jncuse
I brought the Cocaine to the White House
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Somebody on this board asked me yesterday, if I could analyze how I thought the Committee came up with their picks this year.
In summary:
They pretty much accepted the RPI top 50 numbers (not at an individual level) but at a conference level for every major conference.
It's not like the teams that were jeft out had glowing resumes. So they took the 2 best based on eye test or power rankings
- San Diego St was meh.
- St Bonnies was a terrible #79 in KP.
- St. Mary's did not test itself like it should
- Monmouth had 3 really bad losses.
In the end the way they chose the bubble was consistent.
I have heard some people say they did a terrible job today. Lunardi influences a lot of that. But they were consistent and stuck with one of the old reliables = QUALITY WINS. They did not speculate on low mid majors. You can argue that they should not have accepted the numbers of the PAC and AAC at face value. But they did, and for this reason the choice of Temple and Tulsa makes perfect sense.
Where they could have got in trouble as a committee was trying to split hairs among the apples and oranges that were on the bubble line. That is where things get really arbitrary. Did the small guys really get screwed? Given the major warts they had, nope.
Overall Grade : B+. I think they accepted the RPI generated top 50 win numbers for Pac-12 and AAC teams a little too much, and I think they could have been discounted. At the same time, they decided not to play to much "god", and just accept what was the numbers. Very strong mark for consistency in handling the seeds and breaking the bubble.
In summary:
- Very metrics oriented this year (similar to 2014), less eye test than 2015
- Top quality wins important for seeding and extremely important for the bubble
- Incredibly consistent in how they went about it. There is not any seeds that I see as strange in relation to how they did something else.
They pretty much accepted the RPI top 50 numbers (not at an individual level) but at a conference level for every major conference.
- Pac12 / Big 12 - They treated these 2 conferences as the 2 best ones in America, as the RPI would suggest. These teams had more top 50 opportunities in conference and they fully respected that.
- ACC - The ACC was extremely strong at the top, and they fully rewarded this strength by giving two #1 seeds.
- The Big Ten was clearly below the above 3 leagues in terms on conference RPI and top 100 teams in the league. And they stuck to the principles of metrics over "eye test". This was very clear in there selection of Oregon as a #1 seed over Michigan St #1. While most people thought MIchigan St is better, they stuck to what the numbers showed them.
- The Big East was adequately respected, Nova not being a #1 had nothing to do with them being in the Big East. It was the fact that they lost to Virginia and Oklahoma. They simply could not beat elite teams. Win one of those 2 games and maybe they are a #1
- AAC - they finally respected the AAC. A top 50 win vs an AAC team was as good as a top 50 win vs any P5 team. This is why Temple and Tulsa got in,
- The only multiple bid conference that it did not fully respect its numbers were the A-10. It seems like they though some of the teams were overvalued by traditional metrics, and probably rightly so. Perhaps it's because they looked at KP and saw GW and St. Bonaventure at #77 and #79 respectively. Even Dayton was just #54.
- It seems at the end of the day the criteria they were going to rely upon the most was quality / quantity of top 50 wins. So Syracuse, Temple, Michigan and Tulsa got in. But the small schools on the bubble got punished with this appraoch.
- That left 2 spots and nobody had a great quality win portfolio. I honestly think they took the last 2 (Wichita St and Vanderbilt) on the eye test alone or based on power ratings. These 2 schools were probably the most talented / best on paper of the entire bunch, and had the KP to support it. So they made these two teams go forward but play each other.
It's not like the teams that were jeft out had glowing resumes. So they took the 2 best based on eye test or power rankings
- San Diego St was meh.
- St Bonnies was a terrible #79 in KP.
- St. Mary's did not test itself like it should
- Monmouth had 3 really bad losses.
In the end the way they chose the bubble was consistent.
I have heard some people say they did a terrible job today. Lunardi influences a lot of that. But they were consistent and stuck with one of the old reliables = QUALITY WINS. They did not speculate on low mid majors. You can argue that they should not have accepted the numbers of the PAC and AAC at face value. But they did, and for this reason the choice of Temple and Tulsa makes perfect sense.
Where they could have got in trouble as a committee was trying to split hairs among the apples and oranges that were on the bubble line. That is where things get really arbitrary. Did the small guys really get screwed? Given the major warts they had, nope.
Overall Grade : B+. I think they accepted the RPI generated top 50 win numbers for Pac-12 and AAC teams a little too much, and I think they could have been discounted. At the same time, they decided not to play to much "god", and just accept what was the numbers. Very strong mark for consistency in handling the seeds and breaking the bubble.
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