Selection Sunday Discussion

[stever20]

It definitely looks like this Committee was biased against mid-major teams. Monmouth's exclusion in particular is upsetting, even when you account for losses to three sub-200 teams on the road. There probably isn't any one "objective" factor that worked against the mid-majors, though. What people often fail to realize is that the "eye test" and the subjective evaluation of teams play a big part in seeding and selection. People get caught up in the advanced metrics, the records against certain groups, the good wins and bad losses, and so on, but then they forget that there is a lot of subjectivity going on too. These Committee members watch a lot of games, for good or bad. If a certain collection of Committee members is biased toward teams with a certain type of player (e.g. top 100 kids that "look the part"), then this subconscious bias will affect how they view mid-majors with their good players who might be a little less athletic, a little shorter, and so on. A team might have all the numbers and frankly, they might have the talent, just in an non-traditional way, but it just takes enough Committee members saying that they don't "look" like a tournament team, whatever that is.

I do like what Jay Bilas said about non-conference scheduling. Essentially, the Committee has been sending a message to teams for years that they need to go out and schedule tough competition. Now, some of these teams did just that, and then they beat the good teams they scheduled, but apparently it was for nothing.

If Monmouth didn't have the 3 sub 200 losses, I'd agree with you. But when you have 3 losses to teams in the ECU/UCF/USF/Tulane mold(their RPI's very similar)- what do you expect? Even if they only had 1 of them, they get in easily I think. Monmouth made it extremely easy for the committee to say thanks but no thanks.

[BEX]

59 bracket pickers had Bona in. TULSA Zero. Not one. You have to wonder if the fix was in.

[stever20]

and let me just say. I really don't think Tulsa should have gotten in. Same with Vandy. I'd have those 2 out and probably St Bonnie's and probably even with the horrific losses Monmouth in. But I really can see why the committee took especially Tulsa. Vandy seems to me to be even worse. They lose to Tennessee. While Tulsa 8-8 road/neutral, Vandy 5-11. Vandy 2-7 vs RPI top 50(to 4-5 for Tulsa).

[DudeAnon]

59 bracket pickers had Bona in. TULSA Zero. Not one. You have to wonder if the fix was in.

Can't find the exact tweet. But the selection committee chairman is from Oklahoma and was given his first job Tulsa AD. Or something like that.

[BEX]

https://twitter.com/120Sports/status/70 ... _src=twsrc^tfw


Tulsa's PG this morning

[stever20]

Tulsa is either going to play incredible on Wednesday or get murdered. There will be no middle ground I'd guess with them.. Either play like this is free money, lets make the best of it, or lets get this over with.

[XUFan09]

It definitely looks like this Committee was biased against mid-major teams. Monmouth's exclusion in particular is upsetting, even when you account for losses to three sub-200 teams on the road. There probably isn't any one "objective" factor that worked against the mid-majors, though. What people often fail to realize is that the "eye test" and the subjective evaluation of teams play a big part in seeding and selection. People get caught up in the advanced metrics, the records against certain groups, the good wins and bad losses, and so on, but then they forget that there is a lot of subjectivity going on too. These Committee members watch a lot of games, for good or bad. If a certain collection of Committee members is biased toward teams with a certain type of player (e.g. top 100 kids that "look the part"), then this subconscious bias will affect how they view mid-majors with their good players who might be a little less athletic, a little shorter, and so on. A team might have all the numbers and frankly, they might have the talent, just in an non-traditional way, but it just takes enough Committee members saying that they don't "look" like a tournament team, whatever that is.

I do like what Jay Bilas said about non-conference scheduling. Essentially, the Committee has been sending a message to teams for years that they need to go out and schedule tough competition. Now, some of these teams did just that, and then they beat the good teams they scheduled, but apparently it was for nothing.

If Monmouth didn't have the 3 sub 200 losses, I'd agree with you. But when you have 3 losses to teams in the ECU/UCF/USF/Tulane mold(their RPI's very similar)- what do you expect? Even if they only had 1 of them, they get in easily I think. Monmouth made it extremely easy for the committee to say thanks but no thanks.

I can definitely see the argument, but you have to consider this: Monmouth played 19 games against sub-200 RPI teams. Most of those teams were in their conference, something they couldn't avoid, and frankly, when you're a mid-major/low-major, it's hard to avoid a few crappy teams in your non-conference schedule too. So, if a solid team plays that many really bad teams, 10 of them on the road, 1 neutral, and 8 at home, they are almost inevitably going to lose a few. It's just a matter of probability.

Let's consider Kenpom #54 Dayton, a clear member of the field, as an example and give them the 200+ games that Monmouth had. When Dayton plays a 200+ team, their win probability at home is between 90% and 95% usually. If we expanded this to 8 home games, that's an expected loss value of about 3/5 of a loss (so more likely to lose 1 game than lose 0). For road games, their win probability is between 75% and 85%. If we expanded this to 10 road games, that's an expected loss value of about 2 losses. Dayton didn't have any neutral court games against a sub-200 team, so there are no direct win probabilities to look at, but based on these other win probabilities, it would probably be between 85% and 90%. That's a expected loss value of about 1/8 of a loss. So, add these all up and if Dayton were to play 19 200+ RPI teams (10 road, 8 home, 1 neutral), their expected losses would be 2.725. Dayton is clearly in the field but if they were burdened with the same crappy teams as Monmouth, they would be most likely to have the same number of losses, using these rough estimations.

[Jet915]

Someone tweeted this, not sure if it's true but if it is, I think someone should lose their Chairman position considering Tulsa was like in 0 of the 50 something projected brackets.....

John Feerick
‏@AtmosFeerick
@dandakich Tulsa AD is good friends with head of selection committee, and hired him at Missouri for his first job, that's why they're in

Haha, this is what one of their players said before the selection...

[stever20]

It definitely looks like this Committee was biased against mid-major teams. Monmouth's exclusion in particular is upsetting, even when you account for losses to three sub-200 teams on the road. There probably isn't any one "objective" factor that worked against the mid-majors, though. What people often fail to realize is that the "eye test" and the subjective evaluation of teams play a big part in seeding and selection. People get caught up in the advanced metrics, the records against certain groups, the good wins and bad losses, and so on, but then they forget that there is a lot of subjectivity going on too. These Committee members watch a lot of games, for good or bad. If a certain collection of Committee members is biased toward teams with a certain type of player (e.g. top 100 kids that "look the part"), then this subconscious bias will affect how they view mid-majors with their good players who might be a little less athletic, a little shorter, and so on. A team might have all the numbers and frankly, they might have the talent, just in an non-traditional way, but it just takes enough Committee members saying that they don't "look" like a tournament team, whatever that is.

I do like what Jay Bilas said about non-conference scheduling. Essentially, the Committee has been sending a message to teams for years that they need to go out and schedule tough competition. Now, some of these teams did just that, and then they beat the good teams they scheduled, but apparently it was for nothing.

If Monmouth didn't have the 3 sub 200 losses, I'd agree with you. But when you have 3 losses to teams in the ECU/UCF/USF/Tulane mold(their RPI's very similar)- what do you expect? Even if they only had 1 of them, they get in easily I think. Monmouth made it extremely easy for the committee to say thanks but no thanks.

I can definitely see the argument, but you have to consider this: Monmouth played 19 games against sub-200 RPI teams. Most of those teams were in their conference, something they couldn't avoid, and frankly, when you're a mid-major/low-major, it's hard to avoid a few crappy teams in your non-conference schedule too. So, if a solid team plays that many really bad teams, 10 of them on the road, 1 neutral, and 8 at home, they are almost inevitably going to lose a few. It's just a matter of probability.

Let's consider Kenpom #54 Dayton, a clear member of the field, as an example and give them the 200+ games that Monmouth had. When Dayton plays a 200+ team, their win probability at home is between 90% and 95% usually. If we expanded this to 8 home games, that's an expected loss value of about 3/5 of a loss (so more likely to lose 1 game than lose 0). For road games, their win probability is between 75% and 85%. If we expanded this to 10 road games, that's an expected loss value of about 2 losses. Dayton didn't have any neutral court games against a sub-200 team, so there are no direct win probabilities to look at, but based on these other win probabilities, it would probably be between 85% and 90%. That's a expected loss value of about 1/8 of a loss. So, add these all up and if Dayton were to play 19 200+ RPI teams (10 road, 8 home, 1 neutral), their expected losses would be 2.725. Dayton is clearly in the field but if they were burdened with the same crappy teams as Monmouth, they would be most likely to have the same number of losses, using these rough estimations.

Akron 10-0
St Mary's 18-0
Princeton 15-0
Yale 13-0
Gonzaga 16-0

in the top 100 only Northern Iowa with 3(they're #70) and Siena with 4(they're #99) had more than 2 sub 200 losses. in the top 150 only 16 teams had at least 3 sub 200 losses. So even though your logic sounds great, that same logic would apply to other teams- some of whom played quite a few sub 200 games themselves...

[GoodNight&GoJays]

If top 50 rpi wins is one of the major factors to consider, then shouldn't we value top 50 RPI teams more?
St. Bonnies RPI 30- out
St. Mary's RPI 37-out
S. Dakota St RPI 28- 12 seed -
princeton, san diego st., Valpo all top 50 and out
If it's a crappy metric, why use it at all? If it's a great way to place value on a team's wins and losses, then these teams should be in. If it is used in any way to seed teams, SDSU can't be a 12. I have always been confused by the use of the RPI.