2019 Bracketology Thread

[runrussellrun]

If the NCAA implemented what you're suggesting, RunR, every (top) team would become an independent and play the weakest 12 teams in D1: Bryant, Monmouth, VMI, Lafayette, Bellarmine, Wagner, NJIT, Binghamton, Dartmouth, Mercer, Hampton, and St. Bonaventure. Heck, they'd schedule 2 bad D3 teams and play the 10 weakest teams, the NCAA minimum of D1 games. The regular season would be unimaginably awful and, come season's end, numerous teams would have 100% winning percentage. With no real way to differentiate between them (because SOS is a non-factor). The Tournament would be composed not of the Top Teams but of the teams that did the best job of scheduling the weakest teams. RunR, I dunno...

Hopfan16, we're aware, we all have our ax to grind, and... I dunno. Hard to believe that he really believes this but, sure enough, every season...

hobby.........

Didn't Bryant beat 'Cuse in a n$aa playoff game recently? or, was it really 8-10 years ago?

But, your scenario is silly. Take top 16 teams and have them play this week schedule. Year in, year out. And think how stupid it is that all these "bad" teams are now suddenly making the n$aa tournament b/c they will benefit....and greatly, because every top team will go 14-0 against them, and the "them" RPI....the biggest part......is your opponents record. So, Wagner or NJIT middle/50% rpi will be 1.0, because they LOST to 14, 14-0 teams.

Get it now?

[Hawkeye]

But, your scenario is silly. Take top 16 teams and have them play this week schedule. Year in, year out. And think how stupid it is that all these "bad" teams are now suddenly making the n$aa tournament b/c they will benefit....and greatly, because every top team will go 14-0 against them, and the "them" RPI....the biggest part......is your opponents record. So, Wagner or NJIT middle/50% rpi will be 1.0, because they LOST to 14, 14-0 teams.

Get it now?

Yeah, totally.

[runrussellrun]

But, your scenario is silly. Take top 16 teams and have them play this week schedule. Year in, year out. And think how stupid it is that all these "bad" teams are now suddenly making the n$aa tournament b/c they will benefit....and greatly, because every top team will go 14-0 against them, and the "them" RPI....the biggest part......is your opponents record. So, Wagner or NJIT middle/50% rpi will be 1.0, because they LOST to 14, 14-0 teams.

Get it now?

Yeah, totally.

Didn't Hopkins, during one of it's early dayz n$aa championship seasons......beat a beer league team, along with beating the hunting lodge in Chestertown. And, of course, Holy Cross didn't get better in just one year.

[admin]

Take top 16 teams and have them play this week schedule. Year in, year out. And think how stupid it is that all these "bad" teams are now suddenly making the n$aa tournament b/c they will benefit....and greatly, because every top team will go 14-0 against them, and the "them" RPI....the biggest part......is your opponents record. So, Wagner or NJIT middle/50% rpi will be 1.0, because they LOST to 14, 14-0 teams. Get it now?

Yes. I get how you could, over time, possibly, get 0-14 teams into the NCAA Tournament (with the RPI Rating System). But that's not most people's goal. The goal is to field a tournament with the best teams so that, on Memorial Day, we can crown the best team.

[Hawkeye]

Take top 16 teams and have them play this week schedule. Year in, year out. And think how stupid it is that all these "bad" teams are now suddenly making the n$aa tournament b/c they will benefit....and greatly, because every top team will go 14-0 against them, and the "them" RPI....the biggest part......is your opponents record. So, Wagner or NJIT middle/50% rpi will be 1.0, because they LOST to 14, 14-0 teams. Get it now?

Yes. I get how you could, over time, possibly, get 0-14 teams into the NCAA Tournament (with the RPI Rating System). But that's not most people's goal. The goal is to field a tournament with the best teams so that, on Memorial Day, we can crown the best team.

Only that you have to be .500 to be eligible for an at-large berth anyway, so he's talking nonsense again.

[Hawkeye]

Didn't Hopkins, during one of it's early dayz n$aa championship seasons......beat a beer league team, along with beating the hunting lodge in Chestertown.

I'm glad you continued to be fascinated with Johns Hopkins. I'm sure the program loves the added attention! You might be single-handedly driving their lucrative ESPN contract.

[admin]

To move this discussion from the abstract to the concrete, can you give me an examples of some teams that you believe RPI has materially mis-evaluated this season?

At the top, Cornell, SU and Duke. At the bottom, Wagner and UMass-Lowell.

[youthathletics]

The AQ makes sense but IMO when leagues are not balanced in qty, the measurement in stats can not be balanced.

The PL teams are are at a minimum 1-2 games out of contentions for QW's/QL's due in part to their 9 team league (the largest), which handcuffs them for OOC scheduling, especially when their bye weeks are locked down for 2-3 years straight.

One could argue, if they had more flexibility in scheduling, maybe break the PL into two divisions on a rotational basis, it would allow them all to gather more challenging and different opponents yearly, which in the end builds each teams resume and ability to face opponents that will punch them in mouth.

They could still have the PL tournament in its current structure, top seed teams on each side earns a bye and team 2-3 play in on each side the Tuesday before PL Tourney Friday and Sunday.

[admin]

Only that you have to be .500 to be eligible for an at-large berth anyway, so he's talking nonsense again.

Hawkeye, really? the issue with the Tournament Entry being based solely on Winning Percentage is the sub-500 aspect?

[Homer]

The AQ makes sense but IMO when leagues are not balanced in qty, the measurement in stats can not be balanced.

The PL teams are are at a minimum 1-2 games out of contentions for QW's/QL's due in part to their 9 team league (the largest), which handcuffs them for OOC scheduling, especially when their bye weeks are locked down for 2-3 years straight.

One could argue, if they had more flexibility in scheduling, maybe break the PL into two divisions on a rotational basis, it would allow them all to gather more challenging and different opponents yearly, which in the end builds each teams resume and ability to face opponents that will punch them in mouth.

They could still have the PL tournament in its current structure, top seed teams on each side earns a bye and team 2-3 play in on each side the Tuesday before PL Tourney Friday and Sunday.

Totally agree with this. The PL is a great league from a fan/competitiveness standpoint, but IMO the least favorable setup from the perspective of teams trying to make a run at the NCAAs.

[Hawkeye]

Hawkeye, really? the issue with the Tournament Entry being based solely on Winning Percentage is the sub-500 aspect?

No there's way worse than that. I'm addressing the talk of 0-14 teams getting in on RPI... which is what I think he was talking about.

[stupefied]

If the NCAA implemented what you're suggesting, RunR, every (top) team would become an independent and play the weakest 12 teams in D1: Bryant, Monmouth, VMI, Lafayette, Bellarmine, Wagner, NJIT, Binghamton, Dartmouth, Mercer, Hampton, and St. Bonaventure. Heck, they'd schedule 2 bad D3 teams and play the 10 weakest teams, the NCAA minimum of D1 games. The regular season would be unimaginably awful and, come season's end, numerous teams would have 100% winning percentage. With no real way to differentiate between them (because SOS is a non-factor). The Tournament would be composed not of the Top Teams but of the teams that did the best job of scheduling the weakest teams. RunR, I dunno...

Hopfan16, we're aware, we all have our ax to grind, and... I dunno. Hard to believe that he really believes this but, sure enough, every season...

Yep. One would think that the differences in schedules and competition impacting records would be easily understood. To simplify, maybe skip the conference tourneys and expand the NCAA to top 24 teams as voted by coaches who understand level of play though team rated #50 with a 10-2 against the Sisters of Mary would still be complaining about their exclusion given their winning record

[TheBigIguana]

The AQ makes sense but IMO when leagues are not balanced in qty, the measurement in stats can not be balanced.

The PL teams are are at a minimum 1-2 games out of contentions for QW's/QL's due in part to their 9 team league (the largest), which handcuffs them for OOC scheduling, especially when their bye weeks are locked down for 2-3 years straight.

One could argue, if they had more flexibility in scheduling, maybe break the PL into two divisions on a rotational basis, it would allow them all to gather more challenging and different opponents yearly, which in the end builds each teams resume and ability to face opponents that will punch them in mouth.

They could still have the PL tournament in its current structure, top seed teams on each side earns a bye and team 2-3 play in on each side the Tuesday before PL Tourney Friday and Sunday.

The best thing that could happen for the Patriot is American adding men's lax so that the two division league can happen.

[Cooter]

Bottomline, the goal is to find the best teams, in order. And RPI doesn't do this. At least, not accurately.

To move this discussion from the abstract to the concrete, can you give me an examples of some teams that you believe RPI has materially mis-evaluated this season?

This will usually be teams that have played strong schedules, because SOS figures in too highly in RPI.
Using the coaches rankings (4 or more differences)
Duke #2 RPI - #6 ranking
Cornell #12 RPI - #8 ranking
High Point #20 RPI - #13 ranking
UMass #19 RPI - #14 ranking
JHU #11 RPI - #15 ranking
Villanova #15 RPI - receiving votes
Maryland, Denver, Towson, Ohio State, UNC are off by 3 spots.

I think last season, Penn had a really high RPI, perhaps top 5, yet near a .500 reccord. A big quality win for a number of teams.

Duke should be higher but polls hit teams harder for recent losses and they got dropped. RPI is better.

Cornell is not that good and would be lower if they had started the season lower than the top 10. RPI is better.

High Point got a lot of notoriety for some strong wins and has a couple of bad losses. To me they should be in the middle of the two rankings.

Hopkins have played zero noncompetitive teams. I don't think they are that good but even 1 game above .500 is decent for them. I'd side with RPI.

I don't know enough about UMass or Villanova but generally RPI is a pretty good tool. But it does need context added for a team like Hopkins who is getting a lot of credit for losses to good teams. Notre Dame has perfected playing the system by scheduling only top teams so any above .500 record gets them in. These are obvious problems but short a new metric RPI is a reasonable way of doing it.

I don't know that I agree with your assessments
- Duke does have 4 losses, so I don't know that they should be higher.
- HIgh Point is mostly getting hurt by the SOS. RPI doesn't relate to single games
- I think Hopkins gets too much credit of their SOS. They have actually played MSM and MIchigan, who are not in the top 30 RPIs - not zero.

I don't think RPI is that reasonable. It has too many inaccuracies.

[ICGrad]

hobby.........

Didn't Bryant beat 'Cuse in a n$aa playoff game recently? or, was it really 8-10 years ago?

Seriously, I know you think you sound edgy, but this n$aa garbage comes across like you're some crazed anti-vaxxer or something. The near-incoherent nature of the ramblings in your posts doesn't help.

Every year, there are a far greater number of undeserving teams that get in via AQ than there are getting in via at-large bids. Half of the teams getting in via AQ do not deserve to be in the tourney, and their presence in the tourney means a better and more deserving team is sitting at home. I understand why the NCAA stresses the AQ route, and understand that these AQs aren't going away any time soon, but end of the day, if Hopkins fails to make the tourney, it will be because there are 3 or more inferior teams who played a chump schedule playing on due to their securing an AQ in an inferior conference. And I am by no means a Hopkins fan.

[TheBigIguana]

Bottomline, the goal is to find the best teams, in order. And RPI doesn't do this. At least, not accurately.

To move this discussion from the abstract to the concrete, can you give me an examples of some teams that you believe RPI has materially mis-evaluated this season?

This will usually be teams that have played strong schedules, because SOS figures in too highly in RPI.
Using the coaches rankings (4 or more differences)
Duke #2 RPI - #6 ranking
Cornell #12 RPI - #8 ranking
High Point #20 RPI - #13 ranking
UMass #19 RPI - #14 ranking
JHU #11 RPI - #15 ranking
Villanova #15 RPI - receiving votes
Maryland, Denver, Towson, Ohio State, UNC are off by 3 spots.

I think last season, Penn had a really high RPI, perhaps top 5, yet near a .500 reccord. A big quality win for a number of teams.

Duke should be higher but polls hit teams harder for recent losses and they got dropped. RPI is better.

Cornell is not that good and would be lower if they had started the season lower than the top 10. RPI is better.

High Point got a lot of notoriety for some strong wins and has a couple of bad losses. To me they should be in the middle of the two rankings.

Hopkins have played zero noncompetitive teams. I don't think they are that good but even 1 game above .500 is decent for them. I'd side with RPI.

I don't know enough about UMass or Villanova but generally RPI is a pretty good tool. But it does need context added for a team like Hopkins who is getting a lot of credit for losses to good teams. Notre Dame has perfected playing the system by scheduling only top teams so any above .500 record gets them in. These are obvious problems but short a new metric RPI is a reasonable way of doing it.

I don't know that I agree with your assessments
- Duke does have 4 losses, so I don't know that they should be higher.
- HIgh Point is mostly getting hurt by the SOS. RPI doesn't relate to single games
- I think Hopkins gets too much credit of their SOS. They have actually played MSM and MIchigan, who are not in the top 30 RPIs - not zero.

I don't think RPI is that reasonable. It has too many inaccuracies.

I was debating saying everyone but MSM for Hop but MSM might be a tourney team. Michigan isn't a gimme. The biggest problem I see is RPI is developed to normalize with bigger samples as most stats are and lacrosse doesn't provide that. But until something better comes along or a more concrete way to combine metrics is figured out RPI is what we have and at the very least it does have some logic behind it.

[Cooter]

I was debating saying everyone but MSM for Hop but MSM might be a tourney team. Michigan isn't a gimme. The biggest problem I see is RPI is developed to normalize with bigger samples as most stats are and lacrosse doesn't provide that. But until something better comes along or a more concrete way to combine metrics is figured out RPI is what we have and at the very least it does have some logic behind it.

What logic is that? It seems to have rather limit logic behind it.

While using the RPI might do somewhat alright for the SOS, which averages 10 games, it obviously could mess up in a significant manner with the quality win criteria:
[3] Record against teams ranked 1-5, 6-10, 11-20, and 21+

One could debate how good this criteria is to begin with, but using a underlying metric, RPI, which is often off by 3 or 4 and occasionally off by more is going to put a lot of error into its results.

[runrussellrun]

hobby.........

Didn't Bryant beat 'Cuse in a n$aa playoff game recently? or, was it really 8-10 years ago?

Seriously, I know you think you sound edgy, but this n$aa garbage comes across like you're some crazed anti-vaxxer or something. The near-incoherent nature of the ramblings in your posts doesn't help.

Every year, there are a far greater number of undeserving teams that get in via AQ than there are getting in via at-large bids. Half of the teams getting in via AQ do not deserve to be in the tourney, and their presence in the tourney means a better and more deserving team is sitting at home. I understand why the NCAA stresses the AQ route, and understand that these AQs aren't going away any time soon, but end of the day, if Hopkins fails to make the tourney, it will be because there are 3 or more inferior teams who played a chump schedule playing on due to their securing an AQ in an inferior conference. And I am by no means a Hopkins fan.

I would rather be incoherent to some....that just get it, don't. "..far greater.....lesser AQ...invites" Care to expound upon this garbage ? AQ's have actually shrunk, not grown. But, expound away. Albany didn't deserve it last spring? Cornell? Both first round winners. UMass mental mistakes cost them against eventual champ, losing by 2. Hopkins played another less than worthey AQ ((your words) , Georgetown.....and wanted to sell beer deep into the 4th quarter, that is why the blue jays won by one. Robbie Mo didn't have the Terps worried. Evah Who else is unallowed? AQ winner Loyola?

Prior season, Towson should have been sleeping of the kegasus sleepover instead of playing in the FF. Tigers got that pesky CAA AQ, and rode that unwortheyness all the way to Memorial day weekend.

[Matnum PI]

Run, you're listing underdog teams that qualified for and won in the Tourney. There's a big difference between the #12 or whatever team in the nation winning an opening Round game or going to the Final Four and the teams with the highest winning percentage irregardless of SOS.

[runrussellrun]

Run, you're listing underdog teams that qualified for and won in the Tourney. There's a big difference between the #12 or whatever team in the nation winning an opening Round game or going to the Final Four and the teams with the highest winning percentage irregardless of SOS.

Could you clarify this question, please. I think you are saying that #12 or whatever RPI teams winning a first round game is logical, expected......where as just INVITING a team based on winning alone. I have pointed out before, only ONE....repeat.....ONLY one ACC team won a first round game in 2018. All the others LOST. The 15% point is for AT Larges only, btw. Because a team LOST to someone with a good record, THAT shows a team is good

Bucknell, may have done better than the 3 ACC teams in the tourney, especially since the Bisons winning percentage was well above the 15% threshold over 'Cuse , which was given a seed/home game and STILL lost.