Bracketology 2024

[stinger78]

Another thought about the seedings:

Based on the NCAAT payout system, 75% of the payout is determined in the first weekend. For instance, a conference that got 8 teams in and they lost all 8 first round games would still get as much as a conference that had two school in that played each other in the championship game (each scenario the conference played 8 games that count). So, if you are a conference administrator, what is your strategy to get your conference the most money?

Two keys:

1. Get as many at large bids as possible.
2. Don't lose the first game.

Do those two things and you are golden. To achieve those things requires the same strategy based on the selection algorithm. Get your conference to be rated highly in the pre-season. This not only is a competitive advantage to get more teams in, BUT it also gives your teams the better seed, which means that you will be facing a weaker opponent in that key first game. Get a weaker oppoenent in game one means that it is more likely to get a second game. Since the payout is for games played, you want the weaker opponents.

So, the pre-season rankings are a double whammy, More teams = more games. Weaker opponents = more games. More games = more money.

Yes. This is why looking at invites and S16 participation is important. Most all of the shares have been decided by the end of the first weekend.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Nuke, basketball has mostly (perhaps completely) stopped using RPI in favor of NET. An equivalent would be if baseball started using Warren Nolan's or Massey's computer system that considers more than just wins or losses.

OK, thanks. So here's where I was going.

Since the NET algorithm largely known and it awards for playing quality teams away (it looks to have similar implicit assumptions as RPI with different math), teams which schedule weak OOC SoS get what they deserve if they are bubble teams come selection time.

 

[GT33]

Fantastic. Let the top 8 of the ACC in with the AQ's every year due to past successes. Certainly don't evaluate teams for the tournament based on what is done during the actual season in which the tournament is being played. I DGAF. The way the sport runs now I won't be watching in a few years anyways.


Pitt and Wake still suck.

Yeah, their expertise using "statistics" or "eye ball test" resulted in them getting it wrong repatedly over a decade. Who in today's day and age is allowed to be screwed up for an entire decade & not be forced to change? Oh yeah, NCAA and all others other supporting them. The you defend it despite it being indisputably jacked up. The ACC is weak, just happen to be rolling thru the NCAAT making a mockery of the selection process once again, but yeah the process used was fantastic. Keep digging you'll hit gold at some point.

 

[stinger78]

Yeah, their expertise using "statistics" or "eye ball test" resulted in them getting it wrong repatedly over a decade. Who in today's day and age is allowed to be screwed up for an entire decade & not be forced to change? Oh yeah, NCAA and all others other supporting them. The you defend it despite it being indisputably jacked up. The ACC is weak, just happen to be rolling thru the NCAAT making a mockery of the selection process once again, but yeah the process used was fantastic. Keep digging you'll hit gold at some point.

Even their “metric” said Pitt should have been there. Not really sure what the debate is about anymore, but they keep on. Meh.

 

[Peacone36]

Their metric. The one I keep saying I don’t like.

The argument is y’all want more bids based on historical success because you’re afraid of thinking for yourself and being labeled a “hater” by mass dip****s

 

[gtbeak]

Fantastic. Let the top 8 of the ACC in with the AQ's every year due to past successes. Certainly don't evaluate teams for the tournament based on what is done during the actual season in which the tournament is being played. I DGAF. The way the sport runs now I won't be watching in a few years anyways.


Pitt and Wake still suck.

It appears you are of the belief that the conference schedule is just an exhibition and something to keep us busy in January and February, rather than being a part of the actual season. Pitt went 12-8 in ACC play. Seton Hall is the only other school from the 6 power conferences to post a .600 winning percentage in conference play and fail to make the NCAA tournament. And I would argue that Seton Hall should have been in as well. Additionally, only 5 schools who played .500 ball in one of those 6 conferences failed to make the tourney, and all 5 are from the ACC and Big East. And isn't it strange that those two conferences are the most represented in the Sweet 16, with 7 of the 16 spots claimed?

 

[orientalnc]

Their metric. The one I keep saying I don’t like.

The argument is y’all want more bids based on historical success because you’re afraid of thinking for yourself and being labeled a “hater” by mass dip****s

I think every fan wants their team and conference to get the best treatment on selection Sunday. I don't care if it's the NET, or RPI, of the result of a vote by Swarm posters, there will be people (and schools) who feel they were unfairly or illegitimately left out or seeded incorrectly. I agree that the SEC and B12 and B1G seem to have gotten more bids that they deserve. But, every #1 and #2 seed is in the Sweet 16. Only one double digit seed made it. It looks like the NCAA did a pretty decent job overall. That said, the Saturday and Sunday games (except for NC State) were, for the most part, boring.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

I hope all 4 ACC teams win their next game. But expect only two.

What is totally wrong is that we can't have an all ACC Final 4 ......... (troll).

 

[ESPNjacket]

It appears you are of the belief that the conference schedule is just an exhibition and something to keep us busy in January and February, rather than being a part of the actual season. Pitt went 12-8 in ACC play. Seton Hall is the only other school from the 6 power conferences to post a .600 winning percentage in conference play and fail to make the NCAA tournament. And I would argue that Seton Hall should have been in as well. Additionally, only 5 schools who played .500 ball in one of those 6 conferences failed to make the tourney, and all 5 are from the ACC and Big East. And isn't it strange that those two conferences are the most represented in the Sweet 16, with 7 of the 16 spots claimed?

Right. And Pitt was 40th in NET. Quads are an arbitrary concept, lines drawn in the sand. Out of conference strength of schedule is already in the NET rankings. Using that a second time weighs too heavily and weighs Nov-Dec too heavily at the expense of conference play and Jan-Feb.

 

[stinger78]

It appears you are of the belief that the conference schedule is just an exhibition and something to keep us busy in January and February, rather than being a part of the actual season. Pitt went 12-8 in ACC play. Seton Hall is the only other school from the 6 power conferences to post a .600 winning percentage in conference play and fail to make the NCAA tournament. And I would argue that Seton Hall should have been in as well. Additionally, only 5 schools who played .500 ball in one of those 6 conferences failed to make the tourney, and all 5 are from the ACC and Big East. And isn't it strange that those two conferences are the most represented in the Sweet 16, with 7 of the 16 spots claimed?

More nuggets keep on raining down on the crappy bias the committee has been perpetuating.

 

[stinger78]

I think every fan wants their team and conference to get the best treatment on selection Sunday. I don't care if it's the NET, or RPI, of the result of a vote by Swarm posters, there will be people (and schools) who feel they were unfairly or illegitimately left out or seeded incorrectly. I agree that the SEC and B12 and B1G seem to have gotten more bids that they deserve. But, every #1 and #2 seed is in the Sweet 16. Only one double digit seed made it. It looks like the NCAA did a pretty decent job overall. That said, the Saturday and Sunday games (except for NC State) were, for the most part, boring.

I agree that seeding appears to be pretty solid.

 

[gtbeak]

Continuing to think for myself, and since this discussion has really peaked my curiosity, I asked myself who should be excluded from the tourney to put Pitt and Seton Hall in. Curiously (to me at least), it wouldn't be the schools who were on the bubble as evidenced by the First 4, it seems each of those four schools belonged. Oddly to me, the schools that I don't think belong were seeded 7th, 8th, 9th, and 9th by the committee. Those would be Texas, TCU, Mississippi St., and Michigan St. Looking at their resumes, I don't see incredible non-conference success. Mississippi St had a good couple of days in November in the Hall of Fame Tip-off, and Michigan St had that game where they blew out Baylor. Texas and TCU don't really have anything of note, nor do Pitt or Seton Hall, for that matter. None had a winning conference record except for Pitt and Seton Hall. None made a deep run in their conference tourney except for Pitt. Looking at records against the remaining schools in the tourney, Mississippi St had the best win%, going 2-2. Pitt has the most wins with 3, but admittedly two of those are against the "Cinderella" NC State team. Texas has zero such wins. I honestly don't see any reason for Texas and TCU to be in this tourney, and all Mississippi St has over Pitt or Seton Hall is they did well on November 18th and 19th. Michigan St has a few "good losses".

Bottomline, I don't see anything that screams these four schools are better than Pitt and Seton Hall, whereas I see good performance over a two and half month stretch in January, February, and the first half of March that says Seton Hall and Pitt do belong in the NCAA tourney.

 

[ESPNjacket]

Continuing to think for myself, and since this discussion has really peaked my curiosity, I asked myself who should be excluded from the tourney to put Pitt and Seton Hall in. Curiously (to me at least), it wouldn't be the schools who were on the bubble as evidenced by the First 4, it seems each of those four schools belonged. Oddly to me, the schools that I don't think belong were seeded 7th, 8th, 9th, and 9th by the committee. Those would be Texas, TCU, Mississippi St., and Michigan St. Looking at their resumes, I don't see incredible non-conference success. Mississippi St had a good couple of days in November in the Hall of Fame Tip-off, and Michigan St had that game where they blew out Baylor. Texas and TCU don't really have anything of note, nor do Pitt or Seton Hall, for that matter. None had a winning conference record except for Pitt and Seton Hall. None made a deep run in their conference tourney except for Pitt. Looking at records against the remaining schools in the tourney, Mississippi St had the best win%, going 2-2. Pitt has the most wins with 3, but admittedly two of those are against the "Cinderella" NC State team. Texas has zero such wins. I honestly don't see any reason for Texas and TCU to be in this tourney, and all Mississippi St has over Pitt or Seton Hall is they did well on November 18th and 19th. Michigan St has a few "good losses".

Bottomline, I don't see anything that screams these four schools are better than Pitt and Seton Hall, whereas I see good performance over a two and half month stretch in January, February, and the first half of March that says Seton Hall and Pitt do belong in the NCAA tourney.

I am glad you posted this. Michigan State has a NET ranked 24th. I looked through their results and the only reason I can come up for that is strength of schedule. So if NET is overemphasizing SOS, then the committee uses OOC SOS, they are definitely putting too much weight on that one thing.

If I was asked to evaluate this model I would want to look at the Team Value Index methodology first.

 

[stinger78]

Continuing to think for myself, and since this discussion has really peaked my curiosity, I asked myself who should be excluded from the tourney to put Pitt and Seton Hall in. Curiously (to me at least), it wouldn't be the schools who were on the bubble as evidenced by the First 4, it seems each of those four schools belonged. Oddly to me, the schools that I don't think belong were seeded 7th, 8th, 9th, and 9th by the committee. Those would be Texas, TCU, Mississippi St., and Michigan St. Looking at their resumes, I don't see incredible non-conference success. Mississippi St had a good couple of days in November in the Hall of Fame Tip-off, and Michigan St had that game where they blew out Baylor. Texas and TCU don't really have anything of note, nor do Pitt or Seton Hall, for that matter. None had a winning conference record except for Pitt and Seton Hall. None made a deep run in their conference tourney except for Pitt. Looking at records against the remaining schools in the tourney, Mississippi St had the best win%, going 2-2. Pitt has the most wins with 3, but admittedly two of those are against the "Cinderella" NC State team. Texas has zero such wins. I honestly don't see any reason for Texas and TCU to be in this tourney, and all Mississippi St has over Pitt or Seton Hall is they did well on November 18th and 19th. Michigan St has a few "good losses".

Bottomline, I don't see anything that screams these four schools are better than Pitt and Seton Hall, whereas I see good performance over a two and half month stretch in January, February, and the first half of March that says Seton Hall and Pitt do belong in the NCAA tourney.

Good analysis, beak! I also think Wake deserved more consideration than they apparently got. If they were even close to those others then basic equity would say the under-represented ACC team should get the nod.

Wake was #43 NET, behind Texas (#30) and Miss St (#31), and essentially tied with TCU (#42). So I can see the argument for leaving out Wake vs. those teams, but you have TAMU (#45) and USCe (#51) that both got invites. How about leaving out TAMU in favor of Wake? There’s a lot of subjectivity in those invites, it appears.

 

[GT33]

Their metric. The one I keep saying I don’t like.

The argument is y’all want more bids based on historical success because you’re afraid of thinking for yourself and being labeled a “hater” by mass dip****s

ok, what would be your plan to reduce the annual number of underperfoming conference selectees until their performance raised up to the levels of the overperforming conference? You keep saying that they should use the same broken formula, yet using that formula perpetuates the same poor results. If nothing ever changes, one day it will be GT staring at an NIT vice NCAAT bid and this board will be completely losing its ****.

 

[Root4GT]

As I understand, share’s increased all the way to the championship game. No shares for that, oddly. The moat are obviously awarded for the first two rounds when the most teams are playing.

Yeah, their expertise using "statistics" or "eye ball test" resulted in them getting it wrong repatedly over a decade. Who in today's day and age is allowed to be screwed up for an entire decade & not be forced to change? Oh yeah, NCAA and all others other supporting them. The you defend it despite it being indisputably jacked up. The ACC is weak, just happen to be rolling thru the NCAAT making a mockery of the selection process once again, but yeah the process used was fantastic. Keep digging you'll hit gold at some point.

There is no ACC mockery of the selection. ACC teams have won the 6 games they were the better seed. They one 2 games where they were the worse seed. They lost one game they were an equal seed.

That is spot on selection and seeding.

 

[gtbeak]

There is no ACC mockery of the selection. ACC teams have won the 6 games they were the better seed. They one 2 games where they were the worse seed. They lost one game they were an equal seed.

That is spot on selection and seeding.

You seem to think winning 2 games where you are the lower seed out of 8 total played is insignificant. However, looking at the other conferences, only the PAC-12 can say that. The Big East is 6-0 as it should be. The Big 10 is 6-3, should be 5-4 (+1). The Big 12 is 7-6, should be 11-2 (-4!!!). The Mountain West is 3-4, as it should be. The PAC-12 is 5-3, should be 3-5 (+2). The SEC is 5-6, should be 9-2 (-4!!!). The ACC is 8-0, should be 6-2 (+2).

Looking at it as if the committee were an entry in the Swarm bracket challenge, they would have 210 + 240 = 450 points, or tied for 14th place out of 40 entries. Above average compared to our posters, yes, but not anything to really crow about. They do still have a bunch of points available to them, so a top-10 finish is within reach. ETA: Please don't bring up my ranking, it is quite embarrassing. I don't know what my cat was thinking when he made all those clicks!

 

[Root4GT]

You seem to think winning 2 games where you are the lower seed out of 8 total played is insignificant. However, looking at the other conferences, only the PAC-12 can say that. The Big East is 6-0 as it should be. The Big 10 is 6-3, should be 5-4 (+1). The Big 12 is 7-6, should be 11-2 (-4!!!). The Mountain West is 3-4, as it should be. The PAC-12 is 5-3, should be 3-5 (+2). The SEC is 5-6, should be 9-2 (-4!!!). The ACC is 8-0, should be 6-2 (+2).

Looking at it as if the committee were an entry in the Swarm bracket challenge, they would have 210 + 240 = 450 points, or tied for 14th place out of 40 entries. Above average compared to our posters, yes, but not anything to really crow about. They do still have a bunch of points available to them, so a top-10 finish is within reach. ETA: Please don't bring up my ranking, it is quite embarrassing. I don't know what my cat was thinking when he made all those clicks!

There are always upsets in the first 2 rounds. UNC as a 1 seed should not lose to a 16 or 9 seed. That would be a huge upset. Duke as a 4 seed beat 13 and 12 seed. Losing to either would be a huge upset.

Clemson as a 6 seed beat an 11 seed. Good win as this is where upsets start regularly, still Clemson was a significantly better seed. Clemson's upset of 2 seed Baylor was one of the better wins in the second round. Excellent upset win.

NCST beat a 6 seed, good upset win for sure. In their 2nd round game they beat a 14 seed. They were clearly the favored team. Good win but not unexpected.

UVA was a 10 seed playing another 10 seed in a play in game. They lost, Coin flip game.

The ACC has done well, however, the teams were properly seeded while Duke and NCST benefited from first round upsets knocking off a 5 seed that would have played Duke vice a 12 seed and a 3 seed that would have played NCST vice a 14 seed. That takes nothing away from the teams wining the games against the opponents they faced. Just don't make it sound like OMG look how great the ACC is. They are taking care of business as expected with 2 significant upsets out of 9 games. Beats the heck out of being the better seeded team who got upset!

Now go UNC, Duke, Clemson and NCST. We are now in the territory where the ACC teams will need to pull off major upsets less UNC who is a 1 seed.

 

[ESPNjacket]

There are always upsets in the first 2 rounds. UNC as a 1 seed should not lose to a 16 or 9 seed. That would be a huge upset. Duke as a 4 seed beat 13 and 12 seed. Losing to either would be a huge upset.

Clemson as a 6 seed beat an 11 seed. Good win as this is where upsets start regularly, still Clemson was a significantly better seed. Clemson's upset of 2 seed Baylor was one of the better wins in the second round. Excellent upset win.

NCST beat a 6 seed, good upset win for sure. In their 2nd round game they beat a 14 seed. They were clearly the favored team. Good win but not unexpected.

UVA was a 10 seed playing another 10 seed in a play in game. They lost, Coin flip game.

The ACC has done well, however, the teams were properly seeded while Duke and NCST benefited from first round upsets knocking off a 5 seed that would have played Duke vice a 12 seed and a 3 seed that would have played NCST vice a 14 seed. That takes nothing away from the teams wining the games against the opponents they faced. Just don't make it sound like OMG look how great the ACC is. They are taking care of business as expected with 2 significant upsets out of 9 games. Beats the heck out of being the better seeded team who got upset!

Now go UNC, Duke, Clemson and NCST. We are now in the territory where the ACC teams will need to pull off major upsets less UNC who is a 1 seed.

This is a binary approach to a probability problem. Even 1 vs. 16 isn't 100% as we have seen. 8 vs. 9 is essentially 50-50.

 

[Root4GT]

This is a binary approach to a probability problem. Even 1 vs. 16 isn't 100% as we have seen. 8 vs. 9 is essentially 50-50.

While true it changes nothing about what I said. The ACC teams won 7games they were thought to be the better team, won 2 they were thought to be the worse team and lost one they were thought to be an equal team.

Teams are seeded for a reason. As I said there are always going to be upsets in a single elimination tournament with 64 teams.