Non-BCS Bracket Placement

[Masterofreality]

By and large, I have no problem with the Bracket structures- except....

....Once again the Committee insists on putting two quality non-BCS schools against each other in the first round where one is guaranteed to get knocked off. This happened in two regions and would have been easy to correct.

MIDWEST REGION:

8-UNLV vs 9- Northern Iowa./ 7-Oklahoma State vs 10-Georgia Tech

SOUTH REGION:

7-Richmond vs 10 St. Marys. / 8-California vs 9-Louisville

How tough would it have been to just play the non-bcs vs the bcs side? Not that damn tough.

Without being a conspiracy theorist, I just don't know why they always want a couple on good non-bcs schools to knock each other off.

[Cincypunk.org]

By and large, I have no problem with the Bracket structures- except....

....Once again the Committee insists on putting two quality non-BCS schools against each other in the first round where one is guaranteed to get knocked off. This happened in two regions and would have been easy to correct.

MIDWEST REGION:

8-UNLV vs 9- Northern Iowa./ 7-Oklahoma State vs 10-Georgia Tech

SOUTH REGION:

7-Richmond vs 10 St. Marys. / 8-California vs 9-Louisville

How tough would it have been to just play the non-bcs vs the bcs side? Not that damn tough.

Without being a conspiracy theorist, I just don't know why they always want a couple on good non-bcs schools to knock each other off.

U of L has to play California
Ok St has to play Ga Tech

Maybe there is no conspiracy?

I hate when non-big 6 faces non-big 6 too, but it seems improbable a conspiracy is afoot.

[Xman95]

Of course if they paired them up against the Big 6 conferences and lost, then people would complain that they wanted to be sure a non-B6 wasn't guaranteed to move on to the second round.

And, if the teams just happened to fall how we now see them, I'm perfectly fine with it. I prefer that the conference affiliation means nothing when the field of 65 is paired off. (I just wish we could get to that point during the regular season too! Yeah, ESPN, I'm looking at you.)

[smileyy]

Thoughts from basketballprospectus.com:

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=489
http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=995

[xubrew]

By and large, I have no problem with the Bracket structures- except....

....Once again the Committee insists on putting two quality non-BCS schools against each other in the first round where one is guaranteed to get knocked off. This happened in two regions and would have been easy to correct.

MIDWEST REGION:

8-UNLV vs 9- Northern Iowa./ 7-Oklahoma State vs 10-Georgia Tech

SOUTH REGION:

7-Richmond vs 10 St. Marys. / 8-California vs 9-Louisville

How tough would it have been to just play the non-bcs vs the bcs side? Not that damn tough.

Without being a conspiracy theorist, I just don't know why they always want a couple on good non-bcs schools to knock each other off.

louisville and northern iowa could not be switched because louisville played unlv during the regular season. the only team unlv could have been switched with was california. anything else would have created a potential conference match-up prior to the elite eight. it makes no sense to send unlv all the way out to jacksonville just so they can play a bcs team. if anything, it's an indication that the committee favored unlv on the s curve because they kept them closer.

richmond can't go to the east because xavier is there. the top three teams from each conference must go to different regions, and since there were only three out of the atlantic ten, all three must be in different regions. they can't be switched with oklahoma state because of baylor, and can't be switched with byu because byu can't play on sunday. besides, that would just be trading one non bcs opponent for another. saint mary's can't switch with missouri because of texas a&m. they could have been switched with georgia tech and probably should have been if for no other reason than it doesn't send saint mary's so far east, but still, it's just one game. none of the others were avoidable without creating a much bigger hastle for the non-bcs teams (unlv) in question.

there are 33 non bcs teams in the tournament. it is impossible for all of them to play bcs teams. there are 24 first round games that feature bcs vs non-bcs teams. i don't see how you can look at that and say that they insist on matching the non-bcs schools up against one another. sometimes it just happens. not everything is a conspiracy. the winner and presumably better team will most likely face a bcs team in the second round. one could just as easily argue that they're doing this to ensure that some non-bcs teams are able to make the second round.

[muskiefan82]

This is a silly argument since a Louisville-California matchup guarantees a Big 6 team gets knocked out in the first round, doesn't it?

It's all perspective.

[SM#24]

....Once again the Committee insists on putting two quality non-BCS schools against each other in the first round where one is guaranteed to get knocked off. This happened in two regions and would have been easy to correct.

Without being a conspiracy theorist, I just don't know why they always want a couple on good non-bcs schools to knock each other off.

What reality are you a master of ?

The only conspiracy would be what you suggest, the committee manipulating the pairings as you suggest to promote a non-BCS agenda.

The reality is that one of the pairing principles is that teams from the same conference get spread across the regions so they cannot meet until the Elite 8 at the earliest, almost always if a conference gets four or less in, they are all placed in different regions. So once you get down to seeds 6-8, they do not have a lot of options as to where to place BCS teams since usually there are several already placed at that point.

Seeds 12+ were all from non-BCS conferences and deservedly so. All were auto qualifiers but 2 (UTEP and Utah St). Thus, for seeds 1-5, you were playing a non-BCS school.

In seeds 6-11, there are 9 non-BCS schools, the pairings are as follows:
5 BCS vs. non-BCS
5 BCS vs. BCS
2 non-bCS vs. non-BCS
Seems like a pretty reasonable distribution (or one that certainly does not scream CONSPIRACY).

[Masterofreality]

Hey, whoa.

I had heard the same stuff on three different commentators blogs that I just wrote on here. Brew makes solid points. I can see both sides of the argument and am definitely NOT carrying a spear. Hell, I said that by and large, the committee did a great job. It's a messageboard so let's throw it open for debate.

Personally, I like whenever a non-BCS school has a chance to play one of the alleged "big boys" because it give a chance to demolish the percieved superiority of said "big boys". Of course it always does not work out that way, but, just like Xavier scheduling up "big" you at least have the chance to succeed.

I just think that it is interesting that some of the "powers that be" that have a vested interest in keeping the "big boys" big, schedule things like Boise State vs. TCU in football relegating the little towheads to the sidelite while all of the monsters have at it.

That's my opinion. Others can have differing ones.

[xu05usmc]

The selection committee is:
Dan Guerro, UCLA
Eugene Smith Ohio St
Lainge Kennedy Kent State
Stanley Morrison UC-Riverside
Jeff Hathaway UConn
Lynn Hicke UT-San Antonio
Mike Bobinski- Xavier
Dan Beebe- Big 12
Doug Fullerton- Big Sky
Ron Wellman- Wake

So 5 members from Power Conferences and 5 from Non-Power Conferences. So I don't think there is a conspiracy with any of it. Theoretically they claim the best 1 seed is matched in a bracket with the worst 2 seed and on and on. So this could have just been a coincidence.

[LutherRackleyRulez]

Per Deadspin.com.......




The Best In NCAA Conspiracy Theories
The NCAA Selection Committee is a shadowy backroom cabal, operating with minimal transparency and zero oversight. But do they really rig the brackets? We look at five of the most plausible theories, and rank them on their merits.




http://deadspin.com/5493977/the-best-in-ncaa-conspiracy-theories

[smileyy]

I think the bigger question this year is why the seedings seem so...weird...to a lot of people. But without knowing what effects these are going to have, its hard to speculate about any sort of reasoning or conspiracy behind it.

I'm intrigued by the notion of separate selection and seeding committees, but I know that has no chance of happening, and there's little ability to judge how that would end up playing out.

FWIW, I have two brackets on ESPN -- one with my own best guesses, and one based heavily on Ken Pomeroy's predictive models (with Purdue and Syracuse downgraded a bit due to injury). It'll be interesting to see which one does better.