Last Four Byes: Santa Clara, NC State, VCU, Missouri
Last Four In (Dayton-bound): Miami OH, UCF, SMU, Texas
First Three Out: Oklahoma, New Mexico, San Diego State
Not Going to Make It As an At-Large: Everyone else. Sorry Auburn, Indiana, Cincinnati, Stanford, and Virginia Tech.
Bubble Picture
It finally happened. Miami Ohio’s luck ran out. I am inclined to agree with the experts that the committee will put them in the field – but it would not be the shock of my life if they don’t. My guess is they will put them in the First Four in Dayton – sort of an “OK, show us you deserve to be in” thing. That’s what I would do at least.
Here are the things to look for the rest of the weekend:
Texas is probably cooked. New Mexico and San Diego State play each other tonight. The winner is going to bump Texas out of the field. The only way I see the Longhorns getting in is if VCU loses today and there are no other bids stolen, and even that would be far from a sure thing.
SMU is hanging by a thread. If Oklahoma beats Arkansas tonight, the Sooners will replace the Mustangs in the field.
VCU still has the opportunity for a bad loss that would put them in jeopardy. They play Duquesne tonight and then the winner of St. Joe’s-Davidson tomorrow. If they lose either of those, they could be in trouble.
Other potential bid stealers: Nevada in the Mountain West, Ole Miss in the SEC, Seton Hall and Georgetown in the Big East, anybody other than St. Louis or VCU in the Atlantic 10.
In my post from Monday, I said the following seven teams were near locks, but not quite:
Ohio State
TCU
NC State
Santa Clara
Texas
Missouri
UCF
Since then, six of those teams have confirmed that status. Santa Clara, NC State, UCF, and Missouri are my last four byes. Texas, however, had a bad loss to Ole Miss and now is in danger of missing the tournament.
The other teams that are still relevant are below. Right now there are four spots for these eight teams.
VCU
SMU
Texas
New Mexico
Auburn
San Diego State
Indiana
Oklahoma
VCU is going to be in unless they get upset in the A10 Tournament. Winning one game is probably enough although two wouldn’t hurt.
SMU and Texas have no more games left. All they can do is sit and watch and hope they don’t get passed by teams below them, Auburn and Oklahoma in particular. If Auburn and Oklahoma win today, they will breathe a little easier. But just a little.
New Mexico and San Diego State are likely headed for a semifinal showdown in the Mountain West Tournament. There is a good chance that the winner of that game gets in and the loser does not.
Auburn needs to beat Tennessee today. I think it’s that simple. Win and they’re in, lose and they’re out.
Indiana is on life support with no more games left to improve their position. Their only chance in my estimation is for Auburn, New Mexico, and San Diego State to all stumble.
Oklahoma probably needs two more wins in the SEC Tournament to get in.
Other bubble teams – Cincinnati, Stanford, Virginia Tech, Cal – are out, and with no more games left, have no opportunity to win their way back in.
Last Four Byes: NC State, Santa Clara, Texas, Missouri
Last Four In: UCF, VCU, Indiana, SMU
First Four Out: New Mexico, Stanford, Auburn, San Diego State
Next Four Out: Cincinnati, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Boise State
Bubble Situation
I’m going to put the bubble teams into three groups. Group 1 are teams that are very likely to make it, I would assess their chances as > 90%, but not 100%. Group 2 are teams that are truly on the bubble, and I wouldn’t be surprised either way. Group 3 are teams that are definitely on the outside looking in right now, but could conceivably win their way in through conference tournaments.
Group 1: Very Likely In, But Not 100%
Ohio State
TCU
NC State
Santa Clara
Texas
Missouri
UCF
Ohio State is 26th in the predictive metrics. That will get them in despite their 3-10 Quad 1 record. TCU has 3 Quad 1-A wins and no major blemishes. NC State certainly has problems with the “eye test”, but their resume is too strong to leave out. Santa Clara could really use a win over St. Mary’s tonight, but I think they will make it even if they lose. Their metrics are good and the committee respects the West Coast Conference. Texas has 6 Quad 1 wins overall and is 37th in the predictive metrics. That will be enough. Missouri has a respectable 5-7 Quad 1 record and no Quad 3/4 losses. UCF is 5-6 against Quad 1, which is a lot better than the teams chasing them. Their 55 ranking in the predictive metrics is cause for concern, but I think they’ve done enough.
Group 2: Could Go Either Way
As of right now, there are 3 bids available for these teams.
VCU
Indiana
SMU
New Mexico
Stanford
VCU has two Quad 1 wins, decent for a mid-major, and no bad losses. Their name recognition as a program can’t hurt. But they sit at 49 in the predictive rankings which is not great. Their best win is against South Florida on a neutral court, which doesn’t sound that great, but they were very competitive in losses against Utah State on a neutral court and at NC State. They also dominated Virginia Tech on a neutral court. I think they’re the best of this lot. Two wins in the A10 should be enough to secure a bid.
What Indiana has to offer are wins over UCLA on the road, Wisconsin, and Purdue, and a 35 ranking in the predictive metrics. It’s not great, but in this group, it might be enough. They would do well to beat the Northwestern/Penn State winner on Wednesday, and if they really want to feel confident, go ahead and beat Purdue on Thursday.
SMU closed out the regular season with maybe their four worst games of the year and find themselves squarely on the bubble. Their metrics are OK. They have home wins over UNC and Louisville, a win at Wake Forest, and a neutral court win over Texas A&M. They lack bad losses. They desperately need to beat Syracuse on Tuesday and Louisville on Wednesday. If they don’t, it’s going to be a coin flip at best.
New Mexico’s resume is very similar to VCU’s, and what’s fascinating is that the Lobos beat the Rams on the road earlier in the season. You can bet there will be an outcry over that if VCU makes it and New Mexico doesn’t. But I think VCU’s resume is just a hair stronger overall. The Lobos have a couple of Quad 3 losses that they would like to have back. They have a chance to boost their resume with a quarterfinal win over Boise State on Thursday. If they lose that game, they’re probably done. If they beat Boise but lose to San Diego State, it will be really close.
Stanford has 5 Quad 1 wins, which is usually enough, but they are dragged down by their 64 ranking in the predictive metrics and three Quad 3 losses. A lot will come down to how much emphasis the committee puts on the metrics. Going off wins and losses alone, the Cardinal have a good case. If they can beat NC State again on Wednesday, it will be hard to keep them out.
Group 3: Out for Now, Could Win Their Way Into an At-Large Bid
Auburn
San Diego State
Cincinnati
Oklahoma
Virginia Tech
Auburn’s main problem is their overall 16-15 record. There has never been an at-large team that was one game over .500, and only one that was two games over .500. There has also never been an at-large team with 16 losses. So for the Tigers to get in, the committee will have to break some precedents. But that could happen, as most 16 loss teams don’t sit in the top 40 in the predictive metrics like the Tigers do. I would think they would at least have to beat Tennessee and Vanderbilt and reach the semis to have a shot.
San Diego State is extremely similar to New Mexico. Same conference, nearly identical record, similar metrics, split their regular season matchups. And if they both win on Thursday, they will face each other in the Mountain West semis on Friday. That could very well be a “win and you’re in, lose and you’re out” game.
Cincinnati’s metrics are good, and they have wins over BYU, Iowa State, and Kansas on the road. But they’ve lost an awful lot of games, including an inexplicable home loss to Eastern Michigan. At a minimum, they have to beat UCF on Wednesday, and my guess is they’ll need at least one more.
Oklahoma has been flying under the bubble radar a bit, but if they could make a mini-run in the SEC Tournament – beating Texas A&M and Arkansas to make the semis, let’s say – I think they could sneak in.
Virginia Tech is a real longshot at this point, but there are plenty of opportunities to bolster their resume in the ACC Tourney. If they beat Wake on Tuesday, Clemson on Wednesday, Carolina on Thursday, and Duke on Friday? Sure, that would probably be enough. Anything short of that, probably not. Beating Carolina on Thursday would at least make them interesting.
Potential Bid-Stealers
Miami OH. Will they make it as an at-large team if they don’t win the MAC Tournament? Their situation is unprecedented and the committee will have their work cut out for them. Their metrics are terrible and they didn’t beat anybody good, literally nobody. There is obviously a lot to be said for going undefeated, but I personally am not confident they will get in.
South Florida has a better resume than Miami in my opinion, but I think they are a little short right now, and unfortunately the American Tourney is not going to give them opportunities to bolster their resume short of winning it. If they lose in the final, it will be close but I think they will fall short.
We are in the home stretch. Most teams have one regular season game remaining followed by their conference tournaments. Time is growing short to impress the committee.
The Bubble Pecking Order
In for Now
Central Florida (at West Virginia)
Missouri (vs. Arkansas)
TCU (vs. Cincinnati)
Santa Clara (MWC Tourney)
SMU (at FSU)
Indiana (at Ohio State)
New Mexico (at Utah State)
Out for Now
Auburn (at Alabama)
Cincinnati (at TCU)
VCU (at Dayton)
San Diego State (vs. UNLV)
South Florida (at Memphis, vs. Charlotte)
Seton Hall (vs. St. John’s)
Virginia Tech (at Virginia)
Oklahoma (at Texas)
Central Florida, Missouri, and TCU are near locks. But a lot of the teams below them have Quad 1 games remaining, so in theory, quite a few teams could leapfrog them. It’s unlikely that enough teams will jump them that they won’t make it, but another win would end all doubt.
Santa Clara is likely headed for a MWC tournament semifinal showdown with St. Mary’s. A win in that game would punch the Broncos’ ticket. If they lose, it is going to depend on what happens with the teams behind them in the pecking order. My guess is that they squeak in.
SMU needs to beat Florida State on Saturday. If they do, they’re probably OK. If they don’t, it will depend on the teams behind them and bid-stealers.
The Indiana / New Mexico / Auburn / Cincinnati group is very close and hard to differentiate. Interestingly, each has a very difficult road game remaining. Auburn is perhaps the easiest to diagnose. If they win at Alabama, they’ll make the field. If they don’t, they’ll be 16-15 and I don’t see the committee putting them in without a deep SEC Tourney run. Indiana and New Mexico will probably be in if they win, and are not necessarily out if they lose. Cincinnati needs a win, and maybe more.
VCU has to beat Dayton to remain in the conversation. Their best chance is to be the last man standing after the teams in front of them lose.
San Diego State‘s game with UNLV won’t help them. Their only hope, really, is that all the teams above them have tough games. It’s entirely possible that the 5 or 6 teams in front of them all lose and they benefit from that. I’m not sure even that will be enough though. Maybe if they also beat New Mexico or Boise State in the MWC Tournament.
South Florida needs to win the American Tourney. I don’t see them making it as an at-large.
Seton Hall, Virginia Tech, and Oklahoma are longshots, but they do have tough Quad 1 games left, and the teams in front of them could all lose. So if you squint, you can kind of see it. Most likely they have to win and get another similar quality win in their conference tourney to have a shot.
Other Teams
Cal, USC, Stanford, West Virginia, Tulsa… not going to happen.
Miami Ohio is an interesting case. Will they make it as an at-large if they don’t win the MAC Tournament? I don’t think anybody knows for sure. There is no precedent for an unbeaten team who hasn’t played anybody. It will be up to the committee to make a tough decision. The consensus seems to be that they will put the Red Hawks in. I wouldn’t bet on it.
Last Four In: Santa Clara, New Mexico, Auburn, TCU
First Four Out: Indiana, San Diego State, VCU, Cincinnati
Next Four Out: Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Seton Hall, Tulsa
League By League
ACC
Locks (7): Duke, Virginia, UNC, Louisville, Clemson, Miami, NC State. I’m calling the Wolfpack a lock, but if they lose their last two games, things will get uncomfortable.
In for Now (1): SMU. The Mustangs need to win at least one of their two remaining games against Miami and FSU. Winning both would probably move them to a lock.
Work to Do (1): Virginia Tech. The Hokies need to beat Virginia in the last game of the season to give themselves a fighting chance at an at-large bid.
In for Now (1): UCLA. I think the Bruins will get in if they beat either Nebraska or USC. If they lose both, they’re in trouble.
Work to Do (3): Ohio State, Indiana, USC. Ohio State and Indiana play each other in the last game of the season. That could be an elimination game. USC is definitely out right now. They have to win their last two games and probably make some noise in the Big 10 Tourney.
In for Now (1): UCF. The Knights should be OK as long as they don’t lose on Tuesday to Oklahoma State.
Work to Do (4): TCU, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Baylor. TCU is really close to the cut line right now. A win at Texas Tech would certainly do it; otherwise they probably have to beat Cincinnati in their last game. The Bearcats have BYU and TCU and probably need a sweep, although even a split would keep them interesting. West Virginia is on the outside looking in right now and must win their last two and make some noise in the Big 12 Tourney. As for Baylor – win at Houston on Wednesday and we’ll talk.
Big East
Locks (3): UConn, St. John’s, Villanova
Work to Do (1): Seton Hall. The Pirates have a tricky Quad 2 game at Xavier, then close with a home tilt against St. John’s. They need to win both.
In for Now (2): Texas, Texas A&M. Each needs to win one of their last two to feel secure.
Work to Do (2): Missouri, Auburn. Missouri has two Quad 1 games left at Oklahoma and vs. Arkansas. Two wins and they’re in, one win and they’ll be sweating it, two losses and they’re in trouble. Auburn has been taking on serious water. The LSU game on Tuesday is a must win, and they’ll need more than that to feel secure on Selection Sunday.
West Coast
Locks (2): Gonzaga, St. Mary’s
Work to Do (1): Santa Clara. Herb Sendek’s crew has finished their regular season. They need to beat St. Mary’s in the WCC Tournament to feel secure; otherwise they’ll be sweating on Selection Sunday.
Mountain West
Locks (1): Utah State
Work to Do (2): New Mexico, San Diego State. Both of these teams are very close to the cut line. The Lobos have an opportunity to cement a birth with their finale at Utah State. The Aztecs need a win at Boise on Tuesday to have a chance.
Atlantic 10
Locks (1): St. Louis
Work to Do (1): VCU. If the Rams win their last two regular season games, they will be very close to the cut line. It might be enough.
When it comes to NCAA Tournament selection, we seem to be having a moment.
Coaches are up in arms about metrics they don’t understand. Teams who feel they were unfairly left out are spurning NIT bids. Everyone has a suggestion for how to improve the process – change the metrics, change the composition of the selection committee, expand the tournament, stop giving automatic bids… the ideas are flying.
I don’t claim to have final and definitive answers to all that. No matter what system is adopted, a line must be drawn, and teams on the wrong side of the line are not going to be happy about it. But I do think some changes could be made that would increase transparency, increase the perception of objectivity, and thereby reduce the noise. I’m going to group my thoughts under two headings. First, the structure of the tournament as it relates to size and automatic vs. at-large qualifiers; then second, I will dive more deeply into the selection of at-large teams and how that should work.
Structure
The system of awarding automatic bids to conference champions has been in place since the very beginning. Prior to 1975, all Division I conference champions qualified for the tournament, and then there were a few spots reserved for Independent teams. There was no such thing as an at-large bid for a team in a conference; if you weren’t the conference champion, either by winning the regular season or the tournament, then you didn’t make the NCAA Tournament. At this time, there was no seeding. Instead, teams went into predetermined slots in the bracket. So, for example, the West region bracket might have specified that the Pac-8 champion received a bye, and the WCAC champion played the Big Sky champion in the first round.
Starting in 1975, the tournament went through a series of changes that resulted in the current system. The two most fundamental changes were the introduction of at-large bids in 1975 and the introduction of a seeding system in 1979.
The introduction of multiple bids for a single conference is typically associated with the 1974 ACC Tournament in which Maryland, acknowledged by everyone to be one of the best teams in the country, fell in the final to the David Thompson-led NC State team in the “greatest game ever played”. The Wolfpack went on to win the national championship while the Terps went home. The seeming injustice of that for Maryland was the impetus for an expansion of the NCAA Tournament field from 25 teams to 32 and the addition of an at-large bid for certain conferences.
The next major change was the introduction of a seeding system in 1979, along with a further expansion of the tournament field to 40 teams. The expansion to 40 teams necessitated the addition of another round, meaning that some teams would have to play six games to win the tournament, as most do today. Once this step was taken, it was inevitable that the tournament would eventually expand to 64 teams, thereby filling out that first round and ending the practice of teams getting byes. This happened in a series of steps between 1979 and 1985, which was the first 64-team tournament.
The seeding system introduced in 1979 brought an end to the practice of predetermined conference matchups in the bracket and essentially brought the structure of the tournament to its modern form. Since then, the only thing that has changed is the number of teams. From 2001 to 2010, there were 65 teams which resulted in a single play-in game. In 2011, the current number of 68 teams was adopted along with the First Four round in Dayton.
Expansion from 68 teams has been brought up innumerable times over the years, and there is a wide variety of opinions on the topic. The Bigger is Better crowd argues that March Madness is an amazing event, and therefore wider participation would bring more joy to more people. The Status Quo crowd is concerned that diluting the participant pool would diminish the value of the achievement. Expansion would also bring a number of practical challenges – extending the overall length of the event; where and when you would hold the additional games; are fans going to care about and show up for the first round games among teams that aren’t very good; who would get the additional bids; and so on.
One thing that is important to point out about the NCAA Tournament is that most everyone recognizes what an amazing event it is. It generates a tremendous amount of revenue for both the NCAA and for the participating schools, and everyone is leery of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. This explains why the low-major conference champions continue to have a spot in the tournament – because the participation of these teams and the Cinderella narratives that arise generate intense fan interest and therefore money. Otherwise you can bet that the power conferences would cut them out in a heartbeat and have their own tournament.
Over the past several days, I’ve heard a number of half-baked ideas put forward. Eliminate automatic bids? Not going to happen. Conference tournaments are too compelling and too exciting with the “Championship Week” brand and all that. Provide a certain number of guaranteed slots for the major conferences? I don’t see that happening either. Who decides how many slots each conference gets? What happens when the 8th place team from the ACC is better than the 7th place team from the SEC, yet they don’t get in? How would teams be selected within the conferences? With imbalanced conference schedules, that might require a selection committee within each conference. There are just too many issues.
I do think the field will eventually be expanded, but my guess is that it will be done in small increments that won’t fundamentally change the structure of the event. For example, it would be easy enough to go from 68 teams to 72. The First Four would become the First Eight, and you would need a second site in addition to Dayton. Those aren’t radical changes. If you were to go to 80, or even 96, now you’re talking about a lot of additional games. Where would they be played? Would you need to add a fourth weekend to the tournament? Is that too much of a good thing? Again, the tournament is so perfect as it is that you have to be very careful about making changes.
How At-Large Teams Are Selected
Now to get on to what I really want to talk about. This is where the real controversy lies. It seems to me that it boils down to two things: 1) the committee needs to decide and communicate what matters; and 2) the analytics they are using need to measure what matters. All the disagreements can be put under one of those two headings. Either they are disagreements about what matters, or they are disagreements about how what matters is being measured. Let’s take these two in turn.
What Matters
This is where at all starts. Quad 1 wins? Road wins? Bad losses? Non-conference strength of schedule? NET? kenpom? Early-season games? Late-season games? All these are different ways of getting at what matters to the committee.
I would like to suggest that the various views on what matters can all be aligned to one of two fundamentally different views, the Resume View and the Best Teams View. The differences between these two views are quite subtle, but they are crucial nonetheless, and they lie behind a lot of the differences and debates that we hear. Let me try to describe the two views.
Factor
Resume View
Best Teams View
The Essential Question
Who has earned the right to a bid as a result of their wins and losses?
Who are the teams most likely to be successful in the tournament?
Main Direction
Looking backward at what you have done
Looking forward at what you will do
Margin of victory
Doesn’t matter
Matters
Metrics
Results-based (e.g. Quad 1/2/3/4 record, Strength of Record)
Predictive (kenpom, BPI, etc.)
Timing
All games count the same
Recent games matter more
Eye Test
Irrelevant
Relevant
Injuries, Roster Changes
Irrelevant
Relevant
Do you understand the difference? Read it again, because this is the vital point. One thing that may be confusing is my assertion that the Best Teams View is essentially forward-looking. But I stand by that. Think about it, when you say that Team A is better than Team B, what do you really mean by that? Well, I say that a statement like that is essentially a prediction. What you really mean is that if Team A and Team B played tomorrow, all other things being equal, you would expect Team A to win. Perhaps they played last week, and Team B won. There is not necessarily a contradiction there, because you are making a forward-looking statement. Of course you are looking backward in the sense that you are drawing upon what Team A has already done, but you are doing so in an attempt to predict what they will do in the future.
Do you see how this shapes the debate? Are we using kenpom, or not? Well, that depends. If you take the Resume View, kenpom becomes irrelevant. If you take the Best Teams View, it may become very relevant, depending on your ideas on how to pick the best teams.
Are recent games more important than November and December games? In the Resume View, the answer is no. It’s about who you played and who you beat, nothing more. In the Best Teams View, recent games are more important, because they are more relevant to how good a team is right now and how they will fare in the tournament.
Best player just tore his ACL? In the Resume View, that doesn’t matter at all. It doesn’t change what you’ve already done. It doesn’t change what you’ve earned by your wins and losses. In the Best Teams View, it matters a lot. You may have been one of the 36 best teams before, but you aren’t anymore.
I hope you can see where I am going with this. Our collective thinking about this topic is so muddled primarily because we have failed to be clear about this distinction. Think about the talking heads and the variety of opinions about the Eye Test, about injury status, about the predictive metrics. What I am saying is that at the root of all that lie presuppositions, maybe unconscious but no less real, that when examined will turn out to be either the Resume View or the Best Teams View.
And I go on to assert that these two views are fundamentally incompatible, and that the selection committee’s basic problem is that they are trying to have it both ways. Either you can take the Resume View or you can take the Best Teams View, but you cannot take both. If the Resume View is right, then throw out the predictive metrics; banish all talk of the Eye Test; weigh every game the same. If the Best Teams View is right, then… well, good luck with that.
Which gets to my own position. I feel strongly that the Resume View is the correct one when it comes to picking at-large teams. Why? Well, it really comes down to this. In the immortal words of Herm Edwards, you play to win the game. That’s the object. Basketball isn’t like figure skating or gymnastics or diving where judges decide who wins based on who looks better. Basketball is about one objective, inarguable thing: who has more points at the end of the game. That’s it. And that’s why we love it. Whether you won by one point or thirty, it doesn’t matter.
Maybe you aren’t that good and got lucky to win your games. Doesn’t matter. Because you play to win the game.
Not only is this the only right and fair way to approach the decision, it also has a number of side benefits. It gets us out of the business of trying to predict the future, which humans are notoriously bad at. It gets us out of the subjective business of eye tests and other such nebulous criteria. It makes the task comparatively simple: whom did you play, where did you play them, and whom did you beat.
How What Matters is Being Measured
Now that we have arrived at the conclusion to rely solely on the Resume View, it may seem that our task is done. It’s simple. Wins are good. Losses are bad. The better the opponent, the better the win; the worse the opponent, the worse the loss. Your resume becomes the sum total of your wins and losses, with every game given equal weight. Throw out the predictive metrics, we don’t need them anymore.
You could envision a simple point system. Beating the best team in the country is 100 points. Beating the worst team in the country is 0 points. Losing to the best team in the country is 0 points. Losing to the worst team in the country is -100 points. That’s overly simplistic, but you get the idea. Add up the point totals for every team, and the top 36 get the at-large bids. Done.
But there is trouble lurking in the statement “the better the opponent, the better the win; the worse the opponent, the worse the loss”. Do you see it? The perceptive reader is saying, wait a second. I thought we just concluded that the whole notion of “better” and “worse” teams is too subjective. But if we are to reward teams more for beating good teams, we need a way to decide how good or bad teams are. Aren’t we back where we started?
In a way, we are; but I think there is a way out. The solution is that rather than banishing predictive metrics completely, we use them indirectly to determine how much credit to assign to a win, and how much debit to assign to a loss. The predictive metrics become the basis for our point system.
And so my radical proposal is this. Do away with the selection committee. No smoke-filled rooms, no subjective decisions. Instead, have a point system that is clear and transparent to everyone. When you win a game, you get points. When you lose a game, you lose points. What determines how many points you get or lose is where the opponent ranks in the predictive metrics. If Auburn is #4 in the predictive metrics and Tennessee is #7, then a win over Auburn is worth more points than a win over Tennessee. And a loss to Tennessee loses more points than a loss to Auburn. Publish the predictive metrics and the game-by-game point values on a website for everyone to see. No more guessing. You know where you stand. If you want more points, win more games against better opponents, and don’t lose games against worse ones.
There is one more devil lurking in the details. Which predictive metric or metrics should we use? Does it bother anyone else that Colorado State is #70 in the ESPN BPI but #38 in kenpom? Do we have any idea why that is the case or which one is right? Is Colorado State the 70th-best team in the country, or the 38th-best? If you’re going to use a system like the one I am suggesting, that difference matters a great deal to the teams that played Colorado State. My guess is that the NCAA doesn’t really understand how the metrics they are using work. They used kenpom, Sagarin, and ESPN BPI because they were available and the sources seemed credible. They are crossing their fingers and hoping that using them together closely approximates the truth. But just throwing more metrics together doesn’t necessarily improve the quality or accuracy of what you are measuring. Instead, you should strive to have one metric that is aligned with what you want to measure.
So that brings me to my final point. The NCAA should appoint a commission to develop their own predictive metric that measures what they want to measure and values what they want to value. Ken Pomeroy is a smart guy, but I’m not going to trust his metric at face value unless I understand how it works. Does the metric weight recent games more, or not? Does it adjust for end-of-game blowouts? How does it adjust for home-court advantage? Does it begin the season with a set of prior assumptions about team quality, or does everyone begin at zero? Pomeroy himself has been reasonably open about these things, and I’m not picking on him. What I’m saying is, the NCAA hasn’t been intentional about whether the way his metric works is they way they think it should work. Have they compared the differences in algorithm between kenpom and the BPI and then decided which they prefer? They should appoint a commission consisting of, yes, analytics gurus, but also analytically-minded coaches, players, and administrators to make decisions about how these things should be valued and create a predictive metric for the NCAA that reflects their values. Publish the algorithm for the predictive metric so that no one is guessing about how it works and so that it can be improved over time.
There you have it. My point of view on how to fix the selection process. Sure to be read by few and adopted by none, but it feels good to get it off my chest.
As a reminder, here was my final bracket. I have color-coded it to illustrate how I did. Teams in blue were picked and seeded correctly; teams in brown were one seed line off; teams in red were two or more seed lines off, or not picked correctly at all.
UConn, Purdue, Houston, Iowa State
North Carolina, Tennessee, Arizona, Marquette
Creighton, Baylor, Illinois, Auburn
Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Alabama
Florida, Wisconsin, BYU, Texas Tech
St. Mary’s, San Diego State, South Carolina, Clemson
Dayton, Gonzaga, Nevada, Washington State
Nebraska, Texas, Utah State, Boise State
Texas A&M, Colorado, Mississippi State, TCU
New Mexico, Florida Atlantic, Colorado State, Northwestern, Oklahoma, Michigan State
Drake, Oregon, NC State, Grand Canyon
James Madison, McNeese, Samford, Duquesne
Vermont, Yale, College of Charleston, UAB
Akron, Oakland, Morehead State, Colgate
Western Kentucky, South Dakota State, Long Beach State, Longwood
St. Peter’s, Stetson, Grambling, Montana State, Howard, Wagner
Adding it all up, I missed one team entirely, Oklahoma; I missed five other teams by 2 or 3 seed lines; 21 teams were off by one seed line; and 41 teams were perfect.
Is that good? One way to compare is at bracketmatrix.com. Their scoring system gives you three points for accurately predicting a team being in the field; two additional points for every team that is seeded correctly; and one additional point for every team that is seeded plus or minus one.
There are 226 brackets total brackets scored. My score was 345, which was tied for 54th. Not too shabby. Here are scores of some of the better known sites and experts:
This year’s top score: 355
Warren Nolan: 349
Washington Post: 347
The Barking Crow: 347
FOX Sports: 345
MUDVILLE ANALYTICS: 345
SI.com: 344
Bart Torvik: 344
The Athletic: 341
Jeff Borzello: 338
Sporting News: 337
Joe Lunardi/ESPN: 336
USA Today: 332
On3.com: 325
Jerry Palm/CBS: 323
I’m happy with that. The only picks I would like to have back are picking Iowa State over Carolina, which I knew was wrong as I was doing it but couldn’t stop myself, and picking Gonzaga as a 7. My model said Gonzaga was a 6, but I was influenced by external forces to knock them down to a 7.
Now for some speculation about some of the other misses. With FAU, sometimes I get the sense that the committee has its mind made up prior to the conference tournament, and then they can’t be bothered to change it based on what actually happens. FAU lost to Temple, which is a really bad loss, and it doesn’t seem to have hurt them. Same thing with Florida and Kentucky, the committee seems to have ignored the SEC Tournament. The Nevada/Boise State situation (both received much worse seeds than expected) seems to be some kind of conspiracy against the Mountain West. There was speculation that the committee felt that the Mountain West was overrated because most of their Quad 1 wins were within the league. If that’s true, that would call into question the validity of the NET rating, but that’s a discussion for another time.
There is more evidence of the committee ignoring the results of conference tournaments. Look at the St. Peter’s/Longwood situation. Longwood has a much better resume than St. Peter’s. Why did they get a lower seed? Well, a good guess is that the team that was supposed to win the MAAC, Fairfield, did have a better resume than Longwood. You can imagine the committee had Fairfield on the 15 line, and when Fairfield was upset in the conference tournament, they just did not do the work to understand how St. Peter’s resume was different and change the seeds accordingly.
Bracketmatrix has been doing this for a long time and you can look at past results on his site. Lunardi is OK, Palm is below average, although both have had some good years and some bad ones. There are just a handful of prognosticators who have been above average for five consecutive years.
Last year was my first year, and I was well below average. I definitely got better this year. We’ll see next year if my improvement is real and sustainable.
This year’s bracket reveal went mostly according to expectations. The biggest surprise was definitely Virginia getting in. I did not see that coming at all, and I am struggling to figure out why they got in.
One interesting data point is from bracketmatrix.com. If you’re not familiar with that site, it’s an compilation of hundreds of bracket predictions. It includes all the well-known ones from Joe Lunardi, Jerry Palm, SI.com, USA Today, FOX Sports, etc., but it also includes predictions from people like me. Of the 200 bracket predictions on that site, only 20 of them had Virginia in. 135 brackets had Oklahoma in; 74 had St. John’s; 22 had Indiana State. St. John’s and Indiana State were my first two out.
Why did Virginia make it? There are essentially two possible answers: politics or resume. Perhaps they made it because Tony Bennett is well-connected, or perhaps the committee felt sorry for the ACC, or perhaps the Cavaliers enlisted Tom Sheehey to make selection committee chairman Charles McClelland an offer he couldn’t refuse… I don’t have any inside information about whether any of that is true, and I’m not going to speculate on it. For the sake of this post, I’m going to assume that the Cavaliers’ resume had something that the committee liked better than Indiana State, Oklahoma, and St. John’s. What was it?
The only thing that stands out in that regard is that Virginia ranked higher in what they call the Results-Based Metrics. There are five different “computer rankings” (if you’ll excuse the loose use of that term) that the committee looks at. Two of them are results-based, meaning their rankings look backward at what a team has done. You might think of these as the resume metrics. Three of them are predictive, meaning their rankings are forward-looking, i.e. what they expect a team to do in the future.
The predictive metrics are familiar to many fans: kenpom, Jeff Sagarin, and the ESPN BPI. The results-based metrics are not as well known. One of them is called the Kevin Pauga Index (KPI), and the other is called Strength of Record (SOR).
I don’t have a clear picture on how these metrics are calculated. Strength of Record is described as the probability that an average Top 25 team would have the team’s record or better, given the schedule. OK, I can kind of understand that intuitively, even if I don’t know exactly how it’s calculated. The Kevin Pauga Index is proprietary. According to ncaa.com:
KPI ranks every team’s wins and losses on a positive-to-negative scale, where the worst-possible loss receives a value of roughly around -1.0 and the best-possible win receives a value of roughly 1.0. KPI then averages these scores across a season to give a score to a team’s winning percentage. The formula uses opponent’s winning percentage, opponent’s strength of schedule, scoring margin, pace of game, location, and opponent’s KPI ranking.
Alrighty then… in any case, whatever these metrics are, they favor Virginia. Here is how the bubble teams compare in these metrics:
Team
KPI
SOR
Average
Virginia
38
32
35
Oklahoma
50
28
39
Indiana State
40
40
40
Colorado State
28
56
42
Pitt
55
48
51.5
St. John’s
71
45
58
I don’t pretend to have enough information to know what is going on here, but I will engage in a little speculation. One of the many ways to evaluate a team is, what was their record, and what was their strength of schedule. If Team A and Team B have a similar strength of schedule, and Team A has a better record, then it follows that Team A is more deserving, right?
That reasoning is simplistic, but there is a certain persuasiveness to it. So I decided to look at Virginia compared to other teams with a similar strength of schedule. Of course I don’t know exactly how these ratings calculate strength of schedule, so I will use kenpom’s. Here is a selected group of teams with similar strength of schedule and record to Virginia:
Team
SoS Rank
W-L
Colorado State
65
24-10
Kentucky
66
23-9
Oregon
67
23-11
Nebraska
68
23-10
Duke
75
24-8
Colorado
76
24-10
Virginia
77
23-10
Washington State
84
24-9
Note, every team in this group made the tournament. And Virginia seems to fit right in. They are almost identical to Colorado. They compare reasonably well to Washington State (one game worse record, but tougher schedule).
Again, this is speculation on my part. But best I can tell, these resume metrics, especially Strength of Record, are doing something like this. Virginia did beat Florida and Texas A&M, and they did go 13-7 in the ACC – better than Pitt, Wake, Clemson, or NC State.
That’s the only good thing about Virginia’s resume that I can find. Their Quadrant 1 record was 2-7, so that wasn’t it. They look terrible on the predictive metrics, and that’s because, well, getting blown out is very bad for your predictive metrics. They lost to Wisconsin by 24, Memphis by 23, Notre Dame by 22, NC State by 16, Wake by 19, Virginia Tech by 34, and Duke by 25.
Oklahoma in particular has reason to complain. Do you realize, they did not lose a single game below Quad 1? There were undefeated in Quad 2/3/4 games. They are the only team in recent memory to go undefeated against Quad 2/3/4 and fail to get an at-large bid. Perhaps they were dinged for their non-conference strength of schedule, which was ranked only 262. But that’s deceptive; they actually played Iowa, USC, Providence, Arkansas, and UNC and went 4-1 in those games. It’s not their fault that USC and Arkansas turned out to be bad this year. What really caused that 262 ranking is that they also played four of the worst teams in Division I – Mississippi Valley State, Texas-Rio Grande Valley, Arkansas Pine Bluff, and Central Arkansas. Who cares? They played five major conference teams and a bunch of cupcakes. That’s a completely normal schedule. Should it matter that their cupcakes were even softer than everyone else’s?
Look, I’m not crying for these other teams. Their resumes were deeply flawed as well, and these are fine distinctions that have to be drawn. I personally am an advocate of emphasizing the resume more and the predictive metrics less. But the idea that some guy Kevin Pauga is the reason that Virginia is in and St. John’s is out… can you blame the coaches for being frustrated with that?