There seems to be more ACC fans active than any other conference. It's always been that way at least in the few years I've been here on this forum. I'm happy this forum is active PERIOD. However, I for one would like to see other top conference winners than the usual top 3 ACC teams have a go at a number 1 seeding position.
It's going to be interesting to see who gets the final No. 1 seed. Seems like it will be between Arkansas and Rutgers, who both lost in their conference title matches today. It will be equally interesting to see who gets the 2 seeds. A lot of worthy candidates: Either Rutgers or Arkansas will get one of them, surely, and then you've got UCLA, Tennessee, Michigan, Southern Cal, Georgetown, TCU, maybe North Carolina, though I certainly wouldn't give any team that didn't make top 6 in its conference a 2 seed. This should be a very competitive tourney--a lot of good teams.
Note: in the bracket table linked in the preceding post, Xavier should be a #4 seed rather than Auburn. Also, Santa Clara is a 5 Automatic Qualifier rather than a 6 at large selection.
My thin chance for that 4th number 1 seed is indeed UCLA - yes, I realize that flies in the face of RPI - however, if the goal in sports is to win games, or at least not lose, then that’s exactly what they’ve done. All season. Won the pac-12 and have not lost a game and as a bonus, seeding them as a #1 would add some geographical balance to the top seeds in the event. Not that that is necessary, but may be a consideration that is moderately relevant. Nonetheless, regardless of what teams end up where, they gotta beat whomever they’re facing on that day. Santa Clara defeated numerous tough teams on their way to the title last covid spring and it was very impressive. Should be a great event and best of luck to all those involved
How does the Alabama / Oregon matchup look for in and out? That will be the most contested take this year I think
I suspect geographical balance will come up in discussions and might work in UCLA's favor for a 1. Hard to say. As one would expect, there are discrepancies between RPI, record/eye test and rankings that make national seedings rather difficult, or fascinating, or both.
I don’t even know how this works so pardon me for the stupid question. Is there like a women’s soccer D1 committee that spends the weekend before selection campaigning for the # 5-6 teams to get a 1 seed because there’s many variables to consider?
The current RPI on the NCAA website has the following rankings 1 Florida St. ACC 16-1-2 2 Duke ACC 13-3-1 3 Rutgers Big Ten 17-3-0 4 Arkansas SEC 16-4-0 5 Michigan Big Ten 15-3-3 6 Virginia ACC 16-2-2 7 North Carolina ACC 12-2-3 8 Tennessee SEC 18-2-0 9 TCU Big 12 17-2-2 10 Georgetown Big East 13-1-6 11 Xavier Big East 16-2-1 12 Harvard Ivy League 12-2-1 13 UCLA 16-0-3 Questions 1. How is a 3 loss Rutgers team ranked so highly? B10 is a good conf, but not the ACC or PAC12 2. How is a 4 loss Arkansas team at #4 with losses to both Duke and UNC. Lost to Tenn 3-0. 3. Meanwhile a 2 loss Tenn is behind Arkansas? Meanwhile UVA is all the way down to 7? 4. Mich with 3 losses playing a B10 schedule is ahead of a 2 loss UNC and UVA? 5. Why isn't 18-2 Tennessee high than 8th? 6. I'm sorry but Harvard playing an Ivy league schedule to 12-2-1 is not worthy of #12. 7. What in the heck is UCLA doing at 13? IMO, UVA, Tennessee and UCLA should be in the convo for a #1
To get a sense about the Committee, go to the NCAA Tournament: Bracket Procedure page at the RPI for Division I Women’s Soccer website. It describes the Committee and the overall process it goes through over the course of the season. The page that precedes it (in the menu on the left) describes the factors the NCAA has laid out for the Committee to consider. The Committee also has strict rules it must follow to minimize the possibility of conflicts of interest interfering with its decision-making. Although the rules for women’s soccer are not anywhere I have been able to find, at the bottom of the linked page, you will find a link to the rules for women’s basketball. My conclusion, based on the work I have done over the years, is that the Committee is very disciplined about performing the job the NCAA has assigned it, is pretty consistent from year to year, and overall does a very good job under the circumstances.
Tom81, there is one main thing to remember: For NCAA Tournament purposes, for all sports, past seasons are irrelevant. So, before the season all teams and all conferences start out considered equal. The only thing that changes that are the results of this season. So when you say that the Big 10 is a good conference but not the ACC or Pac 12, a good response would be to tell you to try to prove it using only data from this season. Further, you cannot cherry pick the data rather you must consider all of it -- which is a very demanding task. And you cannot eye-test the data (such as, yes they lost or won that game but it was a fluke). And, early season games count just as much as later season games (unless the last eight games for a team suggest something quite unusual in comparison to earlier games). And, you have to do that in the face of limited cross-regional competition.
The RPI rankings aren't subjective which I am sure you are aware. That means that Arkansas, Rutgers, and Michigan are all higher because the numbers say so. A part of of UCLA's low rank (and quite a few West Coast teams) is that they played an 0-19 LMU. It dropped Santa Clara's RPI by 7 the other night according to Chris Henderson. (An interesting aside is how much did LMU's bad record influence the tournament seeding considering they played about 7 tournament teams). It is the RPI. Your questions and arguments are all subjective in a way. They make sense, but the RPI is following its formula without bias.
I'm a Rutgers fan so I have a bit of bias toward them but I thought I'd give try to give an explanation to their high RPI. Two of Rutgers' losses came in out of conference play against Georgetown and Princeton, two top 20 RPI teams. The last one came yesterday in the conference tournament final against Michigan. Rutgers was unbeaten in Big Ten play until then. Which, given sheer probability, was an impressive result. They had the longest winning streak in NCAA D1 soccer until the loss yesterday. I couldn't give you a reason why Michigan is so high though, especially since they had to take two of the bottom dwellers in the conference (Illinois and Maryland) into OT with both as 2-1 wins and tying Indiana and Wisconsin. By comparison, Rutgers won over Maryland 5-2 after pulling starters with 15 min left and won over Illinois 3-0 after pulling most of their starters with 20 min left. They also won 2-0 over Indiana and got the win over Wisconsin 1-0 in the conference quarterfinals. In their earlier matchup, Michigan was routed 1-4 vs Rutgers. So, head-to-head, the idea that Rutgers is only two spots higher than Michigan has me scratching my head. And the idea that Michigan is better than a Virginia team that only has one poor loss in Penn State is even more bewildering. If Michigan gets a one seed over either Rutgers or Virginia, it'll be a huge slap in the face to both teams.
Again, the rankings we are discussing are the RPI. The RPI doesn't look at head-to-head and doesn't use score lines. It is completely objective. Cpthomas can speak to this better, but I think the adjusted RPI does take into account location of games, but none of the RPI's (to my knowledge) use scores. That was one of the reason basketball moved away from the RPI. The RPI rankings are a math based formula using winning percentages of the team, their opponents, and, to a lesser extent, their opponents' opponents.
As mentioned by Nooneimportant, the RPI considers only outcomes, not scores and not whether the game went to overtime. This is a matter of conscious NCAA policy. For basketball, which does not use the RPI any more, they apparently do figure in game score to a limited extent, but I believe considering scores even to a limited extent took a battle.
Not bad cpthomas. If I am not mistaken, you got 62 out of 64. Missing on Oregon and WVU not getting in. St. John's and Alabama were in your first 5 out, though.
yeah and why are all the California teams all clustered together? I want to be totally done with UC Irvine, Santa Clara and Stanford and yet we have to face them all again?? I want to face some these east coast teams everyone’s bragging about. Tired of California schools. I’m not even bothering attending round 1.
Six Big Ten teams made it. I do not feel like counting the rest, so if someone has a conference breakdown I would love to see it.
I'm assuming they did that for travel purposes, but I'm like you, I'd like to test our mettle against other areas of the country!
The committee is given pretty strict limitations on the number of flights for round 1. The round 1 regional matchups will never go away. The problem on the west coast and south is the spacing of teams. There are limited options of teams within driving range of each other. If I remember correctly, anything under 300 miles is considered drivable.
I frankly don't know why the two bracketologists had them picked for two three seeds. Is anyone surprised the "little" conferences have it stacked against them again? Harvard being sent on the road is just absurd. I don't know for sure but assume they don't actually have a compliant host facility (even though a WPS side had played there) or perhaps didn't bid. but a mention of their top20 finish in the selection show to me is just salt in the wound as a fan. Princeton had, IMO one of the newest and finest grass facilities in the northeast. but they have been playing the last two full seasons on the sprint turf lax field which I think really does them no favors. It seems the university did another typical land grab and they're having to relocate their facility. until that gets fixed they are on an interim field. I suppose they have passed the hosting requirement ("grasslike surface") somehow but I wasn't totally sure they would. And losing to Brown surely cost them a seed even though they did have a win over top 4 Rutgers and only 2 losses against a tough national schedule. I'm not mad about it, it just fits my minimal expectations for this committee, which clearly represents other interests. I'll probably be at the Vermont game since I am near NJ, but won't be able to follow them if they go rounds deeper on the road. Xavier got a tough draw for being so close to Georgetown in RPI and records.
Nobody hates the Ivy League, I don't think--but I've yet to hear an explanation for how Harvard's RPI was so high, as it did not beat a single top 50 RPI team. The one thing that I think is glitchy about RPI is that if you play a high RPI opponent, your RPI will of course benefit--perhaps even significantly--even if you get poleaxed. And if you are a fairly good but not great team that beats a, say, top 20/25 RPI teams, the glow from that win will burnish your RPI for weeks to come! The committee does a good job but may be, in my view, a bit too slavish to RPI. For me, if you don't place in the top six of your conference, you don't deserve a 2 seed, even if your RPI is very lofty. Hello, UNC. Beyond that, LSU got in the tourney solely on RPI--some early-season good (but not great) wins. But LSU went on to positively sux in the SEC...losing 5 straight at one point before no doubt squeezing in by beating Arkansas in its last SEC game. Still, LSU finished the conference season two games under 500. I don't think any team that finishes under .500 in its conference deserves an NCAA berth--RPI and conference cachet be damned!