March Madness - Response to Some Gripes

ESPN.com - NCB/NCAATOURNEY06 - 2006 Men's NCAA Tournament Bracket

I don't want to write that much about the NCAA tournament (UCONN, TEXAS, UCLA, VILLANOVA in the Final Four, with UCONN over UCLA for the championship), but I heard a lot of nonsense from some old school analysts during selection shows yesterday and I think they are missing something huge here.

Their gripe is about the percieved snub of major conferences in favor of mid-majors who are computer constructions. Billy Packer led the argument on CBS and I think his points make sense if you don't think about them with any depth. The chairman of the selection committee answered him with all the verbal ability of an academic, which is to say not effectively. So, lemme use this space to take it apart.

Billy's first argument was about past results. The mid major conference in question, the Missouri Valley, has one tournament win in the last three or four or five years, from something like 14 bids. The ACC, which also had 4 bids this year, has some large number of sweet sixteen teams in the same period. The chariman of the selection committee said that history has no place in the argument about teams this year. While I agree, I don't think that's the crux of the argument. The ACC has traditionally been seeded very high. Hell, Duke is a 3 seed if they show up and a 1 seed if they are any good at all. The MVC teams are lucky to get a seed above 9 in any given year. Despite the big output this year, Wichta State peaked the league with a 7, which might be the highest seed in the tournament for an MVC team since Larry Bird played for Indiana State. Certainly during the ESPN Era, coincidentally the same period CBS has carried the tourney. I think this is key. We should talk about the results individual seeds have produced (like HALF of the national champions have come from #1 seeds), and the expectations of the various seeds and then compare conference results with them. Since it has been rare that the MVC has been expected to leave the first round, the fact that they have one win is probably better than expectation. How well have ACC teams seeded below 8 done in the last five years? I don't have the time to look it up, but I suspect it's probably not much better than MVC teams. If you take out the 9 seeds, it's probably even lower. So, since we're talking about teams that are expected to lose in the first round, what difference does it make if we take Missouri State or Notre Dame. They're both supposed to lose.

The other thing that Billy Packer complained about is the RPI number. Let's look at UNI (Norther Iowa) and compare them to Notre Dame. UNI played, outside the conference (the relevant schedule because you can control it), the following schedule achieving these results:

11/20	W Carolina	W 68-46
11/23	at W Michigan	W 69-63
11/27	Upper Iowa Universit	W 72-47
11/29	at Iowa St	L 68-61
12/03	Loyola-Chi	W 72-56
12/06	#13 Iowa	W 67-63
12/10	UMKC	W 87-64
12/17	Florida A&M	W 76-53
12/19	at LSU	W 54-50
12/22	HawPac	W 81-47

I see wins @LSU (4 seed, Atlanta Region & 1st in the SEC West), against Iowa (3 seed, Atlanta Region, 3rd in the Big 10, and Big 10 tourney champ). Not listed above, they beat Bucknell who was ranked #24 at the time, in February. They also played Iowa State of the Big 12. The rest of the non-conference is junk, but they played the people who would play them and they beat three of em.

Notre Dame, perennial bubble-out team, produced the following non-conference results:

11/20	Lafayette	W 84-66
11/22	Hofstra	W 69-50
11/26	NC State	L 61-48
12/03	Michigan	L 71-67
12/07	at #19 Alabama	W 78-71
12/10	Fla Int'l	W 81-47
12/18	at IPFW	W 65-63
12/21	Niagara	W 80-59
12/23	Columbia	W 75-68
12/28	Fordham	W 85-49
12/30	Wofford	W 74-71

They played two quality games outside of the Big East (Michigan and Alabama) and won one of them. The rest of the schedule is junk. We should reward themn for pounding Fordham, Niagra, Columbia, and Florida International?

Now you might say that no one was looking at the Irish this year, but let's think about this. You're telling me that the only teams that the great Notre Dame can schedule are these patsies? Honkey, Please. I'm willing to accept that it's hard to get teams to do a home and home that involves going to Cedar Falls Iowa (it's only a five and a half hour drive from Saint Louis), but South Bend? I can't imagine that ND can't set a better schedule. You'd think, after being left out of the dance for the last two years they'd think long and hard. Basketball isn't like football where it takes years to book the game.

The Irish weren't on the Bubble you say. Let's take the beloved ACC's beloved bubble-heads, Florida State.

11/19	at Jacksonville	W 78-48
11/21	Alcorn St	W 85-67
11/25	at #15 Florida	L 74-66
11/29	Purdue	W 97-57
12/02	La Monroe	W 85-62
12/07	Tex South	W 90-59
12/17	BGU	W 71-60
12/20	Stetson	W 75-57
12/22	Campbell	W 108-73
12/31	Nebraska	W 74-60
02/12	UMass	W 73-63

Florida is a nice loss. Purdue and Nebraska are major conference teams that suck. Maybe you credit them for getting those plus midmajor Umass late, and you can't blame them because they only played one decent team outside of conference (despite scheduling four majors), and got creamed by that one decent team. You're telling me it's hard to get home-and-homes to Tallahayseed? Harder than Cedar Falls? You're telling me more mid majors won't score a mid-level ACC team. That's a no-lose proposition for the team coming to Tall-a-Hay-Seed. If they win,
all the bracketologists love it. If they lose, at least it looks like their trying. If FSU is up, your Strength of Schedule looks great. If their down, you couldn't know that, but at least you're trying.

One last nail to Florida State: Against the teams from their conference that are going to the big dance, they went 1-4, playing only Duke twice. So, they had a soft ACC schedule, lost tight games to the top teams in the conference, and managed to eke a win at home. UNI swept Wichita State, split with Missouri State (visitor winnings both, and UNI getting the rubber match in St. Louis in a game where MSU couldn't hit the ocean or buy a call), split with SIU (home and home, and lost the rubber in the MVC tourney in Saint Louis, SIU being a 15 minute drive away) and got swept by Creighton. In their own conference (which is not as good as the ACC, admitedly), they went .500 against the top teams. You're telling me a team that schedules well, and wins games agaisnt the best people they play should have to defer to an ACC team, just because they are in the ACC and beat up on the weaker teams there? You're going to make an argument that UNI should be in the ACC or the Big Ten? Cause if you think FSU belongs in over UNI, that's what you're saying. You're saying that geography and league matter more than winning.

My bottom line is this: Does Florida State beat UNI head to head? Maybe, maybe not. If you like the big conferences, you probably think so (I like the bigs, I do). But we don't know. So, what can we base our assumptions about who's a better team on? Who they play and how well they play them. Since FSU won a grand total of one game against good competition and scheduled very few teams that would offer them such comeptition, we don't know how good they are, other than they lost to the good teams they played, particularly on the road. Since UNI played more good teams, and fared better against them, I gotta pick them for my bracket. And that goes for Cincinatti and Seton Hall and all the other majors who don't play anyone and cry come Selection Sunday. Enjoy the NIT, losers.