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

[another shocker]

how in the world did oklahoma state get invited with an 18-13 record? they went for the p5 more than ever this year.

[Rlh04d]

Butler is a shining light about how the committee manipulated the WSU/Kansas match this year. There is almost no justification for Butler over us.

They had a losing record against the top 25, top 50, and top 100, overall. In specific ranges, they didn't have over 50% against a single grouping: They won 33% of their games against the top 25, 43% against 26-50, and 50% against 51-100. WSU: 33%, 100%, 71%.

[60Shock]

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

Thanks, Jamar. Great work.

[Slalomshocker]

Great analysis. Facts support WSU as the better team. However, I really believe that WSU was in fact on the 6 line, and as a way to 'give WSU an +' the committee dropped WSU to the 7 line and sent them to Omaha instead of Portland or wherever far far away land they could find. I still contend that WSU had the resume to be on the 5 line, but I kind of like how the bracket has shaped up. Add in ND looking very very beatable today and while I'm not taking a single game for granted....Elite 8 is very realistic for this team.

[MvcBoy]

Injustice

[HenryMuto]

Butler had 6 top 50 wins and Wichita State has 2. That's one plus for Butler. Just saying.

[SHOCKvalue]

Butler had 6 top 50 wins and Wichita State has 2. That's one plus for Butler. Just saying.

Unless I'm missing something obvious, JH4P shows Butler's RPI top 50 winning percentage to be roughly 42%, so unless you are running wind sprints with the 'quality loss' ideology you might want to take a break.

[Rlh04d]

Butler had 6 top 50 wins and Wichita State has 2. That's one plus for Butler. Just saying.

And 14 chances. WSU had four.

Kentucky had 6 wins against the RPI Top 25, and Kansas had 9. That's one plus for Kansas. Just saying. Guess Kansas should have been #1 overall. Kentucky should have had more quality losses.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Butler had 6 top 50 wins and Wichita State has 2. That's one plus for Butler. Just saying.

After all your spamming of posts over and over just to hear yourself talk in the tournament games thread, I come over here and read this garbage.

You are becoming really annoying Henry.