bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Nov 18, 2014 21:08:20 GMT -5
The East Coast teams are usually a little overrated. In the last 3 seasons Big 10 at large teams have gotten the opportunity to be placed in an ACC or SEC subregional 6 times, and have won over the seeded host, thus advancing to the sweet 16 in 5 of them. Getting back to this comment. In the last three season, 14 of the 48 seeded teams have not made it past the second round, so a success rate of 71%. Of those seeded teams losing, here is the conference breakdown of teams that lost vs total number of seeded teams SEC: 4/6 ACC: 2/3 Big 12: 2/8 PacTen: 2/11 B1G: 1/13 MVC: 1/1 Big East: 1/1 Big West: 1/4 MWC: 0/1 Three and maybe 4 of these things are not like the others. While the B1G, Big 12 and PacTen get more seeds, the seeds they do get are more successful, and substantially so, particularly with eastern teams. Oh, you say, maybe it's because they are seeded lower? So what I did was to just look at those seeded 9 or lower. The average expected ranking for teams from 9 - 16 is 12.5. If you look only at the non-B1G, Big 12 and PacTen teams seeded 9 - 16, their average is 12.4, so they are a little better than the average 9-16s (which means that B1GPacTen12 seeded 9-16 are a little worse, but not much either way). Here are the results for the 9-16 seeds ACC: 2/3 SEC: 2/4 Big 12: 2/4 Big East: 1/1 Big West: 1/3 PacTen: 1/3 B1G: 0/4 Here the Big 12 gets exposed a little bit, and it's the fact that 3 of their wins are Texas seeded very high. Thus, for lower half seeds, they struggle like the ACC, SEC etc. Meanwhile, the B1G and PacTen combined have won 6/7, and if you throw in the Big West, it's up to 8/10. I know the committee will say they aren't predicting results, and that they don't base selections are past year's results, and I am not suggesting they do so. However, they do insist they are trying to identify "the best teams" and these data are telling us their criteria for identifying those "best teams" is failing them. Who's doing the upsetting? Well, the PacTen and B1G teams, it's easy. The two PacTen upsets are to the B1G. The B1G upset is to the Big 12. As pointed out, a lot of the upsets are by the non-seeded B1G teams. Instead of detailing who upset who, I think it's instructive to compare B1GPac12Ten seeds and their brackets with the others. What I looked at is how likely seeds are to advance if there is a B1GPac12Ten team in their group. Of the 48 seeded teams, 22 of them had a non-seeded team from the BigThree Conferences. Of these, 13 made it on, so a success rate of 59%. Therefore, seeded teams are less likely to advance if there is a non-seeded team from the Big3. It also means that of the teams that did not have one of those opponents, 81% (21/26) made it to the next round. Now, those groupings include Big3 seeded teams. If you look only at non-Big3 teams that are seeds in groups that have at least one Big3 team, there have been 11 of them. Only FOUR have made it to the regionals. Those 4 were San Diego, Kentucky, Hawaii and Pepperdine. The breakdown of those who lost by conference and who beat them: SEC 3 (B1G, B1G, B1G) ACC 1 (B1G; Duke lost to American last year but there were no Big3 teams in the group) Big East (Louisville, when they were there) 1 (B1G) MVC 1 (lost to SEC, who had beaten a Big 12 team) Big West 1 (Hawaii lost to BYU) So 3/4 of the western teams with a Big3 team in the group won, whereas only 1/5 eastern team (Kentucky) advanced to the regionals. These teams are getting hammered, and the committee keeps throwing them to the wolves. Man, maybe they should figure out this seeding approach isn't working. It's not identifying the best teams. When I look at the sub-regionals for the last three years, I see another story. The Big 10 Kicks A. And it doesn't matter if it is the SEC or Pac 12.
The Pac has had 11 unseeded teams -and all 11 have not advanced. 5 of them lost to a Big 10 team (only 4 of them were seeded). 2 lost to an ACC team (neither was seeded). 1 team lost to Oklahoma (not seeded), and the final 3 lost to either the WCC or Mountain West (also not seeded).
The Big 10 has had 10 unseeded teams - 7 of the 10 advanced. 3 were against the SEC, 2 against the PAC, and the other 2 against the ACC and Big East. Their 3 losses were to the SEC twice (only one was seeded) and the Big 12 (Texas).
These differences are more than just the Big 10 feasting on the SEC/ACC. Now all of this is subject to a small sample sizes and may not mean all that much. The common denominator here is the Big 10 - not teams feasting on the SEC.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Nov 18, 2014 22:17:50 GMT -5
True, but the B1G is not the only conference upsetting seeded non-Big3 teams. An ACC seed lost to the Patriot champ. An SEC seed lost an ACC team. A Valley seed lost to an SEC team. Even a Big 12 team lost to a Valley team.
The PacTen teams haven't been upsetting seeds but their seeds also haven't lost to anyone outside the B1G.
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Post by gnu2vball on Nov 18, 2014 22:27:07 GMT -5
Kind of interesting when you consider only one B1G team has won national championships.
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Post by baywatcher on Nov 18, 2014 22:48:11 GMT -5
Apropos of nothing much, I remember, oh, 6 years ago when Cal got sent to Clemson for the first two rounds, and UCLA to Duke, or vice versa. Cal was ranked lower than UCLA but got sent to the easier of the two, which made no sense and still doesn't. Both Pac teams won easily, supporting what has been said. Cal and North Carolina have split 2-2 in the tournament the last four years, but Cal has kind of sucked for the last three. I do think on the Cal team that beat North Carolina pretty handily last year in the first round, then got thumped by Wisconsin. Has North Carolina improved that much? Maybe. Florida State has held up their end for awhile.
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bluepenquin
Hall of Fame
4-Time VolleyTalk Poster of the Year (2019, 2018, 2017, 2016), All-VolleyTalk 1st Team (2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016)
Posts: 12,447
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Post by bluepenquin on Nov 18, 2014 22:55:46 GMT -5
True, but the B1G is not the only conference upsetting seeded non-Big3 teams. An ACC seed lost to the Patriot champ. An SEC seed lost an ACC team. A Valley seed lost to an SEC team. Even a Big 12 team lost to a Valley team. The PacTen teams haven't been upsetting seeds but their seeds also haven't lost to anyone outside the B1G. Yep - kind of two story lines. Non-Big3's are more vulnerable seeds and the Big 10 has been especially dangerous as an unseeded team.
Would love to see more WCC seeded teams in the sample - as they have been nails in their limited seeds - and never a very high seed.
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Post by mikegarrison on Nov 18, 2014 23:21:11 GMT -5
I think you guys are trying to build a story for which teams upset which teams out of a ridiculously insignificant sample size.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Nov 19, 2014 9:33:49 GMT -5
I think you guys are trying to build a story for which teams upset which teams out of a ridiculously insignificant sample size. Because I only went back three years. Back in 08, I did a similar type of exercise looking at all all conference at larges going back 5 years. Conclusion was the same. Big3 conference teams win, other conferences are so-so, and some conferences are hopeless. Take it back 10 years if you want. I'm not expecting something else.
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bluepenquin
Hall of Fame
4-Time VolleyTalk Poster of the Year (2019, 2018, 2017, 2016), All-VolleyTalk 1st Team (2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016)
Posts: 12,447
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Post by bluepenquin on Nov 19, 2014 9:38:50 GMT -5
I think you guys are trying to build a story for which teams upset which teams out of a ridiculously insignificant sample size. Agreed (and I did mention the small sample size). I am just get sick of always hearing that the Big 10 success is the result of easy tournament draws and the constant SEC (and sometimes ACC) bashing - also made on ridiculously insignificant sample sizes. I suspect Bofa is sick of the RPI regional bias in RPI that is being denied by the NCAA.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Nov 19, 2014 10:48:12 GMT -5
I think you guys are trying to build a story for which teams upset which teams out of a ridiculously insignificant sample size. Agreed (and I did mention the small sample size). I am just get sick of always hearing that the Big 10 success is the result of easy tournament draws and the constant SEC (and sometimes ACC) bashing - also made on ridiculously insignificant sample sizes. I suspect Bofa is sick of the RPI regional bias in RPI that is being denied by the NCAA. Which is funny because at this time of year, I usually get accused of being an RPI supporter.
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Post by BeachbytheBay on Nov 19, 2014 11:06:27 GMT -5
Agreed (and I did mention the small sample size). I am just get sick of always hearing that the Big 10 success is the result of easy tournament draws and the constant SEC (and sometimes ACC) bashing - also made on ridiculously insignificant sample sizes. I suspect Bofa is sick of the RPI regional bias in RPI that is being denied by the NCAA. Which is funny because at this time of year, I usually get accused of being an RPI supporter. no, you just get accused of pointing out what the arguably ridiculous committee guidelines are, which so happen to manifest itself in 'overreliance' on RPI pick your poisson I guess
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Nov 19, 2014 11:38:48 GMT -5
Which is funny because at this time of year, I usually get accused of being an RPI supporter. no, you just get accused of pointing out what the arguably ridiculous committee guidelines are, which so happen to manifest itself in 'overreliance' on RPI pick your poisson I guess Yeah, but it's amazing how often I actually get accused of supporting them as well. Granted, they are typically newbies and certainly people who are unfamiliar with my work, but I get it all the time.
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Post by timduckforlife on Nov 19, 2014 11:50:18 GMT -5
I think you guys are trying to build a story for which teams upset which teams out of a ridiculously insignificant sample size. Because I only went back three years. Back in 08, I did a similar type of exercise looking at all all conference at larges going back 5 years. Conclusion was the same. Big3 conference teams win, other conferences are so-so, and some conferences are hopeless. Take it back 10 years if you want. I'm not expecting something else. Pretty hard to get definitive numbers and make claims due to things like RPI. Add that the especially telling problem all the way around is that the top 16 teams play their opening rounds on their home court. Which is a massive massive advantage, not only from the home court advantage and crowd, but also from a travel aspect. Thus the Big 3 have better rankings, better RPI and get more playoff home games. And not going to disagree with how it's done, volleyball isn't popular enough to warrant doing it any other way. They all basically feed off the other and become circular. Ranking helps you RPI, RPI helps you seeding in the bracket, higher bracket gets you home games, helps you recruiting, helps your conference rpi ranking, which brings in better players all the way around, which helps your ranking the next year, which then helps your rpi.......
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Nov 19, 2014 11:57:06 GMT -5
Because I only went back three years. Back in 08, I did a similar type of exercise looking at all all conference at larges going back 5 years. Conclusion was the same. Big3 conference teams win, other conferences are so-so, and some conferences are hopeless. Take it back 10 years if you want. I'm not expecting something else. Pretty hard to get definitive numbers and make claims due to things like RPI. Add that the especially telling problem all the way around is that the top 16 teams play their opening rounds on their home court. Which is a massive massive advantage, not only from the home court advantage and crowd, but also from a travel aspect. Thus the Big 3 have better rankings, better RPI and get more playoff home games. And not going to disagree with how it's done, volleyball isn't popular enough to warrant doing it any other way. That's one reason why I focused on comparing seeded teams, because they all (in recent years) get home matches.
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Post by ay2013 on Nov 19, 2014 12:09:13 GMT -5
Getting back to this comment. In the last three season, 14 of the 48 seeded teams have not made it past the second round, so a success rate of 71%. Of those seeded teams losing, here is the conference breakdown of teams that lost vs total number of seeded teams SEC: 4/6 ACC: 2/3 Big 12: 2/8 PacTen: 2/11 B1G: 1/13 MVC: 1/1 Big East: 1/1 Big West: 1/4 MWC: 0/1 Three and maybe 4 of these things are not like the others. While the B1G, Big 12 and PacTen get more seeds, the seeds they do get are more successful, and substantially so, particularly with eastern teams. Oh, you say, maybe it's because they are seeded lower? So what I did was to just look at those seeded 9 or lower. The average expected ranking for teams from 9 - 16 is 12.5. If you look only at the non-B1G, Big 12 and PacTen teams seeded 9 - 16, their average is 12.4, so they are a little better than the average 9-16s (which means that B1GPacTen12 seeded 9-16 are a little worse, but not much either way). Here are the results for the 9-16 seeds ACC: 2/3 SEC: 2/4 Big 12: 2/4 Big East: 1/1 Big West: 1/3 PacTen: 1/3 B1G: 0/4 Here the Big 12 gets exposed a little bit, and it's the fact that 3 of their wins are Texas seeded very high. Thus, for lower half seeds, they struggle like the ACC, SEC etc. Meanwhile, the B1G and PacTen combined have won 6/7, and if you throw in the Big West, it's up to 8/10. I know the committee will say they aren't predicting results, and that they don't base selections are past year's results, and I am not suggesting they do so. However, they do insist they are trying to identify "the best teams" and these data are telling us their criteria for identifying those "best teams" is failing them. Who's doing the upsetting? Well, the PacTen and B1G teams, it's easy. The two PacTen upsets are to the B1G. The B1G upset is to the Big 12. As pointed out, a lot of the upsets are by the non-seeded B1G teams. Instead of detailing who upset who, I think it's instructive to compare B1GPac12Ten seeds and their brackets with the others. What I looked at is how likely seeds are to advance if there is a B1GPac12Ten team in their group. Of the 48 seeded teams, 22 of them had a non-seeded team from the BigThree Conferences. Of these, 13 made it on, so a success rate of 59%. Therefore, seeded teams are less likely to advance if there is a non-seeded team from the Big3. It also means that of the teams that did not have one of those opponents, 81% (21/26) made it to the next round. Now, those groupings include Big3 seeded teams. If you look only at non-Big3 teams that are seeds in groups that have at least one Big3 team, there have been 11 of them. Only FOUR have made it to the regionals. Those 4 were San Diego, Kentucky, Hawaii and Pepperdine. The breakdown of those who lost by conference and who beat them: SEC 3 (B1G, B1G, B1G) ACC 1 (B1G; Duke lost to American last year but there were no Big3 teams in the group) Big East (Louisville, when they were there) 1 (B1G) MVC 1 (lost to SEC, who had beaten a Big 12 team) Big West 1 (Hawaii lost to BYU) So 3/4 of the western teams with a Big3 team in the group won, whereas only 1/5 eastern team (Kentucky) advanced to the regionals. These teams are getting hammered, and the committee keeps throwing them to the wolves. Man, maybe they should figure out this seeding approach isn't working. It's not identifying the best teams. When I look at the sub-regionals for the last three years, I see another story. The Big 10 Kicks A. And it doesn't matter if it is the SEC or Pac 12.
The Pac has had 11 unseeded teams -and all 11 have not advanced. 5 of them lost to a Big 10 team (only 4 of them were seeded). 2 lost to an ACC team (neither was seeded). 1 team lost to Oklahoma (not seeded), and the final 3 lost to either the WCC or Mountain West (also not seeded).
The Big 10 has had 10 unseeded teams - 7 of the 10 advanced. 3 were against the SEC, 2 against the PAC, and the other 2 against the ACC and Big East. Their 3 losses were to the SEC twice (only one was seeded) and the Big 12 (Texas).
These differences are more than just the Big 10 feasting on the SEC/ACC. Now all of this is subject to a small sample sizes and may not mean all that much. The common denominator here is the Big 10 - not teams feasting on the SEC.
But now you are over simplifying it. I don't think anyone would disagree that the Big 10 has been the best conference over the last 3 years...their middle conference teams have been superior to any other conference's middle teams, and superior to most conferences top teams. Saying that the Big 10 only advances because they get easier subregionals is patently false (and I don't think anyone was making THAT argument), however, IGORING favorable subregionals on the whole is equally unfair when looking at the overall number of non seeded teams from each conference that advance. Like I said earlier, these are some of the subregionals that unseeded Pac-12 teams have had to play at in the last few tournaments: @ Penn State, @ Texas, @ Hawaii, @ Wisconsin, @ Nebraska, @minnesota... I don't think many, if ANY unseeded teams would have been likely to advance from those subregionals. The Big 10 teams are good, surely, nobody is disputing that, what we are arguing is that most of the other conferences are NOT good. And What I am arguing is that the Pac-12 unseeded teams almost never get to play in sub regionals hosted by the SEC/ACC/Big East etc., thus limiting the conferences probability to advance more teams to regionals.
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Post by BeachbytheBay on Nov 19, 2014 12:21:07 GMT -5
Pretty hard to get definitive numbers and make claims due to things like RPI. That's one reason why I focused on comparing seeded teams, because they all (in recent years) get home matches. i don't understand this - why is it hard to get definitive numbers? take your ranking system, compare the result based on the ranking, and see which predicts better. not complicated, certainly takes time. and when it has been done, the results show RPI to be biased - it's been proven, end of story. unless people want to be believe the statistician is some deviant twisted manipulator! this is what happens when a 'flawed' system of operation, i.e., RPI, becomes institutionalized - it becomes 'sacred', ----- also known as the 'this is the way we've always done it' explaination given so often in life
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