Really, I didn’t want to put anyone in as that last seed. Arkansas doesn’t deserve it, St. Joe’s doesn’t deserve, TTU doesn’t deserve it, and UMass doesn’t deserve it. If VT can do well in the ACC tourney, they might deserve it. However, I’m just hoping that USD wins the WCC tournament, just so I don’t have to deal with that last spot. Cleveland St. from the Horizon, or any of the lower teams from the A-10 or a high-major league would also be welcome.
We now have four teams with automatic bids to the tournament – Cornell, Winthrop, Austin Peay, and Belmont. Also, because of the way the Southern Conference tournament has turned out, Davidson is no longer a shoo-in for an at-large. If you’ve been following college basketball, you probably know that Davidson has lots of wins over bad teams, no wins over good teams, and a few wins/losses against mediocre teams. The only thing keeping them in is their lack of losses against bad teams. Since Elon, College of Charleston, and UNC-Greensboro all upset their opponents, Davidson’s two remaining games would be considered bad losses, thus taking away the strongest attribute of their resume. However, this should not be a problem, since Davidson has been mowing down its opponents.
There was some movement in this seed list due to games played and re-evaluated logic. Biggest movers were Texas Tech (re-evaluation), Notre Dame (re-evaluation), Southern Cal (Big Win over Stanford), Georgetown (Big Win over Louisville), Vanderbilt (Bad loss to Alabama), and Miami (Bad Loss to Florida St.)
1: UCLA, Tennessee, North Carolina, Memphis
2: Texas, Duke, Louisville, Stanford
3: Kansas, Georgetown, Xavier, Connecticut
4: Wisconsin, Washington St., Indiana, Notre Dame
5: Drake, Southern Cal, Butler, Marquette
6: Clemson, Arizona, Texas A&M, Pittsburgh
7: Oklahoma, West Virginia, Vanderbilt, Michigan St.
8: Arizona St, Baylor, Purdue, Oregon
9: Kansas St, Miami, Gonzaga, Mississippi St.
10: St. Mary’s, Villanova, BYU, Davidson
11: Syracuse, Illinois St., Kentucky, Kent St.
12: Maryland, Dayton, UNLV, Arkansas
13: South Alabama, Virginia Commonwealth, Stephen F Austin, Oral Roberts
14: Winthrop, Siena, UC-Santa Barbara, Cornell
15: New Mexico St, Portland St, UMBC, Belmont
16: Austin Peay, Morgan St, Robert Morris, American, Alabama St.
Last Four Out: St. Joseph’s, Texas Tech, Massachusetts, Virginia Tech
New Teams IN: UNLV, Dayton, Winthrop
Old Teams OUT: Texas Tech, St. Joseph’s, UNC-Asheville
Conference Breakdown:
9: Big East
7: Pac-10
6: Big XII
5: ACC, SEC
4: Big 10
2: MVC, MWC, A-10, WCC
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Hartford Seed List - Through Saturday, March 8
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12 comments:
you really should take a look at rpi ratings before making these picks.
Well you are right in finally taking Tech out. You point out that UMass doesn't have anything but borderline top-50 wins. That is true, but are those road wins (@Dayton, @Cuse, @URI) less good than say West Virginia getting a ton of quality chances at home and getting a couple decent wins vs. Marquette and Pittsburgh. They haven't won a single game vs. a top 100 team away from home, and didn't do jack in the non-conference. I guess we have a differing of opinion on the importance of bad losses. West Virginia has avoided them, UMass has a couple. But West Virginia has proven time and again they CAN'T win away from home (other than that spectacular overtime escape vs. the Jonnies yesterday!), UMass has been doing it all year long. Put the two on a neutral court in March and UMass wins 8 times out of 10.
And the Big East is the most overrated conference I have seen in years. I hope the committee is dumb enough to put 9 teams in just so the flop is all the more spectacular.
How do you still have Stanford as a 2 and Kansas as a 3?
why would Louisville be a number 2 seed and georgetown a number 3 seed? makes no sense. The only way that possibly would happen is if georgetown lost in the first round of big east tournament, and louisville won that tournament....although i still bet they'd both be on the 3 line....
Arizona a 6 seed? been a fan long? they are awful, and probably won't get in the tournament.
Get a clue!
Alright, I'm going to answer these in order.
1) False. RPI is flawed as system. All you have to do to have a good RPI is play teams in the top 200, win against all the teams at 100+, and win most of the ones against 50-100. I'm not very good at explaining why its bad, but if you have some time (and if you're reading this you do indeed), go over to coltonindex.com/index.html and watch his presentations.
2) Yea, TTU was a mistake. I believe they could get in if they win out to the Big XII finals (as they would mean an upset of either UT or KU), but they are not in now.
I definitely think there is some grey area as to the importance of road success, especially since the tournament takes place on a neutral court.
And the Big East is not overrated - at least not in my opinion. At worst, they are guilty of not scheduling well in the non-conference (Notre Dame, UConn, and Georgetown were especially guilty of this).
3) Stanford/KU was actually a very difficult decision for me. In the end, I chose Stanford because the two wins against Washington St. are much better than anything that KU has done.
4) Georgetown is not much better than Louisville. If you remember, just a month ago Louisville beat Georgetown. At best they are dead even. Their resumes are very similar, except UL has a few bad losses from when Padgett and Palacios were out. In those cases, I believe the committee will give them a break, especially since they have done so well since that time. I believe the committee will reward Louisville for going out and scheduling several tough games, instead of one very hard game. If G'town loses in the first round, they could drop to a 4 (although they probably would not go lower than a three)
5) Whats wrong with Arizona? They have 5 top-50 wins, and only two losses outside that top 50 (UVA and WU). They have challenged themselves with an outstanding schedule,and done pretty well. They seem to have a problem of playing to the level of their opponent, but I do not think they are too high. 6 is probably a max level for them, though.
Purdue and 8 or a 9? You've got no cred with that seeding alone.
you are not a fan of the rankings, you are not a fan of RPI... what do you do when you make these picks? pick schools with pretty mascots?
Again, answering the comments in order:
1) Purdue has 3 good wins - Twice against Wisconsin, and one against a weakened Louisville. They also have two horrible losses - @Iowa and HOME vs. Wofford. Overall, they've only beaten 13 teams in the top 200 Colton.
2) I look at the following: Record vs. 1-50, Record vs. 50-100, Losses vs. +100, Wins against teams ranked better than 200 (to weed out creampuffs), and SOS. I also list out all wins against all teams projected in or on the bubble, and all losses against teams not on the bubble. This is pretty standard. The difference is that instead of using the RPI numbers to generate the records, I use the Colton Index numbers. This may explain some of the variability.
Um, Purdue didn't lose to Iowa. They beat them twice. And if you count Louisville as a good win, you'll have to count MSU as a good win as well. They are 15 in the Colton Index, better than Louisville's 17.
Apparently when making my cheat sheet of notes, I forgot to type the "st." part of that, and have perpetuated that for a couple iterations. Purdue did lose to Iowa St. on a neutral court. My bad.
Your forgetting valuable statistics that the committee uses. Conference records are EXTREMELY overused in my mind and you should take that into account. Last year, Virginia went 10-6 in the ACC, had a couple good wins, and some bad loses (like Purdue). Everyone expected them to receive an 8 or 9 seed, but they received a 4, mostly because of their success in the ACC. Purdue is 15-3 in an average Big 10, but 15-3 is impressive by itself. With that said I don't think it's possible that Purdue's seed will be any higher than a 6.
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