2016 Bracketology (FINALIZED) 11/27

[GoUCLA]

Nov 27, 2016 21:43:56 GMT -5 Hookemhasbeen said:

Did Washington state get left out of the tournament?!

No, they're in the Wisconsin subregional.

[bayarea]

Nov 27, 2016 21:43:56 GMT -5 Hookemhasbeen said:

Did Washington state get left out of the tournament?!

No, they play Marquette in the Wisconsin regional.

[bayarea]

Complete bracket:

www.ncaa.com/interactive-bracket/volleyball-women/d1

[trojansc]

I'm not surprised San Diego didn't get seeded.

Still not sure UNLV deserved to get in

[c4ndlelight]

For once, geography may have worked in a Western team's favor. UNLV was a drive-in, the other options (Illinois, GTech) would have been fly-ins.

[Deleted]

Congrats Trojansc for doing an excellent job. And may I just say that your bracket is mot only better but more fair than what the NCAA Committee came up with despite all their members, advisory committees, binders of stats and staff at their beck and call.

[naujack85]

You were the only one right about Illinois....

[Millennium]

We need to drain the cesspool swamp that is the Selection Committee and hire trojansc with a staff of VT'ers to take over seeding and bracketing.

[hammer]

Nov 27, 2016 22:57:50 GMT -5 Millennium said:

We need to drain the cesspool swamp that is the Selection Committee and hire trojansc with a staff of VT'ers to take over seeding and bracketing.

Within the cesspool sometimes genetic shifts take place ...

[Millennium]

Nov 27, 2016 23:12:03 GMT -5 hammer said:

Nov 27, 2016 22:57:50 GMT -5 Millennium said:

We need to drain the cesspool swamp that is the Selection Committee and hire trojansc with a staff of VT'ers to take over seeding and bracketing.

Within the cesspool sometimes genetic shifts take place ...

That thing is disgusting.  Eww.

[Gilmoy]

Bet he tastes delicious!  Heart-healthy, too!

[trojansc]

Looking at the NCAA VB Nitty Gritty, I have issues.

Seeds #1-3: Agree

Seed #4: Disagree. Can't really rationalize Texas ahead of Kansas - given the Big 12 Championship, the last 10 finish, only having two losses all season (Texas and Purdue).

Now, after that, Washington AND UCLA got screwed.
()-RPI
(6) Wash: 3-3 vs. 1-25 and 7-1 vs. 26-50. OOC RPI: 9
(11) Stanford: 4-3 vs. 1-25 and 6-4 vs. 26-50. OOC RPI: 19
(12) UCLA: 5-2 vs. 1-25, 5-2 vs. 26-50. OOC RPI: 15

How do you justify seeding Stanford so high? Yes, they beat Washington (twice), but you are forgetting that UCLA beat Stanford (twice!). Yes Stanford scheduled tough OOC, but they did lose a decent amount of those games. H2H results for the three teams have UCLA with the best record at 2-1. Stanford 2-2. Washington 1-2. But Washington won the PAC-12 outright, UCLA and Stanford tied.

Michigan State was seeded so high, I think UCLA should have definitely been above them. I think they should drop down a few spots.

Missouri SERIOUSLY got hosed. They were dropped down to 15, but Florida wasn't. Missouri finished with a BETTER RPI than Florida, and a H2H victory? What gives?

For BYU, Kansas State, and Michigan, I don't have any complaints.

North Carolina got an awfully high seed - but I understand why. They on paper don't have much wiggle room to argue. You could drop them down to maybe 9, but that's it.

Now my major beef, Penn State. The committee SERIOUSLY did some reaching here.
They decided to skip over:

14 Western Kentucky
16 San Diego
17 Creighton
19 Kentucky
20 TCU
21 Wichita State
22 Florida State
23 Hawaii
24 Oregon
25 Texas A&M

That's a lot of teams to skip over in order to say that there is something FAR superior for this team that finished 5-5 in its last 10 games.

Sure Penn State had 3 Top 25 victories, but so did San Diego and Kentucky.
PSU had 6 total Top 50 wins, but both Oregon and Wichita State had 6 as well. Every single team in front of PSU finished stronger than PSU did, with the exception of TCU. And if you're going to give PSU leeway - why not give consideration to TCU? Penn State also had the worst OOC RPI of any of the teams in consideration for seeding! Southern Methodist was the only team with a worse Non-Conference RPI than Penn State. But then the committee used this to justify Texas over Kansas... wow

TCU had two top 25 victories, three victories in the 26-50 range to make top 50 total. TCU by FAR did the best OOC of any of the teams in this grouping - their OOC ranking was #8.

And if the committee wanted to seriously reach for the NEXT best Seeded team, why not look at #27 - Iowa State. Iowa State finished 4-7 against the top 25 with 7 total Top 50 wins. They also had a better OOC RPI.

I'll look at the at-larges in a bit

[ay2013]

Nov 28, 2016 17:24:21 GMT -5 trojansc said:

Looking at the NCAA VB Nitty Gritty, I have issues.

Seeds #1-3: Agree

Seed #4: Disagree. Can't really rationalize Texas ahead of Kansas - given the Big 12 Championship, the last 10 finish, only having two losses all season (Texas and Purdue).

Now, after that, Washington AND UCLA got screwed.
()-RPI
(6) Wash: 3-3 vs. 1-25 and 7-1 vs. 26-50. OOC RPI: 9
(11) Stanford: 4-3 vs. 1-25 and 6-4 vs. 26-50. OOC RPI: 19
(12) UCLA: 5-2 vs. 1-25, 5-2 vs. 26-50. OOC RPI: 15

How do you justify seeding Stanford so high? Yes, they beat Washington (twice), but you are forgetting that UCLA beat Stanford (twice!). Yes Stanford scheduled tough OOC, but they did lose a decent amount of those games. H2H results for the three teams have UCLA with the best record at 2-1. Stanford 2-2. Washington 1-2. But Washington won the PAC-12 outright, UCLA and Stanford tied.

Michigan State was seeded so high, I think UCLA should have definitely been above them. I think they should drop down a few spots.

Missouri SERIOUSLY got hosed. They were dropped down to 15, but Florida wasn't. Missouri finished with a BETTER RPI than Florida, and a H2H victory? What gives?

For BYU, Kansas State, and Michigan, I don't have any complaints.

North Carolina got an awfully high seed - but I understand why. They on paper don't have much wiggle room to argue. You could drop them down to maybe 9, but that's it.

Now my major beef, Penn State. The committee SERIOUSLY did some reaching here.
They decided to skip over:

14 Western Kentucky
16 San Diego
17 Creighton
19 Kentucky
20 TCU
21 Wichita State
22 Florida State
23 Hawaii
24 Oregon
25 Texas A&M

That's a lot of teams to skip over in order to say that there is something FAR superior for this team that finished 5-5 in its last 10 games.

Sure Penn State had 3 Top 25 victories, but so did San Diego and Kentucky.
PSU had 6 total Top 50 wins, but both Oregon and Wichita State had 6 as well. Every single team in front of PSU finished stronger than PSU did, with the exception of TCU. And if you're going to give PSU leeway - why not give consideration to TCU? Penn State also had the worst OOC RPI of any of the teams in consideration for seeding! Southern Methodist was the only team with a worse Non-Conference RPI than Penn State. But then the committee used this to justify Texas over Kansas... wow

TCU had two top 25 victories, three victories in the 26-50 range to make top 50 total. TCU by FAR did the best OOC of any of the teams in this grouping - their OOC ranking was #8.

And if the committee wanted to seriously reach for the NEXT best Seeded team, why not look at #27 - Iowa State. Iowa State finished 4-7 against the top 25 with 7 total Top 50 wins. They also had a better OOC RPI.

I'll look at the at-larges in a bit

That's MY biggest issue. The chair explicitly said that non conference RPI was a deciding factor between Kansas and Texas, but when you apply that to UNC v. Washington or PSU versus all of those other teams, it doesn't make sense. Which means that there was criteria OTHER than non conference RPI that was decidedly in their favor, and, as you point out with PSU versus other teams rated ahead of them in the rpi, I just don't quite see it.

Also, TCU, gag. They will probably get bounced in the 1st round.

[bluepenquin]

Nov 28, 2016 17:24:21 GMT -5 trojansc said:

Michigan State was seeded so high, I think UCLA should have definitely been above them. I think they should drop down a few spots.

It is possible that they had UCLA #9 and Michigan State #10 - but switched them in order to keep out of a Washington/UCLA matchup in the 3rd round. They said they tried to avoid any seeded conference rematches before the regional finals.

Of course it would have looked much better if they 'left UCLA/Michigan State the same' and switched North Carolina and Washington instead. But the history has always been to move the worse seed not the higher seed (back when host teams in the right regional mattered).

[Disc808]

I also don't get why Stanford and North Carolina are ranked over Washington. IMO it should have been Washington (6), Stanford (7), and UNC (8).
Stanford did beat Minnesota, Washington, PSU... but I don't think they deserved to be seeded over the PAC-12 champs