Old Hat For Our Geek Squad

[RockyMTblue2]

Bracketology makes my teeth hurt. I'm a look at um and get a gut feeling kind of fan. But I know a whole lot of us are addicted to this stuff, so I offer:

An interview with a Selection Committee member. 10 Questions With Women’s Basketball Committee Member Mary Ellen Gillespie

A detailed look at the Committee Members "Team Sheet". What is a team sheet? Inside the March Madness selection tool

Look at them if you like. She talks about how RPI is not all that much. But, folks, look at the Sheet and you might question that. BTW click on the Sheet image and get an enlarged image page.

 

[bags27]

pseudo science, if even that. anytime you add -ology ("the science of") to the end of a word, it's a good bet that it's not.

 

[Wally East]

Great interview. Thanks!

 

[Plebe]

Thank you very much for posting this. I am definitely on the geek squad, and I love hearing the committee members describe their work process:

These meetings and calls are important because each committee member gives a deep dive on those teams in her/his primary and secondary conferences. And when I say deep dive, I mean deep dive. It is more than wins, losses or RPI. We discuss the entire body of work up to that date. That is why our game watching, our calls with conference office staff and regional calls with coaches are so important. All of those provide what I call “good intel.” Preparation is key to these meetings and calls, and we need to be prepared to answer questions from other committee members, such as “When did so and so get hurt? Was she out of the game against team X?” or “They have a bad loss against Team A. What happened?”​

Look at them if you like. She talks about how RPI is not all that much. But, folks, look at the Sheet and you might question that. BTW click on the Sheet image and get an enlarged image page.

Are you saying that because the team sheets are organized by RPI groupings, that it's more of a factor than the committee will admit?

 

[Phil]

The write-up specifically talks about the Men's Selection committee. Do we know that the women's committee has the same document?

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Thank you very much for posting this. I am definitely on the geek squad, and I love hearing the committee members describe their work process:

These meetings and calls are important because each committee member gives a deep dive on those teams in her/his primary and secondary conferences. And when I say deep dive, I mean deep dive. It is more than wins, losses or RPI. We discuss the entire body of work up to that date. That is why our game watching, our calls with conference office staff and regional calls with coaches are so important. All of those provide what I call “good intel.” Preparation is key to these meetings and calls, and we need to be prepared to answer questions from other committee members, such as “When did so and so get hurt? Was she out of the game against team X?” or “They have a bad loss against Team A. What happened?”​

Are you saying that because the team sheets are organized by RPI groupings, that it's more of a factor than the committee will admit?

Yup, pretty much. Someone spilled the RPI bottle on the stats sheet and it won't come off.

 

[Plebe]

Yup, pretty much. Someone spilled the RPI bottle on the stats sheet and it won't come off.

That's a humorous way of putting it.

It's certainly valid to question the extent to which the RPI pervades the evaluation process. But I don't think it's impossible to use the RPI as an organizational tool while limiting its influence as a selection criterion.

If I organize my shopping list alphabetically, does it necessarily mean that I like apples more than oranges?

 

[BroadwayVa]

pseudo science, if even that. anytime you add -ology ("the science of") to the end of a word, it's a good bet that it's not.

PSEDUDO-ology. If you want to make it credible add---ology or preface it with Science of: ---skunk old sales men were men of science ology

 

[BroadwayVa]

Bracketology makes my teeth hurt. I'm a look at um and get a gut feeling kind of fan. But I know a whole lot of us are addicted to this stuff, so I offer:

An interview with a Selection Committee member. 10 Questions With Women’s Basketball Committee Member Mary Ellen Gillespie

A detailed look at the Committee Members "Team Sheet". What is a team sheet? Inside the March Madness selection tool

Look at them if you like. She talks about how RPI is not all that much. But, folks, look at the Sheet and you might question that. BTW click on the Sheet image and get an enlarged image page.

So Mary Ellen (no relative to John boy) is a fan of the show written by a JMU grad--Hall---Madame Secretary --it's too close to reality.

 

[UcMiami]

Are you saying that because the team sheets are organized by RPI groupings, that it's more of a factor than the committee will admit?

Yeah - I believe that is what he is implying. As comes across in the interview there really is a ton of information and a staggering number of schools to review, and they need to 'organize it in some way' and they are using RPI as the determining organizational principle.

I don't have a problem with that in a general way, but it is a very blunt instrument and has gross anomalies built in. Harvard for example has an RPI of 43 and Temple has one of 18 but are they really that strong - in head to head do you think beating Temple is more significant than Oklahoma or Tenn at #19 and #20 or for Harvard, Michigan at 48 and Cal at 56? The problem with something that is based on W/L records of opponents and their opponents is not actually defining the strength or weakness of a team.

By the way - the team sheet is basically the same format and information as the NittyGritty site:
Nitty Gritty Report with Team Pages for 2016-2017 NCAA Women's College Basketball - WarrenNolan.com

And another question for geeks: I have found that there are some strange results that have persisted in the Sagarin listings this year - I have been sort of disappointed and surprised by the rankings he comes up with as you move away from the top 5 and there have been some strange things in the teens - anyone else having the same issues. There have been some marked divergences with the Massey site. Michigan is the most obvious one - they persisted in the low teens for months on Sagarin before now finally dropping to 23 while Massey has consistently had them in the high twenties and low thirties till they have now dropped to 38. They haven't beaten any decent team all year and it took four losses in their last 5 games to get them out of the teens on Sagarin. (I don't think I have seen anything quite so weird in either Masseys or Sagarin after January before.)

 

[Plebe]

I don't have a problem with that in a general way, but it is a very blunt instrument and has gross anomalies built in. Harvard for example has an RPI of 43 and Temple has one of 18 but are they really that strong - in head to head do you think beating Temple is more significant than Oklahoma or Tenn at #19 and #20 or for Harvard, Michigan at 48 and Cal at 56?

But the committee is well aware of the RPI's bluntness and anomalies and, I believe, takes reasonable steps to account for them. Maryland is RPI #16 but will be seeded in the top 10 overall. Temple is RPI #18 but will not get any higher than a 7-seed (more likely an 8). Elon is RPI #27 but will be no higher than an 11 (assuming they get in).

 

[UcMiami]

But the committee is well aware of the RPI's bluntness and anomalies and, I believe, takes reasonable steps to account for them. Maryland is RPI #16 but will be seeded in the top 10 overall. Temple is RPI #18 but will not get any higher than a 7-seed (more likely an 8). Elon is RPI #27 but will be no higher than an 11 (assuming they get in).

I'm saying that using 'top 50 record' is an issue because you are using RPI to organize a teams record without really focusing on the fact that the teams in that 'top 50' are there because of the blunt instrument - someone who lost to Temple and beat Cal will be assumed to have a worse resume than the one that beat Temple and lost to Cal when the two are probably relatively the same.
I know they look past the RPI when actually selecting teams and ranking them, but I suspect there are a lot of statements and discussion that start with 'they went 10-4 against the top 50, and only played one team outside the top 200' or 'they had 10 games against the top 50 and another 7 against 100'

It gets down to the kind of thing I actually posted - the AAC has a stronger RPI than the Big10 which is a nice little thing to say about a conference that everyone dismisses as weak. But ... do we actually think that team by team the Big10 is worse than the ACC ... probably not.

 

[Plebe]

I'm saying that using 'top 50 record' is an issue because you are using RPI to organize a teams record without really focusing on the fact that the teams in that 'top 50' are there because of the blunt instrument - someone who lost to Temple and beat Cal will be assumed to have a worse resume than the one that beat Temple and lost to Cal when the two are probably relatively the same.
I know they look past the RPI when actually selecting teams and ranking them, but I suspect there are a lot of statements and discussion that start with 'they went 10-4 against the top 50, and only played one team outside the top 200' or 'they had 10 games against the top 50 and another 7 against 100'

But is it a problem for the discussion to start somewhere, as long as that's only a starting point for more meaningful analysis? Let's say Team A has wins over #46 and #49, neither of which would receive an at-large bid. That does not put Team A at an advantage over another team that, let's say, has a win over a #7 seed (a solid at-large team) and the RPI #51 team who is in fact an at-large team.

 

[Phil]

But is it a problem for the discussion to start somewhere, as long as that's only a starting point for more meaningful analysis?

Yes, it absolutely is a problem.

Look up Anchoring.

We will have to try this is a thought experiment, but imagine writing down the last two digits of your Social Security number then give your best guess as to the number of African nations in the UN. I trust that is completely obvious that the first number has absolutely nothing to do with the number of nations in the UN, yet when this experiment is done in real life, people whose last two digits are high make guesses that tend to be larger than people whose last two digits are low.

This is obviously not intentional but it happens even with a piece of information that is known to be irrelevant.

Now give someone a number, the RPI number which is known to have flaws but isn't even completely irrelevant, and it is virtually certain that it will color the results.

They try to claim that RPI is only a starting point but I suspect it carries more weight than they even realize.

 

[Plebe]

Yes, it absolutely is a problem.

Look up Anchoring.

We will have to try this is a thought experiment, but imagine writing down the last two digits of your Social Security number then give your best guess as to the number of African nations in the UN. I trust that is completely obvious that the first number has absolutely nothing to do with the number of nations in the UN, yet when this experiment is done in real life, people whose last two digits are high make guesses that tend to be larger than people whose last two digits are low.

This is obviously not intentional but it happens even with a piece of information that is known to be irrelevant.

Now give someone a number, the RPI number which is known to have flaws but isn't even completely irrelevant, and it is virtually certain that it will color the results.

They try to claim that RPI is only a starting point but I suspect it carries more weight than they even realize.

It's reasonable (and healthy) to suspect, but we need to look at the evidence that either supports or refutes our suspicions.

The seeding never follows the RPI strictly. About one-fourth of all teams are seeded at least two lines away from what a strict observance of the RPI would dictate. Several years ago the Marquette men got an at-large bid at #67 in the RPI. On the other end, there have been teams with an RPI in the 20s that have been denied bids. Does a range this wide support the hypothesis that the RPI is overly influential in the final outcome?

I'm not suggesting that I'm a fan of the RPI, or that they shouldn't try to improve it or replace it with something better. (A few weeks ago I posted a thread linking to an informative article about the NCAA's latest initiative.) But until then, I haven't heard anyone propose a better viable starting point or organizational tool.

Having said all that, if they let the Syracuse men in this year with an RPI in the mid-80s, the committee is garbage.

 

[Wally East]

I'm saying that using 'top 50 record' is an issue because you are using RPI to organize a teams record without really focusing on the fact that the teams in that 'top 50' are there because of the blunt instrument

I ran some numbers.

The median difference between a school's RPI rank and their Sagarin ranking is 18. The max difference was 98 and the min was 0. There were 69 schools where the difference was 5 or less.

 

[mntncougar]

I have a few questions.
Selection Monday. Can we see it live? If so, how and where? If not, how will we find out the information we all want to know?

 

[Plebe]

I have a few questions.
Selection Monday. Can we see it live? If so, how and where? If not, how will we find out the information we all want to know?

7pm ET on ESPN.

 

[Bronxjeff]

I appreciate that these committee members are so devoted to the sport, and take their roles so seriously. The interview makes clear that Ms. Gillespie's commitment is way greater than anything I ever volunteered for, and I am a past-president of my professional society.

 

[Wally East]

Also, she made a good point about what did people do before streaming games was possible.

What DID people do? Were they mailed tapes of games?

 

[UcMiami]

I appreciate that these committee members are so devoted to the sport, and take their roles so seriously. The interview makes clear that Ms. Gillespie's commitment is way greater than anything I ever volunteered for, and I am a past-president of my professional society.

A really good point to make!!!
We complain a lot about the NCAA and what this committee or that committee has done, and while the NCAA offices and their paid staff deserve a lot of the grief that comes their way, we lose sight of the fact that in all sports but especially the non-revenue sports there are a whole lot of people who are devoting their lives to those sports and the STUDENT athletes with very little or no compensation - it is a lifelong commitment from them and it is a labor of love.

While women's basketball falls somewhere between revenue sport and non-revenue sport, the same passion and commitment exists with little or no compensation. We should be thankful for their work and effort, even when we think they got something wrong.

(The same goes for the refs, by the way - they live an odd lifestyle with very limited compensation, and perform their duties because they love the game. They are far from perfect in their jobs, but there are few jobs that come with the level of abuse they put up with on a game to game basis.)

 

[Pride fan]

I don't know what's becoming of me, but I'm finding this thread quite interesting.

 

[Phil]

I ran some numbers.

The median difference between a school's RPI rank and their Sagarin ranking is 18. The max difference was 98 and the min was 0. There were 69 schools where the difference was 5 or less.

That's larger than I would have guessed, though on reflection, some of those in the 200's might be far apart. What the median for the first 40 or so?

 

[Wally East]

That's larger than I would have guessed, though on reflection, some of those in the 200's might be far apart. What the median for the first 40 or so?

The median difference for the top 40 is 6 but for the second 20 (meaning 21 to 40) it's 11.

 

[Phil]

The median difference for the top 40 is 6 but for the second 20 (meaning 21 to 40) it's 11.

Thanks.