|
Post by stand on Oct 27, 2011 13:17:09 GMT -5
...but you would expect that a thing that has such a large impact on the tournament selections would be a little more accurate in predicting who should be in and where they should be ranked. And yet you would be wrong.
|
|
|
Post by mikegarrison on Oct 27, 2011 13:23:43 GMT -5
But no one has really talked about is another obvious problem with the Chapionship tournament: Regionalization. Take the University Park Regional last year for example: Penn State enter the tourney as the National 4 seed with UNI (5th) Duke (12th), and LSU (13th) as the other seeds. Both UNI and LSU lose in the first round and Penn State needs only to beat the 12th seeded Blue Devils to advance to the Final Four (along with Niagra, Viginia Tech, and Oklahoma along the way.) No one has ever really talked about this except for all the many, many, many times we have talked about it!
|
|
|
Post by dawgsfan on Oct 27, 2011 13:40:08 GMT -5
I think we can all agree that the criteria the NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship Committee relies on to seed tourney teams needs to be chamged. While RPI can be part of the equation, I don't belive it should be "THE" equation. But no one has really talked about is another obvious problem with the Chapionship tournament: Regionalization. Take the University Park Regional last year for example: Penn State enter the tourney as the National 4 seed with UNI (5th) Duke (12th), and LSU (13th) as the other seeds. Both UNI and LSU lose in the first round and Penn State needs only to beat the 12th seeded Blue Devils to advance to the Final Four (along with Niagra, Viginia Tech, and Oklahoma along the way.) Very true, but to solve regionalization you would force certain teams to travel across the nation to play (increasing travel costs, decreasing fan followings, etc). Is unfortunate for some of the teams on the West Coast because there aren't many options. You will always see San Diego, Cal, USC, UCLA, Hawaii, Stanford and Washington fighting it out in the first few rounds because they don't want to force any of those teams to travel to the ACC/SEC/MVC/Big 10 areas. Thus the Big 10 is stacked up favorably in their match-ups because they end up playing lesser teams due to the SEC/ACC/MVC "top seeds" not being as good as the RPI says. Ranked teams in the Western Regionals were Stanford, Southern California, Dayton, Tennessee, California, Minnesota, Hawaii, and Nebraska; with the latter 4 being in one region together. Of the 8 teams that made the Sweet 16 on the west side, 4 were from the Pac 10 (12), 3 were from the Big 10, and 1 was from the Big 12 (Nebraska). While on the east side the top teams were Florida, Purdue, Texas, Illinois, UNI, Duke, LSU and Penn State. The Sweet 16 teams from this side came from the Big 10 (3 teams), Big 12 (3 teams), SEC (1 team), and ACC (1 team). Just the regionality of these teams makes it very difficult for west coast teams because of the fact that outside of the Pac-12, Hawaii, and 2-3 WCC teams, there aren't many other options to fill up these regionals. So the west coast teams then luck out and draw Big 12, Mountain West Champion, and Big 10 teams, while the Big 10 top teams play ACC, SEC, Big 12, and MVC teams (not very comparable competition)
|
|
|
Post by oldunc on Oct 27, 2011 13:41:20 GMT -5
If for some reason you feel a need to predict tournament placements, you will need to follow RPI. If you're content to wait until the bracket is made (which still gives you plenty of time to gripe), it's quite easily ignored. If you want to use it to make bets, I'd like some of the action.
|
|
|
Post by dawgsfan on Oct 27, 2011 13:47:39 GMT -5
If for some reason you feel a need to predict tournament placements, you will need to follow RPI. If you're content to wait until the bracket is made (which still gives you plenty of time to gripe), it's quite easily ignored. If you want to use it to make bets, I'd like some of the action. Haha alright, when the brackets come out we can put a little something together. Or if you wanna be real brave and bet who will go further between Northern Illinois and Cal we can get that bet going right now. Do you want odds or UNI as the kicker to add to Northern Illinois and you can have the better finish of the two?
|
|
|
Post by BeachbytheBay on Oct 27, 2011 13:48:07 GMT -5
Would they not understand that the WCC being 4-1 against the ACC debunks any argument that the ACC is a better and more 'deserving' conference than the WCC?? That's a very faulty argument. Note, I'm not saying that one conference is better than the other (though Pablo does have a higher ranking for the WCC), just that the argument of the WCC being 4-1 against the ACC in pre-conference play means that the conference is better is faulty. ok, do you think the ACC is better than the WCC and why? what would you base it on other than head-to-head where the WCC top teams are clearly better? what is faulty about the data i've used? - are you saying NC, Mia, FSU, Duke are better than SD, Pepp, St. Mary's - because the results suggest otherwise.
|
|
|
Post by BeachbytheBay on Oct 27, 2011 14:10:42 GMT -5
That's a very faulty argument. Note, I'm not saying that one conference is better than the other (though Pablo does have a higher ranking for the WCC), just that the argument of the WCC being 4-1 against the ACC in pre-conference play means that the conference is better is faulty. Absolutely. It all depends on who plays whom. If the top teams in the WCC are playing the bottom half of the ACC, then who cares? Of course the WCC would win. Without knowing the balance of the competition, these head to head comparisons are meaningless. Similarly, even if you know the balance of the competition, it has nothing to do with conference strength as measured by RPI. Notice in the Big Ten/Pac Ten comparison, no mention is made of Colorado, for example (since Colorado didn't play anyone in the Big Ten). How convenient! Because one of the main reasons that the Pac Ten is ranked below the Big Ten in RPI (and Pablo, for that matter) is because Colorado at 161 is dragging down the overall conference RPI. The next lowest Pac 12 team I find is Arizona St at 114, with Wash St at 113. Both are below Iowa at 112 (and Iowa beat Arizona St) The lowest team in the Big Ten is Indiana at 126. The issue is that RPI looks at ALL the teams in the conference, and doesn't just focus on the top teams, or those in head to heads. . yes, pablo provides data on all teams in the conference, as to the WCC vs. ACC. Miami beats Pepp @ Pepp SD beats Duke & beats North Car. @ NC St. Mary's beats Duke @ St. Marys Pepp beats FSU on a neutral site. That's 4-1 WCC over ACC. of course it's not the whole conference, but it's the teams in contention for bids. That's a signficant sample of head to head results of tournament teams. Does it prove the WCC is better than the ACC? It certainly shows the best of the WCC has beaten the best of the ACC, so I have no problem stating the WCC is as good or better than the ACC this year. Head-to-head can be limited, yes, but it also provides significant insight that Pablo may not provide. And certainly very good insight into why RPI is horrible for tournament use, if the goal is to have a more competitive national tournament, which obviously isn't the goal of NCAA volleyball.
|
|
|
Post by FreeBall on Oct 27, 2011 14:15:39 GMT -5
Keep in mind that "regionalization" does not apply to how teams are assigned to Regionals. That is done through the seeding process, with little or no focus on geographical considerations.
"Regionalization" is only an issue with how teams are assigned to 1st/2nd Round sites. As long as the NCAA refuses to seed more than 16 teams, this results in uneven and unfair matchups the opening weekend of the tournament. Recent history makes it clear that this gives an advantage to teams hosting in the eastern part of the country and penalizes most of the teams making the tournament on the west coast (particularly in California).
Seeding 32 teams and assigning the rest of the field geographically would eliminate much of the unfairness resulting from the current system. However, it would also increase travel costs, with more teams traveling 400+ miles the first weekend of the tournament.
|
|
|
Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Oct 27, 2011 14:30:29 GMT -5
That's a signficant sample of head to head results of tournament teams. Does it prove the WCC is better than the ACC? It certainly shows the best of the WCC has beaten the best of the ACC, so I have no problem stating the WCC is as good or better than the ACC this year. Why? How does "the WCC is as good or better than the ACC" follow from the conclusion (even granting it to be true) that the best of the WCC is better than the best of the ACC? Why evaluate conferences only on the best teams? Weak teams are part of the conference, too. If you want to ignore them, fine, but then don't act as if you are talking about "the conference."
|
|
|
Post by c4ndlelight on Oct 27, 2011 14:53:19 GMT -5
That's a signficant sample of head to head results of tournament teams. Does it prove the WCC is better than the ACC? It certainly shows the best of the WCC has beaten the best of the ACC, so I have no problem stating the WCC is as good or better than the ACC this year. Why? How does "the WCC is as good or better than the ACC" follow from the conclusion (even granting it to be true) that the best of the WCC is better than the best of the ACC? Why evaluate conferences only on the best teams? Weak teams are part of the conference, too. If you want to ignore them, fine, but then don't act as if you are talking about "the conference." I get what you're saying, but I think his point is that teams from the WCC that aren't making the tournament (St. Mary's, BYU, etc.) are better than ACC teams that are making the tournament (Duke, UNC, etc.) and that the problem of RPI and scheduling disparities is responsible for that.
|
|
|
Post by OverAndUnder on Oct 27, 2011 15:20:30 GMT -5
Thank you VERY much. That is crazy when just looking at the Pac 10 teams that were in the elite eight. Cal was 10 in RPI, Southern California was 8, Stanford was 2, and Washington.......37!?!?!? UW was ranked lower than Arizona (36) and UCLA (27) also. Is this how good of a predictor the RPI is? I know there are teams that get on hot streaks and just match-up well against other teams (much like NCAA BBall Tourny), but you would expect that a thing that has such a large impact on the tournament selections would be a little more accurate in predicting who should be in and where they should be ranked. Is RPI designed to be a predictor?
|
|
|
Post by mikegarrison on Oct 27, 2011 15:27:22 GMT -5
Is RPI designed to be a predictor? RPI is designed to be a seed generator. It's better than srand(), but it's annoying that the NCAA won't switch to better alternatives.
|
|
|
Post by leftout on Oct 27, 2011 15:34:10 GMT -5
I like the idea of having 32 seeds.
|
|
|
Post by stand on Oct 27, 2011 15:40:14 GMT -5
FWIW - I looked at the number of upsets in the 2010 tournament (upset defined as the lower ranked team wins). Here are the results:
RPI - 18 Pablo - 14 AVCA - 12 Kern - 11
Note that some of the "upsets" are not really upsets (e.g. Texas v. UCLA, AVCA 8 v. 9, Pablo 7 v. 6). Even so, it seems that RPI is a significantly worse predictor. No shock there.
Does it matter? Well, when Washington didn't get seeded (ranked 13, but RPI 37), they had to face Michigan(19), Hawaii(3), Nebraska(5), and California(2) to make the FF. Penn State had to face Niagara(-), Virginia Tech(-), Oklahoma(28), and Duke(27) to make the FF. The only teams in the top 20 in that bracket were UNI(11), LSU(17), and Arizona(20), and they all lost before facing PSU. So sure it matters.
|
|
|
Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Oct 27, 2011 15:41:37 GMT -5
Why? How does "the WCC is as good or better than the ACC" follow from the conclusion (even granting it to be true) that the best of the WCC is better than the best of the ACC? Why evaluate conferences only on the best teams? Weak teams are part of the conference, too. If you want to ignore them, fine, but then don't act as if you are talking about "the conference." I get what you're saying, but I think his point is that teams from the WCC that aren't making the tournament (St. Mary's, BYU, etc.) are better than ACC teams that are making the tournament (Duke, UNC, etc.) and that the problem of RPI and scheduling disparities is responsible for that. Which is well and good, but then say THAT and don't start throwing around vague concepts like "this conference is better than the other one"
|
|