Just read your post about Virginia Tech, and when you talked about their conference standing being a deciding factor something struck me. Since conferences differ in size, don't you need to normalize conference rank to make it meaningful? For example, Virginia Tech was 9th out of 15, which puts them in the 40th percentile of their conference. On the other hand, Texas Tech was 8th out of 10, which put them in the 20th percentile of their conference. If the committee is only looking at absolute conference standings, it puts schools from bigger conferences at a disadvantage.
When the #8 team from the #2 conference beats the #1 team from the #3 conference, when 8 teams are taken from the #5 conference ... well then the #9 team from the #2 conference may be a prudent. No excuse for not including Virginia Tech while placing all those terrible Big 12 teams in.
After reading all of the posts and cpthomas extensive analysis, I've come to the conclusion that the selections the committee made, while in my opinion are flawed, are for the most part justifiable under the current process. My bigger problem is with the process. I think it is time to change the rules for selection. If the ultimate goal of the championship is to crown the best team in America, then any team who doesn't finish in the top half of their conference should not be eligible in my opinion. If they aren't good enough to at least be in top half of their own conferences, then how can you argue they have potential to be "best in America"? I know this will be vehemently opposed by the large conferences but I would rather see a team that finished 2nd or 3rd in a mid major try their luck against a Power 5 team then watch the 8th place B10 team lose their 7th game of the year against that competition. And I still think DePaul got screwed this year ... just my opinion of course but would have loved to see the offense that G-town struggled to contain go against some of that B10 or ACC talent.
I understand the frustration with DePaul, but I just don't think putting in an arbitrary cut-off that ignores the body of work of the individual team is going to increase fairness in any way. Last year Duke finished 8th out of 14 in the ACC, was a #3 seed and made it to the finals. Would it be fair to exclude them to include a lower ranked mid-major? There is already an arbitrary cut-off and the prior year Duke finished below .500 and didn't make the tournament despite the fact they were a significantly better team than many selected. They were punished for playing one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the nation. In the first round this year 33 of 64 teams were from the Power 5. In the second round 25 of 32 teams are from Power 5. That doesn't seem to indicate the committee is putting in too many big conference teams.
Easy there- "They were punished for playing one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the nation." AND NOT WINNING enough of those games. You forgot that part. Duke has total control of their non-conference schedule AND it was the ACC Coaches that decided to have a 4-team tournament format that excluded Duke. The ACC also does not play a full round-robin so they can get more teams to a .500 record and in the field. Lots of reasons to look in the mirror before blaming the NCAA for "punishing" Duke in 2014. That's laughable. The ACC has been trying as hard as anyone to 'game the system' in terms of NCAA selections. And btw- FSU won the ACC tournament in 2016 (as the #6 seed) and would not have even been included in 2014 or 15. Ironically, if the ACC had an 8-team tournament in 2014, Duke would have had a chance to win 2 games and get into the NCAA field. Oops...
Sorry if you misunderstood. I meant "punished" in the sense that Duke did punish itself by choosing to play a number of top 10 teams in the non-conference portion (and not winning those games). If they had played lower ranked teams and won then no issue with being above .500 and having a higher RPI and being in the tournament. My point is that having an arbitrary cut-off, whether it is .500 overall or .500 in conference or an automatic bid for a weak conference champion means you are defaulting to a selection tool that doesn't necessarily reflect the actual strength of the team.
If you want to guarantee your way into the tournament, win more games. Make it impossible for the selection committee to deny you.
My apologies then. Got on my elitest ACC soapbox a little too fast! The bottom line - everyone knows the rules when they schedule (you hope). Some of these power 5 teams just plan cranked up tough schedules year and year and suffer when they fall off a bit. Different examples every year. After the 2014 season, which started with a tough West coast trip, AD was asked why he cranked down his UNC schedule in 2015. (Home games with Weber St and Fresno St) He said something about "building confidence in his strike force". These guys would be great politicians.
What is ARPI--average RPI? CP, didn't you say in your Texas Tech analysis that based on ARPI, the Big 12 was the best conference this year? If so, seems crazy--I can't believe it. Two big 12 teams are already out, including TT. Speaking of non-conference performance: I think it is probably overweighted in evaluations--given too much consideration. Why? Because most non-conference matches are played very early in the season--indeed, they are usually the very first games--and it's a fact that teams are often quite a bit different late in the season than they are early. Teams improve (or decline) over the course of a season--often significantly. I follow a team that was not good early in the year, lost non-conference games, but was a much different and much better team late in the year. And lots of teams do the same. I'm not sure if late-season performance is a formal, objective criterion in evaluations--or just a /subjective/ review--but it should be a formal, objective factor, IMO. I mean, to lose six of your last seven games and get in the NCAA tourney, as Texas Tech did, is an absolute JOKE. It strongly suggests that the system is flawed. How, I can't say as one apparently needs to be a mathematician to unwind all of the assorted rankings--but maybe /conference rankings/ are one issue. I'm not opposed to analytics--they are important, insightful--but common sense needs a place at the evaluation table, too.
Wisconsin won their own conference last year, and the Big Ten ended up a Top 3 conference. Two teams made it to the College Cup from the Big Ten last year, and Wisconsin did just as well in their conference as the National Champs (Penn State). Rose Lavelle told the committee to "stuff it" on Twitter.
I completely agree. I'm sure AD and Church had a discussion about invitees to both UNC's and Duke's early season tournaments.
I would much rather have an 8th in conference Duke left out in the rare year they don't finish .500 in conference. A losing record in conference (even the vaunted ACC) should eliminate you from NCAA contention. I know it caps the ACC at probably half the conference, but other than the ACC, I don't see any issue with it. For every team that is deserving (like Duke was in 2014), there are probably another 4 or 5 that were not and took the opportunity away from a mid-major. This is just my opinion of course and I support a conference outside the P5 but I am guessing if this was put to a vote by all NCAA D1 schools, only the P5 would oppose it.
Here are a couple of thoughts, in relation to the preceding good discussion: 1. There was a suggestion along the lines of weighting late season games more than early season games. This is something the NCAA definitely does not do with the ratings. The ratings treat all games as equally important. This seems good to me for the following reason: The power conferences play their difficult games late in the season and need to do their scheduling of non-conference games earlier in the season with a view to how they think they'll do in their conference games. So, you'll see most power conference teams with easier non-conference than conference schedules (though with a few tough non-conference games). I know for a fact that most power conference teams do their non-conference scheduling this way, with a view to what their end-of-season ratings will be. On the other hand, the non-power conference teams that want to be contenders at the highest level have to do just the opposite. They need to schedule tough non-conference schedules in order to be able, at the end of the season, to match the toughnesss of the overall schedules of the power conference teams. If the latter part of the season were to be weighted more heavily than the earlier part, it would be a big disadvantage for the potential contenders from the non-power conferences. Using this year as an example, it would discount the value of Santa Clara's non-conference wins over Southern California and Cal. It would discount the value of BYU's wins over Penn State, Utah, and Ohio State. 2. Although the purpose of the NCAA Tournament is to identify the national champion, its format is based strictly on rewarding teams based on their performance over the course of the season and not on whom one thinks is the "best team" based on subjective considerations. When it gets to seeding, the Committee is not bound to follow the at large selection criteria and can look more to which teams they think are best. But even for site selection where there is not a seeded team playing, the home team selection is based strictly on how teams have performed according to the RPI. 3. When posters are concerned about the numbers of at large teams from the power conferences, they typically don't mention that almost half the field (31 teams to be exact) is automatic qualifiers, most of which have absolutely no chance of winning the championship. Over the last 30 years, the teams that have won the championship currently reside in five conferences -- the ACC (22 -- includes Notre Dame), Pac 12 (3), WCC (3), Big 10 (1), and SEC (1). So, nearly half the field already is "given away" to teams that aren't national championship contenders, as a matter of NCAA policy. What this further means is that, except for the elite conferences, if not even the conference champions have a chance of winning the championship, then other teams that haven't won the conference championship have no chance whatsoever of winning the national championship. In that context, I think the NCAA is doing the right thing in saying for the half of the participants who are not automatic qualifiers, the selection should be based strictly on performance over the course of the season and not on an attempt to give even more positions to non-elite conferences that already have nearly half the slots in the bracket. 4. As suggested above, if a team not from a power conference -- I would include the Big East and American conferences in the not-power conference group these days -- wants to be getting into the NCAA Tournament, it needs to have a non-conference schedule that at least to some extent matches itself up with the conference schedules of the power conferences. Some of the teams from the West Coast Conference are the best example of teams that have done this. It means taking risks of losing games, and it takes a willingness to pay for travel -- although ordinarily, the game contracts can provide for home-away series. And, this doesn't mean scheduling just one tough non-conference game a year, it ordinarily means scheduling enough to get one or more good results against very tough non-conference opponents. It's a very fine balancing act, for both not-power conference teams and for power conference teams, but a not-power conference team's having a weak non-conference schedule, much less a weak one where it has poor results, simply won't get it into the NCAA Tournament if it's not its conference's automatic qualifier. It is not a secret that this is what teams from not-power conferences need to do to be contenders, so if a team hasn't done it, it has no one to blame but itself. 5. Someone suggested that in looking at conference rank (Yes, the Big 12 this year had the best average ARPIs of any of the conferences) and a team's standing within its conference, there ought to be consideration of how many teams are in the conference. This is a good point and it's possible the Committee considers this. The standards I've derived from the Committee's decisions over the last 9 years don't make that distinction, but that's primarily an ease-of-programming issue for me. If the standards did make that distinction, they'd probably be slightly different. 6. Something to be aware of is that the NCAA's approach is rigorously set up to limit considerations to what teams have accomplished this year, and to bar consideration of teams' and conferences' reputations based on what they have done in the past. This is an explicit NCAA policy -- that what teams and conferences have done in the past is to be treated as irrelevant. Thus this year, the NCAA's rating system says the Big 12 was the #1 ARPI conference -- and the #2 ANCRPI conference. I've sensed that a lot of posters have a hard time dealing with that -- "How could the Big 12 possibly be the #1 conference?" It's what the NCAA's numbers say, and the Committee members are required to accept it. (Massey's rating system, on the other hand, has the Pac 12 as #1, the ACC as #2, and the Big 12 as #3, followed closely by the Big 10, then the SEC, the WCC, and the Big East in that order. The Committee, however, is not allowed to use Massey.) This actually illustrates a benefit of having to go by the numbers: you can't carry over prejudices from past seasons. Of course, the benefit is only as good as the numbers you're using.
ARPI is Adjusted RPI. The NCAA computes the RPI and then awards bonuses for good wins/ties and penalties for poor losses/ties. The penalties generally are irrelevant for teams competing to get into the NCAA Tournament. When I write about the conference ARPIs, those are the averages of the ARPIs of the conferences' teams. The ARPI does have a problem rating the conferences in relation to each other, tending to underrate stronger conferences and overrate weaker conferences, on average. The ACC, Pac 12, and SEC tend to be the most underrated, followed by the Big 10, Big 12, WCC, and Big East. The effects of this are not massive, but they occasionally may have an effect on NCAA Tournament decisions. The same is true for the Non-Conference ARPI, but the level of discrimination is slightly less. Looking at the conference ratings this year (both ARPI and Non-Conference ARPI) together with the rating problems, the numbers probably say that the Big 12, ACC, and Pac 12 performed at about the same average level this year, as hard as it may be to believe regarding the Big 12. Remember, you have to leave opinions from past seasons at the door!
Those games -- Weber State and Fresno State -- are what they call "guarantee" games in the elite conference scheduling world. And, I agree completely: coaches like Anson and Robbie don't schedule guarantee games unless they feel they might need them as insurance for when it comes to NCAA Tournament bracketing time.
TELEVISION / STREAMING / BROADCAST: Half of the 2nd/3rd round games this weekend will be on WatchESPN. Every ACC & SEC team which are hosting these 2nd/3rd round games will be broadcast live/demand on WatchESPN. South Carolina (all 3 games in the 2nd/3rd round): http://www.gamecocksonline.com/sports/w-soccer/spec-rel/111516aaa.html Florida (all 3 games in the 2nd/3rd round): http://floridagators.com/schedule.aspx?path=soccer& UNC (all 3 games in the 2nd/3rd round): http://www.goheels.com/ViewArticle....NG=C&SITE=UNC&DB_OEM_ID=3350&ATCLID=211294448 Duke (all 3 games in the 2nd/3rd round): http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.d...842&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=211294464 WVU is expected to have separate streams (non-ESPN). Stanford and USC .... same thing (non-ESPN) on their Pac 12 streams. Not sure yet on Georgetown, as they are the other host of 2nd/3rd round action.
You tripped over your own feet here. You should have read the post just above. The #8 team in ACC beat the #1 team in the Big Ten. If that is not in your face evidence that your idea is without merit, I don't know what is. Where would Depaul have finished in the ACC ? Not top 1/2, not even close. Pac 12? maybe, but it's a long shot. You are just looking at the Big 12 where this year, they may have.
obviously the ARIP needs tweaking with this as the summation. I have to give props to the Hero Sports algorithm. Year in and year out they seem to out perform the RPI although I admit my opinion is not based on objective fact as I have taken the time to do a study. They show the Big 12 as the #5 conference, which obviously makes more sense. Of course that is today after taking it on the chin this past weekend. I think they were at 4 last week.
I don't think I tripped up here at all. I simply stated that I would prefer to leave the sub-500 in conference ACC teams out of the tournament. I don't deny the quality of the ACC but if you can't finish at least .500 in your conference then you shouldn't be eligible. The ACC would still have 7 teams in the tournament this year. Notre Dame got knocked out the 1st round. Does that prove they didn't belong in the tournament? The result doesn't prove anything. As for DePaul, we will never know how they would fare in the ACC but I still feel they deserved a shot at the NCAA more than a 2-6 in conference Texas Tech
Understand but that's like saying you want to ignore SOS well then, we need take each league standing and have the top two teams from each conference standing.. no conference tournaments Fair enough but understand what you advocate. Yes the ACC would still have 7 teams in the tourney but not the seven strongest. You would simple penalize teams for a stronger SOS within their conference. I do not favor your want of rewarding soft schedules but I respect your right to embrace a less competitive template for the season ending tournament. Ever see the Larry Daivd Show? Larry holds the door to the elevator for a women then let's her exit first. They both go into the doctors office. She signs in first and is called first. Larry is upset because he saw on the sign in that her appointment was 15 minutes after his. The nurse explains that they call patients based on there sign in time. Larry complains to the doctor. The next week Larry gets there first and signs in. The same women shows up right behind him and signs in. She is called first, ahead of Larry. Again Larry is upset. The nurse explains that because of his complain last week policy has changed and now the person with the earlier appointment is called regardless of the sign in time. exasperated, Larry then endorses a "me first policy" policy
Sorry, I'm back on DePaul winning their conference and Texas Tech finishing in 8th place in their league out of 9 teams. With that finish and that conf record they should not have been considered, DePaul had a heck of s team . Their non conf totally effected by an injury to big east mfielder of the year Alexa Ben. She missed s few games and was really not up and running til game 6 or 7.
You really can't count injuries. A lot of teams had several issues with injuries. It is part of the game.
As European football fan says, if you're going to consider injuries, then you have to research every team in possible contention with DePaul, find out which of their players had injuries (which can be difficult because of confidentiality laws), analyze how much those injuries affected their teams including deciding which games their teams would have done better in absent the injuries, etc., etc. And, you have to do it for all the potential seeds, and so on. Basketball is worth $1 billion to the NCAA, so they can do it there. According to the NCAA, soccer loses money, so they won't do it there. The real solution is for DePaul to schedule tougher non-conference opponents and do better with their non-conference results, or for the Big East to do better as a whole in its non-conference scheduling and results so it ends the season with a better rank. This may seem harsh, but the coaches know what the rules are and how the Committee makes its decisions. I could have told you in advance that (1) DePaul's non-conference schedule wasn't adequate for a team seeking an at large selection and (2) because of that, absent a very high non-conference winning percentage they most likely wouldn't get an at large selection and would put themselves in the position where they'd have to win the conference tournament if they wanted to be in the NCAA Tournament. And, they'd have to do this knowing that key players may suffer injuries. It's a hard and unforgiving process. I am, however, sympathetic with your frustration.