NCAA Round of 16

You're playing a funny game here claiming its a trend. 2 runs in 3 years is called chance, extend this sample over the past 10 years and I bet things look much different. A 3 year sample size is either outliers or insufficient evidence in this case.

 

I'm not sure you worked out your example correctly, but if you've got something better to offer, put it forward.

 

You're right. This analysis doesn't consider overall record, only performance relative to expectations.

 

You're right. This analysis doesn't consider overall record, only performance relative to expectations.

 

And you're playing an funny game dismissing the available facts as chance.

But at least be clear about your criteria. What kind of results would you want to see over ten years that would confirm or refute a trend? And please don't say something like 15 or 20 WCC road wins. That'd be just plain asinine.

 

You're the one trying to suggest that the conference that has produced 40% of all College Cup participants this millennium has the poorest results in the tournament.

 

That logic is pretty simple. If the draw allows you to produce 75% of the teams in the College Cup merely by defending your home field, then getting 40% is failing to live up to your seeding.

How many ACC teams have reached the final four after needing to win a road game to get there?

 

What does "performance relative to expectations" mean?

 

I think it means he likes baseball....where you can analyze statistical data on every aspect of the game till you are blue in the face.....and based on those statistics....produce the odds of a team winning or losing against virtually anyother opponent......


Sound unreliable???

 

Most soccer games end in ties or 1-goal wins. Not much to analyze there.

 

You continue to ignore the role the regular season plays in deciding which teams play at home.

Maryland plays all its NCAA Tournament games at home this year because they played a tough schedule and won most of their games.

North Carolina, on the other hand, gets to play games at home because the higher seeded teams in their bracket keep losing... and because they played well enough in the regular season to earn the 9 seed.

Further, playing at home, while helpful, is not a magic panacea. Plenty of home teams lose in college soccer; if they didn't, there wouldn't be much point in playing the damn tournament.

 

Perhaps you're trying to read something into the table that isn't there. To repeat what I said a few posts ago, "This analysis doesn't consider overall record, only performance relative to expectations."

To put it another way, the results don't indicate that the ACC is poor, they indicate a tendency for ACC teams to be over-seeded. I guess it's possible to feel defensive about that, but it seems pretty hard to disagree with. Remember Boston College's #4 seed last year? Wayyy too high.

 

Oi. You said it.

You know, the worst thing about watching the TU-USD game was the sinking feeling that the better team lost. To read all the pre-game hype posts from folks from San Diego, then watch a first half in which Tulsa should have been up 2-0, dominated the midfield, won almost all of the 50/50 balls, Christian Mata put on a clinic... and the team could easily have been ahead at half, 3 or 4 to nil... well... that's why you play the games... and I can easily see why they weren't seeded while Tulsa snagged the #11... all this conference talk reminds me of the Missouri Valley Conference in NCAA basketball... they get lower seeds than the ACC because the ACC teams have better athletes and usually get a team or two in the Final Four every year while the MVC may get a cinderella into the sweet sixteen or elite 8... funny dat.

Some of the video with Coach McIntosh includes the last 10 seconds of the game...
http://www.tulsahurricane.com/sports/m-soccer/recaps/112512aaa.html

Of course, the best thing about watching the game was the realization that Christian Mata is only a freshman. ;-)

 

I don't think anyone can deny that TU was the better team in the first half and that USD was lucky not to be down by 2 or 3 after 45. The second half belonged to USD, but probably only because TU left the door open. USD's coach said after the game that Christian Mata was the best forward he had seen all year. And thanks for the game summary! I wish UCLA would post one....

 

Going forward, I don't see any mention of streaming for the quarterfinals so far. Anybody heard whether or not those games will be streamed?

BRF

 

Maryland says the their Saturday quarter-final will be available on "Terps TV" live and free-of- charge ... http://www.umterps.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/112612aab.html

 

The major flaw I see in your thought process is that teams from the WCC can only gain points because they're always on the road and ACC and BE teams will tend to lose points because they play their games at home. They either live up to expectations or they fail to meet them with little opportunity to exceed them while the WCC teams literally cannot fail to live up to expectations because they're not supposed to win a single game often. There's no proof that these teams that do well on the road would perform better than the seeded teams if they switched places.

For instance the top 4 seeds underachieve unless they make the final 4 yet that's a hard thing to do even if you have home field advantage through out. There are too many good teams out there and anything can happen in a single elimination tournament. To imply a team was overseeded because they lost is specious reasoning.

Year to year results are not sound comparisons. How a team performed in past tournaments should have and does not have any impact on how they perform in this years tournament. They're independent events. You cannot punish a team because past teams "underachieved" nor should you reward teams for "overachieving" in the past. That has no impact on whether they're more likely to succeed or fail this year.

Teams earn their seeds based on their play in that year and that's it.

 

I think you're over-generalizing here. The ACC had its own opportunities to win on the road this year, but BC and Virginia both went out weakly, despite facing lower-seeded opposition than San Diego. The ACC also has a big opportunity to gain points in this year's Final Four. It will come out well if Maryland performs up to its seed.

Road Wins Minus Home Losses is an intentionally simple measure, but the bias against seeded teams simply isn't that strong. If it were, how do you explain the Big Ten standing out at the top?

 

Maybe this is why Tulsa was upset.

http://deadspin.com/5963766/tulsa-a...vestigation-reveals-he-may-have-bet-on-sports

 

Thanks! I made a small correction above. Clemson played at home against Creighton in 05. Also, I believe that SMU only had two road wins in 2005. This means that no College Cup team has gotten three road wins since the tournament field expanded to 48.

Kind of funny that half of the ACC road wins were also ACC home losses.

 

Should San Diego upset Georgetown, they will have reeled off four incredibly impressive wins.

And would hopefully then crash out against Maryland.

 

Pretty funny reading this thread. Someone telling schools from the West to playing better teams when when what really matters is the opponents win/loss record rather than their real quality. Hararea trying to explain explain statistical measures to people that don't understand statistics or don't want to. Espola asking for an explanation even though he doesn't understand when given them. Sandon going on about the ACC's tainted tournament wins. Scoachd droning on about what a joke the RPI is. Big disappointment for me is Akron is out as I felt they were the best team in college soccer with Maryland being a very close second.

 

Does 'winning' here include or exclude 'advancing?'