2009 NCAA Tournament Mock Selection Committee

[bukie]

I think this is the 5th annual, actually...

 

Anyway, it's that time of year again, and I thought it might work better to spread the process over 2 weeks than to try to cram everything in 3 days like we've done before. Last 3 years running we've been more accurate than the "experts", missing a single team each year.

 

Anyone can participate in the committee, and to do so I require the following in a PM by the end of Friday (the 6th):

 

- Indicate the team you represent (your "favorite" team). This team you cannot vote for in any selection, but the team will not be penalized by your lack of vote.

- List of teams that you consider a "lock" for an at-large bid no matter what happens for them the rest of the way, whether or not you think they'll get the auto bid. Maximum 34 teams for this list (as there are 34 at-large bids, no more than 34 can be a "lock")

- List of teams that you don't consider a lock, but deserve consideration for an at-large bid (considering some of the locks will undoubtedly win auto bids, and there are other teams that may play their way into/out of bids over the next 2 weeks)

 

That's all. Once the end of Friday rolls around, I'll post the committee and the results, and announce the next step in the selection process.

 

 

13 Committee members:

 

bukie (Illinois)

ISUCubsFan (Iowa State)

Tranny Tiger (Mizzou)

CubInOK (Oklahoma)

mul21 (Illinois)

Z38Cubs (Illinois)

Exile on Waveland (Indiana)

Flames24Rulz (Southern Illinois)

Prior4CyYoung (Louisville)

CubbieBum (Purdue?)

Vanilla Ice (Duke)

SouthSideRyan (Illinois)

TruffleShuffle (Penn State/Holy Cross?)

 

 

Current "S-Curve" (36):

 

1. Pittsburgh

2. North Carolina

3. Connecticut

4. Oklahoma

5. Michigan State

6. Louisville

7. Duke

8. Memphis

9. Wake Forest

10. Kansas

11. Washington

12. Villanova

13. Missouri

14. Clemson

15. UCLA

16. Florida State

17. Xavier

18. Gonzaga (WCC)

19. Illinois

20. Syracuse

21. West Virginia

22. Purdue

23. Arizona State

24. Marquette

25. BYU

26. Texas

27. California

28. Oklahoma State

29. Butler

30. Utah

31. Tennessee

32. Wisconsin

33. Michigan

34. LSU

35. Boston College

36. Texas A&M

 

 

Auto-bids (31):

 

ACC

America East

Atlantic 10

East Tennessee State (Atlantic Sun)

Big 12

Big East

Portland State (Big Sky)

Radford (Big South)

Big Ten

Big West

VCU (Colonial)

Conference USA

Cleveland State (Horizon)

Cornell (Ivy)

Siena (MAAC)

Mid-American

MEAC

Northern Iowa (Missouri Valley)

Mountain West

Robert Morris (Northeast)

Morehead State (Ohio Valley)

Pac-10

Patriot

SEC

Chattanooga (Southern)

Southland

North Dakota State (Summit)

Western Kentucky (Sun Belt)

SWAC

Gonzaga (West Coast)

WAC

 

 

Under consideration (roughly in order of support):

 

Ohio State

Dayton

Arizona

South Carolina

Penn State

Minnesota

Utah State

St. Mary's

New Mexico

Auburn

Creighton

Florida

Maryland

San Diego State

Virginia Tech

Temple

USC

 

Edited March 13, 2009 by bukie

[Flames24Rulz]

Count me in again.

[Vanilla Ice]

I'll be able to help with the entire part except the last 3 days, I think.

[CubbieBum]

I send you that PM by Friday.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I'm in.

[SouthSideRyan]

Yeaaaaahhhhhhhhh

[TruffleShuffle]

i'll do it but won't really be available over the weekend.

[Exile on Waveland]

I'll help. My bias won't be much of an issue. :oops:

[SouthSideRyan]

Yeah, I'll be out of town from late Thursday til possibly Sunday. I'll send mine in before I leave Thursday night. Is there anything to be submitted this weekend? Or just arguing?

[bukie]

Yeah, I'll be out of town from late Thursday til possibly Sunday. I'll send mine in before I leave Thursday night. Is there anything to be submitted this weekend? Or just arguing?

Just arguing. The next thing after Friday is going to be Monday (rank top 16 locks and top 16 potentials...the real committee does it in 4's, but we don't have that kind of dedicated time online).

[SouthSideRyan]

Yeah, I'll be out of town from late Thursday til possibly Sunday. I'll send mine in before I leave Thursday night. Is there anything to be submitted this weekend? Or just arguing?

Just arguing. The next thing after Friday is going to be Monday (rank top 16 locks and top 16 potentials...the real committee does it in 4's, but we don't have that kind of dedicated time online).

 

Alright, I'll get some preemptive arguing in over the next couple days.

[CubbieBum]

Yeah, I'll be out of town from late Thursday til possibly Sunday. I'll send mine in before I leave Thursday night. Is there anything to be submitted this weekend? Or just arguing?

Just arguing. The next thing after Friday is going to be Monday (rank top 16 locks and top 16 potentials...the real committee does it in 4's, but we don't have that kind of dedicated time online).

 

Alright, I'll get some preemptive arguing in over the next couple days.

 

And I'm sure I'll be there, arguing for the other side.

[SouthSideRyan]

My 1 bid conferences, no matter what happens:(Being as conservative as possible, though a few of the ones I omitted would take one hell of an argument to get me to see 2 teams from it.)

 

SWAC, MEAC, NEC, Patriot, Big South, Ivy, Atlantic Sun, OVC, America East, Sun Belt, Big Sky, Southland, MAC, Big West, Colonial

[bukie]

Conference tournaments start tonight for the Big South and OVC. I'll keep updating the first post with auto bids as they happen.

 

And to start the discussion, take the following 4 teams:

 

Team A: 22-6 record, 2-2 against the top 25, 5-4 against the top 50, no losses outside the top 100, 10-3 R/N record, 6-6 in the last 12, SOS 45

Team B: 22-7 record, 3-2 against the top 25, 7-6 against the top 50, 1 loss outside the top 100, 6-6 R/N record, 9-3 in the last 12, SOS 20

Team C: 23-7 record, 3-3 against the top 25, 8-6 against the top 50, no losses outside the top 100, 9-4 R/N record, 8-4 in the last 12, SOS 33

Team D: 23-6 record, 2-3 against the top 25, 7-4 against the top 50, 1 loss outside the top 100, 7-5 R/N record, 8-4 in the last 12, SOS 55

 

What order would you rank them in, without looking up the names of the schools? I think they're almost identical, but I'd probably go C-B-A-D.

 

EDIT: A valuable piece of information I left out is that early in the year, team A won at team C. Still doesn't really sway me too much as I think overall team C's profile is better.

[manbearcub]

Conference tournaments start tonight for the Big South and OVC. I'll keep updating the first post with auto bids as they happen.

 

And to start the discussion, take the following 4 teams:

 

Team A: 22-6 record, 2-2 against the top 25, 5-4 against the top 50, no losses outside the top 100, 10-3 R/N record, 6-6 in the last 12, SOS 45

Team B: 22-7 record, 3-2 against the top 25, 7-6 against the top 50, 1 loss outside the top 100, 6-6 R/N record, 9-3 in the last 12, SOS 20

Team C: 23-7 record, 3-3 against the top 25, 8-6 against the top 50, no losses outside the top 100, 9-4 R/N record, 8-4 in the last 12, SOS 33

Team D: 23-6 record, 2-3 against the top 25, 7-4 against the top 50, 1 loss outside the top 100, 7-5 R/N record, 8-4 in the last 12, SOS 55

 

What order would you rank them in, without looking up the names of the schools? I think they're almost identical, but I'd probably go C-B-A-D.

 

EDIT: A valuable piece of information I left out is that early in the year, team A won at team C. Still doesn't really sway me too much as I think overall team C's profile is better.

those teams should all be in.

[stuy119]

Conference tournaments start tonight for the Big South and OVC. I'll keep updating the first post with auto bids as they happen.

 

And to start the discussion, take the following 4 teams:

 

Team A: 22-6 record, 2-2 against the top 25, 5-4 against the top 50, no losses outside the top 100, 10-3 R/N record, 6-6 in the last 12, SOS 45

Team B: 22-7 record, 3-2 against the top 25, 7-6 against the top 50, 1 loss outside the top 100, 6-6 R/N record, 9-3 in the last 12, SOS 20

Team C: 23-7 record, 3-3 against the top 25, 8-6 against the top 50, no losses outside the top 100, 9-4 R/N record, 8-4 in the last 12, SOS 33

Team D: 23-6 record, 2-3 against the top 25, 7-4 against the top 50, 1 loss outside the top 100, 7-5 R/N record, 8-4 in the last 12, SOS 55

 

What order would you rank them in, without looking up the names of the schools? I think they're almost identical, but I'd probably go C-B-A-D.

 

EDIT: A valuable piece of information I left out is that early in the year, team A won at team C. Still doesn't really sway me too much as I think overall team C's profile is better.

 

B, C, A, D

[CubbieBum]

I agree with c-b-a-d and I didn't see your picks until after I decided.

[SouthSideRyan]

I was gonna say C-A-B-D until I heard A beat C. I think I'll go A-C-B-D.

 

I don't put much stock in last 12/10, and I put a lot of stock in bad losses.

[stuy119]

I was gonna say C-A-B-D until I heard A beat C. I think I'll go A-C-B-D.

 

I don't put much stock in last 12/10, and I put a lot of stock in bad losses.

 

I'm just the opposite, especially if you're only looking at 1 bad loss. Teams that are hot over their last 12 games tend to perform much better in the early rounds of the tournament. Also, the R/N games tend to be against higher rated foes or in-conference games (for the most part), so some losses can be expected. Also, team B seems to have played the toughest schedule.

 

I'll take the team on a hot streak over anything else when all is equal, then defer to SOS.

[Vanilla Ice]

C B A D

[bukie]

Yeah, those 4 teams, IMO, are pretty well locked into the tournament in the 4-5 seed area. The teams are Clemson, Washington, Illinois and Marquette. I made a point to try to get the most similar teams I could out of different conferences.

[SouthSideRyan]

The last 12 stuff bothers me because schedules are so unbalanced from one team to the next. Marquette's the perfect example. Their last 12 is gonna look mediocre because they ended the season playing UConn, Pitt, Louisville, and Syracuse. They won't have those losses at the end of the year because they went cold. They'll have those losses because they had to play the 3 best teams in the conference at the end of the year.(That and they lost James)

[SouthSideRyan]

Wisconsin's another example(though not last 12 specific) of a team that people would say got hot late. They didn't start playing better, they just started playing an easier schedule.

[Exile on Waveland]

The last 12 stuff bothers me because schedules are so unbalanced from one team to the next. Marquette's the perfect example. Their last 12 is gonna look mediocre because they ended the season playing UConn, Pitt, Louisville, and Syracuse. They won't have those losses at the end of the year because they went cold. They'll have those losses because they had to play the 3 best teams in the conference at the end of the year.(That and they lost James)

 

I don't disagree. However, I also have issues with assigning too much weight to one "bad loss." Multiple such losses, sure. One isolated game isn't terribly predictive. Michigan State won the 2000 National Championship but lost to No. 187 Wright State (using kenpom). Syracuse won the 2003 National Championship but lost to No. 104 Rutgers. North Carolina won the 2005 National Championship but lost to No. 125 Santa Clara.

[SouthSideRyan]

The last 12 stuff bothers me because schedules are so unbalanced from one team to the next. Marquette's the perfect example. Their last 12 is gonna look mediocre because they ended the season playing UConn, Pitt, Louisville, and Syracuse. They won't have those losses at the end of the year because they went cold. They'll have those losses because they had to play the 3 best teams in the conference at the end of the year.(That and they lost James)

 

I don't disagree. However, I also have issues with assigning too much weight to one "bad loss." Multiple such losses, sure. One isolated game isn't terribly predictive. Michigan State won the 2000 National Championship but lost to No. 187 Wright State (using kenpom). Syracuse won the 2003 National Championship but lost to No. 104 Rutgers. North Carolina won the 2005 National Championship but lost to No. 125 Santa Clara.

 

Point taken, though to be fair, I only really tiebroke with that, because those 4 teams are really really similar.

 

Regarding SOS, I don't see a lot of difference from 20 to 55. If there's a huge difference, yeah there should be punishments/rewards handed out, but when the schedule differences can bet the difference between scheduling a few teams with RPIs in the 160s instead of a few teams with RPIs in the 300s then it's not that big of a deal. It's smart scheduling for sure, and I've complained/lauded my team in the past for scheduling properly/improperly based on the noncon, but in the end a cupcake is a cupcake whether they're the 150th best team or the 320th best team.

 

I understand the point of looking at things in a vaccuum like above, but the things I stated above are why I like to look at actual schedules as much as possible. I don't see a difference between beating the 150th best team by 5 and beating the 320th best team by 35. The latter is actually probably more impressive. I know I'm speaking in strictly hypotheticals, but just pointing out there are flaws in any using any one stat. Mostly I'm just rambling I guess.