2016 Bracketology

[pie n eye]

At this point if we lose one more game I'd be happy with a "First Four" game at the very least. Not saying we'd drop that far if we only lose one more and that was in the Valley title game, but I just want to get in the tournament. It'd be a disaster if Fred, Ron and Evan didn't make the NCAA tournament their senior seasons. But as much as I think Palm isn't very good at his job, he's right. We really haven't beaten anyone all season. We need to get to at least 25 wins to make us look like a tournament team. Luckily for us we're dismantling teams right now and don't really have anyone in our way for awhile. Going into Selection Sunday with 8 straight blowout wins is going to look really good.

We just need to win 5 more games so we don't have to worry about Selection Sunday. Only where to buy our tickets for the games.

So Utah is nobody?

[Zubcut]

So Utah is nobody?

Palm says that Utah win is all they have and it isn't nearly enough to get an at large bid. He thinks anylitics sites like KenPom are meaningless. It's all top 50 and top 100 wins and losses to him. That's about all I think he looks at. He doesn't think the committee considers injuries very much at all unless it's to move teams down. Never to put a team in the field that had injuries early and is now healthy.
He also said every time he's watched WSU they've lost and not looked good. He probably only saw the Tulsa, Iowa and Illinois St games. He says the eye test says they are a bubble team at best and on the wrong side of the bubble.

[shock-it-to-me]

Palm says that Utah win is all they have and it isn't nearly enough to get an at large bid. He thinks anylitics sites like KenPom are meaningless. It's all top 50 and top 100 wins and losses to him. That's about all I think he looks at. He doesn't think the committee considers injuries very much at all unless it's to move teams down. Never to put a team in the field that had injuries early and is now healthy.
He also said every time he's watched WSU they've lost and not looked good. He probably only saw the Tulsa, Iowa and Illinois St games. He says the eye test says they are a bubble team at best and on the wrong side of the bubble.

That's ridiculous. If top 100 and top 50 wins are so important, how are we determining what top 50 and top 100 wins are then? You can't use RPI type metrics for one determining factor and then not for another.

[HenryMuto]

This forthcoming comment isn't picking on Henry as it appears that he has had a good run with his bracket prognostications. You have my respect! :good:

That said, I have skepticism on the art of bracketology. If someone picks a "perfect bracket" this year, they shouldn't take credit for going 68/68. 32 of those 68 teams are predictable auto bids. Thus, there is no skill involved with coming up with those. Also, if you follow college basketball at all, the first 20 at-large bids...maybe even 25...should be pretty easy to guess. The last couple of spots are where skill and knowledge come into play.

Now, this is to say nothing about those who not only are able to pick the field correctly but also have good accuracy with seeding.

If Joe Lunardi and the like really want to prove their genius, show us how well the bracket turned out compared to their very first bracket released. I am looking at his bracket from August and it looks a bit off. Gonzaga was a 3 but probably needs to win its conference tournament. Xavier will probably be better than a 9 seed.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask..._/iteration/36

I agree when you hear people say they hit on 95% of the bracket it really isn't that impressive because you are handed 32 auto bids and another say 26 at large are usually locks. I have only missed 1 team 8 teams, 2 teams 4 teams and got all right once and I am still only at 98%. The way they keep score it isn't really about getting all the teams right as it is about getting as many teams exactly seeded correctly. You get 3 pts per team, 3 pts per correct seed and only 1 pt for missing by 1 seed line. Of course if you miss a team you can't get 6 pts. I had my best score ever last year with 351 pts because I got 45 teams seeded exactly right my best ever then another 18 seeded within 1 spot. This is how I was able to best the 136 people in the matrix last year as the #1 guy had 347 pts. Really only a few points separate being average for the year or having a good showing. You will have 30-40 people separated by 3-4 points near the top so correctly getting 2 more teams seeded right might be the difference between 10th and 50th place.

In 2014 first place scored 350 pts and I had 338 pts and I finished in 35th place.
In 2013 first place scored 344 pts and despite that I got all 68 teams correct I only scored 330 pts finishing in 34th place because I only got 32 teams seeded correctly.
2006 was the first year they did the bracket matrix I actually beat all 9 or so of them that is all that did it back then but they were the big guys like Palm.
In 2007 I would have finished 2nd place but again not many doing it back then.

This is kind of like my fantasy football stuff I do the only difference is I can't win $200K doing this and when I take 2nd place like I did this year I don't miss out on 175K and back to back National championships and have to live with that kind of pain for the rest of your life.

[HenryMuto]

That's ridiculous. If top 100 and top 50 wins are so important, how are we determining what top 50 and top 100 wins are then? You can't use RPI type metrics for one determining factor and then not for another.

I believe you have to look beyond the numbers and break it down another way. You might have 5 top 50 wins but if two of them are against Princeton and South Dakota State they will not carry nearly the weight of having 3 top 50 wins against sure fire tourney teams and another 2 outside the top 50 but are either likely tourney teams or bubble teams (say Michigan and Syracuse).

To me you have to see how many NCAA tourney level wins you have regardless of their RPI. Since the committee has 10 members and each person has their own view of what is important and they rotate around year after year all people like me is doing is taking a guess. Sometimes your right sometimes your wrong.

[WSUwatcher]

I heard an interview with Palm who says he never looks at analytical sites like KenPom because "I don't want that to cloud my thinking."

His what?

So he looks at top 50 and top 100 wins and losses as measured by something like RPI, which is known to be largely meaningless and non-predictive, and then claims to be thinking? FacePalm, indeed.

He's an honors graduate of the Gottlieb School of Media; but he gets his extra bit of attention and controversy, and (in the style of Professor Doug) that's all that really matters to him.

By the way, Zub from Omaha, I'm curious -- if you think Palm is a buffoon as you seem to, why do you keep coming here to quote him? Things a little too quiet on the Bluejay front these days?

[ShockerPrez]

This whole thread is why being in the Valley sucks ass!

The Valley conference schedule is like mowing your back yard in 100 degree weather. You just want to be done with it. So you think you can skip pickin up the dog ****. But trying to be careful not to let the tires go over any piles.

But low and behold, one pile always sneaks up on you and then you have to spend more time hosing off the mess on the tire, or else it'll stink up the whole garage.

And then you wonder what good the damn dog even is. All it does is **** in your yard, eat your food, and leave dog hair all over your house.

The Valley is your dog, the yard is our schedule, and each valley team represents a pile of ****!

[Stickboy46]

I heard an interview with Palm who says he never looks at analytical sites like KenPom because "I don't want that to cloud my thinking". When told that WSU was #12 in KenPom he's said that just proves those sites are meaningless because it's ridiculous to think WSU is anywhere close to the 12th best team in the country. He says this despite the fact that over the last several years KenPom and BPI rankings have been proven to be far, far better at predicting tournament success than RPI or seeding. In fact RPI rankings have proven to be the worst predictor of tournament success.
He also said the losses to UNI and Illinois St proved the early season losses to Alabama, USC, Tulsa, etc. weren't outliers but that WSU is an average team with several teams ahead of them on the bubble. He doesn't think WSU would even be that close to getting an automatic bid because "they just have beaten anybody ".

The NCAA selection committee has shown they use KenPom and Like 5 other analytical sites when they make their decisions. So this just proved that Palm is very disconnected from reality.

[shoxlax]

Anybody that can quote Harry Palms almost word for word has issues

[WSUwatcher]

The NCAA selection committee has shown they use KenPom and Luke 5 other analytical sites when they make their decisions. So this just proved that Palm is very disconnected from reality.

But at least his thinking isn't clouded by it.

[Shockers5150]

I heard an interview with Palm who says he never looks at analytical sites like KenPom because "I don't want that to cloud my thinking". When told that WSU was #12 in KenPom he's said that just proves those sites are meaningless because it's ridiculous to think WSU is anywhere close to the 12th best team in the country. He says this despite the fact that over the last several years KenPom and BPI rankings have been proven to be far, far better at predicting tournament success than RPI or seeding. In fact RPI rankings have proven to be the worst predictor of tournament success.
He also said the losses to UNI and Illinois St proved the early season losses to Alabama, USC, Tulsa, etc. weren't outliers but that WSU is an average team with several teams ahead of them on the bubble. He doesn't think WSU would even be that close to getting an automatic bid because "they just have beaten anybody ".

Other than Utah, and wsu didn't have Grady.

[Shockers5150]

Kennedy was ripping palm and gottlieb on twitter today. It was funny.

[WuShock16]

I agree when you hear people say they hit on 95% of the bracket it really isn't that impressive because you are handed 32 auto bids and another say 26 at large are usually locks. I have only missed 1 team 8 teams, 2 teams 4 teams and got all right once and I am still only at 98%. The way they keep score it isn't really about getting all the teams right as it is about getting as many teams exactly seeded correctly. You get 3 pts per team, 3 pts per correct seed and only 1 pt for missing by 1 seed line. Of course if you miss a team you can't get 6 pts. I had my best score ever last year with 351 pts because I got 45 teams seeded exactly right my best ever then another 18 seeded within 1 spot. This is how I was able to best the 136 people in the matrix last year as the #1 guy had 347 pts. Really only a few points separate being average for the year or having a good showing. You will have 30-40 people separated by 3-4 points near the top so correctly getting 2 more teams seeded right might be the difference between 10th and 50th place.

In 2014 first place scored 350 pts and I had 338 pts and I finished in 35th place.
In 2013 first place scored 344 pts and despite that I got all 68 teams correct I only scored 330 pts finishing in 34th place because I only got 32 teams seeded correctly.
2006 was the first year they did the bracket matrix I actually beat all 9 or so of them that is all that did it back then but they were the big guys like Palm.
In 2007 I would have finished 2nd place but again not many doing it back then.

This is kind of like my fantasy football stuff I do the only difference is I can't win $200K doing this and when I take 2nd place like I did this year I don't miss out on 175K and back to back National championships and have to live with that kind of pain for the rest of your life.

So...we might need to talk next football season so that you can show me how to win such ungodly money like you have. Just sayin'... :good:

[ShockerMas]

Oh lord, I'm watching WVU vs ISU and Musburger just Lunardi why Xavier is a #2 and WVU is a #3 in his bracket since "we all know the Big 12 is the power conference this year". Lunardi with a classic response of "Well Brent, we evaluate teams on their resume not their conference". That shut up the Big 12 homer pretty quickly...

[shockmonster]

Oh lord, I'm watching WVU vs ISU and Musburger just Lunardi why Xavier is a #2 and WVU is a #3 in his bracket since "we all know the Big 12 is the power conference this year". Lunardi with a classic response of "Well Brent, we evaluate teams on their resume not their conference". That shut up the Big 12 homer pretty quickly...

Some of our Wichita KWCH staff (I've heard Jacob Albracht say it a number of times on radio and tv) like to continually argue that if WSU loses the MVC Tournament Championship, WSU may be penalized, because the MVC doesn't deserve two teams. If he was to read this statement from Lunardi, maybe he'd shut up.