NCAA Multiple Bid Conference performance

[im4wsu]

This would have been more interesting to discuss had the Shockers been invited. However, there should be some intererst in discussing the conference bids this year.

I have copiled the 2001-2010 Tournament records of each conference according to the seedings of the individual teams. I've grouped the top 6 conferences, "BCS", the next six and the remainder. The raw data is in the table at the bottom. The graph shows the W/L percentage by the seeding of the team.

For example, If the MVC had a 9th seed and a 12th seed, each team would contribute either a win or a loss in each of the 5th and 12th seed columns in the "next 6" group.

My purpose in preparing this data is to evaluate the performance of the BCS lower seeded teams (say seeds 5-10) as compared to the teams of other conferences. It seems that the "next 6" do adequately when seeded 1-7.

[Good News]

Good stuff. Where did you find the raw data?

[im4wsu]

Good stuff. Where did you find the raw data?

I got the Tourney seedings and results from ncaa.org. For the conferences identification and rank within final standings, I downloaded final season standings from cbs.sportsline.

[ShockTalk]

I'm guessing that Gonzaga had a big impact on the "Others" success.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Very interesting work! You know what this tells me? There isn't really a bias for BCS teams over mid-majors for the final atlarge spots. BCS teams are doing every bit as well in the 10-12 seeds, meaning they weren't just "mid-level BCS pushovers" the way many like to describe them.

[shox1989]

Another way to look at it is that the non-BCS teams do as well or better at every seed as the BCS except at the #3 seed and the #12 seed.

And I think the #12 seed is a little unfair comparison, because very few BCS teams are in that group.

[im4wsu]

Very interesting work! You know what this tells me? There isn't really a bias for BCS teams over mid-majors for the final at large spots. BCS teams are doing every bit as well in the 10-12 seeds, meaning they weren't just "mid-level BCS pushovers" the way many like to describe them.

Yet another possibility is that the seedings favor the middle-of-the-pack BCS teams who get a higher seed than the non-BCS contestant and the records reflect that a 5 seed has an easier trek than a 10 seed.

The premise is that a team finishing #8 in the Big East will be a 6 or 7 seed while the MVC representative will be an 11, 12 or 13 seed, based almost solely on conference affiliation. Look at UConn. They tied for 9th in their conference with a 9-9 record.All of their 9 losses were in the conference and their losses were to the eight teams above them and one tied with them. They had five wins against the teams below them, so they were 4-9 against the conference foes that were tied with them or higher.

UConn is a projected 5 seed. Mo State (or a Wichita State) is probably a 12. So UConn will play the likes of St.Marys, Boston College, Michigan St, Virgionia Tech, Clemson,Colorado; Mo State ,on the flip side, would get West Virginia, Arizona, Georgetown. They had a weak ooc except for the Kentucky , Wichita State and Michigan State games. Do three OCC wins coupled with a 4-9 record in conference against top 25 teams correlate to a 5 seed?

It is this seeding advantage which is so difficult to segregate for analysis. From a 5 seed, UConn may go 2-1; from a 12 they might go 1-1 or 0-1.

[pie n eye]

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebasketball/story/ohio-state-athletic-director-gene-smith-brings-selection-process-integrity-into-question-031111

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Very interesting work! You know what this tells me? There isn't really a bias for BCS teams over mid-majors for the final at large spots. BCS teams are doing every bit as well in the 10-12 seeds, meaning they weren't just "mid-level BCS pushovers" the way many like to describe them.

Yet another possibility is that the seedings favor the middle-of-the-pack BCS teams who get a higher seed than the non-BCS contestant and the records reflect that a 5 seed has an easier trek than a 10 seed.

The premise is that a team finishing #8 in the Big East will be a 6 or 7 seed while the MVC representative will be an 11, 12 or 13 seed, based almost solely on conference affiliation. Look at UConn. They tied for 9th in their conference with a 9-9 record.All of their 9 losses were in the conference and their losses were to the eight teams above them and one tied with them. They had five wins against the teams below them, so they were 4-9 against the conference foes that were tied with them or higher.

UConn is a projected 5 seed. Mo State (or a Wichita State) is probably a 12. So UConn will play the likes of St.Marys, Boston College, Michigan St, Virgionia Tech, Clemson,Colorado; Mo State ,on the flip side, would get West Virginia, Arizona, Georgetown. They had a weak ooc except for the Kentucky , Wichita State and Michigan State games. Do three OCC wins coupled with a 4-9 record in conference against top 25 teams correlate to a 5 seed?

It is this seeding advantage which is so difficult to segregate for analysis. From a 5 seed, UConn may go 2-1; from a 12 they might go 1-1 or 0-1.

Are you trying to say that UConn is only rated better than MSU or WSU because they play in the Big East? If so, my next question is... "Are you nuts?"

[im4wsu]

Very interesting work! You know what this tells me? There isn't really a bias for BCS teams over mid-majors for the final at large spots. BCS teams are doing every bit as well in the 10-12 seeds, meaning they weren't just "mid-level BCS pushovers" the way many like to describe them.

Yet another possibility is that the seedings favor the middle-of-the-pack BCS teams who get a higher seed than the non-BCS contestant and the records reflect that a 5 seed has an easier trek than a 10 seed.

The premise is that a team finishing #8 in the Big East will be a 6 or 7 seed while the MVC representative will be an 11, 12 or 13 seed, based almost solely on conference affiliation. Look at UConn. They tied for 9th in their conference with a 9-9 record.All of their 9 losses were in the conference and their losses were to the eight teams above them and one tied with them. They had five wins against the teams below them, so they were 4-9 against the conference foes that were tied with them or higher.

UConn is a projected 5 seed. Mo State (or a Wichita State) is probably a 12. So UConn will play the likes of St.Marys, Boston College, Michigan St, Virgionia Tech, Clemson,Colorado; Mo State ,on the flip side, would get West Virginia, Arizona, Georgetown. They had a weak ooc except for the Kentucky , Wichita State and Michigan State games. Do three OCC wins coupled with a 4-9 record in conference against top 25 teams correlate to a 5 seed?

It is this seeding advantage which is so difficult to segregate for analysis. From a 5 seed, UConn may go 2-1; from a 12 they might go 1-1 or 0-1.

Are you trying to say that UConn is only rated better than MSU or WSU because they play in the Big East? If so, my next question is... "Are you nuts?"

Kind of yes, to both questions.

My contention is that if you have proven throughout the conference season that you cannot beat the teams in your conference that have a better-than-.500 conference record, Uconn is 2-8 against those teams, you shouldn't be included in the NCAA because you've played those games. UConn has more than a handful of impresive wins, Mich St, WSU, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucy . And there worse loss is to Marquette.

Compared to Missouri State, UConn squeaked by WSU on a neutral floor; Mo State beat us home, away and by a bigger margin on a neutral floor. Mo State doesn't have the impressive wins, but that's because they didn't play those teams.

UConn is not inherently 7 seeds better than Mo State. If the 5 seeds in past years that were the 8th place in their conference were seeded 11th or 12th in the NCAA, the W/L records of those BCS conferences would not look as good in comparison to the non-BCS conferences. So while the BCS being better is not a myth, the reputation self-perpetuates because the Villanovas, Marquettes, UConns (they tied for 9th in the conference) are elevated to easier roads-to-hoe in the NCAA, thereby have more success and therefore are looked upon more favorably the next year.

If WSU had the opportunity to play Pitt, ND, Syracuse, Lousiville, St. Johns, W Va, Cincy, Georgetown and half of those in "Wichita, I like our chances of going 2-6 against them. I'm just sayin'

[ShockTherapy]

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebask...uestion-031111

Ohio State needs to shut up about everything & mind their own business, like cleaning up the stench of their football coach.

[ShockTalk]

Hypo for you JH4P (or anyone else):

Team A from conference A and team B from conference B both play the same number of OOC games as conference games, let's say 14 each. Conference A has average OOC RPI of 65 compiled by its teams. Conference B's average is 165.

Team A's OOC SOS is 165 and went 10-4 and in conference went 7-7. Team B's OOC SOS was 65 and record 7-7 with a conference record of 11-3. Both teams have the same # of quality wins and bad losses. In your opinion, and would it work under the current NCAA system, that team B would get the nod over A. If not, why?

I know teams play more conference games the OOC, but in this example, can a team schedule up, play only .500 ball in the OOC, and still make up for a weak conference that they cannot control?

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Basically, one team's conference season is equal to the other team's non-conf, and vice versa, only Team B has 1 more win? Yes, I would take Team B over team A. Yes, I think this could work under the current system. Obviously, it is a hard hypo to imagine. Do you have example teams you would like to translate this into?

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

im4wsu,

I will ignore UConn's run in the Big East Tournament for the time being. Consider it having one hand tied behind my back... just to make it fair. Including their tournament wins would only make these numbers speak even louder.

Regular season only...

vs teams 101-200
Connecticut: 4-0
Missouri St: 11-2

vs teams 51-100
Connecticut: 3-1
Missouri St: 3-5

vs teams 26-50
Connecticut: 5-1
Missouri St: 0-1

vs teams 1-25
Connecticut: 3-7
Missouri State: 0-0

If you want to use an extremely small sample size and say that UConn didn't win by enough vs WSU, fine. There is no arguing with that kind of logic.

Now, I have a question. Including conference tournament games, when did the 8th best conference record ever earn a team a 5 seed?

[ShockTalk]

Basically, one team's conference season is equal to the other team's non-conf, and vice versa, only Team B has 1 more win? Yes, I would take Team B over team A. Yes, I think this could work under the current system. Obviously, it is a hard hypo to imagine. Do you have example teams you would like to translate this into?

Basically, I derived my SOS/RPI numbers from the Big East and MVC and looked at Marquette's OOC SOS. Obviously, no one from the Valley had the numbers I used. We have a number of people, including me, complain about the worthiness of a Big Six team with a .500 record getting in the Dance. Now, I realize a team will have fewer OOC games, but if they have that comparible OOC SOS to a Big Six conference SOS and have a better winning % in one or both OOC and conference, that would be something that team could control (their own schedule) as opposed to relying on other conference teams to improve their schedules. Just a thought in favor of scheduling up and not having to be afraid of losing almost half of them.