While my Tournament Projection is fun to play with, you should know that the NCAA digs deeper than that! Today, I've been tracking the teams around the arbitrary cut line of 37/38. How do they rank in some other criteria that the Selection Committee has access to? LAST 10 GAMES Pacific (6-3-1) Charlotte (5-2-3) NC State (5-2-3) California (6-4-0) UMass Lowell (6-4-0) Washington (5-4-1) Rhode Island (5-4-1) Portland (5-4-1) South Florida (3-3-4) Elon (4-5-1) UNCW (4-6-0) vs. TOP 25 (ranked by points) NC State (2-4-1) UNCW (2-2-0) UMass Lowell (2-2-0) Charlotte (1-3-1) Pacific (1-0-0) Portland (1-1-0) South Florida (0-3-2) Washington (0-2-1) Rhode Island (0-3-1) California (0-2-0) Elon (0-2-0) vs. TOP 50 (ranked by points) NC State (4-5-2) UNCW (4-4-0) California (3-3-0) Portland (3-3-0) Washington (2-3-1) UMass Lowell (2-4-0) Charlotte (1-5-3) Pacific (1-2-0) Elon (0-4-3) South Florida (0-3-2) Rhode Island (0-5-1) VS. BELOW 150 (ranked by W-L-D%, least number of games) Portland (1-0-0) California (2-0-0) Pacific (2-0-0) South Florida (2-0-0) Charlotte (3-0-0) Washington (3-0-0) Elon (3-0-0) Rhode Island (4-0-0) UNCW (6-0-0) NC State (4-0-1) UMass Lowell (2-1-0) ROAD (ranked by points) Pacific (5-4-1) UNCW (5-4-0) Rhode Island (4-3-3) California (4-3-0) Washington (3-3-1) UMass Lowell (3-6-0) Elon (2-4-2) NC State (2-3-1) Portland (2-4-1) Charlotte (1-3-3) South Florida (1-3-2) AVERAGE RPI WIN Portland (88) California (98) Pacific (103) NC State (105) UMass Lowell (106) South Florida (107) Charlotte (109) UNCW (111) Washington (114) Elon (122) Rhode Island (128) AVERAGE RPI LOSS NC State (14) Charlotte (18) Elon (31) Rhode Island (35) California (44) South Florida (46) UNCW (49) UMass Lowell (56) Washington (58) Portland (67) Pacific (80)
I added up the rankings of these 7 criteria, and superimposed them on the current RPI ranking order: 32 Charlotte 4 33 California 2 35 Pacific 3 36 UNCW 6 37 Washington 8 38 UMass Lowell 7 39 Rhode Island 9 40 Portland 5 41 Elon 11 44 South Florida 9 45 NC State 1 The one team that really jumps out is NC State. I think the Committee reaches down and grabs them. If they do, one of the top 5 gets snubbed. The top candidate to miss is Washington. Portland fares well, but probably not well enough to leap into the field. If the Committee is giving a Western discount...and the western teams seem to do very good in these criteria, perhaps the Committee swaps in Portland and swaps out UNCW. But I'm guessing no. I'm going with a straight Projection, with the exception that Washington is bumped for NC State. The ACC gets 9. Let the howling begin.
While I think NC State is the most likely team to win a first round game out of all of those teams, I wonder if the committee is willing to reach that far down to put them through. If I recall correctly, last year they were on the outside of the bubble RPI-wise, but was seen favorably by the committee and put them in. I'm wondering if they are willing to do that two years in a row.
I think Washington gets in because they can play Seattle and that saves the NCAA money on travel costs. I am not joking. Sadly. Travel costs can get you to figure out a lot of the likely matchups outside of the Eastern Time Zone, where only 14 teams will likely make the NCAA Tournament. No. 11 Stanford gets a bye. No. 17 SMU leapfrogs 16. Dartmouth and gets a bye. Cal will play either San Francisco or Pacific. Whomever doesn’t play Cal will play Fullerton. Washington will play Seattle. Air Force will play Omaha. Lipscomb gets Central Arkansas. Wisconsin, in a match-up that would make our old friend Old Guy FC both smile and cringe, will play UIC. Just a guess, but that's based on years of precedent.
Interesting ... it never occurred to me that the NCAA payed for the travel of the teams to the NCAA tournaments. So I looked for more info on this, and came across this page, which was also interesting: http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/finances/championships-finances
Explains a lot. Dollars, namely travel costs, have a big influence on the competitive side. That's why I'll be stunned if Seattle doesn't play Washington. I mean, they could pay for a bus for an 8-mile round trip. OR... fly and house a team to and from (or from and to) Seattle. Easy math.
I agree on Washington getting in now because Seattle won the WAC. However I don't think that Lipscomb would be high enough for them to be a host for Central Arkansas. Presbyterian goes to Coastal and then the winner goes to Clemson? Mercer goes to FIU Lipscomb goes to Old Dominion Fairfield goes to UMass
NC State in, Charlotte out. I identified the team below the line that would make it...didn't think Charlotte had anything to worry about. Perhaps Sandon's "Washington" theory held sway.
NC State's road success may have gotten them in...except for Rhody, this was highly predictive. Rhode Island = .5743 (28) OUT California = .5624 (37) Washington = .5566 (39) UNCW = .5455 (43) NC State = .5338 (50) Pacific = .5145 (60) Elon = .4747 (93) OUT Charlotte = .4654 (101) OUT South Florida = .4592 (107) OUT UMass Lowell = .4318 (131) OUT Portland = .4105 (142) OUT