NCAA tourney pairings

[Shocker Rocker]

I don't know if this has been discussed on the board yet, but I find it very interesting that there are very few non-BCS vs. non-BCS pairings this year (only 2 by my count - Wofford-BYU and Butler-Old Dominion). In the last couple years at least, it seemed like they were paired much more often. Of course, that was good and bad, since non-BCS schools picked each other off, but also ensured that at least one of them would advance. It will be interesting to see how the non-BCS schools fare this year (as lower seeds, of course) against the "big boys".

[wu_shizzle]

UAB getting blown out did not help the "mid-major" cause.

It just looked like Colorado should have been in that game.

We'll see how VCU does tonight.

[im4wsu]

Re: NCAA tourney pairings

I don't know if this has been discussed on the board yet, but I find it very interesting that there are very few non-BCS vs. non-BCS pairings this year (only 2 by my count - Wofford-BYU and Butler-Old Dominion). In the last couple years at least, it seemed like they were paired much more often. Of course, that was good and bad, since non-BCS schools picked each other off, but also ensured that at least one of them would advance. It will be interesting to see how the non-BCS schools fare this year (as lower seeds, of course) against the "big boys".

This is not quite what you asked for, but this shows for 2001-2010 tournaments, the W/L records for BCS (top 6 conf) vs Non-BCS (next six conf) by the seeding matchups in the first round of the 11 tournaments.



The record when the BCS teams are seeded 5 or 6, is 37-19; when seeded 7 or lower, they are 19-21. This begs the question of "fairness of seeding" being biased in favor of the BCS conferences.

For example, if the 56 teams who played the 5th or 6th BCS seed were seeded 5th or 6th and played BCS teams seeded 12th or 11th respectively, how much different would the record look?

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

I think you are over-analyzing it. The simple answer is that the BCS teams seeded 5 & 6 were better than the BCS teams seeded 9 & 10. Of course they are going to win a higher percentage of games. The real problem would be if we saw BCS 5 & 6 seeds only winning 50% of their games against non-BCS 11 & 12 seeds. That type of data would be required to say that they were overrated.

Your data clearly shows that BCS 5, 6, & 7 seeds win 2 out of every 3 games when paired with non-BCS teams. When the roles are flipped, the non-BCS teams win virtually the same %.

[im4wsu]

Here is the Big East paired against the top six non-BCS conferences.




This says to me that the top 4 Nig East are worthy; the remainder maybe not-so-worthy.

[Kung Wu]

Actually from that last stat even the top 4 aren't differentiated -- they lost to a 1 and 6 rank, washing with a 2 and 4. They dominate at 3 and above.

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

Interesting Stat:

Big East: 11 bids - 2 left (after ND loss)
Big 10: 7 bids - 2 left
MWC: 3 bids - 2 left

[WuDrWu]

Be kinda fun if the elite 8 had 2 MWC teams, and ZERO Big East teams.


Very possible.


Big East 2
Big 12 1
Big 10 2
ACC 3
PAC 10 1 (VERY LUCKY TWICE ARIZONA)
MWC 2
A-10 2
SEC 1
Summit 1
Colonial 1

BCS 36 of 68 teams 10 remaining.

Others 32 (only 7 at large) 6 remaining.

[wufan]

Moutain West is getting alot of attention (as they should) but the A-10 was a heck of a conference this year as well.

[WuDrWu]

3 of the 7 at large teams not from the BCS have made the Sweet 16.


Non BCS teams are seriously under represented.

[WuDrWu]

Am I the only one that thinks Notre Dame quit?


Down 12 with a minute 30, highly unlikely but not impossible?


I don't understand that.