guessing the committee

[xubrew]

i'm way out of practice, but here's my guesses for tomorrow.

"bracketology" really should be a misnomer. it's a selection COMMITTEE, not a selection NUMERIC. if you've ever been on a committee of any kind, you know what i mean. there is no science to it at all. the "ology" part of it is misleading. it is impossible to quantitatively predict what a committee of human beings that is made up of individuals who undoubtedly have different mindsets will do. it's a hypothesis. nothing more, nothing less.

here is my hypothesis. i personally don't agree with much of what is on here, but i'm not listing what i think should happen. i'm guessing what i think the committee will do.

conference champs are ALL CAPS. seeding is simple. if you can divide by four you can figure it out.

fwiw, i don't think xavier would have ended up any higher than a #6 even if they'd won the conference tournament. teams don't move up if they're not beating anyone who's ahead of them, and xavier wouldn't have been. they may still end up with a #6 as it is. there are a few teams that i'm not sure about, and unlv is one of them. they could be as low as a #8 and it wouldn't surprise me.

i only assigned locations to the pod teams (#4 and higher). everyone else is kept as close to home as possible without being moved up or down more than one seed line. xavier could potentially be moved down to a #8 to be sent to cleveland if my guesses are accurate. they could also be moved up to a #6 and sent to chicago or dc. remember, the ncaa flips the bill. not only do they want to sell more tickets, they want to keep the travel costs down.


1. OHIO STATE – (Cleveland, Newark)
2. KANSAS – (Tulsa, San Antonio)
3. Notre Dame – (Chicago, New Orleans)
4. Pittsburgh – (Cleveland, Anaheim)
5. NORTH CAROLINA – (Charlotte)
6. Duke – (Charlotte)
7. SAN DIEGO STATE – (Tuscon)
8. Texas – (Denver)
9. FLORIDA – (Tampa)
10. Louisville – (Chicago)
11. CONNECTICUT – (DC)
12. Syracuse – (DC)
13. Kentucky – (Tampa)
14. Purdue – (Tulsa)
15. Wisconsin – (Denver)
16. byu – (Tuscon) (no Fridays or Sundays)
17. Saint John’s
18. Vanderbilt
19. Arizona
20. West Virginia
21. Kansas State
22. unlv
23. Texas A&M
24. Cincinnati
25. XAVIER
26. Temple
27. WASHINGTON
28. George Mason
29. Missouri
30. Tennessee
31. ucla
32. UTAH STATE
33. Penn State
34. Michigan
35. Michigan State
36. Georgetown
37. OLD DOMINION
38. Marquette
39. Illinois
40. Richmond
41. Florida State
42. Georgia
43. GONZAGA
44. Colorado – (***play-in if Dayton wins***)
45. BUTLER
46. MEMPHIS
47. Saint Mary’s – (play-in)
48. Villanova – (play-in)
49. uab – (play-in)
50. ***Virginia Tech*** (in with a Dayton loss) – (play-in)
51. vcu (out, but close)
52. Clemson (out, but close)
53. PRINCETON
54. ***DAYTON*** (in with a win)
55. BELMONT
56. OAKLAND
57. INDIANA STATE
58. BUCKNELL
59. WOFFORD
60. MOREHEAD STATE
61. LONG ISLAND
62. AKRON
63. SAINT PETER’S
64. NORTHERN COLORADO
65. BOSTON UNIVERSITY
66. UCSB
67. HAMPTON
68. UNC ASHEVILLE
69. UALR
70. TEXAS SAN ANTONIO
71. ALABAMA STATE


i don't particularly like uab on the court, but they were an out-right first place finisher in a top eight rpi league. they had a good rpi, and so did several of their fellow conference members. GENERALLY, that means you're in. SPECIFICALLY, maybe not here. i'm just guessing they will get in, but i'm not entirely sure either way.

i personally like vcu much more than uab or virginia tech, but i don't think the real committee will.

like a lot of people, i feel xavier is better than their seed. i don't think the committee will see it that way. last year we were a #6 seed, and arguably had a stronger profile.

march madness. it's really just evaluating the madness that began in november. basketball is great and intense and meaningful all year. notre dame and wisconsin played over thanksgiving on a neutral court in orlando in front of a crowd of dozens. that game is very meaningful right now. that's what makes the regular season so special. in november, we have big games. that's just one of the many i could list.

one last thing to point out is that most general college basketball fans only passively watch until after the super bowl is over. in addition to that, most general fans are probably used to college football and the bcs rankings and human polls that accompany it. in college football, a team could win 1000 games in a row, and if they lose the 1001st, the team that's #2 will pass them....even if they've won 300 fewer games. that's not how the selection committee views things. most people that scream and yell are reacting only on what they've seen these past few weeks. the season started in november. notre dame beat wisconsin. granted it happened on a neutral floor in front of about fifty people back in november, but it did happen. the committee saw it. it was a big game to them....at least i think. everything a team does at any point is supposedly factored in.

[theprofessor]

Tx will be in Tulsa. Other than that, looks good. If you go to http://crashingthedance.com then click on the tab for Distance you can see which site is closest to each team. Sometimes the committee will vary from it slightly. Last year they placed UK in Flordia despite being closer to one of the other sites. May be a slight chance they send Pitt to DC. The first round games also add a layer of complexity in that they want want to give those team friday games to ease travel.

[xavierj]

Lunardi has Xavier a 5 this morning and Palm still has them a 7. Xavier has just as strong if not a stronger profile than last year having 2 non conference wins better than any wins last year and also won the conference outright this year after sharing last year. Last year they were a 6 and that was to keep them close to home. This year they could get a 5 but will have to play out West. I think they get a 6 and go to DC or Tampa. If they drop them to a 7 it is because they are giving them a sweet deal in Cleveland or Chicago. I know they say having a committee member from your school does not matter but if you are human it does. This is Mike's second year and I am sure he is building strong relationships.

[ford]

Lunardi has Xavier a 5 this morning and Palm still has them a 7. Xavier has just as strong if not a stronger profile than last year having 2 non conference wins better than any wins last year and also won the conference outright this year after sharing last year. Last year they were a 6 and that was to keep them close to home. This year they could get a 5 but will have to play out West. I think they get a 6 and go to DC or Tampa. If they drop them to a 7 it is because they are giving them a sweet deal in Cleveland or Chicago. I know they say having a committee member from your school does not matter but if you are human it does. This is Mike's second year and I am sure he is building strong relationships.

this.

also the rest of college basketball sucks a much bigger donkey d*ck compared to last year. Sweet 16 is definitely a good possibility. TU + tourney experience + Mack = success.

[X-band '01]

Denver is also a Thursday/Saturday venue; it's okay to put them there as many of the columnists have done all season long. San Diego State is assured of playing their early round games in Tucson.

[xubrew]

Tx will be in Tulsa. Other than that, looks good. If you go to http://crashingthedance.com then click on the tab for Distance you can see which site is closest to each team. Sometimes the committee will vary from it slightly. Last year they placed UK in Flordia despite being closer to one of the other sites. May be a slight chance they send Pitt to DC. The first round games also add a layer of complexity in that they want want to give those team friday games to ease travel.

i agree that texas will be in tulsa. i kind of slopped this together. guess that i forget where cities are sometimes. i also think old dominion will end up getting a little more love.

[xubrew]

at this point, i think duke will get the last #1 seed, and that notre dame will be moved down....even though i initially thought they'd be ahead of pitt.

[madness31]

I'm curious why you think GM will be seeded so much better than ODU? GM's best non conference win was Harvard and then Duquesne and split conference games with ODU. ODU beat X, Richmond, UD (GM loss to UD), and Clemson. The ODU RPI is also better. GM won the conference title while ODU won the conference tourney championship. I would think ODU would get better seeding given the profile but fairly similar either way and closer to a 6/7.

What is the argument for Marquette getting a good seed when their RPI is one of the worst of the expected at large bids?

VCU seems to have a stronger profile than Georgia, VT, Colorado and St Marys. They definitely lost a game or two down the stretch that dramatically hurt their profile but then made a run in the conference tourney to lose by a few to the #20 RPI team.

UAB should be in regardless of a lack of high profile wins. They played a solid schedule and won a majority of the games they should win. Losing to the best doesn't impress me while consistently winning against solid competition makes you wonder how good they are. Marquette has proven they are mediocre, UAB is at least mediocre but might be good. CUSA deserves a second bid, especially when the A-10 is getting 3.

The big east disappoints every year so I would think the committee would eventually stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. They deserve the most bids because they won games against other conferences but Nova is playing bad basketball right now and Marquette never proved themselves worthy.

[xubrew]

i think old dominion will get a little more love than what i gave them. as i said, i kind of slopped it together.

re: marquette, i just think they're giong to get a #10.

again, i'm trying to guess the committee, not justify it. i could also be way off. i'm not on the committee and i'm not psychic.

[GoMuskies]

Georgia and UAB are surprises already.

[xubrew]

to me, georgia isn't surprising at all. i don't know why anyone thought they wouldn't be in. they had no bad losses at all, and a few good wins. alabama did beat georgia twice, but overall they weren't nearly as good.

i didn't think uab's team was all that strong, but because they won the conference outright and had a high rpi i thought the committee would take them.

i also think clemson has a much better team than virginia tech. they didn't have any monster wins, but played several good teams really close, and were the only team to win at college of charleston. that may not sound like a lot, but they were the only team to win there, and it's hard to go on the road and win at a place like that when it's the biggest game of the year for a good team. however, because va tech had some notable wins, i thought the committee would favor them. glad they didn't.

i'm happy vcu got in. they deserved it.

i was kind of surprised that usc got in and colorado didn't. usc had some very bad losses. they weren't at full strength for some of them, which is considered, but in this case i believe it was overlooked entirely, which isn't the same as considering it. no team with that many sub 200 losses has ever gotten an at-large. then again, it's never been a 68 team field before.

i'm not too suprised that saint mary's didn't get in. that was more of a hunch than anything. they beat saint john's, but it was early in the year before they got rolling. they also lost to san diego, who won just four games. they don't slip up there, they're in. i just felt the committee would take them anyway.

i cannnot believe butler is a #8 seed. i'm more surprised by that than anything. i had old dominion as a #10, but i believe them to be much better than that. i think they win that game, and then make pitt sweat.

i think unlv is a team that's much better than their seed as well, but...oh well.


but, like i said before, it's a process by committee. there's no science or numeric way to predict it. i'm sure that some of the members didn't agree with all of it.