Original Seeds (Bold = Conference Champs)
1: Ohio St., Wisconsin, Georgetown, UCLA
2: Kansas, Florida, UNC, Pittsburgh
3: Texas A&M, SIU, Memphis, Maryland
4: Marquette, Washington St., Kentucky, Arizona
5: Duke, Villanova, Air Force, Virginia
6: Oregon, Nevada, Indiana, Virginia Tech
7: Tennessee, Michigan St, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech
8: Louisville, Winthrop, Texas, UNLV
9: Illinois, Creighton, Xavier, Stanford
10: Butler, Drexel, Vanderbilt, Texas Tech
11: USC, Missouri St., BYU, Clemson
12: Syracuse, VCU, Boston College, Davidson
13: Gonzaga, Holy Cross, Wright St., Penn
14: Toledo, Vermont, TAMU-CC, Oral Roberts
15: Long Beach St., Niagara, Eastern Kentucky, Belmont
16: Weber St., Delaware St., Miss. Valley St., North Texas, C. Conn. St.
No, Nevada doesn't deserve the respect of a 3rd or 4th. They lost to the only top 50 team they played. Their SOS is 116. But I did take a really long look at them.
Thank you for your input on Kentucky, Duke, Air Force, Nevada, and Tennessee. I do not have the time right now to examine them, but I will be reviewing their cases more closely later tonight.
And, barring a miraculous increase in time, I will not be able to do a bracket Selection Sunday. I will be putting out my projected seeds on Sunday, however.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Projecting the Seeds 3-7
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8 comments:
First, I think you've done pretty well in that most of the teams are arguably within one line of seeding where they should be.
You think Illinois is pretty safe as a 9 seed (I think they're probably right on the bubble and need to beat PSU and IU to guarantee a tourney slot), but I don't see Purdue in there. They both had the same conference record and Purdue beat Illinois head to head. Also Purdue's out of conference wins are better (UVA and DePaul) while Illinois only beat Bradley. On the other hand, Purdue also had more bad losses than Illinois.
The biggest thing I see is that in some instances, you have discounted how teams finished in conference when seeding. Examples:
PAC 10: Stanford/USC
MWC: AF/BYU/UNLV
CAA: Drexel/VCU/ODU (not in your bracket)
ACC: BC/Clemson
Not always, but most of the time, if you finish higher in conference, you'll get the higher seed. Unbalanced schedules have negated some of this, but it still should be considered. Especially, in the PAC-10 and MWC where there is a balanced schedule. AF (I say this as an alum) should not be seeded higher than the first and second place team in their conference (UNLV and BYU).
Too high (by 2 or more seed lines IMO, of course): Kentucky, Nova, AF, Illinois, Stanford, Clemson
Too low: BYU, all 8 seeds except Winthrop, ODU and Purdue
Thank you for your opinion. On the Purdue/Illinois issue, I believe it was Purdue's bad losses that led me to put Illinois above them. I agree with you that a loss to PSU would knock them out.
I did take note of conference record and placing, but I think that the unbalanced scheduling will lead the committee to ignore conference finish.
I personally think that Clemson has a very good resume, excluding their last 10. If they fail to win two, they will find themselves sweating it out Sunday.
Villanova... Villanova is a rather strange animal. They have very good wins, but have done terrible in conference play.
I'll look again at the MWC when I get time... although I still have not gotten a chance to look at the others.
It seems to me very unlikely that Kansas, TX A&M and Texas will only be 2,3 and 8 seeds. I can only see that happenning if Texas loses its first conference game (although I doubt even then they would fall that far) and someone besides Kansas or Texas A&M wins the conference tournament. 1, 2, 5 is much more likely, assming the seeding holds.
I actually looked very closely at Kansas v. UCLA v. G-town, and I felt that although they were very close, they should be in the order that I have them now.
The same thing happened with TAMU v. Pittsburgh.
Finally, Texas' best wins are: TTU twice (10 seed), Arkansas (NIT), and TAMU at home (great win). Balance against these not-so-great losses to Gonzaga (13 seed) and KSU at home (NIT). Finally, Texas has an SOS of 60 even though they are in a strong conference. That is why I don't think Texas should be higher than an 8.
So are you trying to predict the actual bracket?
Or are you "voting" on what you think it should be?
I assume you are "voting" despite this blog's title, and that's fine, you're more than welcome to your opinion, but if you are projecting/predicting, your going to be a little off on several teams.
I also will point out that seeding in the tournament is very much based on how teams are playing lately.
Clemson was 17-0, they will not be in the tourney.
Okla. St. was ranked in the top 15, they will not be in the tourney.
Air Force is 23-7, but have lost 7 of their last 13 games including 4 straight L's. Nice record but when the committee seeds them, they will be a double digit seed.
Texas finishes the season 22-8, 12-4 in conference, winning 6 of 7 with a win over consensus 2 seed TAMU, and narrow road loss to consensus (other than you, Bryce) 1 seed Kansas. If you had watched the Kansas game, you would know from SEEING THE TEAM that Texas is better than, should be higher than, and will be higher than an 8 seed. More like a low 4 or high 5.
Here's a good site for some extra research if you haven't seen it yet: www.kenpom.com
It would be terrible to seed Texas as an 8, not really so much for Texas, but for the number 1 seed in their bracket. They are just too dangerous and have shown dramatic improvement over the last part of the season. Giving them an 8 seed would just serve to punish a number 1 seed by having to potentially play Texas in the second round.
How in the world can you leave Old Dominion out? They swept Drexel during the regular season! They beat Drexel by 27 at home and 10 on the road. Do the math.
I feel Drexel has that much better of a profile. H2H isn't the only thing.
NC St. swept VT, and VT swept UNC, but UNC is seeded higher than VT, and VT is seeded higher than NC St. (which is to say, they are seeded)
And to Sean - I was initially going to predict the bracket, but my time constraints have made it impossible. I'm sorry that this is misleading.
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