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Post by wsufan on Aug 29, 2006 14:21:29 GMT -5
I have no disagreement with you provided ranked schools are willing to play you. If they are not, then the system is biased in favor of schools which ranked (or high RPI) schools are willing to play. As to why WSU is only playing 9 preseason matches, I have no answer. WSU has 18 conference matches; what is the "usual" number in other conferences? Our men's basketball team (ranked in the top 25 in some preseason polls and coming off a visit to the Sweet 16) has had trouble filling out a OOC schedule and, as far as I know, the men's basketball schedule is still not final. Chris Lamb might (or might not) have trouble finding teams willing to play WSU. I simply don't know. I understand the point Lamb is trying to make. You can’t make yourself look good in the eyes of the NCAA committee if no one is willing to play you. But looking a typical schedule, you don’t see teams loading up on only ranked opponents. A typical preseason schedule has between 6 to 12 matches, depending on when conference play starts for that school. Generally, I try not to look at mid-season non-conference opponents as scheduling tends to be difficult. Nebraska has 3 ranked teams on their preseason schedule out of 7 matches, not counting Long Beach State (currently unranked) and Cal Poly (decent program). Florida has 8 preseason matches with only 4 ranked teams (3 of which are at Hawaii’s tournament). And these are some of the most sought after teams in the nation. The “mid-major teams” such as Nevada doesn’t have a ranked opponent on their preseason this year and had only one or two from last year. NMSU who was also snubbed by the NCAA committee has only one ranked team in San Diego in their preseason and their best preseason match last year was against Colorado State. So, I guess the point is that typical schedules of most schools are not lined with ranked teams. It almost sounds like Lamb wants to create a preseason schedule with all ranked teams or teams that will make his team look good for the NCAA committee. While that is not an unreasonable goal to have, looking at other schools, it is unrealistic. The teams in the MVC have the opportunities to play a ranked team or two and win to prove they are tournament teams. Last year WSU was 18-0 in conference and 28-2 going into the title game of the MVC conference. Ranked teams did not seem to want to play WSU last year. Is it the case that certain teams (maybe many teams) could be told "Based on your schedule, your only option for playing in the NCAA WVB tourney is to get the automatic bid"? I guess I have a problem with the definitions of "quality opponents", "good wins", etc. Are these predetermined or does the actual level of play and the W/L record matter? Is Nebraska always a "quality game"? Stanford? Pepperdine? Hawaii? Missouri? What if Missouri is terrible? Would beating Missouri be a "quality win"? Suppose the teams were divided into two groups (P & Q) and teams did not play outside their group. Suppose all the "name" schools (i.e. Stanford) were in group Q. Would schools in group P have any chance under the current system to earn at-large bids? Would the at-large bids be predetermined so that only teams in group Q would have an opportunity to receive at-large bids? Would it be better to award at-large bids at the beginning of the season based on reputation and forget about the level of play?
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Post by Go Iowa on Aug 29, 2006 14:29:24 GMT -5
hmmm... point taken. How can you pre-determine who is quality and who is not? Every year there's a preseason ranked team that ends up in the crapper, and a team that you thought would have no chance of doing anything winning a bunch of matches.
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Post by wsufan on Aug 29, 2006 14:36:31 GMT -5
I understand the point Lamb is trying to make. You can’t make yourself look good in the eyes of the NCAA committee if no one is willing to play you. OTOH, should the committee have to endure the excuses from everyone who doesn't have the non-conference schedule to match up against others? If they start doing that, every coach will claim they tried and failed, regardless of how hard they actually tried. I'm not questioning Lamb's effort, just noting that this is a huge can of worms to open, and you have to draw a line. Considering...see below Look at the schedules of teams in the Valley. Illinois St played Illinois and goes to Florida. Missouri St plays Texas A&M, Utah, and Northwestern. UNI has Purdue, Notre Dame, and Minnesota. So apparently, the other good MVC teams have not had a problem finding competition. Why is Chris having such a hard time? Even when UNI was at the top of its game, it didn't have any trouble finding top opponents. What about a west coast trip? That's a good approach for finding better competition (the good team density is higher there). Now, Chris might say that he doesn't have the budget for that, but if that's the case, then the truth is not that he CAN'T put together a good schedule, but the _university_ WON'T support his attempts to schedule better (although it is worth noting that this year's schedule should be better than last year, albeit still missing a big hammer). Everything I have read indicates that Chris Lamb has tried for several years to set up matches with good schools and has usually been turned down. I believe Eastern Washington has had the same problem. This article www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/sports/colleges/wichita_state_university/15371160.htm is interesting. The article ends: Beating Eastern Washington meant a lot in the Best Western Volleyball Classic standings. Outside Koch Arena, it won't register much. Lamb says it should. "The volleyball people know how good Eastern Washington is," Lamb said. "That is a significant win." Benson and Lamb both know the selection committee doesn't always agree with their view of good wins. Eastern Washington went 29-2 with wins over Iowa State, Georgia, Utah and Oregon. The Eagles were left out of the NCAA Tournament after a loss in the Big Sky Tournament. Benson called Lamb last November, after the selection committee spat upon WSU's 28-3 record. "I felt his pain miserably," Benson said. "Not getting a prize at the end really hurts."PS: To the best of my knowledge, the WSU WVB team could play teams on the west coast. The baseball team plays teams in Hawaii every other year and has been doing so for 20 or 30 years. The basketball team will be playing in Canada this weekend. I don't have old schedules in front of me but I think the VB team has made west coast trips in the past (but I might be wrong about this). I am very certain that if WSU could arrange a trip with games against Stanford, LBSU, UCLA, etc., the WSU AD would jump at the chance to support this trip.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Aug 29, 2006 14:37:51 GMT -5
Last year WSU was 18-0 in conference and 28-2 going into the title game of the MVC conference. Ranked teams did not seem to want to play WSU last year. Which ones exactly were tried and turned them down? As I noted above, when UNI was going undefeated in the conference and doing well overall, they didn't have any problems finding top opponents. So I wonder what was different about Wich St? Shoot, there are something like 20 teams like that already. The difference last year was that the MVC tipped from the sure thing to the non-sure thing. As I have noted, this was in conjunction with a corresponding drop in overall conference quality by objective measures, too. Anytime you schedule you take the risk that the teams will be of the quality you expect them to be. If you work on the edge of the line, you might fall short. Some teams can be counted on more to be of top quality, but that comes with the fact that they are starting higher, too. So you gamble in your schedule, expecting teams to be at a certain level and, if they are not, then your schedule isn't as good as you hoped it would be. What's the issue?
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Post by wsufan on Aug 29, 2006 15:05:02 GMT -5
The issue is the definition of "quality". For example, was WSU's sweep of Eastern Washington a "quality win"? Was LBSU's sweep of Missouri a "quality win"? If Missouri's only wins this year are over Villanova and Alabama State, then the answer to the second question should be "no". My guess is that people here will say the Missouri win is a quality win and the Eastern Washington win is not, based on the reputations of the Missouri and Eastern Washington programs; if Missouri and Eastern Washington were to meet and Eastern Washington won, I suspect that this opinion would not change much.
The problem with "quality" is that it is so subjective. The Pablo Rankings and the RPI are "objective". If you want to measure or determine "quality", why not use a combination of polls, Pablo Rankings and the RPI? On the basis of these measures, WSU was a "quality team" last year and should have been invited to the NCAA tourney. The fact that the NCAA selection process is broken should be publicized, not defended.
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Post by roy on Aug 29, 2006 15:10:02 GMT -5
Anytime you schedule you take the risk that the teams will be of the quality you expect them to be. If you work on the edge of the line, you might fall short. Some teams can be counted on more to be of top quality, but that comes with the fact that they are starting higher, too. So you gamble in your schedule, expecting teams to be at a certain level and, if they are not, then your schedule isn't as good as you hoped it would be. What's the issue? Agreed. This is a circular argument to me. You can't complain about not being able to schedule good teams and then qualify it by saying what happens if those teams dont live up to their ranking. That is why scheduling is important and for every school, it is important to win their conference, even the top schools. I am sure the NCAA committee does look at the history of a school. What if school A scheduled Stanford, Hawaii, Nebraska, Florida, USC, UCLA, and Penn State. And then, in a remarkable turn of events, all 7 of those schools ended up with a losing record, fall out of the rankings, and didn’t make the NCAA tournament. School A then loses in its conference tournament and needs an at large bid, however has a weak RPI because it’s preseason schools didn’t live up to their ranking. I can’t see the NCAA shutting out that school simply because they didn’t have a “strong schedule.” However, the NCAA has done stranger before, so I guess that makes this point moot. You can also look at it from the reverse perspective. UNI in 2001 (I think) wasn't expected to make a lot of noise but did. Those who beat UNI and didn’t expect it to be a quality win have gained some points in RPI because they beat a team who no one thought was ranked but ended up a ranked team.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Aug 29, 2006 15:31:13 GMT -5
The issue is the definition of "quality". For example, was WSU's sweep of Eastern Washington a "quality win"? Was LBSU's sweep of Missouri a "quality win"? If Missouri's only wins this year are over Villanova and Alabama State, then the answer to the second question should be "no". My guess is that people here will say the Missouri win is a quality win and the Eastern Washington win is not, based on the reputations of the Missouri and Eastern Washington programs "Reputations" is a misleading word here. Yes, people would consider a win over Missouri to be better quality than a win over EWU, but that is based on basically what they did last year and what is expected this year. It isn't based on "reputation" per se. Note that, however, if Missouri's only wins are against Villinova and Alabama St, then no one will be calling a win over them quality at the end of the season. Moreover, when it comes to the NCAA selections, what people "call" the win right now is irrelevant. First of all, what people here call the win is always irrelevant. Second, you have no basis for suggesting that the committee would consider it a significant win based on reputation. The committee does not consider previous year results. Yet you think you have the true answer? Let's through that up for discussion amongst the other fans. Should NCAA selections be based on a combination of RPI and Pablo? Oh, I forgot. Exactly how are you going to combine them? Do you have a non-subjective way to do that? Of course, to claim that Pablo is an objective approach is a mistake. There is a lot of subjectiveness in Pablo, most particularly, in determining the criteria that are used. Granted, once the criteria are determined, their application is objective, but don't pretend that Pablo is less subjective than the person who developed it. Yeah, I have used an emprical approach to tweak it, but the factors I used in that assessment are completely subjective. There is no fundamental reason that Pablo should be optimized to provide the best predictive model, that is only my preference. Actually, I think it is important that the process is actually understood before doing anything. I have spent a lot of time this afternoon talking about the NCAA selection process, and what it appears to entail, why it is what it is, and ways it could be improved. You've spent the time posting quotes from Lamb about how no one will play them. Oddly enough, with this Chris is effectively admitting that they didn't have a strong schedule, so that is not a point in dispute. The question is, should it matter to the committee that he tried to get a better schedule but failed? Why or why not? As I said, this is a huge can of worms. Every coach will make the claim, regardless of whether it is true. Does the committee have to check phone records?
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Aug 29, 2006 15:33:37 GMT -5
PS: To the best of my knowledge, the WSU WVB team could play teams on the west coast. The baseball team plays teams in Hawaii every other year and has been doing so for 20 or 30 years. And the Shocker baseball team has how many college WS appearances? Do you seriously think that the Wichita St volleyball program gets the same support from the administration as the baseball team does? Well, if you're "very certain..."
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Post by wsufan on Aug 29, 2006 15:34:27 GMT -5
roy: Does the RPI matter in WVB? p-dub said "Therefore, significant wins and losses is a primary consideration for the committee. Interestingly, so is rpi, but, as far as I can see, the committee pays no consideration to individual rpi." Did beating UNI help teams get at-large bids in 2001? (This is in reference to your comment "Those who beat UNI and didn’t expect it to be a quality win have gained some points in RPI because they beat a team who no one thought was ranked but ended up a ranked team.")
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Aug 29, 2006 15:42:58 GMT -5
Did beating UNI help teams get at-large bids in 2001? Well, I'm sure it helped Bradley somewhat, although that was a conference school so it is not really relevant, and they had bigger problems on their resume. I don't know what other teams you were thinking of, but since no one else beat UNI in 2001 (until the tournament), it's not clear what this tells us.
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Post by wsufan on Aug 29, 2006 15:52:26 GMT -5
p-dub: "Yet you think you have the true answer?" Absolutely not. I do trust the opinions of experts (e.g. polls, Pablo, RPI) to some extent and I look at the W/L record. I look at who teams play (and I do consider some teams to be of higher quality than others ). "Oh, I forgot. Exactly how are you going to combine them? Do you have a non-subjective way to do that?" Life is subjective but one can work to make it less unfair. If a team is rated in the top 30 in the RPI and Pablo and I was on the NCAA selection committee, I would probably vote to invite that team unless other factors played a huge (negative) role. I would not combine the Pablo and RPI but if they both indicated a team was good, I would take this into account. "Does the committee have to check phone records?" Only at Oklahoma. Perhaps I will come back to this subject on Wednesday. The WSU schedule was weak last year and the reasons do not change this fact. However the WSU team was very good; I think they would have won one or more games in the tourney. The current system favors those who play a tough schedule more than those who are good. Each person needs to decide if this is a good or bad situation.
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Post by wsufan on Aug 29, 2006 15:55:04 GMT -5
Did beating UNI help teams get at-large bids in 2001? Well, I'm sure it helped Bradley somewhat, although that was a conference school so it is not really relevant, and they had bigger problems on their resume. I don't know what other teams you were thinking of, but since no one else beat UNI in 2001 (until the tournament), it's not clear what this tells us. One can gain in the RPI even with a loss. I was careless in my statement. I wanted to know if a higher RPI mattered?
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Aug 29, 2006 16:19:43 GMT -5
p-dub: "Yet you think you have the true answer?" Absolutely not. I do trust the opinions of experts (e.g. polls, Pablo, RPI) to some extent and I look at the W/L record. I look at who teams play (and I do consider some teams to be of higher quality than others ). But your subjective opinion is more correct than the subjective opinion of the committee? You aren't on the committee, but your opinion is noted. Apparently, this is not the approach that the members of the committee take. Now, tell me, objectively, why your approach is better than theirs? Depending on who Wich St played, I would have expected them to win. Or, depending on who they played, I would expect them lose. Wins and losses in the tournament have a lot to do with matchups. I said it above (I think, it's been a long day) and I'll say it again. You have taken the exact wrong approach in this discussion. The question that we should be addressing is, what are the criteria that the committee are using, should they be using them, and are they being applied properly? The arguments should be based on the viability and relevance of the criteria themselves, and not on the basis of "[my favorite team] got hosed." That does nothing to address the problem.
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Post by roy on Aug 29, 2006 16:35:54 GMT -5
roy: Does the RPI matter in WVB? p-dub said "Therefore, significant wins and losses is a primary consideration for the committee. Interestingly, so is rpi, but, as far as I can see, the committee pays no consideration to individual rpi." Did beating UNI help teams get at-large bids in 2001? (This is in reference to your comment "Those who beat UNI and didn’t expect it to be a quality win have gained some points in RPI because they beat a team who no one thought was ranked but ended up a ranked team.") Perhaps I am thinking of 2002. Again, I am not quite sure on the year, however the point is that a team can over-perform as well, so the argument about not being able to schedule quality teams against the argument about the problem about a team not holding rank just doesn’t stand up to me. Yes, you can schedule strong teams and they would not hold rank making your wins not look as good. But the opposite is also just as true. If team A is a relatively unknown team (or a team that isn't used to being in the top 25) and they go on a hot streak and end up as a ranked team. Then team B comes along and knocks off team A. That makes team B’s win impressive and makes their schedule even stronger than it was expected to be. The coach for team B could not have known whether or not team A would be a top 25 team or a relatively weak team. They can forecast how good they are expected to be based on history, recruits, players returned, etc., but you can’t judge how good a team is until the season actually starts. Pablo is probably a better expert than I am on the use of RPI. I was under the impression that RPI was a factor, but it could be a factor in terms of seeding, not who makes it into the NCAA tournament. Pablo is correct in that the committee has shown that it leans more heavily to quality wins. That is why teams like Nevada and Utah State made it into the NCAA tournament while NMSU was shut out. Nevada beat Cal while Utah State also beat a ranked team in the preseason (can’t remember what team). NMSU had no quality wins. Their only ranked opponent was Hawaii and their best non conference opponent was Colorado State who they lost to in 3 games.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Aug 29, 2006 16:46:46 GMT -5
Pablo is probably a better expert than I am on the use of RPI. I was under the impression that RPI was a factor, but it could be a factor in terms of seeding, not who makes it into the NCAA tournament. RPI is listed as a primary consideration for the committee, but I have not seen any indication that they treat it that way, or that they consider it all, for that matter, when it comes to selections.
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