Anatomy of an NCAA WCBB Bracketology Prejudice

by aurabass on Mar 5, 2011 11:30 PM EST

It is now being postulated by Charlie Creme and his ESPN Bracketology that the Big Least might get 10 teams in the NCAA tournament. This seems grossly unfalr to the members of conferences with 10 or 12 teams for the following reasons.

Bear with me.

Big East W-L GB PCT W-L PCT STRK

#1 UCONN 16-0 -- 1.000 29-1 .967 W17

#12 DePaul 13-3 3 .813 26-5 .839 W1

#7 N Dame 13-3 3 .813 24-6 .800 L1

Rutgers 11-5 5 .688 18-11 .621 W4

#20 Marque 10-6 6 .625 22-7 .759 L1

Louisville 10-6 6 .625 19-11 .633 L1

Syracuse 9-7 7 .563 22-8 .733 W1

#17 Gtown 9-7 7 .563 21-9 .700 L2

St. John's 9-7 7 .563 20-9 .690 L1

W Virginia 8-8 8 .500 22-8 .733 W1

Providence 6-10 10 .375 13-15 .464 W1

Pittsburgh 5-11 11 .313 14-16 .467 W1

South Florida 3-13 13 .188 12-19 .387 L1

Villanova 3-13 13 .188 11-18 .379 W1

Cincinnati 2-14 14 .125 9-19 .321 W1

Seton Hall 1-15 15 .063 8-22 .267 L6

There is talk about this league getting 10 teams into the NCAA tournament and many of us have decried the rankings of some of these teams all season long

Perhaps it would be edifying to understand the unfair advantage this 16 team conference has over those of us who have teams in 12 or 10 member conferences.

At first it's clear that it's an incredible advantage to play any of the bottom 6 teams in this league. All of the bottom 6 have losing records In comparison there are only 2 SEC teams with losing records - Ol Miss 10 and 19 and Miss State 13 and 16. Our worst SEC team is better that the bottom two above and Ms State is better than the bottom four. The bottom 6 BEast teams scored 4 wins vs the top 10 teams in over 60 games. Some of those top 10 teams played Seton Hall, Cinncinatti, Pittsburg or Providence twice this season since the 16 game league schedule allows for 2 games vs a single team.

To take it further
Pittsburg has one win over the top 10 in the league over W.Va and losses to Dusquene, St Francis, and 12 win 18 loss Minnesota
Providence has ONE win - a 2 point win over Louisville and they lost to Alabama *our 3rd worst and Florida
and they lost to Hofstra and St Josephs
South Florida eeked out a win over GTown but lost to Samford, Nebraska and Morgan State
Villanova failed to win vs any of the top 10 and lost to Delaware, Drexel and St Josephs
Cinncinatti got a final game win over Marquette and lost to Miami Ohio, Wright State and Dayton
Seton Hall no top 10 BEast wins and losses to Drexel, Hofstra and Fla Gulf Coast

So it's clear that these TOP 10 Beast teams get a start with a 6 and 0 Beast record unless they seriously mess up and it's clear that Marquette, WVa and Louisville have some explaining to do along with St John's and Rutgers as NCAA quality teams.

WVA's best win is over IOWA STATE ranked 17 and if you look at their record you will find it difficult to justify their ranking. They also beat a then ranked 25 TCU that is now out of the NCAA it seems. So why is WVA at 22 and 8 in the tournament? They lost to Pittsburg.
ST John's best win was the first game vs Marist. - So their 20 and 9 record is NCAA bid worthy? BS
Syracuse best win is over Ohio State and we know Ohio State but 22 - 8 with one win over a questionable Big 10 team is good enough for a bid to the dance?
Louisville's best win is the mystery win over KY. - but they lost to ODU Marist Houston and Providence so at 19 and 11 they get to dance?
Marquette beat Wisc Green Bay by 3 and lost to Creighton out of conference but they are 22 and 7 with a win over DePaul in conference and a loss to Cinncinatti. Yet they are ranked 22nd? and dancing.
and finally
RUTGERS lost to Cal Temple and Boston College on the way to a 18 and 11 record yet they are in Charlie Creme's bracket.

Here's my theory. The BEast covers territory from Florida to Mass to Chicago and the cities where they play have lots of papers and writers. There are also a plethora of coaches in a 16 team league with associations with the voting coaches. The more teams in more cities equals more votes. The more coaches with more associations equals more votes.. The votes in the rankings tend to effect the Charlie Creme Bracketology and lest we forget that Bracketology is done in Bristol and it ain't Bristol Tennessee.

The Big East schedule is a very weak schedule - No home and home with the best teams facing each other on the road and at home. Instead a team my go through their schedule playing the 7 best teams at home and the worst teams on the road - what an incredible advantage.
No way this situation is fair to teams in a league where they play home and away vs the best teams in their league. Do you see it any other way?

Example of a great BEast schedule is Marquette
they got ND DePaul, Rutgers, Syracuse WVa St John's and Lousiville AT HOME and still lost to SYR ND and Rutgers.
Louisville got St Johns, Rutgers Gtown WVa and DePaul at home and ND 5x and Syr on the road losing to all of them
So is it fair to compare a Big 12 or Big 10 or SEC or Pac 10 team that has to play home and away vs the top teams in their league with a BEast team that only plays one game vs the best in their league and pads their specs with wins over 6 teams with losing records - four of which don't even get to play in the Big Least tournament. What say you? BOGUS or FAIR?

There is much more detailed data included in THIS THREAD on The SUmmiTT message board Several of the least deserving Charlie Creme NCAA Tournament Teams records from the BEast are broken down in detail according to the Real Time RPI.

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Comments

I've been thinking on this a bit, unsure of exactly how I feel.

On one hand, those top 10 teams all had decent records outside of conference. The worst was Rutgers, who was 7-6, but the rest had pretty good marks. I’d have to look further into quality of opponents and I’m not really inclined to do that, but the initial eyeball suggests those ten teams are at least good.

From there, I’d want to look at the bottom 2 or 3 that get NCAA invites and compare them to the top 4 or so teams that don’t make the cut. If there’s at least a reasonable argument that the Big East teams are as good / better, then I’m a little reluctant to read too much.

But bias? Sure. There was also a bit of bias in favor of Tennessee earlier this year when UT was probably ranked a touch high right after the Georgetown loss. At that point, they could have been dropped several slots further than they were without much argument, so the people who do rankings do have biases. And since many Big East teams have done decently well in NCAA play before, it’s easy for a pollster to assume they will do well again.

But the selection committee itself doesn’t use the polls. The Coach’s and AP polls are nothing more than an academic exercise. Will the committee hold the same bias? That, I don’t know, and I don’t really know how to quantify the bias. I do know they won’t like having so many from one conference; with 10 teams, you’ll have 3 BE teams within the same grouping in a bracket, and that in two different groupings. That depresses national interest in the tournament when you get within-conference matchups, so the committee would really prefer to avoid that. But how much will the committee value national interest? I don’t know that either.

I do know that if the Big East gets ten team in, it’s coming at the expense of a very down SEC this year. LSU should be in, but that’s it aside from the obvious top 4. Auburn should have been in (and may yet get a verygenerous nod since an opening weekend pod is playing in their arena), but losing their PG and their best rebounder was a killer. Florida would be in if they had won maybe one more game. South Carolina is in the same boat as Florida – good enough, but not soon enough.

The women’s selection committee operates under different rules than the men’s, though, so it’s tough to tell. If more than 5 SEC teams get in, we really won’t have any room to complain. If only 4 get in, then we do have a legit argument.

Hopefully next year will be a better year in the SEC.

by David Hooper on Mar 6, 2011 3:34 PM EST reply actions

Look no further that the thread link included

for a complete breakdown of each team’s out of conference wins by rpi rank of every opponent.
You will find that none of the ooc schedules was even lightly impressive.
add to that the 6 almost automatic wins off the bottom 6 teams *they were 4 and 60 vs the top 10 since some of them lost twice giving two wins to a top 10 team in conference.

The think is that the writer and coach votes keep these mediocre win loss records up in the rankings and that skews the rpi base on rankings. It’s vicious circle.

by aurabass on Mar 6, 2011 10:02 PM EST up reply actions