With the regular season completed today, I now have run the bracket simulation system using the actual results of all games and teams' actual ratings. If you're interested in seeing who the simulation, with my "interpretation," produces as #1, 2, 3, and 4 seeds and at large selections, use this 2017 NCAA Tournament Bracket Simulation: End of Season link. I've included some explanation of how the simulation system works, for those not familiar with it, and have included details that I haven't included in my earlier "interim" simulations. Tomorrow, I'll publish my normal weekly reports, but the Bracket Simulation is the "big one" at this point, so I've gotten it out tonight.
CPT, thanks for doing this and all the analysis throughout the year. It is much appreciated. Question about Pepperdine; how are they seeded below USC and Ohio State in your simulation when they have a better ARPI and more "yes" factors?
For Pepperdine, on the seeding lists, they don't show up at all. This is because they have no "yes" factors for seeding at any level and too many "no" factors to show up on the lists. The "yes" factors you're looking at, I believe, are the ones for at large selection. The numbers of "yes" factors for at large selection can be something to look at when the seed factors can't make a selection among teams that are more or less the same in how they score, but they don't override a team that has no "yes" factors for a seed and multiple "no" factors.
In addition to the bracket simulation I've already published, here are this week's "end of season" publications: An RPI report covering teams' actual end of season ratings. If you want to see teams' current RPI ranks, you can go to the RPI and Bracketology for D1 Women's Soccer Blogspace and check out post titled: 2017 RPI Ranks 11.6.2017 - End of Season Ranks. If you want more RPI detail, including information about teams' Non-Conference RPIs and the conferences' average RPIs, you can go to the RPI website's This Year's Reports page. At the bottom of that page, there's a link to the 2017 RPI Report 11.6.2017 that is an excel workbook with a lot more detail. The detail includes conferences' average RPIs and ranks plus other information. Since these reports are based on data from the entire season, there's no simulated rank reports this week. And, If you are really serious about understanding the details of how your team is doing or how the overall bracket simulation system works, go to NCAA Tournament: Predicting the Bracket, Track Your Team at the RPI for Division I Women's Soccer website, read that page, and then follow the instructions for using the 2017 Website Factor Workbook 11.6.2017, which is attached at the bottom of the page.
Question: Why does the RPI love Florida St. and Notre Dame and hate Wake Forest? Seems odd to me that their rankings would be so disparate.
Strength of schedule is the difference. The three numbers below for each team are Element 1 (team's winning percentage), Element 2 (average of teams' opponents' winning percentages against other teams), and Element 3 (average of opponents' opponents' winning percentages). The effective weights of these three are roughly Element 1 50%, Element 2 40%, and Element 3 10% (the percentages vary slightly from year to year and more from team to team). As you can see, Wake's opponents' winning percentages were much poorer than Florida State's or Notre Dame's. Simply put, Wake had a better winning record than either of them but against much weaker opponents. FloridaState 0.6389 0.6344 0.5764 NotreDame 0.5789 0.6753 0.5640 WakeForest 0.6579 0.5425 0.5835
But "weaker" meaning what? That's assuming that a team with low winning percentage is weak, but Notre Dame itself has a terrible winning percentage but has a top 15 RPI ranking. So theoretically a team with a lower RPI ranking could play them and actually be hurt by that from an SOS perspective? Sorry I'm rusty on my ratings knowledge. The RPI ratings just don't seem to add up to me this year. The Bennett Rank rankings seem to be more true to performance. Like how on earth is Murray State a top 25 team??? They haven't even played anyone in the top 50!!
So you don't like the NCAA's RPI. You've got plenty of company. (My improved variation of the RPI has Notre Dame at 16, Wake Forest at 28, and Murray State at 48.) I'd say look at the Massey ratings. You'll probably like them better than the RPI. They're the best performing ratings.
Why Ole Miss and Rice over Minnesota? Minn beat 11 and tied 14. Rice didn't have a single top 50 win. Ole Miss's non-conf schedule was very weak, had no good wins and only won 1 of their last 8. Sometimes the committee makes no sense.
A little note here. I went back and made some changes in my simulated bracket post to which I provided a link in post 52, above. The reason for the changes is that the NCAA declined to consider, in its data provided to the Women's Soccer Committee, the late game addition of Mississippi State v San Jose State. I doubt this affected the Committee's decisions, but it changed some of the numbers.
I was discussing on twitter this with someone, may have been you or someone else. Because WVU has already beaten three of the teams in their bracket before, it seems as though the layout is navigable for them. However, beating PSU twice is a tall task, and this time it would have to be on the road as opposed to the comforts of home.
I have been suffering from sleep deprivation. WVU has home field advantage as well as the advantage of playing any of three teams they already beat regular season. Fixed my post.
I've just published a detailed analysis of the Women's Soccer Committee's seeding and at large selection decisions for this year's NCAA Tournament: Comments on the Women's Soccer Committee's 2017 NCAA Tournament Bracket Decisions. My bottom line is that the Committee's decisions generally were consistent with past precedent except that the Committee erred in: Not giving South Florida a #3 seed (should have bumped Virginia out of a #3 seed). Not giving South Florida a #4 seed (should have bumped Florida State out of a #4 seed). Not giving Minnesota an At Large selection and instead giving one to Rice. I think the Minnesota/Rice decision was a particularly poor one.
Good analysis. Makes me feel bad for Minnesota. So why would the committee not award the spot to them? Some subjective reason?
I think this would could have gone either way and Minnesota will think they have been hard done by with some justification. Still if they had got it done postseason with at least one more win then they would have probably gotten in. Not simply on the selection committee.
I'll go subjective and suggest a possible reason: There are 33 at large slots altogether. It looks like when the Committee had filled 32 of them, 30 of them were filled with teams from the 5 power conferences and only two with teams from mid-majors -- Santa Clara from the West Coast Conference and Butler from the Big East. And, for women's soccer a lot of people don't think of the WCC as a mid-major. Maybe the mid-major reps on the Committee threw a hissy fit in order to get one more mid-major slot. I have no idea if the Committee did that, it would be nice to hear their explanation. If they did, then they violated the rules for at large selections. Of course, they always could claim it was because Rice had the best RPI of the candidate group. But then, if they used that as a rationale, they'd have to explain why they gave #23 Virginia a #3 seed. In all seriousness, Rice getting an at large slot looks to me like one of the, if not the, most "inconsistent with the criteria" decisions of the Committee over the last 10 years. It's really hard to find a good rationale for it.
Collegewhispers is right that Minnesota didn't have sparkling credentials for getting an at large selection, notwithstanding what their fans may think. They easily could have been aced out by Cincinnati, for example. But giving the slot to Rice is what's hard to find a good rationale for.
It is probably time to have two division 1 championships. Let the power 5 have their own. And the rest battle it out. There is clearly a major advantage for the power 5 schools over the others and it will only get more geared toward power 5.
I am tired about hearing about a Big10 team getting snubbed because their marginal team wasn't put on a plane. Isn't it just the way the pendulum swings? Don't marginal power conf teams do pretty poorly on the road anyway? Remember the Big 10 got a mulligan last year by letting Michigan in.
cpthomas can certainly speak for himself but I think he was saying it was a poor decision based on the criteria he has developed studying the past 10 years of at large selections by the committee. If the committee starts making decisions based on random criteria it has the potential to make the whole process unpredictable and potentially unfair. It isn't supposed to be a lottery.
I saw Murray State play Tennessee, and while they lost 0-2, they were pretty impressive. They were surely one of the better mid-majors in the tournament--had only lost one game coming into the NCAA and had a couple of forwards who could play for a LOT of P5 teams in the country. For what it's worth!