Conspiracy theory

[wushock27]

I like a good conspiracy theory, but I figured Kentucky and Louisville would be in our bracket in the same spots they are.People get too wrapped up in seeding based on team quality. Seeding is based on resume. Louisville's resume wasn't that good, despite clearly being one of the five best teams in the country late. Weak noncon schedule killed them. And from there, geography determines bracket placement. Obviously we got Kentucky, Louisville, Saint Louis, Tennessee, and Michigan for the Midwest. Duke is the only surprise to me ... They should have been in the south with Creighton or Iowa State in our bracket.The Midwest is just a strong area for basketball. With the emphasis on geography, a one seed here was just going to be rough.

I've heard Louisville's resume called a "donut".... Good on the outside, but empty in the middle...

[Rlh04d]

No Conspiracy imo. However Glockner seems to have facts and his facts don't add up. The best 4,5,6,8,9 all in the same bracket sounds like incompetent at best.

Those 4,5,8,9 teams all geographically make sense to the Midwest, though.

Honestly, if I was making the bracket, I would have had Louisville as the three seed in our bracket. Creighton would be the four. Those are probably my only changes. And I think OK State is a better nine seed than Kansas State, SLU is not the best five seed (prefer playing them to VCU or Cincy), and UMass is probably the worst six seed.

Make that Creighton/Louisville change and I bet people here are happier with the draw.

[Flip1381]

I've heard Louisville's resume called a "donut".... Good on the outside, but empty in the middle...

Of their 29 wins, 4 games were played against teams RPI 101-150 and 16 games against teams RPI 150+. Against teams ranked RPI Top 50 they were 5-5. That is not a very good resume to earn a top seed, regardless of how they are playing.

[Rlh04d]

Of their 29 wins, 4 games were played against teams RPI 101-150 and 16 games against teams RPI 150+. Against teams ranked RPI Top 50 they were 5-5. That is not a very good resume to earn a top seed, regardless of how they are playing.

Exactly.

We're getting too wrapped up in listening to "experts" who don't understand seeding. We got a bad draw, but we got that draw because Louisville had a bad resume yet come into the tourney as one of the five best teams. I don't know what Pitino was smoking lobbying for a one seed, or if he just didn't understand the resume difference from the Big East to the Conference USA/AAC. They were always going to be a three/four. Their resume just wasn't good. Bad luck getting a great team with an average resume due to geography.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Of their 29 wins, 4 games were played against teams RPI 101-150 and 16 games against teams RPI 150+. Against teams ranked RPI Top 50 they were 5-5. That is not a very good resume to earn a top seed, regardless of how they are playing.

Louisville beat Connecticut (NCAA 7 seed) by 33 on the final night of the regular season. They beat a whole bunch of 100-200 ranked teams by 25, 30, even 61 points! Their 5 losses weren't just to top 50 teams, they were all single digit losses to NCAA Tourney teams seeded 8 or better. Wins and losses are hugely important, but they aren't supposed to be the entire story. At some point, margin of victory needs to atleast be factored in.

KenPom has them ranked #2 for a reason. There is no way you can name 12 teams that deserved to be ahead of them. Louisville deserved far better than a 4 seed.

[im4wsu]

How did K-State get a nine seed with their 50 RPI ranking.Here are teams with better RPI and seeded lower:

RPI	Team	Seed
42	Arizona St.	10
34	BYU	10
43	Saint Joseph's	10
38	Stanford	10
39	Dayton	11
41	Nebraska	11
44	Tennessee	11
48	Harvard	12
35	North Dakota St.	12
46	Xavier	12

[Cdizzle]

How did K-State get a nine seed with their 50 RPI ranking.Here are teams with better RPI and seeded lower:

RPI	Team	Seed
42	Arizona St.	10
34	BYU	10
43	Saint Joseph's	10
38	Stanford	10
39	Dayton	11
41	Nebraska	11
44	Tennessee	11
48	Harvard	12
35	North Dakota St.	12
46	Xavier	12

They gave KU a quality loss. That's worth at least 1 seed line.

[Flip1381]

They gave KU a quality loss. That's worth at least 1 seed line.

Only according to San Diego State fans.

[Flip1381]

Louisville beat Connecticut (NCAA 7 seed) by 33 on the final night of the regular season. They beat a whole bunch of 100-200 ranked teams by 25, 30, even 61 points! Their 5 losses weren't just to top 50 teams, they were all single digit losses to NCAA Tourney teams seeded 8 or better. Wins and losses are hugely important, but they aren't supposed to be the entire story. At some point, margin of victory needs to atleast be factored in.

KenPom has them ranked #2 for a reason. There is no way you can name 12 teams that deserved to be ahead of them. Louisville deserved far better than a 4 seed.

The selection committee relies heavily (Good or bad, its what they do) on RPI which does not account for margin of victory. BPI factors in the Margin of Victory, but only up to 20 points.

I'm not debating the quality of team that Louisville is on the court, I'm looking strictly at their resume and their resume record of 5-5 against teams in the RPI top 50, along with the TWENTY (20) games against teams RPI 126+ is not that of a 1 seed. And of those 20 games, 16 RPI games were actually teams RPI 179+. That is half of their schedule. Maybe they deserved higher than a 4, but that resume does not deserve a 1, that is for sure.

[Flip1381]

How did K-State get a nine seed with their 50 RPI ranking.Here are teams with better RPI and seeded lower:

RPI	Team	Seed
42	Arizona St.	10
34	BYU	10
43	Saint Joseph's	10
38	Stanford	10
39	Dayton	11
41	Nebraska	11
44	Tennessee	11
48	Harvard	12
35	North Dakota St.	12
46	Xavier	12

Here is just a few quick thoughts of why in my opinion:
Kansas State: RPI 51, Record against RPI Top 50: 7-8, RPI 51-100: 2-2, RPI 101-150: 2-1, RPI 150+: 10-1
They had 2 bad losses, Charlotte #147 and No. Colorado #213@home

Arizona State: Only played 11 games against RPI Top 50, going 4-7 compared to 15 games of KSU so 3 more quality wins, and ASU had 3 bad losses to RPI #110, 101, and 103
BYU: Only played 9 games against RPI top 50, went 3-6, 4 less quality wins, 4 bad losses to #128, 176, 158, 173. Some believe BYU shouldn't even be in the tournament.
Dayton: Only played 10 games against RPI top 50, went 4-6, 3 less quality wins, 3 bad losses to #133, 170, 155.
Xavier: Only played 10 games against RPI top 50, went 4-6, 3 less quality wins, 3 bad losses to #125, 125, 170.
Tennessee: Only played 10 games against RPI top 50, went 3-7, 4 less quality wins, 3 bad losses to #146,116,146
Nebraska: Only played 10 games against RPI top 50, went 3-7, 4 less quality wins, 3 bad losses to #141,111,152

That is just my thoughts on why on a few. Now Harvard won the Ivy league, which harvard is a good team but their SoS of 244 and 0-2 against RPI top 50 is what hurts them.

[WSUwatcher]

I always lean less toward "conspiracy theories" and more toward "ineptitude theories."

Good call, tgc.

It does seem odd that the #3 overall seed would have in its bracket the highest seeded team from among the fourth, eighth, and ninth groups (St. Louis is the second highest #5 seed, which seems right). But what if the bracket had contained #4 Michigan State's "Mighty Spartans," complete with Marshall quote bulletin board material, #5 St. Louis, #8 Gonzaga (an obvious choice if story line is what's being sought, as well as quite possibly a better, if less hyped, team than Kentucky), and #9 GW? Oh, and Syracuse as the Midwest third seed instead of Duke?

Smaller names in some cases, and probably the talking heads would have been less fascinated / mesmerized / gleeful (i.e., Gottlieb and *******), but 3/4 of last year's Final Four would still have been in there, and would that field really have been that much easier? Unless you get the benefit of a string of upsets (and sometimes even then), it just gets tough "at this level" and this time of year. Just have to go out and beat whoever is next in line.

[DUShock]

How's this for way out there . . .

Remember those articles from a couple of weeks ago about how much money the Vegas sports books stood to lose if WSU won the title?

Just a thought.

:devilish:

[RoyalShock]

I'm going to stare a that all day, waiting for the truth to appear. Thanks, DU. So much for getting anything done today.

[Kung Wu]

Conspiracy: The selection sunday thread was posted and it got me in there and then the "official" thread came up so all of my spot on analysis and rapier wit was repressed.

LMAO

I think they got merged. The reason the Selection Sunday thread was started (by me) is because the other one was started a week before the event and fell off the list of threads. When I looked for a thread to see what people were discussing it never dawned on me to page back in history for something that current.

That and I was distracted by what appeared to be a man in the grassy knoll.

[ripemupshocks]

THAT'S IT! WE'RE GOING TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS!