Recent content by wc_illini

I wasn't watching live, and was shocked by the headline. Wemby has a clean reputation, so I went in thinking it must've been a soft call, or at least soft enough that you don't eject a star player in the playoffs for it (while technically unfair, I can somewhat understand refs making an example...

I don't think that's true Teams with no chance for an at-large selection will still try to win their conference tourney. Teams on the bubble will still try to win games to solidify their chances/seed. Teams solidly in will still try to win games to improve their seed. The only teams with...

I get what you're saying, but really I disagree... The proposed system would give the #40-#64 teams (who hypothetically wouldn't win their conference tourney) an excellent path in, and would give the #64-100 teams a much better shot than than just one per conference. It could help boost some...

If they are paired like this (where # in parentheses is their overall s-curve seed): 6 (21) vs 11 (44)/11 (45) 6 (22) vs 11 (43)/11 (46) 6 (23) vs 11 (42) 6 (24) vs 11 (41) Then the 11-seed play-in winners are theoretically "worse" (by original seeding) than the 11-seeds who avoided the...

I think the priority is ensuring appropriate matchups for the 5 and 6 seeds (want all the 12 seeds to be "worse" than all the 11 seeds). The way to get the best teams all seeded correctly into the R64 would be to have the worst 24 teams (regardless of at-large or autobid) play each other...

I'm not sure an 11- or 15-seed play-in game makes a region stronger. Even if the better team wins, those are theoretically among the lower half of the 11-seeds and lower half of the 15-seeds.

This is really helpful for me to visualize what the changes actually mean. TL/DR: I think this system improves the 10-16 seeds compared to what they would be under the system that's been in place. The extra 15/16 play-ins weed out more of the worst autobid teams, bump the ~12-14 seeds one spot...

That's all true, but I would expect those effects to be much stronger for teams with recent success or very strong brand/popularity. I don't think USC basketball would benefit a whole lot from that. Regardless, as I just posted, they're more like #25 at Kalshi based on the more reliable "No"...

I'm guessing you're looking at Kalshi, but the "Yes" price is inflated for teams with a high spread. The "No" prices (which put USC ~25) are more in line with traditional books (which have them 20-25). Unfortunately you can't sort by "No" price. As for the other teams being mentioned today...

But their H.S. ranking is less relevant than their transfer ranking. To do otherwise would be like evaluating a H.S. recruit by their old rankings as an underclassman.

Wait, is that Mike LaTulip? /s

None of us are decision makers, and there's no chance it's going to happen, but it's not controversial to say that KenPom is more predictive of future game results (meaning it's a better representation of team ability) than win/loss record, especially when comparing teams that haven't played the...

In this case the conference tournament "worked", but a tournament is more likely to crown a worse champion than regular season win-loss record would (though with unbalanced schedules, I understand why some don't like that). I'd personally prefer the KenPom champion from each conference, but...

Yeah, I chose the Wikipedia blue-bloods to avoid my own biases (I meant to include UConn in my all-games comparison, in which they're #4). But as long as we're discussing who's a blue-blood, I certainly agree that IU and UCLA have played their way out for now, and several of the others are...

ESPN (link) implies the extra games will most/all be between bubble teams: "The traditional 64-team men's team bracket would still begin Thursday and look much the same. The major difference would be more teams that qualify as traditional at-larges would have to play earlier than the 64-team...