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| Thursday, February 28 Bracket Banter |
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As you read this, the month of March will be imminent or already underway. And, with it, the life of your favorite bracketologist becomes a 24/7 proposition. In order to cope with that schedule, this is our final pre-tournament "Bracket Banter" of the season. Oh, I'll still be around, but it will be for Friday chats, ESPNews appearances and near-daily updates of the projected bracket. We'll also critique the actual NCAA draw once it is released. Before getting to individual questions, I must collectively answer one that has really picked up steam the last week or so. Namely, in the absence of the former Blue Ribbon Tournament Preview edition, what is the best way to prepare for March Madness? Let me make a pair of recommendations: 1) The ESPN.com team/region pages are as good as it gets. I'm not shilling for myself here, because only a fraction of my data is part of the exhaustive package compiled by college basketball editors. I'm instead speaking from experience, as I bookmarked each of the four regions for daily reference during last year's tournament. 2) For those who really need a life, I will be editing individual team and region reports for www.bracketology.net. Much of the material on these pages will be drawn from the metrics developed the past two years in our "Box Scores and More" series. Only those interested in picking games correctly (ha, ha!) should subscribe. We now return to our regularly-scheduled program, already in progress ...
Cincy Chatter Anyway, I'm a UC alum, and while I will admit that leaving the starters in against Southern Mississippi may have been excessive, I don't think it should be considered "despicable" as you called it in Bracket Banter. I will give you this scenario as to why Steve Logan and rest were still in the game: Southern Mississippi was stuck on 33 points and could not score against the UC players that were in the game. They were at 33 from 13 minutes left to 4 minutes left, or something like that. If you were a coach and your team is busting its tail to really try to prevent a team from scoring ANOTHER field goal, then maybe you leave them in the game until the other team actually scores another point (regardless of the score). And you know what? Huggins took out Logan BEFORE Southern Miss scored again. Of all columnists, I think you would be one to have an open mind on this one and not just call it "despicable" without thinking as to a reason for leaving that group of players in the game. Huggins takes a lot of crap from a lot of journalists (rightly or wrongly, I'm not to judge), but in this case I think it was far from "despicable." Thanks for your time.
Rodney Schroeder Rod's message is one of many on this issue. Some of the others were even printable. And, while I appreciate his complimentary words, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this issue. I'm just not a fan of leaving starters in a game for no tangible reason (and I'm not sure the reason presented here is tangible). I mean, if it was 80-0 and the starting five had not allowed a basket, would you leave them in to see if they could pitch a shutout? Or would you acknowledge that the outcome was long since decided, sending your own reserves a message that they, too, deserve to play and that sportsmanship isn't a myth? Heck, I help out with an eight-year-old girls basketball team and we frequently make decisions in the interest of fairness and/or consideration of the other team. Now I'll grant you the stakes are immeasurably larger in Division I college basketball, but NOT when the margin is 50 points and the minutes are in the single digits. I don't like it when any team -- Duke, UConn women, the Lakers -- runs up a score with their stars. Sometimes it can't be helped, but this time it could have been. And if someone had fallen on Steve Logan's leg (a la Kenyon Martin), Huggins would be on the first bus to Morgantown. My mistake was in using the word "despicable" -- it was too strong and not in full consideration of the events of the game in question. The right adjective would be somewhere between "excessive" (as Rod suggests) or "embarrassing." I'll let all of you decide. P.S.: I'm told that Rob Neyer is a huge college basketball fan, which is especially ironic in that, to relax in the off-season, I always take a baseball trip! I thought in past weeks you assumed that the No. 1 overall seed got the play-in game winner, but this week you have the play-in game winner against Cincinnati, your overall No. 4. Did I misunderstand?
Paul Brushwood No, I misunderstood in earlier projections. The committee has since reaffirmed its intent to give the opening round winner (they don't like "play-in") a Friday site in the first round, regardless of pairing. They will thus consider each No. 16 seed equal, including the Tuesday survivor.
Mid-Majors (again) Instead, I offer another measure of mid-major "deservability" (hey, if you can call a column "Bracketology" I can say "deservability"). Mr. Lunardi, I present to you the NIT finalists since the NCAA tourney expanded to 64 teams:
That's 34 teams, Joe, and 24 of them are from the Big Six. Two (Virginia Tech and Notre Dame) have since joined a Big Six. So where are the deserving mid-majors? By your own admission, the middies that most deserve a bid are usually disappointed by a Big Six team making the big dance in their place. Your contention is that these teams are every bit as good as the fifth and sixth best teams in a Big Six. I would contend that the results of the NIT seem to suggest that they aren't even as good as the eighth or ninth best teams in those conferences. These Big Six teams are 17-15 for goodness sakes, yet somehow they have found a way to win their way to the NIT finals at a rate more than twice that of the top at-large candidates from the mid-majors (usually regular-season conference champs). Joe, I'm not putting down the mid-majors, but they are what they are. They are generally not as strong, fast, big or skilled as the Big Six teams. You mentioned to Jordan Cash in Bracket Banter that the upsets occur more than "every once and a while," and cited the following teams from last year's tournament: Gonzaga, Kent State, Butler, Georgia State, Hampton, Utah State and Indiana State. What you failed to mention was ALL these teams were automatic qualifiers. This means the best teams from the mid-majors deserve to go to the tournament. And there is a mechanism in place by which they can do that: winning their conference tournament. Ball State has won one Top 100 game since Nov. 20 and lost four 100+ games. That doesn't sound like a team ready to do battle with the best of the best, and yet they are in the bracket (possibly) while other majors are already preparing to play for the consolation prize. Plenty of high-quality teams are squeezed out by the automatics already, but those automatics are very deserving. This is college ball, after all, and every team getting a chance to play their way into the tournament is a fantastic way to see all types of schools represented. But if you're also going to have at-larges, they should go to the best teams, and those teams most often come from the high-majors.
Doug Houser I actually think we agree, Doug, more than we don't. A few quick responses: 1) Obviously, the vast majority of the best teams are high majors. I have simply been arguing for a little more balance in the at-large selection process (2-3 spots per year, maybe), because my data suggests that majors with losing conference records have generally performed poorly in the tournament. The Lunardi Plan is not arbitrary, but instead an objective way of making teams become "tourney eligible." I also think it reduces some of the arithmetic bias inherent in the current RPI and scheduling mechanisms. 2) The NIT is an interesting (but probably invalid) example. If we really looked at it, we'd find two things you don't mention: that the proportion of majors to mid-majors in the field makes your conclusion inevitable, and that the overwhelming majority of NIT mid-majors are forced to play on the road against the majors they draw (for mostly legitimate financial reason). Throw in game officials who don't make the NCAA cut, and the results are fairly predictable. 3) You help make my point in talking about Gonzaga, Kent or Butler as automatic qualifiers. Suppose they lost a one-point game in their conference championship? Are you saying leave them home to take a 17-15 major? A major that had infinitely more chances to prove its "deservability?" I hope not. Like most things in life, it's about balance. The last few spots of the current at-large field are out of balance. That's all I've been saying. Dear Mr. Lunardi: I am 13 and probably the biggest Gonzaga fan in the state of Kentucky. My friends all rag on me for liking the Zags, but I can't help it. Their Cinderella story is the greatest in a long time. I can't stand it when someone puts my team down without getting the facts straight. Yes they are no Duke or Maryland, but they could give them both a good run for their money. The Zags have a 25-3 record for a reason. They're simply that good. Don't ever say that they haven't played anyone good:
Then there is a man named Dan Dickau. This guy is incredible. One of the top five point guards in the nation, he can do it all. He even has his own song (if you don't believe me, go to www.gozags.com and check it out). Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that they are winners of three of the last four WCC titles. So next time someone disses the Zags, they'd better have a good argument.
Jake R. Jake is a better writer at 13 than I ever was. Come to think of it, he's a better writer than me now!
The S Curve & More Basically, the S-Curve is a curve that best describes a logistic regression model. Logistic regression is just a method used to fit a curve to a data set. The 64 seeds are like that. The selection committee has a linear model to determine how a team stacks up against other teams. RPI is an example of a linear model. But seeding (from 1 to 64) is not linear. A No. 4 seed is much closer to a No. 10 seed than a No. 10 seed is to a No. 13 seed. That is where the S-Curve comes in. The committee takes their linear results and feeds them into a logistic model. The logistic model spits out the rankings from 1 to 64, which are then subdivided into the 16 rankings we know and love. Then the committee takes the liberty to change around seeds for geographic, home court advantage and the like. It is called the S-Curve because it is spread further out when the seeds are really good (No. 1 and No. 2), more bunched up in the middle (No. 5 to No. 12), and more spread out again as the seeds get worse.
Best Regards I have no idea if the committee really works as Steve describes. But I can tell you he knows a whole lot more about statistics than I do. Thanks. I enjoy your Bracketology report on ESPN.com each week. I am continually amused by how fans get overly emotional about one person's guesstimate of the bracket which has no bearing on the actual NCAA seedings. I'm not writing to complain about your recent seedings, but I had to write after reading that the committee was looking into changing the RPI. Is this true? What do you know about it? I have developed a ranking formula that adjusts for home and road wins/losses and quality of opponents. Plus, it is straightforward and easy to understand like the RPI. Basically, it takes the RPI rating to the next degree. I can share more if you're interested. I'm sure you get a lot of e-mails about what's wrong about the RPI and how to fix it, but if the committee is seriously considering changing it, I think I have the solution. What are the chances of my ideas being heard? Take care and keep up the great work.
Jim Colton Yes, the committee is studying a possibly re-calculated RPI. No, I don't know any more about it than that. But, yes, you can be heard. Send me anything you'd like, and I'll forward it to the appropriate staff at the NCAA. Joe Lunardi is the resident Bracketologist for ESPN, ESPN.com and ESPN Radio. He is also editor and publisher of www.bracketology.net. |
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