Stanford Now #1 Seed? Seriously?

[UcMiami]

Honestly - I think this NCAA is going to be wild - while most good teams seem to be getting some sort of rhythm, the year has been full of fits and starts and with the limited OOC and stumbles by most teams in their conference games no one including Uconn can have a lot of confidence that they will be in the FF. I am watching the scores in the B10 today/tonight and 2 top 16 teams have gone down and a third ranked team is trailing by 14 to unranked teams.

 

[willtalk]

Dadgummit, I hate to admit being wrong.

i was (apparently) thinking about the "reveal" six days before selection day. That reveal was merely waiting on tourney results to confirm Baylor and Maryland. but it was:

Top 16​

• 1 SEEDS - Oregon, South Carolina, Baylor, Maryland
• 2 SEEDS - Louisville, UCLA, Stanford, UConn
• 3 SEEDS - Arizona, Northwestern, Mississippi State, N.C. State
• 4 SEEDS - Gonzaga, Oregon State, Iowa, DePaul

UConn had lost to all of (and only) the 1-seeds except Maryland during the season. Still had a stronger resume than anybody this year.

Not necessarily! Some UConn fans assumed that because they were otherwise undefeated and only beaten by the top three teams that they should be rated number four. Put into context that does not necessarily hold water. The not only were beaten, but were not even close to the level of those team. They also did not play any top teams except DePaul ( who lacked height and was custom made to not be able to take advantage of their weakness in the paint. so naturally they would not have sustained any other losses. Assuming that they were the fourth best team is only a rationalization. They never played any other team that had any sort of chance at beating them except those three.

 

[ScuderiaDiU]

I don't hate SoCar. The only teams I hate are not WBB teams.
And if you want to use the "if only" scenarios, then I guess about 15 teams could be considered a #1 seed because according to you, all losses can be "if only..." washed away.

Don't put words in my mouth. I am not saying South Carolina and Baylor should be 1 seeds because of any "if only" scenarios. I said that the entire body of work should be looked at and not just the games you cherry picked. The "only if" argument is why ALL games need to be considered. I never extended that to including hypothetical or "only if" scenarios. The entire body of work can, however, illuminate if a loss, or win, was a statistical anomaly. If so, those games matter too. You just don't want them to. You prefer to simplify the decision to only head-to-head matchups or Top 25 matchups. Sure, that makes the analysis easier but it is also lazy.

 

[ScuderiaDiU]

Find this unlikely, but have no way to get back to Massey ratings after 7 games - but by the 7th game SC had already lost to NC St and there were a whole bunch of teams that were still undefeated and I doubt SC dropped way down Massey ratings and at that point except for the NC St game, the other 6 games were against teams with undistinguished losses as well as a loss to SC.

Well, as unlikely as you find it, it is true. They know, generally, how long it takes all teams to reach 7+ games. They taper the pre-season "guess" over that time period. It IS how it works. In an iterative algorithm, all teams are connected in 7 games.