60 of 65

[CJHawkeyes]

I determined the NCAA field based on a approximation of my actual idea and matched 60 of 65 teams according to Jerry Palm’s projected bracket. This was before the SEC went final. My idea has Davidson, San Diego State, Niagara, and Illinois State, and South Carolina in. Palm has Texas, Boston College, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maryland in. With Miss State winning, South Carolina is bumped in my projected bracket. As for seeds, of the 60 matched teams, 20 seeds match, 18 are one off, 12 are two off, and six three off. The biggest difference is Utah State being a three seed under my idea and a 12 in Palm’s bracket. Overall, the average difference in seed is 1.4 among the 60 matches. By the looks of it, subjectivity sure favors BCS leagues. If FHF ever shows up again, I wonder if he might disagree.

[CJHawkeyes]

Schedule Strength is worth seven games?

[CJHawkeyes]

Here is what the approximation looks like compared to the selection committee regarding the 65 teams actually in. The first number on the right is the objective seed and the second is the committee seed. BTW, the numbers are still 60 of 65. Differences are Creighton, St. Mary's, Davidson, San Diego State, and Niagara vs Boston College, Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona.

1-Memphis 1 2
2-Pittsburgh 1 1
3-North Carolina 1 1
4-Connecticut 1 1
5-Louisville 2 1
6-Duke 2 2
7-Oklahoma 2 2
8-Michigan State 2 2
9-Utah State 3 11
10-Missouri 3 3
11-Butler 3 9
12-Kansas 3 3
13-Villanova 4 3
14-Gonzaga 4 4
15-Xavier 4 4
16-Wake Forest 4 4
17-Washington 5 4
18-Florida State 5 5
19-Utah 5 5
20-Siena 5 9
21-Syracuse 6 3
22-LSU 6 8
23-BYU 6 8
24-Dayton 6 11
25-Illinois 7 5
26-Clemson 7 7
27-Purdue 7 5
28-UCLA 7 6
29-Arizona State 8 6
30-Oklahoma State 8 8
31-Tennessee 8 9
32-Ohio State 8 8
33-Marquette 9 6
34-West Virginia 9 6
35-Texas A&M 9 9
36-Western Kentucky 9 12
37-California 10 7
38-Virginia Commonwealth 10 11
39-Minnesota 10 10
40-Temple 10 11
41-North Dakota State 11 14
42-American 11 14
43-Texas 11 7
44-USC 11 10
45-Northern Iowa 12 12
46-Boston College 12 7
47-Cleveland State 12 13
48-Michigan 12 10
49-Maryland 13 10
50-Mississippi State 13 13
51-Stephen F Austin 13 14
52-Wisconsin 13 12
53-Binghamton 14 15
54-Arizona 14 12
55-Robert Morris 14 15
56-East Tennessee State 14 16
57-Akron 15 13
58-Portland State 15 13
59-Cornell 15 14
60-Morgan State 15 15
61-Radford 16 16
62-Alabama State 16 16
63-Cal State Northridge 16 15
64-Morehead State 16 16
65-Chattanooga 16 16

[MasterBevo]

I have to admit... I have not followed NCAA BB this year nearly as much as I usually do.... but, I will give you all my two cents regarding the teams I have watched...

1) Louisville: I'm not a Cardinal fan, per se.. but, I live here... I've seen a lot of their games and read about the rest. I wasn't intending to pick them to go far, but... I think they've gotten a pretty good draw. LvL's big weakness is any team with a very strong inside game... UCONN and Notre Dame crushed Louisville this year.... because, both play tough and big on the inside. Against any other style, Louisville has the talent (and good coaching) to win. Check out their matchups for yourself.... but, as long as they don't run into REALLY BIG centers, or really tough teams like PITT, they will win. For me, I think they are now likely to make the Final 4.

2) Texas: It's been a very dissapointing season for UT this year.. we just do NOT have a point guard that can run any kind of consistent offense. They will win Round 1, because... they do have some talent. But, my beloved Longhorns have ZERO chance against Duke.... None.. zip... nadda. Don't even think about that upset... even though Texas has been a pretty good tourney team in the past few years..... NOT, this year.. :-(

Overall, I think I like North Carolina and Duke to battle it out.... but, I haven't delved into the brackets that much yet..

Any thoughts from the rest of you? Who DO KNOW what the heck you're talking about?

[CJHawkeyes]

I just love how everyone rips the SC in one breath than congratulates them for a job well done given their "difficult" task.:rolleyes:

[Lincoln Tower]

Anyone watch Jay Bilas try and defend St. Mary's getting left out? Hysterical. Even Vitale, aka "Dukie V" agreed they got hosed.

[CJHawkeyes]

Anyone watch Jay Bilas try and defend St. Mary's getting left out? Hysterical. Even Vitale, aka "Dukie V" agreed they got hosed.

I saw it. I like Bilas but people like him are exactly the problem with deciding who gets in by subjective means. It doesn't matter if Arizona is a better team than St. Mary's. The bottom line is whether 19-13 vs. Arizona's schedule should be more valuable than St. Mary's or vice versa. I'm not arguing that it should be St. Mary's. I just think it is obvious that the selection process is institutionally biased in favor of power league teams for reasons that have nothing to do with the results on the court. I have figured out this approximation for the past three years and the results are pretty much always the same. 60 of 65 matches with the SC favoring 4-5 more BCS teams, average difference in seeds is around 1.5 with average difference in seeds between BCS and nonBCS leagues being two spots more in favor of the former with the selection committee. People complain about the diminished importance of the regular season but seem to think just being a member of a BCS league is worth six to seven games. 36 of 70 BCS teams are in the NCAA tournament compared to 29 of 273 nonBCS teams. The bottom line it seems is that the SC spends five days figuring out how to reward teams with all the competitive advantages for mediocre seasons versus like talent whereas it took me a few minutes to add a couple numbers without regard to the identities of the teams and get very comparable results.

[AJBuckeye]

1) Louisville: I'm not a Cardinal fan, per se.. but, I live here... I've seen a lot of their games and read about the rest. I wasn't intending to pick them to go far, but... I think they've gotten a pretty good draw. LvL's big weakness is any team with a very strong inside game... UCONN and Notre Dame crushed Louisville this year.... because, both play tough and big on the inside. Against any other style, Louisville has the talent (and good coaching) to win. Check out their matchups for yourself.... but, as long as they don't run into REALLY BIG centers, or really tough teams like PITT, they will win. For me, I think they are now likely to make the Final 4.


Based on that analysis it gives my Buckeyes a glimmer of hope. If they can get past Sienna then they will have to matchup against Louisville in Dayton which will be somewhat of a home court advantage to the Buckeyes. The Buckeyes this year are not terribly deep and are weak at the point but have a lot of height. Diebler has had a great year and if he can get open he will nail some 3's and Evan Turner has shown that he can penetrate and get great looks as the shot clock winds down. OSU has a big weakness defending the 3, I haven't seen UL play enough but if they are strong on the perimeter then the Buckeyes will likely be in trouble.

[HellYeahHokie]

Does your basketball method only determine at-large bids?

[CJHawkeyes]

Does your basketball method only determine at-large bids?


Yes. So, it actually agreed with the SC on 28 of 34 at-large teams after I used the same information with Sunday's games included. That said, this isn't exactly based on my idea as I combined each team's win percentage and their opponent's win percentage which would match my actual idea if teams had played an equal number of games.

[ZOOMBAG]

Creighton got robbed more than St Mary's. No team with 26 wins from a top 10 RPI league has ever been left out.

[Lincoln Tower]

Creighton got robbed more than St Mary's. No team with 26 wins from a top 10 RPI league has ever been left out.

SDSU won 24 in a league 3 spots higher than the MVC. They were ahead of Creighton.

The committe says they take injuries into account. SMC was clearly a tournament team with Patti Mills by any metric there is.

[Blue Hen]

Easy Trivia :

Who was Creighton's most famous basketball player ?

[CJHawkeyes]

What I find interesting is that when you seed Big Six and Little 25 teams separately as if they comprised two different tournaments, the difference between their objective and subjective seeds within their own group is around 0.5 but jumps to 1.4 when the groups are combined. Below is how the teams would be seeded among their own “kind.”



1-Pittsburgh 1 1
2-North Carolina 1 1
3-Duke 1 2
4-Connecticut 1 1
5-Louisville 2 1
6-Oklahoma 2 2
7-Michigan State 2 2
8-Missouri 2 2
9-Kansas 3 3
10-Villanova 3 3
11-Wake Forest 3 3
12-Washington 3 4
13-Syracuse 4 3
14-Florida State 4 4
15-LSU 4 7
16-Purdue 4 4
17-Illinois 5 4
18-Clemson 5 6
19-UCLA 5 5
20-Arizona State 5 5
21-Oklahoma State 6 7
22-Marquette 6 5
23-West Virginia 6 5
24-Ohio State 6 7
25-Texas A&M 7 7
26-Tennessee 7 8
27-California 7 6
28-Minnesota 7 8
29-Texas 8 6
30-USC 8 8
31-Boston College 8 6
32-Mississippi State 8 9
33-Michigan 9 8
34-Maryland 9 9
35-Wisconsin 9 9
36-Arizona 9 9

1-Memphis 1 1
2-Utah State 1 2
3-Butler 1 2
4-Gonzaga 1 1
5-Xavier 2 1
6-Utah 2 1
7-Siena 2 2
8-BYU 2 2
9-Dayton 3 3
10-Western Kentucky 3 3
11-Virginia Commonwealth 3 3
12-Temple 3 3
13-North Dakota State 4 5
14-American 4 5
15-Northern Iowa 4 4
16-Cleveland State 4 4
17-Stephen F Austin 5 5
18-Binghamton 5 6
19-Robert Morris 5 6
20-East Tennessee State 5 7
21-Akron 6 4
22-Portland State 6 4
23-Cornell 6 5
24-Morgan State 6 6
25-Radford 7 7
26-Alabama State 7 7
27-Cal State Northridge 7 6
28-Morehead State 7 7
29-Chattanooga 8 8

[CJHawkeyes]

My idea applied to the NCAA Tournament has had 22 of 32 higher seeds win thru the first round. The SC is also 22-10. Of course, there were only six games in which the two methods disagreed on the higher seed. The SC won with Marquette, Texas, and LSU. My idea favored Dayton, USC, and Siena. There were 10 teams in my idea’s bracket that were seeded at least two places higher than by the SC. Two of those teams played (LSU and Butler). Of the eight remaining, three won (WKU, Dayton, and Siena). ETSU, North Dakota State, and American all challenged higher seeds. Utah State, who represented the largest discrepancy between seeds (3 vs. 11) lost by one to Marquette. Only BYU looked bad among these teams.

In favor of the SC, the six teams that would not have made my idea’s bracket, went 5-1. That said, seedings are not predictive and a team winning or losing in the tournament has no bearing on their worthiness of being a tournament team. Different rules will inevitably favor different teams. I just wonder what possible reason there is to favor subjective means over objective means EXCEPT to continue to give major teams the benefit of the doubt more often than not without any accountability