Stanford Now #1 Seed? Seriously?

[Plebe]

Bucknell #2, Cal Baptist is the clear #1 team.

Setting aside the lack of postseason eligibility, why would Cal Baptist be ahead of Bucknell? Both undefeated (against crap teams). Bucknell's NET is actually way higher and at least has more than zero wins over the top 150.

 

[King Kong]

I agree! If UCONN & Stanford are even, then the Cardinal get the #1 spot due to strength of conference. But I love our Husky team's energy, confidence, & cohesiveness, especially considering their youth.

I wish that UConn played more SEC, ACC, & PAC12 teams during the season, then we would have a better sense of what stats mean. This season Strength of Schedule is relatively diluted, & does not mean a lot, because of a dearth of competition between conferences - The pac12 is floating on past glories.
But it does seem that the only strong competition this year is Stanford, South Carolina, & perhaps Baylor, but, on any given day...... It seems that despite its unassailable position, UConn has not been helped by being in weak conferences, when being in conferences like the SEC & ACC would immeasurably help get its elite athletes ready for the best teams & the NCAAs.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Setting aside the lack of postseason eligibility, why would Cal Baptist be ahead of Bucknell? Both undefeated (against crap teams). Bucknell's NET is actually way higher and at least has more than zero wins over the top 150.

22-0>9-0

 

[Buzzyboy]

Oregon: That's a problem with net's programming and the PAC's lack of quality OOC games.

Net is a guide to the committee not a mandate.

In my OPINION, the committee will go "political" on this. ie UConn, and three Power 5 conference AQ's as first seeds:
1 Seeds
UConn
Stanford
SCar
NC State

2 Seeds
The next choices will be:
Maryland
Baylor
Then two Non-AQs from P-5 Conferences.
My guesses are Louisville and A&M - However, UCLA could replace one of those two.

UCLA???? Weren't they ranked 9th and then got humiliated by Stanford???? What would justify them even being considered???? Were they even worthy of that #9 ranking, to begin with????

 

[Plebe]

22-0>9-0

Oh that's the ticket

 

[Buzzyboy]

Marquette lost at home to Milwaukee. So is Milwaukee also a top 10 team? Marquette also has losses to DePaul and Seton Hall. Not much evidence to support that they're a top 10 team or anything close. An at-large team, certainly. Top 25? Maybe just barely, who knows.

There are definitely times when matchups play a big part of a game .... The fact that Team A can destroy Team B who can destroy Team C but Team C can beat or at least seriously give Team A a big scare is a reality .... it's all about matchups sometimes

 

[Vowelguy]

Setting aside the lack of postseason eligibility,

Dont forget Lubbock Christian .

 

[Centerstream]

So teams that play difficult schedules should be penalized and be discouraged from playing good out of conference opponents.

Yup if they lose to those teams.

 

[Plebe]

I wish that UConn played more SEC, ACC, & PAC12 teams during the season, then we would have a better sense of what stats mean. This season Strength of Schedule is relatively diluted, & does not mean a lot, because of a dearth of competition between conferences - The pac12 is floating on past glories.
But it does seem that the only strong competition this year is Stanford, South Carolina, & perhaps Baylor, but, on any given day...... It seems that despite its unassailable position, UConn has not been helped by being in weak conferences, when being in conferences like the SEC & ACC would immeasurably help get its elite athletes ready for the best teams & the NCAAs.

This has become such a trite narrative.

There is zero evidence that conference affiliation per se correlates to stronger or weaker performance in the NCAAs. There have been plenty of teams from "weaker" conferences that have knocked off teams from "stronger" conferences, even higher-seeded ones.

In a sense you're right to say "immeasurably": Among those who worship at the altar of the Poser 5, the allure of this claim lies partly in the fact that it's difficult to prove or refute quantitatively. But there's plenty of anecdotal evidence, if we care to look, that no such postseason advantage inheres in conference membership.

 

[stamfordhusky]

Bucknell is undefeated. So by your logic, they should be number one.

Good wins are at least as important.

 

[DefenseBB]

So, does that mean Baylor is a #1 seed? According to the NET rating, they are #4, and
#3 according to Massey. Or, can we pick and chose the facts that support our case?

If Baylor performs well with Blow-out wins in the Big12 tournament, Yes, the will be considered

Any team that has 4 losses should not occupy a #1 Seed position, especially when 3 of those winning teams should be seeded above them.

Seriously? Go back to 2013 when UConn was 29-4 and was a #1 seed for the NCAAT. Who you lost to and how many quality teams you played absolutely matter.

To me, SC should be a 5 seed but their resume supports 4 or 5. Maryland dominates the Big 10 but so what, who have any of those teams played yet Maryland is in discussion, Same for NC State, they at least beat SC but lost to unranked VPI. Texas A&M beat SC but lost to Georgia and have 11 wins over other top 25 teams so their resume is as good as ours, yet they are below us. Baylor is the curious one to me as they have two losses, one to Arkansas, same as us and one to Iowa State which is not good.

Seedings logically should be Stanford, UConn, Texas A&M, NC State, SC, Maryland/Baylor, Louisville. Who ever looks better in the Big10/Big!2 tournament decides the 6/7 seed.

 

[and one]

Depends on what matters. If I'm trying to decide how tough a team is to beat, I'm looking at how they are playing now. One upset isn't very meaningful in that equation. It is meaningful if a team has a habit of losing games against lesser teams, even if they play great in other games.

A bad loss, even only one, does matter for ranking and seedings. As I said, I don't care much about either of those, so it doesn't matter to me.

 

[Zinethar]

We all appreciate your passion, and UCONN's win was overwhelming. However, the Big East ( women ) is not as tough as the Pac-12, and Villanova is not the equivalent of UCLA. This year, no one saw Stanford play unless you were on the PAC-12 TV network ( I was not ). But Stanford has had great recruiting classes for several seasons, and they are a legit number one selection. To my mind, it doesn't really matter who is the "number one" number one. Stanford, UCONN and South Carolina are no brainers. Is the 4th to be NC State? In my view, it is highly likely that UCONN v Stanford will be the Big Dance final. We'll know then.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion on this matter including you and me. Mie is totally different than yours. I saw tons of PAC12 games this year (I have the PAC12 network). They were not an outstanding league. Stanford was very good and deserves to be rated highly but they have difficulty scoring and should have trouble keeping up with UConn when it is playing well. I saw only Maryland that impressed me in the Big10. Some say the Big10 is a better league than the Big East which is a basketball conference. I differ obviously. Maryland if very good and loves to score in a league that doesn't seem to have much in defense. to me. ACC was way down in my view. Several good teams but no great teams. SEC was the deepest probably but not sure they are better overall than the Big East. Just more hyped as ESPN does a WAY better job of that than does Fox for women. We shall see who is right in about 2 weeks.

 

[Cornell Lt]

So teams that play difficult schedules should be penalized and be discouraged from playing good out of conference opponents.

No, they should win those games and earn their ranking/seed ?

 

[HopJim]

I wish that UConn played more SEC, ACC, & PAC12 teams during the season, then we would have a better sense of what stats mean. This season Strength of Schedule is relatively diluted, & does not mean a lot, because of a dearth of competition between conferences - The pac12 is floating on past glories.
But it does seem that the only strong competition this year is Stanford, South Carolina, & perhaps Baylor, but, on any given day...... It seems that despite its unassailable position, UConn has not been helped by being in weak conferences, when being in conferences like the SEC & ACC would immeasurably help get its elite athletes ready for the best teams & the NCAAs.

Kong-several of the games you want were on the schedule and cancelled due to Covid. Weak conference or not, for years UConn has played one of the toughest schedules in women's basketball.

 

[Gurleyman]

Everyone is entitled to an opinion on this matter including you and me. Mie is totally different than yours. I saw tons of PAC12 games this year (I have the PAC12 network). They were not an outstanding league. Stanford was very good and deserves to be rated highly but they have difficulty scoring and should have trouble keeping up with UConn when it is playing well. I saw only Maryland that impressed me in the Big10. Some say the Big10 is a better league than the Big East which is a basketball conference. I differ obviously. Maryland if very good and loves to score in a league that doesn't seem to have much in defense. to me. ACC was way down in my view. Several good teams but no great teams. SEC was the deepest probably but not sure they are better overall than the Big East. Just more hyped as ESPN does a WAY better job of that than does Fox for women. We shall see who is right in about 2 weeks.

It’s a year of small sample sizes, but Creighton (a middle of the pack BE team) ran Nebraska (a middle of the pack Big 10 team) totally out of the gym. Up 21 at the half and won by 16.

Michigan crushed Butler, but hard to glean much from that (we would similarly slaughter Wisconsin).

 

[STLCardinal]

There are definitely times when matchups play a big part of a game .... The fact that Team A can destroy Team B who can destroy Team C but Team C can beat or at least seriously give Team A a big scare is a reality .... it's all about matchups sometimes

Exactly right. Matchups are very important

 

[LETTERL]

According to Massey, here are the projected point spreads for UCONN games vs. the #1 & #2 seeds as of today:
#2 Louisville: UCONN (-10)
#2 NC State: UCONN (-10)
#2 Baylor: UCONN (-3)
#2 Maryland: UCONN (-3.5)
#1 South Carolina UCONN (-4)
#1 Texas A&M: UCONN (-10)
#1 Stanford: STANFORD (-1)
Any surprises?

Big deal! Massey had Louisville beating NC State in both of their head-to-head matchups and we see how that turned out. This is interesting...but nothing more. You can't use a computer to do the same analysis with team-to-team matchups. It's all about the matchups...and then execution.

 

[Vowelguy]

SEC was the deepest probably but not sure they are better overall than the Big East. Just more hyped as ESPN does a WAY better job of that than does Fox for women. We shall see who is right in about 2 weeks.

I am continuously amazed at UConn fans discounting the SEC this year. UConn played the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th SEC teams and all 3 games came down to the wire. If that didn't prove to you that the league is really good this season, I am at a loss for words.

 

[Sanka541]

My argument is that if Stanford had been the overall 1 in the previous reveals and UConn as 2nd overall 1 seed behind them and therefore in opposite sides of the bracket, nobody would have complained. The part I dont understand is how UConn has been the overall 1 and yet because of a win against an ok UCLA team last night by 20 points all of a sudden they have overtaken UConn? That doesnt make sense to me. What has changed in the last few weeks that has now meant they deserve the overall 1 over UConn? UConn certainly hasnt done anything the last few games to lose the overall 1 seed and beating a UCLA team dominated by one player in Onyenwere (who they have both beaten and lost to already this season) just doesnt seem like such a big win it should take them ahead of UConn honestly?

 

[Alydar]

A beatdown of UCLA is far more enhancing to a resume than any win over Villanova. One is a top 10 team, the other is a bubble team at best.

Your right if you believe that UCLA is a top ten team. They certainly didn't look like one last night.

I don't mind having some other team as the overall top seed and Stanford has a good case to be it. Looking at matchups is useless because of inconsistency from game to game.

 

[Vowelguy]

an ok UCLA team

Sure if you consider the committee rank of #10 = "ok."

 

[Fairfield Fan]

It’s a year of small sample sizes, but Creighton (a middle of the pack BE team) ran Nebraska (a middle of the pack Big 10 team) totally out of the gym. Up 21 at the half and won by 16.

Michigan crushed Butler, but hard to glean much from that (we would similarly slaughter Wisconsin).

Two different seasons. November and December and part of January lots of teams had games cancelled, had athletes put in isolation, had to play with skeleton rosters. Connecticut looked horrible early in the season, as did a lot of teams. Only in February did WCBB really get it together. Same for Big East. We saw teams with lousy records suddenly get everyone together, begin playing together, and really challenge us and others. The last six weeks have been the real season, while before that it was the Keystone Cops around the nation.

Having said that, there are a half dozen teams that are now where we all thought they would be: playing powerful basketball. Connecticut is certainly one of them. Stanford, NC State, Maryland... Looking very tough.

 

[Plebe]

Your right if you believe that UCLA is a top ten team. They certainly didn't look like one last night.

I don't mind having some other team as the overall top seed and Stanford has a good case to be it. Looking at matchups is useless because of inconsistency from game to game.

People keep commenting along the lines of "such-and-such team didn't look like a top X team/an X seed in [insert one single cherry-picked game]."

First of all, it doesn't matter if you or I think UCLA is a horrible team that doesn't even deserve a WNIT bid. The committee has them in their top 10 and that's because their body of work supports such a ranking.

And even if they looked horrible in this one loss, it's still just one game. That's not going to override the entire body of work. UConn didn't look like an overall #1 seed when they lost to Arkansas, but fortunately for us, that was just one game. In my experience, people who reach for an "eye test" argument are just trying to substitute their own subjective (biased) opinion for an objective evaluation of resumes.