Top 16 seeds Marshall Notre Dame North Carolina Georgetown West Virginia SMU Virginia New Hampshire Clemson Wake Forest Portland UCF UCLA Hofstra Duke Stanford First-round matchups California Baptist at San Diego Omaha at Missouri State High Point at Charlotte Boston U. at Syracuse Dayton at Louisville Rider at Vermont UC Irvine at Loyola Marymount James Madison at Pittsburgh SIUE at Memphis Yale at Bryant Seattle at Oregon State LIU at Denver Mercer at FIU Lipscomb at Indiana Green Bay at Western Michigan Kentucky at Xavier
VCU was the only team to miss the field from above the cut line of 35/37. James Madison was the one team pulled up into the field to replace them. Penn State and Akron were not selected. Kentucky and Pittsburgh survived.
As far as top 16 seeds, Clemson (rpi 17), Stanford (rpi 19) and Duke (rpi 20) were given 1st-round byes while Bryant (rpi 11), Western Michigan (rpi 13) and Charlotte (rpi 14) were denied.
My initial gut instinct was Clemson would be given a top 16 seed, but then I used my metric and stepped away from that prediction. Looking at how they selected and seeded, the Committee rewarded teams that played lots of games vs. Quad 1 and Quad 2. I will tweak my metric to reflect that and see how I do next year!
I trust Gaucho Dan's RPI. I drilled down into the top 32 teams and compared their "seed" with Dan's RPI. Ignoring the regional/travel restrictions, here were the big winners & losers: Team Seed gain(+)/loss(-) JMU +18 Clemson +8 Oregon State +6 Charlotte -10 Bryant -8 Louisville -7 Hofstra -6
At-large bids by conference, with their champions in parenthesis. ACC (Clemson) – 8: Notre Dame, North Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest, Duke, Syracuse, Louisville, Pittsburgh Sun Belt (Marshall) – 4: West Virginia, Kentucky, Central Florida, James Madison American Athletic (Charlotte) – 3: Southern Methodist, Memphis, Florida International America East (Bryant) – 2: New Hampshire, Vermont Pac-12 (UCLA) – 2: Oregon State, Stanford West Coast (San Diego) – 2: Portland, Loyola Marymount Big East (Xavier) – 1: Georgetown Missouri Valley (Western Michigan) – 1: Missouri State Summit (Omaha) – 1: Denver Western Athletic Conference (California Baptist) – 1: Seattle Shocking that the Big Ten, which features former national champions Indiana, Maryland, Michigan State and Wisconsin and former Final Four/College Cup teams Michigan, Rutgers, Penn State and Ohio State, is only a one-bid league. Same for the Big East, only getting 2 bids. This is the conference of former national champs Georgetown, Akron, St. John’s and UConn, and former FF/CC teams Creighton and Providence. Crazy that the ACC adds Stanford and SMU to the mix next year. Interesting to note that whole this has been a down year for a lot of traditional powers, 10 of the 16 seeds, including the top 4, and have combined for 13 championships since 2000. Will there be a newcomer to the championship ranks, or will some team add another star in December?
How down a year for traditional powers was 2023? A total of 37 teams that have been the the College Cup/Final Four at least once, including 12 former D-I national champions, failed to make the NCAA Tournament this season. Here are said teams, in order of RPI, with the year they last appeared in the CC/FF and, if applicable, their last national title in parenthesis. Teams in italics had losing records and thus weren't eligible for tournament selection. 39. Saint Louis – 1997 (1973) 41. Akron – 2018 (2010) 43. Washington – 2021 46. Penn State – 1979 53. Ohio State – 2007 54. Connecticut – 2000 (2000) 55. Cal State Fullerton - 1993 56. Michigan State – 2018 (1968) 57. Davidson – 1992 58. Cornell – 1972 59. Providence – 2014 60. Michigan – 2010 67. UMBC – 2014 68. St. John’s – 2008 (1996) 73. Wisconsin – 1995 (1995) 74. San Francisco – 1980 (1980) 78. San Diego State – 1987 79. Santa Clara – 2003 (1989) 86. Harvard – 1987 88. Princeton – 1993 89. NC State – 1990 90. UC Santa Barbara – 2006 (2006) 93. Virginia Tech – 2007 99. Creighton - 2022 100. South Carolina – 1993 102. Maryland – 2018 (2018) 104. Rutgers – 1994 105. Massachusetts – 2007 107. Brown – 1977 108. American – 1985 114. Evansville – 1990 135. San Jose State – 1968 172. Navy – 1967 (1964) 177. Columbia – 1983 190. Army – 1966 198. Eastern Illinois – 1981 201. Howard – 1988 (1974)
The above is not to suggest this year's NCAA Tournament teams are without pedigree. Anything but; 22 of them have been to the College Cup/Final Four, most multiple times, and won a combined 34 national titles, including 11 of the last 12. There's also a couple of D-II national titles with this group. Here are the team's from this year's NCAA Tournament who have been to a CC/FF, with their most recent time there, their last national title and, if applicable, their number of D-I titles. Syracuse 2022 (2022) Indiana 2022 (2012, 8 all time) Pittsburgh 2022 Clemson 2021 (2021, 4) Notre Dame 2021 (2013) Georgetown 2021 (2019) Marshall 2020* (2020*) North Carolina 2020* (2011, 2) Stanford 2019 (2017, 3) Virginia 2019 (2014, 7) Wake Forest 2019 (2007) Denver 2016 UCLA 2014 (2002, 4) Charlotte 2011 Louisville 2010 Southern Methodist 2005 Duke 2004 (1986) Florida International 1996^ Portland 1995 San Diego 1992 SIU Edwardsville 1982 (1979)^ Long Island 1967 *Played in spring of 2021 ^Also won a DII national title (as has Seattle, which also won an NAIA natty).
I noticed that, too. Pitt doesn't have a very distinguished record, but they played 9 Quad 1 teams. They only won 1 of those and lost 6, but received what I'd say is the biggest "boost" in seeding (from a 30 RPI to ~ #20 seed) from the NCAA.
Editing this list. I mistakenly thought that JMU was hosting, when in reality it was Pitt who are the biggest winners:
Pitt has an SOS of 1. Clearly that meant something to the committee. Also, the NCAA appears to have a love-hate relationship with James Madison.
I know we've been throught this discussion before, but going 1-6-2 vs 9 Quad 1 teams qualifies you for a 10-seed jump over your RPI? Pitt BARELY qualified for the tourney w/ a 6-6-4 record, but is hosting a first round match with an effective seed of 20. As long as we're also talking about JMU (8-4-5), they went 2-3-3 against Quad 1 squads, but they aren't hosting.
Predicting who makes the NCAA Tournament can be a moving target. This Selection Committee clearly valued strong scheduling. Pitt playing the #1 SOS was a plus. Going 1-6-2 vs. Quad 1 was not a minus. In my metric, I combined Quad 1 and Quad 2 and used total points earned...figuring that would reward teams on the scheduling side. Pitt was 2-6-3 vs. Q1/2, good for 9 points. That's better than Bryant, who was 2-1-2 vs. Q1/2 for 8 points. Some would value Bryant's way-better winning percentage vs. the same group of teams...others would value Pitt playing all but 5 games against stiff competition. I think I may split up Q1 and Q2 to double the impact of scheduling. I still like the concept of using points vs. winning percentage. And as soon as I tune that up, a different Selection Committee may value some other metric more!
And I like PItt and their coach. I just think that the NCAA dropped the ball on this one. We are, of course, not privvy to practical adjustments that were made, such as travel/regional assignments and whether or not a given team has facilities sufficient to host (you used to have to ask to host each year). There also has to have been some effort to balance the number of teams from a given conference across the four brackets. These would explain SOME of the seeding and hosting selections.
I'm just saying I have not invented anything. It's not my ranking system. It's theirs. My only addition to the RPI is being able to update it in real time.
No need to worry anymore about Pitt this year as they are a 1 and done. JMU goes in and wins 2-1. The Big East Champs in Xavier gone as well Kentucky takes X out 2-0.