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NCAA Tournament Bracket
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I obviously disagree with most of Izzo's rant (especially the part where he blames computers for mistakes caused by humans blatantly ignoring the computers), but he has a point about conference tournament champions getting auto bids. There's so much variance in a conference tournament (well, the NCAA tournament also, but that's another story), so perhaps we should weight the full body of in-conference results a bit more than who happened to win a conference tournament.
His reason for that complaint is that random bad teams get automatic bids and, due to random luck, can take down good teams in the NCAA tourney. That's a bad argument, since top seeds are at an even greater advantage if we let in some low quality auto bids.
I'd say that a better reason for the complaint is that better teams are more fun to watch and should be rewarded for being better even if they happen to get unlucky in their conference tournament. But it takes away from TV revenue during conference tourney week and some of the entertainment we all get from watching those games/highlights.
His reason for that complaint is that random bad teams get automatic bids and, due to random luck, can take down good teams in the NCAA tourney. That's a bad argument, since top seeds are at an even greater advantage if we let in some low quality auto bids.
I'd say that a better reason for the complaint is that better teams are more fun to watch and should be rewarded for being better even if they happen to get unlucky in their conference tournament. But it takes away from TV revenue during conference tourney week and some of the entertainment we all get from watching those games/highlights.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
What this committee is doing right now is LESS arbitrary than it has ever been.
Indiana State went 1-4 in Quad 1, and were projected in the field by no one serious, because the qualifications are very clear, if often extremely marginal between teams.
The committee used to be very unclear about whether a team's RPI ranking mattered. They have been crystal clear from day 1 that their NET ranking doesn't. It is just a rubric to set up the Quads which the committee uses to judge resumes.
The desire to remove human judgment entirely is an unhealthy and bad and misguided one, IMO.
Every conference is free to provide their automatic bid via any means they wish, those bids belong to the conference, not the committee. Until recently the Ivy League gave its auto bid to its regular season champion.
Conferences do tournaments because its a money maker and a fun, attention grabbing event. I assume they could do a tournament and give the autobid to the regular season champion if they wanted to, but then why would anyone pay attention to the conference tournament?
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Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yeah, I considered putting them there, but I was not sure. Like I said, I wanted to include a situation like the Illini playing at the UC in Chicago but exclude a situation like the Illini playing in even Indy. The latter requires thousands of Illini fans to travel and likely spend the night in that location, whereas packing the UC simply requires the tens of thousands of Illini fans who could make a short drive to the UC to simply not be apathetic, haha.
But yeah, I guess UConn in Boston is likely a huge homecourt advantage.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Even though Connecticut counts as New England and of course Jim Calhoun had the thick Boston accent, anecdotally I've always understood UConn to be a heavily NYC area school.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
This was my impression, as well. In fact, as far as "pro sports towns" go RE: college sports fan bases, Boston is probably one of the last ones to come to mind for me in general. Boston College seems to have an especially weak following even beyond the usual "big city apathy" or whatever. I'm sure there are a smattering of Notre Dame (football only) fans, but in general Boston seems to be less into college sports to a SIGNIFICANTLY greater degree than New York City and especially Chicago. Just my novice take.
CREAM ABDUL JABBAR
As a native New Englander, I would agree with your assessment. Pro sports rule the roost here in NE, and it doesn't matter if you're from ME, NH, VT, RI, or MA, it's the Pats, Sox, Bruins, and Celtics that get all the attention. CT, is just the northern suburb of NYC . . .
Because you think the humans were right to select Virginia ahead of Indiana St or St John's, or because of some other actual or hypothetical selection that would be different?
If they're going to rely on computers more, they should probably include a greater variety of algorithms to avoid over-exposure to the weaknesses of any single one. While imperfect, the weaknesses of these is, in my opinion, much lower and much more palatable than the weaknesses of inherently biased (and possibly corrupt) humans.
I get what you're saying, but the committee saying they're moving away from relying on metrics doesn't mean it's less arbitrary.
Indiana State was 1-4 vs Q1, but they also played 25 other games, along with the rest of the country, and they put together a resume worthy of tournament entry by any analytical measure you could find. What kept them out was the boys club behind the curtain, because they lost to Michigan State and no other Q1 team would schedule them.
A lot of the small conferences have traditionally been 1 bid so if you choked in tournament that was it. Its what makes their conference tourneys so fun.
I think its a lot better now - they at least consider these schools for an at large bid. JMO - I would rather see a 25-3 small school in the tourney over a 19-11 P5 school.
Just realized there is kind of an Illinois vs Loyola vibe going on with Iowa St and Drake. Iowa St fans confident and thinking they are making a final 4 or at least elite 8 run. Drake the mid major in state "rival" that never plays ISU. Drake not nearly as under seeded as Loyola was, though.
GrayGhost77
- Centennial, CO
Loyola was #10 in KenPom. Drake is #51. Yeah not close (and still so bogus we got paired with those guys in '21).
not sure if this is appropriate place to post this….Illinois vs Arizona 2005 game is being shown right now on Big10 network
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
Indiana State also has a very bad Quad 4 loss. Their two loss stretch to Illinois State and Southern Illinois in February removed them from at large consideration IMO, especially after the bubble shrunk due to bid thiefs. Remove the Quad 4 loss (or win one of Alabama or Mich St), and they would likely be in. 5-5 Quad 1/Quad 2 record is not enough, comparatively speaking.
I do not agree with Virginia getting in, but they were 10-10 in Quad 1/Quad 2 games and no bad losses. I can see why they were selected over Indiana State.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
And HuluTV can load EVERY channel but BTN right now.
OrangeBlue98
- Des Moines, IA
I just don't know how Drake is going to generate enough offense to pull that upset should they play. I'd love to see that, as I always enjoy some of the entertainment value of the four Iowa schools trash talking each other. There would be a lot of angry people in the office on Monday if the Cyclones were upset in that manner.
Quad records are an attempt to simplify complex comparisons down to something that a human brain can manage. It draws way too much attention to a single loss and/or groups of games that are not necessarily equal, nor does it account for margin of victory in any way (which absolutely has some predictive power, though I understand wanting to cap it for sportsmanship reasons, and there are ways to ignore garbage time).
For the record, I would have chosen St John's over Virginia, but Indiana St would have at least been reasonable. Both were clearly ahead of Virginia in a variety of ranking systems that approach things differently from each other, and much more wholistically than quad records. For example, across 59 ranking systems in the Massey Composite (though it does include the AP/coaches polls), Virginia was as high as 27 and as low as 106, with a mean and median of 55. St John's was as high as 18 and as low as 71 with a mean of 37 and a median of 35. In my opinion, it would take tremendous off-court explanations for why those should be overruled. Was a star player recently injured for St John's, or did Virginia lose a bunch of games with a star player out who is now back? Or is there a clear trend of improvement fo Virginia? If not, then seemingly comparable quad records should not negate all those systems that say they don't belong.
Chad Fleck
- Eureka, IL
I've taken Drake to do it. I like the crazy in my bracket, yet still with a 1,3,3,4 Final 4.
To me, everything you need to know about the wisdom of the committee is summed up here. The committee WILL NOT use NET to determine how good a team is. But they WILL use it to determine how good a team's opponents were? The metric isn't good enough to tell us how good you are, but it is good enough to tell us how good your opponents were... so stupid.
Unranked preseason—>2 seed—> mostly been 2nd round exits… I’ll take those odds… & I did! I think we’ll see Washington State, FWIW.
Take a minute to really think about this, in back to back games they lost to a 15 and then a 16 seed. Unless new seeding guidelines come out, no one will ever do that again.I had no idea it was so bad
Frank Schwab: Ah, the Purdue conundrum. The Boilermakers have lost to No. 13, 15 and 16 seeds the past three NCAA tournaments. It’s hard to ignore that. But this Purdue team has an unstoppable force in Zach Edey and is also a great 3-point shooting team (40.8%, second in the nation). If you ignored the previous tournament disasters, there’s no reason to not trust Purdue to make the Final Four. But it’s a little scary given the ghosts of Fairleigh Dickinson.
March Madness: Last-minute men's bracket tips to help your title chances
Time is running out to submit your tourney bracket. Scott Pianowski has some final words of wisdom to guide your picks.sports.yahoo.com
Last year, as a No. 1 seed, they lost to 16th-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson. The year before, as a No. 2 seed, they lost to 15th-seeded Saint Peter’s in the Sweet 16....
Roundtable: Which top team is the most susceptible to losing early in the 2024 NCAA Tournament?
The most exciting time of the year is here for college basketball fans: March Madness.dailycampus.com
In 2021, Purdue lost in its backyard (Indianapolis) to No. 13 seed North Texas in the first round
Purdue’s meltdown vs. Fairleigh Dickinson was an utter disaster - Sports Illustrated
The Boilermakers’ disastrous loss to Fairleigh Dickinson is the worst of a trifecta of NCAA tournament catastrophes.www.si.com
Wagner is hot and takes down Howard -watch out North Carolina!
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
Over the course of a season, one bad loss here or there absolutely carries some meaning (quad 3 or quad 4), which is why Quad system was developed. It is a simple tool to compare across resumes, especially when teams are not seperated by much. However, it is still only one criteria used.
At the end of the day there were quite a few teams snubbed due to bid thiefs this year, and every year there are teams who have valid complaints. I also would have likely chosen St. John's in over Virginia. The committee went on record stating they wanted teams to play challenging schedules. That was an unfortunate strike against Indiana State, especially since they had a couple bad losses in their conference. Ultimately, Virginia vs St. John's was closer to coin flip (Virginia had better record, similar quad 1/quad 2 profile, and no bad losses). If Virginia did not crap the bed on Tuesday, this would be less of an issue.
My issue with creating a system of selecting teams solely by efficiency metrics is that it leaves the system open to manipulation by teams (you can always try to perfect it, but there will always be holes, open to exploitation) when what we really want is for teams to play difficult schedules and win. It is a fine balancing act, and one reason why there will likely always be a human element to go with these efficiency metrics. Sometimes mistakes will be made, i.e. Virginia this year.
OrangeBlue98
- Des Moines, IA
My “head bracket” Final Four-UConn over Baylor, Marquette over Purdue, UConn over Marquette 74-68. Illinois in the Elite 8.
My “Heart”bracket-Illinois over St. Mary’s, Creighton over Houston, Illinois over Creighton 98-89 (had to pick a score for the tiebreaker in that bracket).
My “Heart”bracket-Illinois over St. Mary’s, Creighton over Houston, Illinois over Creighton 98-89 (had to pick a score for the tiebreaker in that bracket).
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