least one more loss in some cases two. A likely candidate for the fifth seed would be which of those stumbles the most.

 

[Bone Dog]

I still think Vandy's on the outside looking in (in terms of one seeds). They aren't there yet, and I don't think they can possibly be viewed as a one seed unless they run the table. By that I don't just mean regular-season I mean win the conference tournament, which means Texas, LSU and South Carolina all will have to have at least one more loss in some cases two. A likely candidate for the fifth seed would be which of those stumbles the most.

Things are likely to change in the next few weeks. But with wins over Texas and LSU, and a loss to SC, it’s hard to know who would take that 4th #1 seed if not Vandy. Can you really put Texas ahead of them right now after this beat down? Maybe a case could be made that the win over LSU was too close to hand that seed to Vandy instead of them. But since LSU’s OOC schedule was as weak as Vandy’s, that’s not an open and shut case.

Things are likely to change, but as of right now…

 

[ucmiami2]

Assuming Vandy is the 4th seed , my recollection Is that the5th seed would be in their bracket . As of now, that would probably be Texas or LSU. Assuming we get through to the Final Four, we will have a difficult team to play. Probably rather play Vandy.

If, as looks likely, 4 SEC teams are in the top 8 spots for the NCAA, each will be placed in a separate bracket regardless of the S-curve.
This means UCLA and Uconn will each play an SEC team in their bracket as a 2 seed.

 

[Cuango]

I actually hope she can stay there long term, she very entertaining for me. I giggle watching her because all I can see is Chris Farley as motivational speaker Matt Foley.

I wonder if she yells at the ref after a call against her team, I wish you’d just shut your yap!!” Or at her players “keep playing like that and you’e gonna end up living in a van down by the river!!” I’m never going to be able to look at her now without that image popping up! 😂

 

[Cuango]

Like Bone Dog, I'm not anti-Cori. I said she's a good coach. I thought Dawn Staley was a good (not great) coach till she won a NCAA championship. I'm on the Dawn bandwagon now. I'll be on the Cori bandwagon if she wins a natty too.

Just because you don’t think she’s a great coach doesn’t make you “anti-Cori”. I think she’s a good coach, just not a great one. She is obviously a great recruiter, it’s what she does with those players (both long term and in-game) that makes me question her bona fides. I have nothing against her personally and if she were to win the title, I’d be as happy as I could be for her. (Through a haze of tears 🙄)

Clearly, she could (and might) actually win it all this season! If she does/did though, it would not change my perception of her coaching ability in the slightest. Winning a title does not suddenly change reality! Reality that is based on a much more comprehensive set of data than one game, FF, or season. We have seen other coaches win titles who could never be confused with the great ones. Could she still become a “great” coach? Perhaps, though very doubtful. Everyone can learn though.

I will say this.. Her team is a real threat to win it all this season and anyone (UConn fan or not) who does not take her and her team very seriously could be in for a big disappointment! Obviously, that team revolves around Betts, (who is often, in my view, not given as much respect as she is due) but they have lots of weapons who, on a given night can make them almost unbeatable! Fortunately, they do not seem to be able to play consistently at that top level but they always present a threat that requires a smart game plan and players that can (and will) execute that plan. Betts though, is a huge problem that most teams simply cannot handle.

 

[Cuango]

No offense to Vanderbilt. But if they are the 4th one seed. Being the number one overall seed becomes pretty important.

You can get to the national championship game with your top obstacle being Vanderbilt? Wow!

Not sure why you are seemingly dismissive of Vanderbilt but I think they have become a real threat. They have a (I believe) a great coach, a transcendent player, and a very good supporting cast. Are they on par with SC, UCLA, or UConn? No, but I guarantee you none of those teams coaches are lining up to play them in a one and done tournament setting! I think they are becoming a very scary team and one I freely admit, hope we do not have to face!

 

[Cuango]

I'll add that Baylor is yet another example of something that I think exemplifies the way AP voters address their "job". Each week they look at the wins and losses in the last week and use that to justify moving teams up in the case of a major upset win, down a lot if it's a loss that shouldn't have happened but may be even down if it's sort of understandable but it still a loss. Some teams such as Baylor move up not because the voter affirmatively move them up but because they moved teams ahead of them down.
I don't say this in the context of its being a horrible approach, but it does mean this seems to be little evidence that every once in a while you take a hard look at each team and decide if they really deserve to be where you have them. That's why I wrote that meandering text, looking at Baylors ranking in week one and monitoring what happened each subsequent week. Each movement on its own seem defensible, but in the aggregate it left them just outside the top 10, but as you say with the resume of a team getting some votes.

I think Baylor is still benefitting from the “traditional power” reputation that still, (though fading faster now) tends to benefit them when they are statistically even with teams without that former reputation. I think voters tend to favor them over other, equal or better teams because it is an easier way to decide. “Well… Baylor has been here before, they know how to win etc….
This is obviously fading as Collen continues to fall woefully short of the Mulkey dynasty but I think it still has an effect. #12 was, I agree, ridiculous.