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Post by c4ndlelight on Dec 18, 2011 17:16:42 GMT -5
Who they beat: Pac (Illinois, Penn St., Texas, Hawaii, Pepperdine, FSU) Big 10 (USC, UW, Stanford, Tennessee, Florida) Big XII-II (Nebraska, Kentucky) SEC (TAMU, Michigan)
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Post by wonderwarthog79 on Dec 18, 2011 19:02:53 GMT -5
The PAC-12 was never overrated, just underrated by the BIG-Whatever diehards, the RPI, and by the stupid NCAA Committee. UCLA was seeded ninth! Expect the same silliness next year.
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Post by redbeard2008 on Dec 18, 2011 19:08:31 GMT -5
Last non-Pac-1(2) team other than PSU or Nebraska to win the national championship? Long Beach State in 1998. Last non-West-Coast team other than PSU or Nebraska? Texas in 1988.
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Post by Psychopotamus on Dec 18, 2011 21:59:01 GMT -5
I wouldn't mind the Pac-10 and Big-10 getting top seeds each year, they are certainly deserving. If next year rolls around and the conference winners are not both regional #1 seeds I will be back to complain about how silly the NCAA is.
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Post by chipNdink on Dec 18, 2011 22:18:09 GMT -5
I wouldn't mind the Pac-10 and Big-10 getting top seeds each year, they are certainly deserving. If next year rolls around and the conference winners are not both regional #1 seeds I will be back to complain about how silly the NCAA is. Yes, the Pac-12 did not get a single #1 seed in any regional; but still managed to get 2 teams into the Final Four. I'm sure next year, the Pac-12 will probably still not get a single #1 seed in any regional.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2011 11:59:52 GMT -5
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Post by chitownvb on Dec 21, 2011 13:32:01 GMT -5
Pac-12 & Big 10 --- the two dominant womens v-ball conferences. Period.
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Post by hammer on Dec 21, 2011 13:36:35 GMT -5
I wouldn't mind the Pac-10 and Big-10 getting top seeds each year, they are certainly deserving. If next year rolls around and the conference winners are not both regional #1 seeds I will be back to complain about how silly the NCAA is. Yes, the Pac-12 did not get a single #1 seed in any regional; but still managed to get 2 teams into the Final Four. I'm sure next year, the Pac-12 will probably still not get a single #1 seed in any regional. Yes, probably fine to keep being overrated. Even with bad seeding, in the past ten years four different Pac-10/12 teams have won the National Championship and another (Cal) made it to the finals. Three times a team other than the conference champion has won the NCAA championship. I say forget the ratings and just worry about your conference opponents, teams like UCLA, USC, Stanford, UW, Cal, Oregon, etc. who will spank you if you don't focus on volleyball.
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alexsi
Sophomore
I don't always play volleyball but when I .... oh, wait... I always play volleyball!
Posts: 117
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Post by alexsi on Dec 21, 2011 13:42:13 GMT -5
I think the biggest take away for the year is that the RPI is just terribly broken - the PAC-12 gets really screwed by it because they play so many of their games against each other (beating each other on any given night and resulting in somewhat mediocre overall win-loss records) and have very few out of conference games to offset those records with. So if the selection committee is going to continue to use RPI, someone has to fix the model/equation to take this into account better.
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Post by vbbeginner on Dec 21, 2011 14:12:48 GMT -5
I see this argument on this board all the time. And while it is not perfect it is not horrible either. The real issue is not RPI but not seeding all 64 teams and then using regionalization. it should be seeded all way through without regard to regions other to try and avoid early round match ups of conference teams.
Look at the teams the PAC12 lost to in the tournament, The only PAC12 team to lose to a lower RPI ranked opponent was Stanford @ 21 losing to #22 Michigan which by the way rankings go would be a toss up match. All the other PAC12 teams that lost, lost to teams with a higher RPI then them. So your argument that PAC12 teams were not ranked high enough in the RPI this year does not hold water. If they should have been ranked higher then they were, then they would have been able to win at least some of those matches against higher ranked RPI teams of which they did not do with the exception of UCLA who ranked at #5 beat #'s 13, 2, 7 & 1. So they beat the 2 teams they were ranked higher then in the RPI but were toss-up matches per the rankings and then won what should be considered 2 toss up matches as they were separated by 4 and 3 spots in the rankings respectively. In years past this may not have been the case. But for this year it was.
And if you look at the AVCA pollThe PAC12 teams all lost to teams ranked considerably lower then then them with the exception of Arizona at #32 losing to Mich. St at #30 and UCLA who was ranked ahead of everyone they played but several were ranked close enough to call them toss up matches. Which tells me going into the tourney the coaches poll had them way over ranked as a conference. And you could through USC's (#1) loss to Illinois (#7) in this category as a toss up as well and maybe Wash.#11 losing to Minn. #19 on Minn. home floor.
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Post by smiley on Dec 21, 2011 15:28:45 GMT -5
Yes if you think it's easily the best conference. No if you think they're one of the best.
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Post by redbeard2008 on Dec 23, 2011 13:37:06 GMT -5
I think the biggest take away for the year is that the RPI is just terribly broken - the PAC-12 gets really screwed by it because they play so many of their games against each other (beating each other on any given night and resulting in somewhat mediocre overall win-loss records) and have very few out of conference games to offset those records with. So if the selection committee is going to continue to use RPI, someone has to fix the model/equation to take this into account better. If the goal is to equalize the tournament on a regional (east vs. west) basis, while limiting travel costs in the subregionals, then the last thing you would want is a seeding guide (if you will) that would lift western teams and drop eastern teams. RPI does serve a purpose - just don't say that it measures relative team strengths, because it does nothing of the sort. The NCAA isn't about to drop using RPI. The most that could be hoped for is a modified RPI formula, such as used in basketball, with road wins and home losses weighted heavier than home wins and road losses. Baseball will be switching to a modified RPI in 2013, with road wins/home losses weighted at 1.3/-1.3 and home wins/road losses at 0.7/-0.7. That puts to rest the argument that the NCAA won't change the RPI formula for a non-revenue sport. If we take the MaxPrep's All-American team as a rough guide, the real east-west strength imbalance is only getting worse, if we take "western" teams to be those west of the Mississippi: Western All-Americans: 9 Stanford: 3 Washington: 2 Texas: 2 Nebraska: 1 Iowa State: 1 Eastern All-Americans: 3 Duke: 1 Notre Dame: 1 Louisville: 1
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Post by pogoball on Dec 24, 2011 0:08:02 GMT -5
AVCA poll & tournament results: 1) USC lost to #7 Illinois in final four 4) UCLA WON 6) Stanford lost to #22 Michigan in second round 10) California lost to unranked UNC in first round 11) Washington lost to #19 Minnesota in second round 13) Oregon lost to #26 CSU in first round Was the PAC-12 very good? Of course. Were they the best conference by far in the nation, as the AVCA poll suggested? Nope. Were they the only conference with two teams in the final four? Yes. The AVCA rated both those teams in the top-4. So, they were properly rated. The other 4 teams clearly under-performed their rankings. 2 properly rated + 4 overrated = Conference overrated Not sure why this is difficult to understand or even debatable, it's a straightforward application of the definition.
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Post by redbeard2008 on Dec 24, 2011 14:39:48 GMT -5
Were they the only conference with two teams in the final four? Yes. The AVCA rated both those teams in the top-4. So, they were properly rated. The other 4 teams clearly under-performed their rankings. 2 properly rated + 4 overrated = Conference overrated Not sure why this is difficult to understand or even debatable, it's a straightforward application of the definition. A bit simplistic, I think. Five of UCLA's six losses were to Pac-1(2) teams: UW, Oregon, USC, and Arizona (twice). USC, the Pac-1(2) champions, lost to UCLA and Stanford. That argues for strong parity in the upper half or so of the Pac-1(2): UCLA, USC, Stanford, Cal, UW, Oregon, and Arizona. Oregon and Cal getting dumped into the Death Regional probably helped in their early exits (along with Nebraska), something PSU didn't have to worry about. UW pushed the Gophers to five on their home court - it could by argued that the energy and emotion consumed by Minny to beat UW was a heavy factor in their following loss. It remains that the last two teams to beat PSU in the tourney are Pac-1(2) teams: UCLA (2011) and UW (2006). Overall parity has increased. When UW won the national championship in 2005, the talent in the Pac-10 was two or three teams deep - today it is five to seven teams deep. At most there were four or five non-Pac-10 teams capable of competing for the championship (only two, PSU and Nebraska, have won the championship in recent memory) - today there are more like seven to nine or so.
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Post by pogoball on Dec 27, 2011 10:56:08 GMT -5
Just to clarify, I'm not bashing the Pac-12. It is unquestionably one of the top-two conferences and historically the best. I'm bashing the AVCA for the mentality that none of the teams can do wrong.
As (R)uffda pointed out throughout the season, it was frustrating to non Pac-12 fans to see their inflated rankings in the AVCA poll. Especially since those ratings are the ones that are most cited by media.
OTOH, it's also clear that the RPI under-rated the top of the conference.
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