One of many proofs that the committee screwed up - (7)WSU vs (6)Butler

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

I’m still upset about the 6-7 teams that were placed immediately in front of WSU by the selection committee. Any positives of getting to go to Omaha, getting to play KU, etc. are moot in my mind. The committee has a job to do, and in regards to evaluating WSU, they failed miserably.

I’m not finding the time this week to do as much analysis as I first hoped, but considering today is the best Thursday of the year, I'm going to make this one thread as a chance to vent my frustrations, and hopefully by this afternoon I'll be happily thinking about today's games and no longer frustrated with the committee.

I have taken the resumes of Butler and WSU and listed all their wins and losses by RPI rank. WSU has the better record. Butler played the tougher schedule. To help simplify the resumes, I went through and removed similar wins/losses. For example, both teams won @ RPI #190, Indiana State, so we can remove that game from each resume. Similarly, WSU won a home game vs #269. Butler won a home game vs #270. I removed each of those as well as they are virtually identical. You may notice that a few of the similar wins/losses are not 100% equal. I said N85 = @96. In truth, Butler's road win @96 is probably slightly better. However, I also said @123 = @147. In this case, WSU has the slight edge. As a whole, I tried to balance things so that the sum of the games erased from each team's resume was a net wash.

So what is left after all these equally matched resume parts get tossed aside? That is what the right side columns tell us. Imagine for a second that we are evaluating these teams at mid-season. They have each played 14 or 15 games. We have 13-1 WSU vs 8-7 Butler. Butler has played the tougher schedule, but still, WSU is 13-1 with 5 top 100 wins and only one loss, on the road, to a top 25 team. Butler, meanwhile, is 5-7 vs the top 50, with a few mediocre wins thrown in to get them to 8 wins on the season. Who do you rank higher?

I say this is a no brainer. Based on this resume comparison, it would be insane to choose Butler. Now tell me this… why does playing out the rest of our season by adding a bunch of similar results change anything? If at mid-season, WSU is ahead of Butler on a preliminary S-Curve, why should both teams winning @190, or both teams winning a home game over a cupcake, or any of the other pairs of games that we already discussed, change anything? The answer is it shouldn’t.

The selection committee put Butler ahead of the Shox, but that was a horrendous decision that is simply impossible to defend when you look at the numbers. It is also only one of many such examples of the committee acting completely brain dead in terms of putting many undeserving teams ahead of WSU. Grrrrr…

Finally, a few additional tidbits to make the case even stronger:

KenPom:

WSU – 14
Butler – 23

RPI:
WSU – 17
Butler – 31

ESPN BPI:
WSU – 13
Butler – 23

Non-Conf SOS: (Something the committee has previously said it looks at. They prefer teams who choose to “schedule up” in the non-con)
WSU - 48
Butler - 135

[Dave Stalwart]

Butler is one of my immediate upsets. I'm pretty sure I have Texas beating them and I don't think Texas is that good :)

If there is one thing scarier than the 5/12 matchup, it's the 6/11 one when you don't belong as high as a 6.

[Onegreatracer]

I have Butler/WSU in my S16.

[Play Angry]

Texas is actually favored in that game by 1.5 or 2 points depending on the casino.

[_kai_]

Really good analysis, Jamar.

[martymoose]

I look at it this way, KU isn't a 2 and WSU isn't a 7. Indiana as a 10 seed might also be the worst at large in the tournament. The odds are not stacked against us in these first 2 games. We were given a gift in Omaha, I hope we take it.

I do realize KU's RPI is high and they had a strong schedule, but they lost by 30 TWICE! They also gave up huge leads on multiple occasions and squeaked out some of those as wins.

[LoneStar48]

Thanks for the analysis Jamar; it is great! The way I look at it now, as opposed to when it was announced and I had to go buy a new tv, is that at some point, to win the dance, a team has to play some tough games.

I would rather they were the last couple of games, semis and NC game, but that isn't always the case. Maybe they will call it the Wichita State rule in the future, but it does seem like the committee always wants the Shockers to "prove" themselves.

I can't change it, so I have to accept it or keep buying tv's.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

Thanks for the analysis Jamar; it is great! The way I look at it now, as opposed to when it was announced and I had to go buy a new tv, is that at some point, to win the dance, a team has to play some tough games.

I would rather they were the last couple of games, semis and NC game, but that isn't always the case. Maybe they will call it the Wichita State rule in the future, but it does seem like the committee always wants the Shockers to "prove" themselves.

I can't change it, so I have to accept it or keep buying tv's.

[Ricardo del Rio]

Butler is one of my immediate upsets. I'm pretty sure I have Texas beating them and I don't think Texas is that good :)

If there is one thing scarier than the 5/12 matchup, it's the 6/11 one when you don't belong as high as a 6.

I heard one talking head today, who predicted that Texas would defeat Kentucky.

Just reporting nonsense.

[OregonShocker]

Thanks for the analysis Jamar; it is great! The way I look at it now, as opposed to when it was announced and I had to go buy a new tv, is that at some point, to win the dance, a team has to play some tough games.

I would rather they were the last couple of games, semis and NC game, but that isn't always the case. Maybe they will call it the Wichita State rule in the future, but it does seem like the committee always wants the Shockers to "prove" themselves.

I can't change it, so I have to accept it or keep buying tv's.

And not always just the Shoxs; I think they view ALL "mid-majors" with unhealthy skepticism, which is one of the reasons perhaps there are 12 over 5 upsets. Generally these 5s are mid finishers in P5 conferences and the 12s are high finishers in other conferences. (BTW, I have ABSOLUTELY no stats to back that up!) But accepting this approach has fueled my "seeding doesn't matter" mentality...and saved me several TV's!

[Kung Wu]

Here's another proof that the committee screwed up: An NCAA committee made a decision regarding WSU.

I mean haven't those two facts become practically synonymous?

Edit: Though I should mention in this particular case, the selection committee is certainly aware of the backstory about KU not playing us. Based on that I think they saw the opportunity to set this up such that the game would be played as close to our home bases as possible and gave us a gift by lowering our seed.

[fansince80s]

And not always just the Shoxs; I think they view ALL "mid-majors" with unhealthy skepticism, which is one of the reasons perhaps there are 12 over 5 upsets. Generally these 5s are mid finishers in P5 conferences and the 12s are high finishers in other conferences. (BTW, I have ABSOLUTELY no stats to back that up!) But accepting this approach has fueled my "seeding doesn't matter" mentality...and saved me several TV's!

And this is what drives coaches like Marshall to leave.

[Dan]

I think once you get past the first 3-4 seeds, the committee looks more at matchups and shifts the seeds around, regardless of what they say. I'd rather play Indiana than Texas. Even though Texas might not deserve to be in the tourney, they are still stacked with talent. Maybe they intentionally matched up Butler to Texas, who knows. Nothing we can do about it now and if there's ever a chance to knock off KU, it's this year. And even though Kentucky is a total mismatch for us, how cool would it be to get another shot at them?

[jdshock]

if there's ever a chance to knock off KU, it's this year.

I liked a lot of your post, but I just want to clarify that this is not our one and only shot. We're not little brother that has caught lightening in a bottle and we have a "chance" because big brother is hampered by injuries.

WSU has arrived and we are here to stay. If we get the chance to play KU in the tournament this year and we win, you can be certain that this is the third straight year we would've won.

[Dan]

I agree with you, should have stated my thoughts differently. We have a chance to play them and are a point in our program where we can play at the highest level, regardless of opponent. We may not have another chance to play them in 10+ years, noth that we're hanging our hat on this one game, but it mkes it a lot of fun for us fans. Most of my KU friends have already told me they think WSU will take them out.