2008 NCAA Tournament - Mock Selection/Discussion

[ISUCubsFan]

If no one wants into the tournament do they have to let them in? I had 20 teams on the bubble earlier today and so far they're 4-8 today with Arizona, Ole Miss, and New Mexico still playing. The 4 wins were over Iowa State, Wake Forest, LaSalle, and Richmond.

[CubColtPacer]

With ASU apparently on the outside looking in, I think it's appropriate to point out that ASU was screwed by the refs when Jeff Pendergraph was incorrectly called for over the back as he was dunking to tie the game with ~20 seconds left.

 

Do you really want us to go down that road? Sure, we'll put ASU in, but we'll have to knock UCLA down a seed for their 2 losses last week :D.

[bukie]

And...Ole Miss loses to Georgia 97-95 in OT.

[SouthSideRyan]

It'll be in a second, don't kill me.

[SouthSideRyan]

Kansas

Texas

Kansas St.

A&M

OK

UCLA

WSU

Stanford

AZ

USC

ASU

Duke

UNC

Clemson

Wisconsin

MSU

IU

Purdue

Louisville

Marquette

Georgetown

Notre Dame

UConn

West Virginia

Pitt

Tennessee

Vanderbilt

Xavier

BYU

Memphis

Gonzaga

St. Mary's

Oregon

UNLV

[Guest]

It appears Stanford will advance barring a miraculous comeback from Arizona. All the top seeds have advanced.

[SouthSideRyan]

Yep, 2 SEC, 3 ACC, 7 Pac 10. Who wants first shot at me?

[bukie]

Results of the Thursday selections posted where I reserved a spot on the first page. 30 teams in, 4 others close, 7 others mentioned at least once. 16 auto bids not in any at-large consideration, and thus relegated to the bottom of the bracket.

[CuseCubFan69]

I despise Doug Gottleib. Who did he blackmail to get this job?

[bukie]

Today's committee task reminder:

 

1) Send me a list of your top 16, ranked in order.

2) Send me a list of the automatic one-bid conference teams (16), ranked in order. In my Thursday post (3rd one down on the first page of the thread), I listed either the team that already won the auto bid with the conference in parentheses, or the conference that will get just an auto bid with the highest remaining seeded team listed. Basically, rank those teams in order.

 

For open discussion, these are what we have remaining as bubble teams:

Arizona

Arizona State

Arkansas

Baylor

California

Creighton

Dayton

Florida

Florida State

Houston

Illinois State

Kentucky

Kent State

Maryland

Massachusetts

Miami-Florida

Minnesota

Mississippi

Nebraska

New Mexico

Ohio State

Oregon

Rhode Island

Southern Illinois

St. Joseph's

Syracuse

Texas A&M

Texas Tech

UAB

UNLV

Villanova

Virginia Commonwealth

Wake Forest

 

There are between 6 and 14 bids available for the above teams, since the Pac-10 and Big East will already be won by a team on the at-large board, and the MAC needs a representative whether or not it's Kent State. There are 32 teams listed above. Which should be at the top of the list? Which should be taken off the board, as they have no realistic shot at a bid?

 

I'll start the discussion: I think Cal, Creighton, Houston, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Southern Illinois, Syracuse, Texas Tech, and Wake Forest have no shot at a bid, and should be removed from at-large discussion. I also think Arizona, Arkansas, Kent State, Kentucky, Miami-FL, Ohio State, St. Joe's, Texas A&M, UNLV and Villanova should be at the top of the discussion list.

[Flames24Rulz]

I'm really interested in tonight's A-10 games. If St. Joe's can beat Xavier, I believe they should be in without much of a problem.

 

Now the real interesting game is Temple-Charlotte. Whoever wins that game should still have a shot at an at-large berth. Let's take a look at their resumes:

 

Charlotte: RPI of 66, SOS of 74, 4-3 against the top 50, but they do have 6 losses from teams with an RPI of less than 101. They have won 6 of their last 7.

 

Temple: RPI of 60, SOS of 51, 3-5 against the top 50, only 7-4 against teams with RPI's from 101 to 200. No extremely bad losses though as they're perfect against teams with an RPI of 200+. They did lose against Villanova though.

 

Now obviously, it would benefit either of these teams to just go ahead and win the tournament. But making the conference title game in the 7th best conference in the land is a pretty good feat (as long as they don't embarrass themselves in it). Now this does sort of sound like the case that ISU has since they made the title game in the 8th best conference. But ISU's non-conference SOS isn't that great and their best wins are against Creighton. I think you could make the case for either Charlotte or Temple to make it over the Redbirds.

[bukie]

Yeah, the Temple-Charlotte winner could make things interesting, especially if St. Joe's upsets Xavier. They should at least enter the discussion with a win today. I'm still of the opinion that Illinois State would have a better at-large shot, though, since they were the clear second-best team, and had a better non-con than Temple.

[bukie]

Early game scores:

UNC 83, Florida St. 70

Wisconsin 51, Michigan 34

Texas leads Oklahoma State 54-43 midway through the second half

Tennessee leads South Carolina 41-40 at the half

[SouthSideRyan]

Let me be the first to say that Temple and Charlotte have no business as at-larges even in this weak crop.

[Guest]

Temple and Charlotte better not be in if Arizona State and Oregon are going to be out.

[Flames24Rulz]

Temple and Charlotte better not be in if Arizona State and Oregon are going to be out.

 

ASU has an RPI of 80 and a SOS of 71. 5-7 against the top 50 is decent...that Xavier win is pretty nice. That being said, I'd take either Temple or Charlotte ahead of them. If I'm deciding, ASU is probably out of at-large consideration.

 

Now Oregon has a much better case than ASU. 54th in the RPI and the 22nd toughest schedule in the nation. They've been extremely inconsistant all year though and they're just 6-9 in their last 15 games. Not so good.

 

Either way, there's going to be some undeserving teams that are going to get in this field this year.

[bukie]

If it were up to me, I'd just take the locks and leave it at that, maybe add Kent State to the group if they lose in the conference tourney, and just give byes out for the rest of the bids, as nobody's earning anything. :)

 

EDIT: Also, Texas held on to beat OSU, and South Carolina doing their best to make the SEC tournament interesting, leading Tennessee 57-55 midway through the second half.

[SouthSideRyan]

I swore by the RPI a few years ago but have moved away from it and more towards Pomeroy as my baseline. When looking deeper into things I didn't like the way things were weighted with it, relying too heavily on straight win-loss record, compared to looking deeper into why teams have those win-loss records. I was shocked to find out how low ASU's RPI was. Bottom line for me is that Temple and Charlotte don't have the quality wins and have more bad losses than ASU.

[Guest]

The RPI hit of playing Oregon State twice sucks for Pac-10 teams.

[bukie]

I swore by the RPI a few years ago but have moved away from it and more towards Pomeroy as my baseline. When looking deeper into things I didn't like the way things were weighted with it, relying too heavily on straight win-loss record, compared to looking deeper into why teams have those win-loss records. I was shocked to find out how low ASU's RPI was. Bottom line for me is that Temple and Charlotte haven't beaten tourney teams like ASU has.

 

The primary issue with Pomeroy's stats is that is wildly overvalues teams that are inconsistent, like Marquette, Kansas State, Texas A&M, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arizona State. The true rating of those teams is somewhere in the middle, because an extremely good showing in a single game will shoot any team up the charts (heck, look at Illinois).

 

It's a very valuable tool, and at least as valuable as the RPI if not more, though. It is a purely predictive rating, though, and says very little about how good a team's season has "been". In essence, Pomeroy's ratings are a good measure of who the "best" teams are, and the RPI is more of a measure of how much a team has "earned" a tournament spot.

[bukie]

The RPI hit of playing Oregon State twice sucks for Pac-10 teams.

 

I'd say it's similar to the RPI hit of playing Northwestern twice in the Big Ten. Looking around, that's the only other team that's comparable in major conferences (Big 12 and ACC have very strong "weak" teams, Big East has just too darn many teams with too much variance to call any one team the "weak" team, and the SEC is just...chock full of bad teams, but no one team has been especially "weak").

[Guest]

The '[expletive] are putting up a good fight against Tennessee but are down 4 with under 4 to go.

[SouthSideRyan]

I swore by the RPI a few years ago but have moved away from it and more towards Pomeroy as my baseline. When looking deeper into things I didn't like the way things were weighted with it, relying too heavily on straight win-loss record, compared to looking deeper into why teams have those win-loss records. I was shocked to find out how low ASU's RPI was. Bottom line for me is that Temple and Charlotte haven't beaten tourney teams like ASU has.

 

The primary issue with Pomeroy's stats is that is wildly overvalues teams that are inconsistent, like Marquette, Kansas State, Texas A&M, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arizona State. The true rating of those teams is somewhere in the middle, because an extremely good showing in a single game will shoot any team up the charts (heck, look at Illinois).

 

It's a very valuable tool, and at least as valuable as the RPI if not more, though. It is a purely predictive rating, though, and says very little about how good a team's season has "been". In essence, Pomeroy's ratings are a good measure of who the "best" teams are, and the RPI is more of a measure of how much a team has "earned" a tournament spot.

 

There's definitely somethign to be said for actually winning the damn game. I don't want to go all Meph here on this, but there's also something to be said for counting Kentucky's loss to Vandy by 85 as much of a loss as A&M's 5 OT loss to Baylor. As I said I use it as a baseline, and then compare schedule to schedule from there. It does allow some teams to sneak by in my subconscious as much better than they actually are(A&M, though they still should be in), but I like it better as a quick and dirty tool than RPI.

 

Another driving force behind my picks is that the Pac 10 is really really good, and I don't think any other conferences are particularly close. This of course means no Pac 10 teams will make the final 4 and some crap team like Mississippi St. runs to the elite 8, but such is the tourney.

[bukie]

South Carolina leads Tennessee 87-86 with 17 seconds to play.

[SouthSideRyan]

Tennessee survives on a terrible shot by Lofton.