The abysmal performance of the BIG, the possibility that the ACC might get 3 teams into the Final 4, leads me to the conclusion that the way the NCAA picks teams for the tournament is lacking. Or, alternatively, that this year is just an outlier and metrics really are the way to go. How should teams be selected?
Is Heavy Reliance on Metrics Wrong
- Thread starter RU677381
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2 things.
1. The big ten performance narrative is being a bit carried away. Purdue, Michigan, Michigan St, Wisky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State all won games. Certainly disappointing with the depth of the run but realistically Purdue was the only team with a roster built to go deep and they certainly **** the bed.
2. Neutral site to me is the biggest equalizer to BIG teams. I feel our conference has the best home court advantages in the country and that skews underperformance on neutral sites. I could be completely wrong on this! I think Purdue in Breslin beats SPU by double digits 99% of the time.
1. The big ten performance narrative is being a bit carried away. Purdue, Michigan, Michigan St, Wisky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State all won games. Certainly disappointing with the depth of the run but realistically Purdue was the only team with a roster built to go deep and they certainly **** the bed.
2. Neutral site to me is the biggest equalizer to BIG teams. I feel our conference has the best home court advantages in the country and that skews underperformance on neutral sites. I could be completely wrong on this! I think Purdue in Breslin beats SPU by double digits 99% of the time.
Agreed. Def was a disappointment overall. I just think the narrative is a bit much. Feel like the conference had a lot of solid teams but only 1-2 truly capable of a deep run this year.
tournament bids shouldnt be based on who is the best team in March. It should be based on performance over the entire season.
committee did their job.
the analysis should be what does the B1G need to do to perform better in march
committee did their job.
the analysis should be what does the B1G need to do to perform better in march
The committee selected the right schools and seeded correctly based on thseason results.
I am puzzled as to your argument
The big 10 didnt have a top 2 seed..why would anyone expect an elite 8 big 10 school
Metrics have to take a long look in the mirror. Last year they got the PAC 12 ridiculously wrong. This year they got the ACC ridiculously wrong. Both years the B1G was really bad. The problem is the metrics rating systems do not accurately recognize the parity in college hoops and are creating an artificial ranking system.
The last few years I think the metrics and “body of work” also relies too much on initial rating from the year before and more importantly doesn’t appropriately factor in that teams improve and digress from the beginning of the year. Once it decides a team or conference is no good it’s difficult to move up or down no matter the wins. See RU!
I think you can still consider body of work but bring back last ten games as a heavily weighed factor. Having said that recognize that UCLA last year and Iowa this year hurt that conclusion.
I think the metrics also doesn’t recognize parity and that teams 1 through 125 are not really all that different metrically. In last few years we have seen a 16 beat a 1 seed, a play in team reach the Final Four and now St. Pete’s. That is proof that instead of all these play ins, the tourney should just go to 128. Bubble is not metric trash. Bubble is stronger than ever. Who is to say that Texas A&M, Wake, VCU, St. Bonnies, Iona, Dayton, St. Louis, Princeton, etc., all teams who had really nice years, if given a chance, couldn’t go on a St. Petes like run or win a few games. Given the Garden permanent games and add NIT criteria. Done. Screw the metrics.
The last few years I think the metrics and “body of work” also relies too much on initial rating from the year before and more importantly doesn’t appropriately factor in that teams improve and digress from the beginning of the year. Once it decides a team or conference is no good it’s difficult to move up or down no matter the wins. See RU!
Therein lies a bit of the problem. Because college hoops season is so long, the team in November is not the same team in March. Look at St. Pete’s, RU, ND, Miami, Texas A&M, Richmond, etc. Metrics doesn’t seem to allow for improvement of both teams and conferences during the year or consider injuries. By the same token, metrics ignores teams like Xavier, Marquette and even SHU that were in obvious visible downward spirals at the end of the year.
I think you can still consider body of work but bring back last ten games as a heavily weighed factor. Having said that recognize that UCLA last year and Iowa this year hurt that conclusion.
I think the metrics also doesn’t recognize parity and that teams 1 through 125 are not really all that different metrically. In last few years we have seen a 16 beat a 1 seed, a play in team reach the Final Four and now St. Pete’s. That is proof that instead of all these play ins, the tourney should just go to 128. Bubble is not metric trash. Bubble is stronger than ever. Who is to say that Texas A&M, Wake, VCU, St. Bonnies, Iona, Dayton, St. Louis, Princeton, etc., all teams who had really nice years, if given a chance, couldn’t go on a St. Petes like run or win a few games. Given the Garden permanent games and add NIT criteria. Done. Screw the metrics.
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They didnt get anything wrong with the pac 12 last year and acc this year. Both conferences had poor regular seasons.
Schools getting hot in the ncaa tourney does not change that. People need to stop extrapolating individual tourney runs to conferences
Do any Bball conferences adjust the seedings for championship play to reward “hot“ teams with a higher seed?
Do any football conferences give more weight to late season games to decide who plays in the championship game or for the final standings for bowls?
Do any major sports give more credit for late season wins versus early season?
No. Each game over the course of the whole carries the same weight when it comes to making the playoffs and/or seeds. The B1G did well against the P5 in the early season.
Do any football conferences give more weight to late season games to decide who plays in the championship game or for the final standings for bowls?
Do any major sports give more credit for late season wins versus early season?
No. Each game over the course of the whole carries the same weight when it comes to making the playoffs and/or seeds. The B1G did well against the P5 in the early season.
A few points:
(1) The B1G's performance, this year, was not "abysmal" in any reasonable sense of the word. It was very slightly worse than the performance that should have been expected all along, given that everyone basically knew pre-tournament that the B1G was a conference with a high number of good teams but no really elite ones. If it wasn't for last year, when the performance truly was abysmal, no one would even be talking about the B1G's performance this season IMO.
(2) The NCAA tournament field isn't really selected based on metrics.
(3) The metrics are just measuring performance in the season so far. What kind of performance exactly differs from system to system; Kenpom and Bartorvik are measuring efficiency per possession, something like Massey or Sagarin is measuring efficiency (i.e. points scored/allowed) per game, some things (like RPI or the W/L only model I built and shared here) are just measuring W/L quality. But it's all just a measurement of the performance up to this point. The pros of the computer systems is that they are consistent and unbiased. The cons (or shortcomings relative to human evaluations) are that they can't actually watch the games, generally don't know about injuries or reasons a team might be over/underperforming, etc.
There isn't any reasonable way to measure performance in the regular season that would lead one to the conclusion that, for example, this season's ACC was good or last season's PAC-12 was good. It just wasn't the case; they didn't perform well in the regular season. Also, it's not like there were a bunch of humans running around saying that #actually the ACC was stacked and all the computers were wrong. They simply did not perform well in the regular season.
Sometimes a team or group of teams will perform much better (or worse) in March than they did in the regular season. But looking at the performance in the regular season is the only reasonable way to select and seed teams. If some group or team does better or worse in the post season than they did in the regular season then that's nice (or bad) for them, but it doesn't mean the measurement of their regular season performance was wrong.
It's interesting how only "selected" things like the NCAA Tournament bring out these opinions. When the 6-seed comes out of nowhere to win the Super Bowl, no one runs around suggesting that they were seeded wrong or that we should question the idea of using regular season results to seed the playoffs.
I don't understand why you continue to do this. You are simply incorrect about the way these things work at a lot of points (as in factually incorrect about the math behind it, not just having a different opinion). If you lack the knowledge of how the systems work it's counterproductive to try to criticize them in this detailed manner.
As explained above, the "metrics" simply measure past performance. If the Pac-12 plays badly, and then later plays well, that doesn't mean the "metrics got them wrong" it means they played badly and then well.
This is 100% false, the calculations do not assume a specific amount of "parity" or lack thereof. Depending on the results of the games the teams could all have exactly the same rating or the first team could be 100 points better than the 25th team. The parity in the ratings is the parity observed in the game results.
The initial ratings are 100% phased out of all the major ratings systems that are discussed around here by March. This is factually incorrect.
This is correct although I disagree with the idea that recent games should be weighted more heavily.
Again this is factually incorrect. There is an actual numerical rating behind any computer ranking you are looking at; there is no built in assumed difference between #1 and #125. These are all calculated based on the results of the games.
This is all opinion so not wrong per se but wow do I disagree with it. Screw rewarding the 128th best team with anything. You want your shot? Get into the top 50 or win your conference tournament.
So based on the OP and some ensuing posts in this thread that use only a single elimination tournament at the end of the year as a measuring stick for how good conferences are......perhaps the MAAC should get 4 or 5 teams in the tourney.
Single elimination tournaments are sometimes about which team is clicking at a certain time. You have to look at the entire body of work to make more accurate comparisons.....not who might have flubbed a game due to heroics or mistakes in a single game - many times in the games final minutes.
Single elimination tournaments are sometimes about which team is clicking at a certain time. You have to look at the entire body of work to make more accurate comparisons.....not who might have flubbed a game due to heroics or mistakes in a single game - many times in the games final minutes.
Going to call Roger Godell and tell him he needs to be putting best teams in the playoffs and not rely on regular season
nothing to be puzzled about. Based on the results, the seedlings did not jive with the results based on the methodologies used. Think of it in terms of the college boards……if a college decides that the SAT’s are the best indicator for success, and then after four years found that there was not a correlation between board scores and success in the classroom, it might decide to use a different measurement. I am questioning whether a different measurement should be used based on this year’s results.
The only method that would seed St Peter’s/Miami/NC higher is a crystal ball…
It would be like getting knocked out of poker tournaments when going all-in with pocket Aces preflop, then wondering if maybe there are better hands than Aces.
Yes st peters should have been a 2 seed along Miami. You make no sense
And yet they still screw up. Truth hurts. Metrics can it get it so wrong as they do. UCLA & PAC 12 last year. Mockery of the metrics. ACC this year. Both cases leagues far better than metrics.
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Jesus it's like you're being willfully dumb. Have fun trolling away.
You should call him. I can't believe he did not let my Giants into the playoffs this year.
The Giants did have TWO receivers score touchdowns TOTAL between October 29th and the last game of the year!!
It is still almost impossible to believe that was even remotely possible in a passing league.
It ranks up there with not going to the NCAA tournament for 30 years.
Best of Luck,
Groz
UNC got healthy late in the year
They went 1-3 against Purdue, Kentucky, Umich, and Tenn
And then 3-4 in conference against tournament teams. There isn’t much that you can point to that would say “hey, this team should be seeded higher than 9.”
They went 1-3 against Purdue, Kentucky, Umich, and Tenn
And then 3-4 in conference against tournament teams. There isn’t much that you can point to that would say “hey, this team should be seeded higher than 9.”
You can only explain that seedings are irrelevant 1 million times, before people understand this as a concept.
The major stories of the tournament isn't the B1G.....there are more legitimate "seeding" stories.
A) Why is Gonzaga continuing to get the "overall" #1 seed, when they don't play a legitimate schedule for all 4 months??
B) Let's be honest.....St Mary's as a 5 seed, Colorado State as a 6 seed, San Diego State as an 8 seed, Boise State etc, were all placed way too high......the level of respect for the Mountain West overall was fine, where these teams were seeded, was all wrong.
C) The ACC based on UNC underachieving for 3 months, hurt their league in terms of bids.....they broke in a 1st year, 1st time Head Coach, lost a Top 50 Sophomore, Dawson Garcia early in the season and was not playing Carolina basketball....but they always remain a team with Top 10 recruiting talent every year.
D) The failure of the SEC far exceeds the B1G discussion.....we had advocates for Texas A&M, who made the NIT semifinals this week....but LSU lost its coach in a recruiting scandal, had Auburn lose as a high seed, had Kentucky lose to St Peters in Round 1 and had Tennessee win the SEC tournament, only to turn around as a 3 seed and lose to Michigan in the Round of 32.
E) The B1G disappointment is really poor awareness or perception by clueless fans. Wisconsin was a preseason 10th pick in the B1G and lost 4 starters....Purdue was overrated but should not have lost to St Peters, but has lacked a PG in the last 2 seasons.
The B1G as a conference has good players, but lacks the Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas types of front line 1 or 2 and done types. It is a well coached league that develops players and in most years, plays higher than their talent levels. Because it has a bunch of B to A- coaches that has solid but not dominant players, it's always going to land a very solid number of teams in the NCAAs.
F) The Big 12 right now has the best balance of coaches, talent, athletic abilities and challenging home courts......Places like Kansas, Baylor, Texas Tech and even some spots like Iowa State are tough to play and win in....The Oklahoma schools are very good.
The NCAAS as a tournament is typically about your lead guard play and the B1G typically doesn't have dominate PG play.....when they have (Cassius Winston, MSU) those teams can make March runs.
But if the goal for the B1G is to be at the top with the Big 12, you can't have Eric Hunter go 0-4 from the floor and score 0 points for Purdue in a NCAA tournament game....the undersized bombers like Jordan Bohannon are OK, but not difference makers. Even for a school like RU, when Mulcahy is playing good basketball, RU can beat anyone on a given night....but when a player like Mulcahy struggles and isn't a plus defender, it becomes a different story.
The teams who got bounced early, had disappearing PG or guard play.....Auburn, Kentucky and Gonzaga probably could have advanced with steady play....instead the safe and reliable guards like Novas Collin Gillespie and the guard from Carolina (Davis and Love) stepped up this March to deliver.
The major stories of the tournament isn't the B1G.....there are more legitimate "seeding" stories.
A) Why is Gonzaga continuing to get the "overall" #1 seed, when they don't play a legitimate schedule for all 4 months??
B) Let's be honest.....St Mary's as a 5 seed, Colorado State as a 6 seed, San Diego State as an 8 seed, Boise State etc, were all placed way too high......the level of respect for the Mountain West overall was fine, where these teams were seeded, was all wrong.
C) The ACC based on UNC underachieving for 3 months, hurt their league in terms of bids.....they broke in a 1st year, 1st time Head Coach, lost a Top 50 Sophomore, Dawson Garcia early in the season and was not playing Carolina basketball....but they always remain a team with Top 10 recruiting talent every year.
D) The failure of the SEC far exceeds the B1G discussion.....we had advocates for Texas A&M, who made the NIT semifinals this week....but LSU lost its coach in a recruiting scandal, had Auburn lose as a high seed, had Kentucky lose to St Peters in Round 1 and had Tennessee win the SEC tournament, only to turn around as a 3 seed and lose to Michigan in the Round of 32.
E) The B1G disappointment is really poor awareness or perception by clueless fans. Wisconsin was a preseason 10th pick in the B1G and lost 4 starters....Purdue was overrated but should not have lost to St Peters, but has lacked a PG in the last 2 seasons.
The B1G as a conference has good players, but lacks the Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas types of front line 1 or 2 and done types. It is a well coached league that develops players and in most years, plays higher than their talent levels. Because it has a bunch of B to A- coaches that has solid but not dominant players, it's always going to land a very solid number of teams in the NCAAs.
F) The Big 12 right now has the best balance of coaches, talent, athletic abilities and challenging home courts......Places like Kansas, Baylor, Texas Tech and even some spots like Iowa State are tough to play and win in....The Oklahoma schools are very good.
The NCAAS as a tournament is typically about your lead guard play and the B1G typically doesn't have dominate PG play.....when they have (Cassius Winston, MSU) those teams can make March runs.
But if the goal for the B1G is to be at the top with the Big 12, you can't have Eric Hunter go 0-4 from the floor and score 0 points for Purdue in a NCAA tournament game....the undersized bombers like Jordan Bohannon are OK, but not difference makers. Even for a school like RU, when Mulcahy is playing good basketball, RU can beat anyone on a given night....but when a player like Mulcahy struggles and isn't a plus defender, it becomes a different story.
The teams who got bounced early, had disappearing PG or guard play.....Auburn, Kentucky and Gonzaga probably could have advanced with steady play....instead the safe and reliable guards like Novas Collin Gillespie and the guard from Carolina (Davis and Love) stepped up this March to deliver.
Well, the Big East won 3 out of the 4 Gavjtt Games contests played on Big Ten courts . . .
Don’t get the point of this.
#1) as said above unless they have a crystal ball they’ll never get it “right”
#2) and that’s the beauty of “March madness”!!!!!
#3) noooooo!!!! to 128 teams!!! Getting in needs to be tough/ needs to be special.
they must use some type of metrics. Cant ONLY rely on human judgement. But metrics should only be part of the equation. And from our inclusion I think that was obviously the case - our overall # was bad (worst? ever bad) but human judgement concluded, rightfully, that we deserved to be in.
it’s not a matter of whether to use metrics it’s a matter of how the metrics should be TWEAKED.
Imho this season revealed some necessary tweaks - we saw some examples where the metrics overvalued mediocrity, over valued bad loses over good wins, and I do think there should be some weight towards the latter half of the season (I’m sorry but good wins in February should outweigh bad losses in November and vice-versa)
#1) as said above unless they have a crystal ball they’ll never get it “right”
#2) and that’s the beauty of “March madness”!!!!!
#3) noooooo!!!! to 128 teams!!! Getting in needs to be tough/ needs to be special.
they must use some type of metrics. Cant ONLY rely on human judgement. But metrics should only be part of the equation. And from our inclusion I think that was obviously the case - our overall # was bad (worst? ever bad) but human judgement concluded, rightfully, that we deserved to be in.
it’s not a matter of whether to use metrics it’s a matter of how the metrics should be TWEAKED.
Imho this season revealed some necessary tweaks - we saw some examples where the metrics overvalued mediocrity, over valued bad loses over good wins, and I do think there should be some weight towards the latter half of the season (I’m sorry but good wins in February should outweigh bad losses in November and vice-versa)
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One of those was at Nebraska…
That being said, Big East certainly got the better of the conference in that tourney. Providence win at Kohl was a statement.
Couple things.
1. Selection/seeding is NOT based on how well teams are expected to do in the tournament. A team getting a 4 seed is based on their performance throughout the season - it is not based on an expectation that they'll reach the Sweet 16. The committee is not trying to select/seed the hottest teams on Selection Sunday, or those who they feel are positioned best to make a run.... they are rewarding a season's worth of accomplishment. Nothing more.
For example: UNC was playing much better than an 8 seed toward the end of the season, but their overall resume didn't warrant a higher berth. Alabama was playing worse than a 6 seed toward the end of the season, but their early season success helped buoy their seeding going into the tournament. Your overall resume determines your path through the tournament (what level of team you meet when), but it's not always a great predictor of tournament success - nor is it intended to be.
2. Conference level metrics are inherently flawed because they rely so heavily on the OOC schedule, which is usually only about 1/3 of a team's games, is early in the season, and is not always representative of all non-conference teams. If the B1G and the MAAC played zero OOC games, it would be impossible to really compare them with metrics - each team would be playing teams at roughly its level, and would generate similar metrics.
The way we separate conferences is by how they match up in the OOC slate - and OOC opponent selection isn't randomized to get a true picture of a conference's strength against other conferences. Instead, teams frequently "work the system" by curating their OOC slate in a way that will improve their profile (and the profile of their conference), which isn't really giving a true picture of relative strength across conference lines.
Plus, OOC games are played early in the season when new players/coaches are trying to get chemistry right, and frequently see nonstandard lineups and rotations while coaches figure out the "best fit". How a team or conference performs in November isn't really indicative of how they will perform in March - yet relative conference strength is pretty much established by late December.
Metrics are then heavily weighted by 2/3 of games being played against conference opponents, whose strength relative to the field is based on the OOC record. If your conference struggles in Nov/Dec, it sets the entire conference back somewhat in the metrics for the rest of the season because they are only playing each other.
1. Selection/seeding is NOT based on how well teams are expected to do in the tournament. A team getting a 4 seed is based on their performance throughout the season - it is not based on an expectation that they'll reach the Sweet 16. The committee is not trying to select/seed the hottest teams on Selection Sunday, or those who they feel are positioned best to make a run.... they are rewarding a season's worth of accomplishment. Nothing more.
For example: UNC was playing much better than an 8 seed toward the end of the season, but their overall resume didn't warrant a higher berth. Alabama was playing worse than a 6 seed toward the end of the season, but their early season success helped buoy their seeding going into the tournament. Your overall resume determines your path through the tournament (what level of team you meet when), but it's not always a great predictor of tournament success - nor is it intended to be.
2. Conference level metrics are inherently flawed because they rely so heavily on the OOC schedule, which is usually only about 1/3 of a team's games, is early in the season, and is not always representative of all non-conference teams. If the B1G and the MAAC played zero OOC games, it would be impossible to really compare them with metrics - each team would be playing teams at roughly its level, and would generate similar metrics.
The way we separate conferences is by how they match up in the OOC slate - and OOC opponent selection isn't randomized to get a true picture of a conference's strength against other conferences. Instead, teams frequently "work the system" by curating their OOC slate in a way that will improve their profile (and the profile of their conference), which isn't really giving a true picture of relative strength across conference lines.
Plus, OOC games are played early in the season when new players/coaches are trying to get chemistry right, and frequently see nonstandard lineups and rotations while coaches figure out the "best fit". How a team or conference performs in November isn't really indicative of how they will perform in March - yet relative conference strength is pretty much established by late December.
Metrics are then heavily weighted by 2/3 of games being played against conference opponents, whose strength relative to the field is based on the OOC record. If your conference struggles in Nov/Dec, it sets the entire conference back somewhat in the metrics for the rest of the season because they are only playing each other.
The tweaking needs to be the insane reliance on opponents sos. Its why the WCC all have inflated NETs because of Gonzaga.
Also need to figure out why Houston net was 3 overall but their resume based on who they beat was more like in with a 5/6 seed
Re: Houston
It's because the new NET was almost 100% adjusted efficiency. Any system more focused on W/L would've had them lower.
Disagree. If you are coming to win a championship, what you have done lately matters more.
I think of you lost in your last 2 games you should not be eligible for Natty in football. Champs win those games
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Yea OP, St. Peter’s should have been a 2 seed clearly, and Miami a 4. Makes sense.