I hate for my first post to be of this nature, but I feel I must post it. I, a UCSB fan, feels, along with many others that we were screwed by the selection committee this year. UCSB was by far one of the best, if not the best in the nation this year and we get the 9th seed. Our RPI is better then any of the other teams, we were ranked #1 in atleast 2 of the 3 major polls to close the year, our record against tourny teams is 4-1-1 with the only loss against CSUN who is in our conference, and what do we get for it...a 9th seed only guarenteeing one home game. I believe that the s.c. does not know what it is doing, or that the they believe in some EAST/WEST coast rivalry. I have constantly been losing faith in the NCAA since I began my career as a Gaucho. Each year, our teams who are normally top 25 in many sports are screwed over with poor seedings. If you had a chance to see our men's soccer team play then there is no way that you can say we are not a good team and played like the #1 team in the nation. The only reason that many of us here can agree upon about why the NCAA would do this is b/c they do not believe they can earn money holding tourny games in Santa Barbara. I am disgusted and so are many others here at UCSB. If anyone can give me an outright reason why UCSB should not be a top 8 seed then please post. Any other replies would be great. Tell me what you soccer fanatics feel about this tragedy.
Actually UCLA has a beef as well. Using just the new soccerratings.com rankings and giving an equal weight to schedule strength with power rating (which it has been suggested that the committee did), the seedings look like this. 1. #6 UCLA 2. #1 Wake Forest 3. #2 Indiana 4. #9 UCSB 5. #3 Maryland 6. #4 Virginia 7. #7 SMU 8. #5 Notre Dame 9. #10 Penn State 10. #11 St. Johns 11. #8 UNC-G 12. #16 VCU 13. #12 ODU 14. #14 Creighton 15. #15 Boston College 16. #13 New Mexico
I am not on the selection committee but I do know someone who is. From the rpi list, UCSB was in fact number 9. In fact, the top 16 seeds rpi were in that order. I do not know what goes into the rpi, something like good wins, bad losses, strength of schedule. It basically seems like the BCS for college soccer. But don't worry gaucho, if you team is as good as you claim you'll be playing back in California in December.
If the committee uses RPI for seeding, that's reason enough by itself to have no faith in them. Unlike the Jones ratings, RPI and RPI strength of schedule, which the NCAA calculates, are not based on any statistical theory or model. (3/4 of RPI (and all of RPI SOS) has nothing to do with whether a team wins or loses) RPI has been compared to something a grade-school class might come up with but, actually, a grade school class could probably come up with something much more meaningful than RPI. UCSB is the highest rated team in the country in the Nov. 16 Jones ratings. But the ratings differences are fairly small, in many cases less than the standard error estimate, which means that the differences are not statistically significant. Opponent rating shouldn't be used to adjust the Jones ratings because opponent strength is already a factor in the calculation. Opponent strength has already been taken into account. The numbers in 'opp' column (which represent a median, not an average, BTW) don't serve much purpose other than to confuse people. The 'opp' figures really aren't particularly meaningful (kind of like RPI).
I agree completely. My point was that even in a system that artifically skews the seedings by a greater consideration of schedule strength as an accomodation to the "quality schedule" proponents (I had to use something), UCLA and UCSB should STILL have been seeded higher than they were. That they weren't suggests that the NCAA uses some type of methodology that can't be defended by rational means (which I suppose is not news to anyone). As I noted on the other thread about the women's tournament, the "schedule strength" argument was no better than about 50% correct when it came to 1st round match-ups, so I don't believe it's any more of a useful predictor on the men's side. What's important for the NCAA is rewarding schools that call to mind buzz words like "ACC", "Big 10", "BCS", "Notre Dame", and "Big East", since these are the staples of NCAA football and basketball (good thing there's no SEC or Big 12).
Very interesting ... from looking at nscaa.com, this is entirely plausible. XYZ made some accurate comments about the RPI, and I'll just add that it is systematically biased small conference schools. UCSB managed to get quite a few of the big boys on its schedule, and it swept through IU, UConn, Stanford, and Seton Hall. Even so, there is simply no way for a Big West school to come out on top. Some of you may remember how Gonzaga was repeatedly given low seeds in the NCAA's ... that's another example of how the RPI under-rates teams from small conferences.
The fact that you ever had faith in the committee is impressive, they usually make between two and four ridiculous mistakes every season. One can argue it has something to do with a lack of exposure as compared to the football or basketball world of the NCAA, but the fact is some of their mistakes are just laughable.
What happens on the field has to count for something. When teams like UCSB, UNCG, and New Mexico had the chance to play the big names, they took them down. What is the point of having a committee if you're going to religiously stick to some formula to determine the seedings. Subjectivity needs to combine with objectivity here. When teams (UCSB, UNM) have better records than a team (Indiana) and beat that team as well, they should be seeded ahead, regardless of what the rpi says.
I understand your concerns about the Gauchos seeding and I don't doubt that you may have a case. The thing is somebody usually gets the screws twisted on them when a committee meets to agree on some topic, issues, rankings, seedings, etc. I suppose my input here is to remind everyone that although things aren't perfect with this seeding process, a whole lot of improvements have been made over the past 15 years. It wasn't too long ago that only 24 teams made the playoffs. Can you imagine some of the top 25 teams not getting in. Well, that was the norm. I can even remember a year (early 1990's?) when the tournament committee left out the #9 team in the nation. (I think it was William & Mary, but I could be wrong - 50/50 chance) There was a big uproar about that one....well, big for soccer anyways. That may be the reason we now have 48 teams invited to the tournament. So yeah, the Gauchos got a first round bye and a home game for the 2nd round....I'd say that isn't exactly the worst fortune. Maybe you guys just need a couple runs into the final 4 to get a little more respect....then again, somebody wrote that UCLA didn't get a good seed either...so who knows?...I sure don't.
Yeah the rating system sucks and it does discriminate against weaker confrence powerhouses. My team compiled a 19-1-1 record 2 years ago and got ranked as high as #7 only to find out they were not seeded on bracket day. Oh they will also be your opponet in round 2....would say good luck but i wouldn't mean it.