Selection Show Discussion Thread

[phreddie]

Lol! The histrionics in this thread over the 68th team vs the 69th is hilarious!

 

[IthacaMatt]

The committee shouldn't take that into consideration at all. Only this year's resumé should matter.

And West Virginia went 4-5 down the stretch. That counts, too.

 

[MSOrange]

And West Virginia went 4-5 down the stretch. That counts, too.

They removed the last 10 games as an official criteria several years ago. But you never know what the committee might consider.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Conference record isn’t a criteria for the committee. If it was, you’d have to give a team like Towson an at large bid over UNC. Which would be ridiculous.

And losing to a bunch of Q1 teams shouldn't get you in over a team that beat most of its Q2 opponents.

There used to be kind of an unwritten rule that you had to be at least a .500 team in a Power Conference to get an at large bid. Texas was 6-12. That's basically Syracuse - 7-13 in conference.

 

[Cusefan0307]

WVU still beat Kansas and Iowa State without devries. That was way better than anything UNC had done.

 

[Cusefan0307]

They removed the last 10 games as an official criteria several years ago. But you never know what the committee might consider.

Correct. In the era of unbalanced schedules it means nothing.

 

[bpo57]

Poor work by the bracketologists. None of them had UNC in the tourney. Did they not know the UNC AD was the chair of the committee? Due diligence, fellas.

 

[Newhouser]

Lol! The histrionics in this thread over the 68th team vs the 69th is hilarious!

Hasn't the winner of the play-in game had success in the tournament? Didn't we one time? Like the lottery you have to be in it to win it and if I'm a WVU fan I'm peeved.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Hasn't the winner of the play-in game had success in the tournament? Didn't we one time? Like the lottery you have to be in it to win it and if I'm a WVU fan I'm peeved.

VCU made the FF with Shaka too. We went to the Sweet 16 with Tyus and company in 2018.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Correct. In the era of unbalanced schedules it means nothing.

I would disagree with your certitude about it. How a team is playing at the time of the invitation is deserving of consideration. Whether it should be "a category" is another discussion. The thinking was, "by relying on last 10 games records, we devalue the early season."

On the other hand, I think these pre-conference games have been given too much importance in ranking entire conferences, when teams are just getting to know each other in the first month of the season. Combined with the margin of victory metrics that are used in the current system, this leads to blowouts vs. Podunk U. as being determinative of which conference is better, and who gets more seeds in March.

As a result, people should focus on blowing weaker opposition out of the water and running up the score on Q4 opponents since it matters so much to tournament selection now. And that is clearly messed up.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I would disagree with your certitude about it. How a team is playing at the time of the invitation is deserving of consideration. Whether it should be "a category" is another discussion. The thinking was, "by relying on last 10 games records, we devalue the early season."

On the other hand, I think these pre-conference games have been given too much importance in ranking entire conferences, when teams are just getting to know each other in the first month of the season. Combined with the margin of victory metrics that are used in the current system, this leads to blowouts vs. Podunk U. as being determinative of which conference is better, and who gets more seeds in March.

As a result, people should focus on blowing weaker opposition out of the water and running up the score on Q4 opponents since it matters so much to tournament selection now. And that is clearly messed up.

Correct. That's the Big 12 way and I agree with you it should mean nothing. I do think you need to win games in November against top opponents. The entire season should mean something. It means something in every other sport.

Louisville went 9-1 with in its last 10 games with 5 double digit wins and got an 8 seed. They hurt themselves going 7-5 in November and December losing to every ranked team they played.

I always hated the last 10 games argument because TV puts the best matchups at the end of the season in conference so the best teams end up losing more games then. It never really made sense to me. It was literally the only sport that decided their postseason this way.

 

[Cusefan95]

Good luck WV Governor with this -

Realistically, he got everything he wanted - I’m sure this was popular with the average West Virginia voter which is all that really mattered. And we can rip on West Virginia if we want - but politicians do this kind of stuff everywhere, including NYS. Because people are generally pretty stupid, so democracy has no choice but to play to that ignorance.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I do think you need to win games in November against top opponents. The entire season should mean something. It means something in every other sport.

I completely agree with this. But I think the current measurement system is broken. Games at the beginning shouldn't count for too much, just like games at the end of the season.

 

[jncuse]

And losing to a bunch of Q1 teams shouldn't get you in over a team that beat most of its Q2 opponents.

There used to be kind of an unwritten rule that you had to be at least a .500 team in a Power Conference to get an at large bid. Texas was 6-12. That's basically Syracuse - 7-13 in conference.

6-12 has happened a few times but is at the extreme -- but 7-9 or 8-10 has been happening since the 90's.

7-13 in the ACC is nowhere close to 6-12 in the SEC.

I have only partially updated OOC games between Dec 15 to end of December on my worksheet (did everything up to there), but in OOC against top 6 conferences:

SEC 67-22 (75%)
ACC 20-54 (27%(

ACC was 4-29 against the SEC.

 

[jncuse]

I completely agree with this. But I think the current measurement system is broken. Games at the beginning shouldn't count for too much, just like games at the end of the season.

As I mentioned above, the SEC won 76% of its games against top 6 conferences in OOC, which is probably the best by a large amount by a power conference this century. ACC won 27%, which has to be near if not the worse.

Yes all those games were in November and December, but should that not have heavy influence on the system of ranking teams? You can't look at the ACC regular schedule as anywhere close to the SEC schedule.

IMO, the positions of the SEC and the ACC in the current rankings were 100% earned. (The B12 and its NET's are a different story).

 

[jncuse]

They removed the last 10 games as an official criteria several years ago. But you never know what the committee might consider.

And for the most part it is a criteria they have stuck to quite consistently. Hard to find examples of teams they let off the hook because of a fast finish.

 

[Doc5120]

Realistically, he got everything he wanted - I’m sure this was popular with the average West Virginia voter which is all that really mattered. And we can rip on West Virginia if we want - but politicians do this kind of stuff everywhere, including NYS. Because people are generally pretty stupid, so democracy has no choice but to play to that ignorance.

That last sentence couldn't possibly ring more true!

 

[IthacaMatt]

As I mentioned above, the SEC won 76% of its games against top 6 conferences in OOC, which is probably the best by a large amount by a power conference this century. ACC won 27%, which has to be near if not the worse.

Yes all those games were in November and December, but should that not have heavy influence on the system of ranking teams? You can't look at the ACC regular schedule as anywhere close to the SEC schedule.

IMO, the positions of the SEC and the ACC in the current rankings were 100% earned. (The B12 and its NET's are a different story).

I agree that inter-conference games really only fit in the schedule up until about December, and that they are important.

Aren't you the person who gave us all that info about how the current ranking system works earlier in the season?

The thing I think is wrong with the current system is that the margin of victory rewards blowouts of crappy teams. You get penalized by playing your bench early in the season, to find out what players may be contributors, and what your best combinations are.

A veteran team with a lot of returnees has a huge advantage over a team that has mostly been assembled over the summer, don't you think? They already have continuity, know the coach's system, know how to play with many of their teammates, where they like to receive the ball, etc.

I agree that the SEC was the best conference. But just as the Big 10 under-performs in the NCAAs pretty much every year, the ACC does better than its computer rankings. I think the SEC was much stronger at the middle and bottom of the standings than the ACC. But I think the top ACC teams are just as good as those in any other league, year after year.

With 14 teams in the bracket, most of them highly seeded, it will be a joke the SEC doesn't dominate the Sweet 16. But if Cooper Flagg hadn't just hurt his ankle, I would not have bet against Duke winning another title for the ACC this year.