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One of the entries that I’ve enjoyed most over the years is dissecting the talking heads and their inane “analyses” of teams that were wronged by the Selection Committee.
[See the full post at: And The Bubble Bursts…]What tipped the scales? IMO, it’s that we have the ACCPOY on our team. Would Americans rather watch Green Bay on TruTV on a Tuesday play-in? The national audience would rather tune in to see if Buckets gets another 40!! Ratings maneuver… and a good one. Good for us.
So, I don’t know exactly what tipped the scales in State’s favor. But I’m certainly happy with the outcome.
Answer: TJ Warren
I agree they were splitting hairs between FSU and State. I believe that TJW was the difference.
I can’t help but shed a tear for Green Bay and Larry Brown at SMU. They were absolutely ROBBED of the opportunity to be the 38th (or whatever it is) selected at large team. Oh well, at least they get to play to see who’s the 69th best team in the nation now.
Great analysis.
I won’t disagree with you about bad losses but maybe losses did play a little bit of a factor. I would like to see a closer inspection of 100+ losses similar to what you did for 0-100 wins. Last I checked State’s 2 100+ losses were less than 120. But it’s not much of a cheer when you shout “We suck less!”I’ll go with the Warren factor although If I remember it correctly, we missed the NIT in Gug’s last year and I thought surely they would have grabbed us to have his last game(s).
Did any team receive an at-large bid with less than 20 wins? That would seem to be the primary difference between your last four teams that were vying for the two spots.
If, as some have reported, it was down to State and SMU for the last spot, then State clearly has the edge based on the committee’s historical tendencies with regards to schedule strength. And regardless of what they say publicly about the end of the season not mattering more, I would like that had SMU not shut the bed in their tournament, they’d be in.
The Committee clearly did not value the American. Louisville a 4 seed, when some feel they were definitely a 2, and were considered as a 1 seed.
VA, great work. That was an awesome post. Only two teams I immediately recognized were State and SMU. Great details walking through the final teams.
My question is how was BYU in. I still don’t understand how they got in, especially with losing their #2 scorer this week and several bad losses.
It was the wins at Tennessee and Pitt, and then Cuse (neutral).
How is that better than FSU’s wins?
VCU and UMass were neutral court Top-25 wins and they also won @PittI would like to see a closer inspection of 100+ losses similar to what you did for 0-100 wins…But it’s not much of a cheer when you shout “We suck less!”
You can get to each team’s group of pages at CBS from their standings page
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/standingsclick the team you want to look at and then select “RPI Breakdown”. Here’s State’s page
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/teams/rpi/NCST/north-carolina-state-wolfpackBut bad losses either matter or they don’t. Plus I don’t see any way that the cry of “we suck less” would over-ride more and better wins from the other teams.
I don’t buy the TJ Warren argument at all. That makes absolutely no sense and has absolutely no supporting evidence (ie equivalent past examples).
The Committee clearly did not value the American. Louisville a 4 seed,
That seeding is one seed better what you would predict from their RPI (19). You could argue that winning their conference (regular season and tournament) should move them up to consideration for a 2 or 3 seed.
But their overall SOS was only ranked 80th which isn’t all that impressive if you’re talking about a 2-seed.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/teams/rpi/LVILLE/louisville-cardinals
When I look at this data, it is difficult to see how we got in over FSU, except that we left the committee with a win over Syracuse after FSU got beaten earlier in the day by Virginia. The only other piece, and I think it’s important when you are splitting hairs, because of the unbalanced schedule, we beat FSU in our only meeting with them. So, we win!
VaWolf, I so appreciate these kinds of posts as I love the numbers and the analysis.
BYU looks like the anti-SMU.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/teams/rpi/BYU/brigham-young-cougars
If you are going to penalize teams for poor schedules, you should reward those that play tough ones:
#4 OOC SOS
#25 overall SOS
#31 RPIWith wins against Gonzaga, Texas, and Stanford. Not an easy pick to make, but it’s consistent with the inclusion of Arizona several years ago (which was the same year that Herb’s OOC scheduling caught up with him).
I’m glad BYU was brought up because they are another excellent example proving that so-called bad losses are ignored:
Losses to #133, #159, #178, and #179Great article. I really enjoy doing this every year, but hopefully it won’t matter so much for State fans in the future.
Without reading ahead, I did the exact same elimination process to get down to the final four teams. I think this is what was being discussed:
Are we really going to give the ACC 7 teams? If not, then FSU vs State is one of our answers. I think the head-to-head win and the better ACCtourney record was what did it.
Then I would have chosen Cal over Iowa for two reasons: #1, the OOC SOS was not even close, #2 if you eliminate best and worst wins in the final table, you have to give Iowa a slight (very slight) advantage.
Glad we’re in.
In the past, Iowa would have been easy to eliminate because they lost 6 of their last 7, including the conference tournament. The first time I wrote about the Dance Card, I showed that several of the Dance Card misses (predicted in) had stumbled down the stretch.
It makes sense to me to judge bubble teams by how they are playing at the end of the year (good or bad). But the Selection Committee keeps stressing “whole body of work”, so I don’t know what to think.
One of the things that I forgot to mention was that I won’t be including this NC State resume in my list for future discussions. The margin was too thin this year to provide any confidence that the exact same resume would be included in the NCAAT next year.
For FSU, I have to wonder if their wins against VCU and UMass carry the same weight as say wins against SYR and UNC. Neither A-10 team won the regular season (2nd and 5th) or the conference tournament. So were those wins considered less valuable than the RPI ranking would suggest?
I don’t know, but you have to wonder if the Committee had mental asterisks beside those wins.
“I won’t be including this NC State resume in my list for future discussions. The margin was too thin this year”
By the skin of our teeth. I looked up FSU worst losses and it’s just ACC teams. They did have a solid resume. Losing to Minnesota 50, State 55, Clemson 78, MD 83, Miami 110.
We were lucky NCC slipped into the top 100 at 99. If the committee just looks at the categories.
Don’t know why they took us over FSU other than the Tourney and head to head, or eye test or We got Buckets!, or ….. Maybe it was the cheerleadersJust glad we are In.
Cal’s issue may have just come down to RPI. Do you pass up 53, 54, 55 and 58 for a 63. That leaves a lot of room for folks to cry foul. But Numbers is bulls#!t so….
Then again, the above was focused on losses and as VaWolf pointed out, losses just aren’t that much of the picture.
FSU also wasn’t the last team considered with us. It’s been confirmed (through unofficial channels, but confirmed) that it was SMU who got bumped for us, specifically.
Or to put it more succinctly, when Providence beat Creigh-Creigh, SMU got tossed and not NC State.
When it’s too close to call, I believe they start considering other factors like lack of key player during losses (VBerg), how they finish (ACCT), head-to-head (FSU), how they lost (UNC, Syracuse). I thought they used to say “how they finish” was considered but apparently not anymore; I can’t help but think they implicitly consider it. I thought that with a young team playing early tough OOC games is a bad recipe, but with the Tennessee win, it was worth it. We even have Coach K bringing up that win at an ACCT PC.
Also we finally started beating teams that were “worth” beating. We beat Notre Dame, they started dipping; we beat FSU, they started dipping; and we couldn’t seal the deal on a signature wins during the middle season. Then it came together on beating Pitt at their home and Syracuse in the ACC-T, first beating a Miami team that had just beaten us at home. Syracuse could be considered a team that is also dipping, but they are ranked so high its still the direly needed signature.
But that does not explain why not FSU. I’m thinking even thought they don’t say it, late wins against good teams catches their eye. Maybe they also gave a nod to the last second losses to Cuse and UNX…. Just would be interesting to know.
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