Team(s) who got screwed yesterday

[Kitaman]

You guys follow college basketball more than me but I found this interesting tidbit about Monmouth:

'The Hawks played 17 true road games and a total of 23 games away from home, going 13-4 and 17-6, respectively. And they didn't do it against the little sisters of the poor. They beat USC and Notre Dame on neutral courts. They won at UCLA, Georgetown and Rutgers.

They did exactly what the selection committee has been telling small schools to do for years—doing what Murray State failed to do last year'

That bench is worth a vote as well.

St. Bonnies beat Dayton (7) and St. Joes (8) on the road. Plus they have Jaylen Adams so I guess I wanted to see them in the Tourney.

And yet cuse gets in.

Any others?

 

[tykurez]

I feel for the Bonnie's. They just couldn't get it done but had a great, emotional year.

 

[pj]

I was with you until you cited a win over Rutgers.

 

[CallMeBruce]

I didn't see Monmouth or St. Bonaventure as being tournament-worthy. Monmouth had losses to Canisius, Mahattan, and freaking Army. St. Bonaventure beat no one except Dayton and St. Joe's, and had a brutal loss to La Salle.

 

[Kitaman]

I was with you until you cited a win over Rutgers.

Sorry, article quote not me. Wouldn't be accurate if I took out the garbage.

 

[tzznandrew]

You know, I was floored when I saw Tulsa in the tournament, but I don't see a team that I absolutely thought got jobbed. There was some strange seeding, and an insane love of the PAC, but I thought they did a decent job with the teams themselves. Every team that missed out had a solid reason to be left out, even if some of those last teams (Michigan, Tulsa) also had solid reasons to be left out.

Monmouth: don't lose to sub-200 teams...or, if you, only lose to 1, not 3.
St. Bonaventure: beat someone out of conference. Don't get killed by the one decent P5 you played...especially if that P5 team (Syracuse) is also on the bubble with you.
Saint Mary's: play somebody...anybody!...out of conference
South Carolina: see above.

 

[Blue Blood]

I think Kansas has a legitimate gripe their bracket is extremely tough as the clear number one overall seed. Anything can happen but looking from the outside I have to think UConn is the 8/9 the 1s wanted to avoid not that I think we should look past Colorado although I do think we will win. Cal and Maryland are both solid teams as well, more then capable of getting hot and beating anyone. I don't Nova and Miami was the worst scenario 2/3 was getting to the regional final won't be easy for the top overall seed.

 

[aceboon]

Have you looked at UCLA, Georgetown, and Rutger's(lol) records or are you just regurgitating sports radio talking points? Wins against UCLA and Georgetown in 2016 do nothing for your tourney case, they were both under .500.

 

[80shusky]

I never thought Monmouth should get in. Although they did play well on the road they didn't beat enough good teams and had some bad losses. St Mary's I think has a gripe. Their schedule was soft because of their conference but they probably should have been in over Tulsa or Syracuse. The Bonnies, meh.

 

[Inyatkin]

This piece on Monmouth is pretty damning, I think.
The main point being that if you are in a conference where you play a lot of bad teams, even if you're favored to win most of them, you can't be expected to win all of them. And it makes a good case that yes, actually, winning at UCLA is pretty impressive, no matter how they finished the year. If there was no Tulsa in the field maybe this wouldn't be so egregious, but it's really, really hard to make the case that Tulsa needed to be there.

 

[Arizona Husky]

Isn't a win over Rutgers better than a loss to St. Johns?

 

[Gurleyman]

This piece on Monmouth is pretty damning, I think.
The main point being that if you are in a conference where you play a lot of bad teams, even if you're favored to win most of them, you can't be expected to win all of them. And it makes a good case that yes, actually, winning at UCLA is pretty impressive, no matter how they finished the year. If there was no Tulsa in the field maybe this wouldn't be so egregious, but it's really, really hard to make the case that Tulsa needed to be there.

There's one flaw in that story. He uses KenPom to make several of his cases about rankings. If you use KenPom's rankings, though, Monmouth was actually the 17th best team to be snubbed, behind St. Mary's, Valpo, San Diego St., Florida, Creighton, Kansas State, South Carolina, Florida State, Clemson, Houston, BYU, Washington, Va Tech, Ga Tech, Georgia and Princeton.

The best thing Monmouth had going for it was RPI and road/neutral wins. In KenPom, they were 67. In BPI they were 86. In Sagarin, they are 81. Without a good RPI, Monmouth probably isn't even on the table. They had some wicked bad luck, though, with UCLA and Georgetown being so bad (and Manhattan, which had won the last two MAAC titles and is generally tough at home - they ended up sub-200 and stuck them with a bad loss).

 

[EBonz30]

Seton Hall got worked over, I guess anyone who got Gonzaga first round was getting screwed.

Another team, UNC.

Get Kentucky in the Sweet 16.

Pretty obvious the bracket was locked come early Sunday morning.

Kentucky gets lower seed than Texas A&M and Utah???

Michigan St. wins and gets a 2 seed???

St Joes gets a 9 seed???

Uconn gets a 9 seed, should be a 7 seed!!!!

 

[TasteofUConn]

I view this as the year that the NCAA lost all pretense of granting bids and seeding based on merit, and instead fully embraced the money making.
In short, not sure how many casual fans are going to tune in to see some no-name team get buried in the 2nd round, but there'll be many tuning in to watch Syracuse.
I don't know whether this would support my point, but I'd like to see a projected revenue comparison of Monmouth and the Bonnies versus Tulsa and Syracuse.

 

[Kitaman]

I view this as the year that the NCAA lost all pretense of granting bids and seeding based on merit, and instead fully embraced the money making.
In short, not sure how many casual fans are going to tune in to see some no-name team get buried in the 2nd round, but there'll be many tuning in to watch Syracuse.
I don't know whether this would support my point, but I'd like to see a projected revenue comparison of Monmouth and the Bonnies versus Tulsa and Syracuse.

Is this you?

 

[HuskyHawk]

I think Kansas has a legitimate gripe their bracket is extremely tough as the clear number one overall seed. Anything can happen but looking from the outside I have to think UConn is the 8/9 the 1s wanted to avoid not that I think we should look past Colorado although I do think we will win. Cal and Maryland are both solid teams as well, more then capable of getting hot and beating anyone. I don't Nova and Miami was the worst scenario 2/3 was getting to the regional final won't be easy for the top overall seed.

Kansas has one gripe...UConn on the 8/9 line. After that it is the easiest path of all the #1's by a big margin. Cal is way overseeded at #4. Maryland is inconsistent. Villanova is a choke artist at #2. Miami is the weakest #3 by far.

 

[kobe]

Until the committee realizes that top 100 road wins are more difficult than most top 50 RPI home wins, schools like Monmouth will be left out. KenPom has the right idea by putting games in Tiers.

 

[Gurleyman]

Until the committee realizes that top 100 road wins are more difficult than most top 50 RPI home wins, schools like Monmouth will be left out. KenPom has the right idea by putting games in Tiers.

There's also a disconnect - RPI is a flawed formula and it seems that there are some degree of advanced metrics that are used these days. Which is good. So when you do that, you take a team like St. Bonaventure (No. 30 RPI, No. 75-80 in all other computer metrics) and leave them out, which is probably the right decision. But then you put Syracuse in, and say that it is because they have five top 50 RPI wins, one of which was St. Bonaventure.

(and, to be fair about it, Syracuse was around 40 in all of the other advanced metrics, so they probably deserved their bid based on that alone)

 

[SubbaBub]

No way that Nova survives to meet Kansas.

 

[Inyatkin]

There's also a disconnect - RPI is a flawed formula and it seems that there are some degree of advanced metrics that are used these days. Which is good. So when you do that, you take a team like St. Bonaventure (No. 30 RPI, No. 75-80 in all other computer metrics) and leave them out, which is probably the right decision. But then you put Syracuse in, and say that it is because they have five top 50 RPI wins, one of which was St. Bonaventure.

(and, to be fair about it, Syracuse was around 40 in all of the other advanced metrics, so they probably deserved their bid based on that alone)

Right, it was noted many times that even though the committee all but disavows RPI as the sole deciding factor, it's used to sort the entire process, dividing up good wins and bad losses, etc. That makes it the most important metric

 

[bmo22]

No teams get screwed when it comes to making or missing the tournament. Teams on the bubble that get in are just lucky. Teams that just miss the cut have plenty of things to look back on as opportunities missed during the regular season. This isn't the CFB playoff where only 4 teams make it. 68 teams make the dance and everyone has a chance in their conference tournament. The teams that really deserve to be in are in.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

You know, I was floored when I saw Tulsa in the tournament, but I don't see a team that I absolutely thought got jobbed. There was some strange seeding, and an insane love of the PAC, but I thought they did a decent job with the teams themselves. Every team that missed out had a solid reason to be left out, even if some of those last teams (Michigan, Tulsa) also had solid reasons to be left out.

Monmouth: don't lose to sub-200 teams...or, if you, only lose to 1, not 3.
St. Bonaventure: beat someone out of conference. Don't get killed by the one decent P5 you played...especially if that P5 team (Syracuse) is also on the bubble with you.
Saint Mary's: play somebody...anybody!...out of conference
South Carolina: see above.

The "beat someone out of conference" argument is new. The committee used to treat all games the same. If you beat a 38 RPI team, that was a good win, whether the team was in the conference or out of it. A good win was a good win.

I am really suspicious of the advanced metrics, because they seem to have a big P5 bias in them. RPI is simple and fair.

The last 5 teams in didn't really deserve to be there, but I have a hard time getting too upset about the exclusions, most of whom didn't deserve to be there either. St. Bonaventure was the one exception. A winning record vs. Top 50 and Top 100 with as many games as they played is usually a guaranteed bid.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

I am sure there are 8 teams seeded 1 and 2 who are glad that Monmouth got left out. They are a program that plays up or down to the competition and thus would make any 1 or 2 seed very nervous.

No idea why the committee loved the PAC this year with both Oregon, Cal and Oregon St all seeded to high. Michigan St should have been the 3rd 1 seed with Oregon and UVA fighting for the final 1 seed with an advantage to the Ducks for winning their conference tournament. Kentucky having a 4 seed while A&M has a 3 seed was a headscratcher, too. As for UConn, the Huskies played a very challenging OCC and got hot at the end of the season winning their conference. That should have given the Huskies a 7 seed; but, UConn seems to have been penalized for some mid-season inconsistency and for being in the American and thus a 9 seed, which Kansas is not happy about either. Of course, Syracuse, which had some 'inconsistency,' too, does not seem to have been penalized. Duke, which I do not believe should not be a 4 seed, of course got paired with the weakest 1 seed in Oregon. Hope they choke.

 

[Gurleyman]

The "beat someone out of conference" argument is new. The committee used to treat all games the same. If you beat a 38 RPI team, that was a good win, whether the team was in the conference or out of it. A good win was a good win.

I am really suspicious of the advanced metrics, because they seem to have a big P5 bias in them. RPI is simple and fair.

The last 5 teams in didn't really deserve to be there, but I have a hard time getting too upset about the exclusions, most of whom didn't deserve to be there either. St. Bonaventure was the one exception. A winning record vs. Top 50 and Top 100 with as many games as they played is usually a guaranteed bid.

According to RPI, Akron (#36) should be in with an 0-1 record against teams in the top 80, and Princeton (#39) should be in with a 1-6 record against the top 130.

It just doesn't work as a stand-alone metric.

 

[Slasher]

IMO.. most fortunate: Syracuse, Temple, Michigan

Least fortunate: St. Mary's, St. Bonaventure, St. Joes (should have been up 2 seed lines imo)

I actually had Tulsa in in my mock bracket. Last four in, but in. St Marys had 6 top 100 wins, and 166-rated NC SOS. It was bad but it wasn't like South Carolina (#271). Plus KenPom and RPI both favored St. Marys as well. St. Bonaventure should have been in as well. Syracuse losing (by 12!) to a really bad 6 win St. Johns team should have been the nail in their coffin.