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Originally posted by Cdizzle
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I WANT DALLAS!!
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My thoughts exactly. Y’all need to plan better. Those dates have been published for a loooong time!
I WANT DALLAS!!
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I like that all of ESPN’s resume comparisons include zero criteria used by the committee. Definitely the Worldwide Leader in SportsComment
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I’m gonna err on the side of preferring the team, and the fans that will help cheer them on, be as close to home as possible, as opposed to caring what happens with various real or imaginary birds down at the $200M, island unto itself, human sardine can at Emporia and Waterman.Comment
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Terrible. The slow roll of each region with match ups was the best part of watching that show. Besides, I have to be at a father/daughter dance at 5:30, and I’d really like to know what’s going on before then!!! On the other hand, the last few times we didn’t win in StL, I’d have loved to know we were in as quickly as possible."You Don't Have to Play a Perfect Game. Your Best is Good Enough."Comment
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Me either. Not to mention the Final Four and Championship game will be on TBS? I mean doesn't bother me as I have that channel, but wouldn't you want those games on National Television?Originally posted by AndShock View PostComment
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The tournament will always be broken without Gus Johnson.Originally posted by ShockerFever View Post
But yeah, this is dumb. At least the online offering is decent.Comment
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The 2018 Bracket Matrix
Updated: 3/6/18 6:35 PM
# of Brackets = 132 of 132
Cincinnati = 2-Seed, (2.44) was (2.92)
Wichita State = 4-Seed, (3.97) was (3.66)
Houston = 6-Seed (6.20) was (6.46)
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"Lots of Top Seeds are Going to be Pissed About Where They are Sent in NCAA Tournament" - The Big Lead
By: Jason Lisk
Posted: 03/06/18, 11:48am cst
"The NCAA Tournament has moved to a system where they give geographic preference to top seeds in recent years, sometimes at the expense of bracket balance. However, this year is going to test the geography and leave several high seeds with shattered dreams of playing at their preferred locales.
The problem is this–the NCAA tries to book the eight first round locations by dividing them roughly by region, but the regions don’t actually reflect the balance of where the top teams are located. This year, we have sites in Pittsburgh and Charlotte (East), Nashville and Dallas (South), Detroit and Wichita (Midwest), and Boise and San Diego (West).
West. I went through the last decade of tournaments, though, and in looking at the top 6 seeds in each bracket (the kind that could get geographic preference), the breakdown of actual top seeds by geographic region (as generally defined by where the regional finals are held) is as follows:
West – 14%
Midwest – 36%
East – 27%
South – 23%
The East (if we consider the Carolinas as representing the southern edge of the East Region) and the South (if we include the South to go from Georgia and Florida in the East, to Texas and Oklahoma in the West, and Kentucky to the north) are pretty balanced in terms of the teams and hosting sites.
But, the Midwest has way more quality teams than sites, while the West gets more first round sites than teams to fill them. The Midwest, as it has been generally categorized, has lots of top teams, and a high volume of other teams that emerge in a given year. Not only does it have most of the basketball powers of the Big Ten, but you also have half the Big East (Xavier, Marquette, Creighton, Butler), top programs from the Big 12, and powers from the American Conference like Cincinnati and Wichita State. Kentucky and Louisville are also closer geographically to many of the Midwest sites than southern locations when it comes to site preference.
That situation is particularly pronounced this year. Half of the sites this year are west of Kansas City, the first time that has been the case in over a decade. Add to that a down year for the Pac-12, and we may be looking at a situation where no team west of Lubbock, Texas is seeded better than a 5-seed. (Compare that to last year, where Gonzaga, Arizona, Oregon, and UCLA were all top 3 seeds).
The result is going to be this: lots of teams will be moving West in the tournament, and may not be happy about missing out on a local site. The only sites I am comfortable projecting is that Virginia and Duke are going to be in Charlotte, Villanova will go to Pittsburgh, and Kansas will be in Wichita.
But with so many Great Lakes region teams looking like top four seeds (Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Cincinnati, Xavier, West Virginia) and other Southern teams (North Carolina, Auburn, Tennessee) maybe also getting squeezed out, things are going to get messy for everyone.
It would be a disaster for the Detroit hosting site, for example, if neither Michigan or Michigan State is playing there despite being top options, and are instead playing elsewhere at the same time. But that could very well happen.
Here’s a potential walkthrough of going down a seed list and bracketing to give the next team up the closest remaining site:
#1 Virginia goes to Charlotte
#2 Villanova goes to Pittsburgh
#3 Xavier goes to Detroit (Cincinnati is 263 miles to Detroit, 273 to Nashville and 288 to Pittsburgh)
#4 Kansas goes to Wichita
#5 Duke takes the 2nd Charlotte spot
#6 Purdue takes 2nd Detroit spot
#7 Cincinnati takes Nashville
#8 North Carolina takes 2nd Pittsburgh spot (slightly closer than Nashville but still a 7+ hour drive, so now that option is closed to Michigan and Michigan State
#9 Michigan takes 2nd Nashville spot (ahead of either SEC contender)
#10 Auburn then has to go to Dallas 700 miles away
#11 Michigan State then goes to 2nd Wichita spot 900 miles away
#12 Tennessee takes 2nd Dallas spot 840 miles away, foreclosing Texas Tech and Wichita State from being relatively close enough for fans
#13-16 Wichita State, Clemson, Texas Tech, and maybe West Virginia all go to Boise and San Diego. Even if one is the higher seed, Arizona and Gonzaga will probably be the 5-seeds out West.
That’s a disaster scenario, but one that could play out. Less than half of the sites will have a top seed located within 500 miles. That, despite the fact that most of the teams were within 300 miles of at least one site, and within 500 miles of at least two. A truly balanced bracket might send a couple of the teams out West but avoid shifting everyone 700 miles+ away. Wichita State and Texas Tech could get bumped out of natural fanbase locations in Dallas, because Auburn and Tennessee were bumped out of Nashville, because Michigan or Michigan State were bumped out of Detroit or North Carolina bumped out of Charlotte.
It’s also going to lead to the almost certain situation where all the 4/5 seeds are out West and the 3/6/11 seeds are in Dallas and Wichita, and the committee will need to avoid sending any of the First Four from Dayton to a Western site for travel on short rest reasons. It may be unavoidable.
The ordering of the seed list for the Top 16 teams is going to be vitally important, and the Committee should be focused on it instead of dealing with bubble teams on Friday and Saturday.
The solution to this problem in the future is to not be so hidebound by geography, or to shift the sites so they more accurately reflect where the majority of the top college basketball teams are. Don’t have two Western first round sites every year that are West of Denver, and don’t have a situation where half of the eight sites are West of Kansas City."Comment
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#BoiseBoundComment
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I don't think it's Boise. Dallas if we win the tournament otherwise San Diego. I believe in the past when a school hosts they try to assign them to a site that plays on the other 2 days. I would hope the committee would still assign to Dallas given the proximity but if Dallas is full by the time they get to us on the S-Curve I believe they would assign us to SD vs. Boise.
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Site geography isn't balanced because of team geography, rather because time zones and TV.
Color me not surprised when we finally get a decent seed and get shipped somewhere with a significant geographic disadvantage, despite having a site in our home town and one 5+ hours away.Comment
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And even if you don't have TBS, you'll be able to watch it online just as before.Originally posted by ShockerPhi View PostComment
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Thanks WuShock Reaper for sharing that article. Every year the 4/5 pods are generally the furthest outliers as far as geography. This is because they go in order to fill the spots in the other pods according to the S-Curve of teams. There are 8 locations, once 2 of the top 16 teams are there, that site is done. The committee doesn't place teams in sites, that is done by calculation of miles from school to site. For example, if we are a 4 seed and it's our turn on the S-Curve and the only two spots available are San Diego and Boise, we will go to Boise. WSU is 40 miles closer to Boise than San Diego.
The bad thing with that is Gonzaga looking like a 5 will most likely go to Boise as well. The rules are that the 1-4 seeds are protected geographically, however that is only for the first round as the committee isn't allowed to project winners.
If you want to get a good idea of where we are going, just look at the top 16 teams (bracket matrix works), and go down the line sending them to their closest by mileage location. Once a spot has 2 teams, cross that site off.
As for the committee always screwing us and setting us up with tough rounds or unfavorable matchups, that's just not how it works. The committee decides on the teams that are in, then they rank them 1-68. Jamar Howard 4 President does a pretty good job as well as a few others on this site on where teams will be slotted. The committee then plugs the teams into a computer and it spits out a bracket according to the rules. If you go back and watch halftime of WSU-Cincy, they had Bruce Rasmussen on and he stated that the bracketing takes less than 1 hour. I would bet most of that is combing the bracket to see any obvious rules that were missed by computer.
Complaints can be made on how they slot the 1-68 (they seem to change that every year it seems), but with them revealing the top 16 this year you can get a pretty good idea of what they are looking for, and national bracketologists are projecting accordingly. By their rankings of Kansas, North Carolina, Michigan State and Oklahoma, you can tell they are heavily weighting the Quadrant numbers based on RPI. This in my opinion is a plus for Wichita State this year due to the move to American and way more games with Q1 + Q2 games. We are currently 4-3 and 10-2 in the top 2 quads. The path in the AAC tourney also gives us a possible 3 more Q1 matchups. Gonzaga is looking a 5 seed despite being top 10 in all predictive measurements (kenpom, bpi, etc.) because their rpi and quadrant wins would slot them there.
WSU just needs to take care of business in Orlando and rack up those quadrant 1 wins. Do that and we can get that 3 seed and be in Dallas.
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