2011 NCAA Tournament Bracket

Discussion in 'Women's College' started by cpthomas, Oct 17, 2011.

  1. New Engalnd Nellie

    Mar 6, 2008
    Well I guess I should have been clearer - what I heard is that Dayton chose not to submit a bid. I was under the impression it was not a mistake. Now this is like telephone where someone told someone who told me a rather uninterested party who may not have asked the right questions.

    They did just host the A-10 tournament so maybe that busted their budget (and this is pure conjecture on my part.)
     
  2. soccershins

    soccershins Member

    Jan 3, 2011
    Club:
    FC Porto
  3. Cascadilly

    Cascadilly Member

    Sep 14, 2005
    Pacific Palisades
  4. trekker

    trekker New Member

    Aug 16, 2008
    Haha why's that?
     
  5. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A cautionary note: DO NOT rely on the NCAA's RPI Report issued on the NCAA.com website this afternoon. It contains errors. How they occurred is under review. I understand that this report is NOT consistent with what was provided to the Women's Soccer Committee for purposes of their NCAA Tournament bracket formation process.
     
  6. irisheyes

    irisheyes New Member

    Nov 8, 2011
    Forgive my ignorance but what happens if the seeded team loses in the first round? Will the game (s) still be played at that field or will it move to the next highest seed field?
     
  7. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In theory, the sites for the second/third round games have not been set yet. For practical purposes, it's pretty clear they will be played at the site of the highest seeded team, assuming it has bid for the games. If the top seed in the group has lost in the first round, then the games will go to the site of the other seed in the group. If both seeds have lost, then the games in all likelihood will go to the site of the team in the group with the best RPI. That is consistent with past practice and with how the NCAA sited the games between non-seeds this year.
     
  8. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Using the Massey ratings (converted to the old Albyn Jones rating scale) here's the expected win probabilities for the 1st round. I'm using the figure of 60 rating points for homefield advantage.

    favored team / rating / (H) = home / rating diff / expected win prob. / underdog / rating

    rating difference adjusted for homefield advantage

    Code:
    		   
    Louisville	1679	(H)	19	0.526	Dayton...	1720	   
    Kentucky	1683	(H)	26	0.543	Washington St	1717	   
    Kansas...	1671	(H)	59	0.594	Georgia...	1672	   
    UC Irvine	1757	(H)	74	0.619	San Diego	1743	   
    West Virginia	1774	(H)	93	0.651	Virginia Tech	1741	   
    Miami......  1693	(H)	128	0.704	Alabama...	1625	   
    Tennessee	1738	(H)	129	0.704	Ohio St...	1669	   
    South Carolina	1750	(H)	138	0.718	Texas......	1672	   
    Pepperdine	1854	(H)	161	0.752	Long Beach St	1753	   
    Santa Clara	1813	(H)	162	0.752	California	1711	   
    Oregon St	1755	(H)	165	0.758	Portland...	1650	   
    Auburn...	1732	(H)	182	0.777	Utah St...	1610	   
    Illinois...	1834	(H)	198	0.794	Notre Dame	1696	   
    Maryland	1764	(H)	199	0.794	LaSalle...	1625	   
    Texas A&M	1834	(H)	201	0.8	LSU......	1693	   
    Boston U	1691	(H)	229	0.826	Harvard...	1522	   
    North Carolina	1859	(H)	238	0.836	William & Mary	1681	   
    Milwaukee	1789	(H)	242	0.841	Illinois St	1607	   
    UCF......	1661	(H)	284	0.874	FIU......	1437	   
    Florida...	1761	(H)	288	0.878	Fl Gulf Coast	1533	   
    Marquette	1810	(H)	307	0.892	Toledo...	1563	   
    UCLA......	1914	(H)	315	0.899	New Mexico	1659	   
    Baylor...	1763	(H)	398	0.939	Texas St...	1425	   
    Florida St	1883	(H)	416	0.947	Samford...	1527	   
    Boston College	1778	(H)	420	0.948	Marist...	1418	   
    Penn St...	1894	(H)	480	0.965	Army......	1474	   
    Virginia...	1877	(H)	498	0.969	Long Island	1439	   
    Memphis...	1880	(H)	520	0.974	UT Martin	1420	   
    Wake Forest	1901	(H)	578	0.981	Oakland...	1383	   
    Duke......	1947	(H)	630	0.985	Radford...	1377	   
    Oklahoma St	1900	(H)	846	0.996	Ark-Pine Bluff	1114	   
    Stanford	2095	(H)	899	0.996	Montana...	1256	
     
  9. hykos1045

    hykos1045 Member

    May 10, 2010
    Club:
    Philadelphia Independence
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Has a corresponding 2 and 3 seed (or 1 and 4) ever both lost in the first round before? Would the contingency plan be apparent or would the NCAA have to go through a bidding process for hosts all over again?
     
  10. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I have received two fantastic documents related to the NCAA Tournament bracket process that are intended to be available for public viewing. They are NCAA-generated decison-criteria-related documents that I understand contain information provided to the Women's Soccer Committee during its bracket formation process. I don't know whether these were the only information provided, but one of the documents appears extremely complete. I haven't had a chance to fully analyze the documents yet, but I'm certain that getting a full understanding of them will give great insights into the Committee's decision-making process.

    The pieces are in pdf files. Unfortunately, the most important piece is in too large a file to be accommodated by BigSoccer's attachment function. So, if anyone wants these, send me a PM with an email address and I will email them to you. For those who really, really want to know how the process works, the more important piece, in particular, is a "must see" document.

    The less significant piece (to me) is called "Nitty Gritty" and contains a breakdown of basic information about each team's record (all 322 of the teams).

    The really significant piece is called "Team Sheets." This is an absolute gold mine for those really interested in understanding the process. There is a one-page sheet for each team (all 322 of them) chock full of information, including information that can be used in evaluating the applicable criteria.

    With the release of this information and, I believe, more information to come, it is looking very much like the NCAA is opening up its process greatly.
     
  11. pantone159

    pantone159 New Member

    Oct 12, 2002
    Austin
    Thanks to everybody posting all the team rankings.

    A question: Is there an explicit formula for an expected win percentage, based on the teams rankings? I.e. kolabear listed the following table, but how would I determine the expected win percent for, say, 176 pt differential. kolabear listed some specific numbers in a post just above, so it seems there is some formula!

    100 pt differential: .667 expected win pct (2 to 1 win ratio)
    200 pt differential: .800 expected win pct (4 to 1 win ratio)
    300 pt differential: .889 expected win pct (8 to 1 win ratio)
    400 pt differential: .941 expected win pct (16 to 1 win ratio)
     
  12. Cliveworshipper

    Cliveworshipper Member+

    Dec 3, 2006
    Kolabear is trying to mimic the Albyn Jones rating system, now defunct. Without knowledge as to the conversion methods or formulas from Massey, it's a private system.

    But the original jones system Was straightforward log function base 2 with the ranking difference/100 representing the exponent of the odds:1

    With a scientific calculator it's easy to figure if it has a [​IMG] function.

    Just use y=2 and x = (ranking difference)/100.

    The win percentage will be Result/(Result + 1)


    So a 400 pt differential would be x=(400/100) = 4
    2(EXP)4 = 16:1 win odds
    16/17 = .941. Win percentage


    Your example of 176 would be 2(exp) 1.76 = 3.387:1 odds

    3.387/4.387 = .772 win percentage

    It didn't figure ties, however, and a different function figured those probabilities, but i never quite figured it out and I haven't found anybody who has figured that out and published it. I lost interest in figuring it out when Jones stopped publishing current data.
     
  13. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Ummm, I'm trying to remember... Give me a few minutes!

    ****
    if R is the rating differential, you start by dividing it by 100 to get n.

    Then the expected win pct = (2 to the power n) / ((2 to the power n) + 1)

    So if R (the rating differential) is 100, you divide it by 100 to get n=1

    Then the expected win pct = (2 to the power 1) / ((2 to the power 1) + 1

    = 2 / (2+1)
    = 2/3
    = .667

    ***
    yeah, yeah, cliveworshipper has it, I think, and he knows how to paste the exponents properly as a superscript! Why am I such an old-cow Luddite on these things?!

    And okay I said I would re-copy this chart of conversions:

    0 0.5
    10 0.517
    20 0.535
    30 0.552
    40 0.569
    50 0.586
    60 0.602
    70 0.619
    80 0.635
    90 0.651
    100 0.667
    110 0.682
    120 0.697
    130 0.711
    140 0.725
    150 0.739
    160 0.752
    170 0.765
    180 0.777
    190 0.789
    200 0.8
    210 0.811
    220 0.821
    230 0.831
    240 0.841
    250 0.85
    260 0.858
    270 0.867
    280 0.874
    290 0.882
    300 0.889
    310 0.896
    320 0.902
    330 0.908
    340 0.913
    350 0.919
    360 0.924
    370 0.929
    380 0.933
    390 0.937
    400 0.941
    410 0.945
    420 0.948
    430 0.952
    440 0.955
    450 0.958
    460 0.96
    470 0.963
    480 0.965
    490 0.968
    500 0.97
    550 0.978
    600 0.985
    650 0.989
    700 0.992
    750 0.995
    800 0.996


    Some of you will notice that I did some rounding off in the expected win percentages for the 1st round games.
     
  14. Cliveworshipper

    Cliveworshipper Member+

    Dec 3, 2006

    [​IMG][​IMG]
    It's a picture:D
     
  15. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Can you imagine the NCAA trying to explain its new rating system in the terms Cliveworshipper and Kolabear are using? And we'll all say, "Oh, yeah, that sounds like the right system to me."
     
  16. Cliveworshipper

    Cliveworshipper Member+

    Dec 3, 2006
    Well, they have done such a fine job explaining the significance of the records of opponents of opponents, why bonuses are secret, and why home field has no bearing on RPI:rolleyes:
     
  17. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Actually, the significance of records of opponents of opponents isn't that difficult (and, I believe Massey uses it too, except that he carries it out to a theoretical infinite number of extensions).

    Of course, the bonuses and penalties being secret is indefensible, but at least we know there are bonuses and penalties and that we don't know what they are -- well, actually we do know what they are, but no thanks to the NCAA (stay tuned for more information on this topic, coming out shortly).

    And, we know that home field advantage should have a bearing and that with the RPI it doesn't.

    In other words, with the RPI at least we know what we don't know. But with Massey and Jones, what are in their systems that we don't know? We don't know. But maybe ignorance is bliss?
     
  18. pantone159

    pantone159 New Member

    Oct 12, 2002
    Austin
    Thanks! That formula is exactly what I was looking for. (BTW, I don't think you can write superscripts/subscripts in BBCode. You can in HTML, but it is a pain.)

    Resaying this:
    Odds = 2^(difference in ratings / 100)
    I.e., 'odds' are Odds:1
    P(win) = Odds / (Odds + 1)

    This part doesn't seem arcane to me (I like math though), it is how you come up with the ratings, that is the arcane part!
     
  19. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I agree, partly. RPI is less of a "black box" than Massey's ratings, Pablo, and Elo -based systems. * But it's also because some of us really want to understand the nitty-gritty of how it all works.

    Driving a car doesn't require understanding the physics of internal combustion. And chess ratings (or its like) have been popularly used and accepted for decades, not only by chessplayers but, I'm led to understand, by many people playing all kinds of different board games and online games. The NCAA and BCS even use similar methods for basketball and football. As Pablo's creator has said (Pablo is a rating system for volleyball), the NCAA uses other ranking systems (non-RPI ones) in sports where a lot of people really care about the tournament.


    Yes. I agree it's not really the arcane part at all. I'll be talking a bit more about these things in the Massey/ Elo thread from time to time during the playoffs.

    * Speaking of getting into the nitty-gritty of designing a rating system, the creator of Pablo shared this quote: "What part of an inverse tangent function approaching an asymptote did you not understand?"
     
  20. hykos1045

    hykos1045 Member

    May 10, 2010
    Club:
    Philadelphia Independence
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  21. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    There's always that...(!)

    Just as an aside, someone here mentioned something about one of Illinois State's (not Illinois) top goal scorers. Massey's ratings ranks Illinois State as the 10th best offense in Division I. Wow.
     
  22. bmoline

    bmoline Member

    Aug 24, 2008
    Champaign
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yeah, they've scored 51 goals as a team, and Rachel Tejada has 20 of them herself. That's an interesting matchup they have with Milwaukee and Sarah Hagan. The Redbirds beat the Panthers 3-1 a couple of weeks ago. I picked Milwaukee to win the rematch at home, but it should be a great game.
     
  23. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Here's a little bit of information that shows how mistakes can be made that affect the RPI:

    In the Atlantic Ten tournament semi-finals, Dayton beat Richmond. Dayton was the tournament host. Richmond, in the RPI rankings, ended up as a Top 41-80 team. Because Richmond was in that group and Dayton beat them, Dayton had bonus points added to its Unadjusted RPI as part of converting to the Adjusted RPI. The way the bonus points are set up, for a win against a Top 41-80 team, you get the least points if the game is at home, you get an additional 0.0002 points if the game is at a neutral site, and you get a further 0.0002 points if the game is away. So, the difference for the bonus between a home win and an away win is 0.0004 points.

    When the game result got entered into the NCAA's system (I don't know who entered it although ordinarily the home team is supposed to do that), rather than getting correctly entered as a home game for Dayton, it got entered incorrectly as being at Richmond. No one caught this, so the rating for Dayton provided to the Women's Soccer Committee for the bracket formation decisions over-rated Dayton by 0.0004.

    0.0004 is not a huge amount, from an RPI perspective, and in this case it did not change Dayton's ranking position, only their rating. On the other hand, in a different situation that amount could have affected their ranking position. Since Dayton was a potential seed candidate (although near the outside edge although better-rated than Tennessee), this could have had some relevance to the seeding discussion if it in fact had changed Dayton's ranking position.

    A similar problem, if it occurred in the area of rankings where the "bubble" teams reside, would be more likely to change rankings since the teams' ratings are more compressed there. It could mean the difference between a team being a "bubble" team and the team not getting considered at all.

    This provides an interesting little illustration of how important it is that correct data get into the system.
     
  24. leftout1

    leftout1 Member

    Mar 15, 2010
    Club:
    AC Milan
    Sorry to plug a blog while on a blog, but since we are all fans.....check out the work that Chris Henderson has done at All White Kit. Detailed breakdowns of each of the first round matches. Amazing.:cool:
     
  25. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Agreed 100%.
     

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