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Rye and wulfpack – that is my concern as well. I hope You thoroughly vetted Keatts. I know that it’s just our luck for us to dragged into this while the school down the road walks away from the biggest cheating scandal in college sports virtually unscathed (though t did hurt their women’s program.)
You will never know what the FBI has or what they want or who will be charged with whatever until it happens. Nothing like having that badge flipped out in your face to get your full attention.
I don’t think so. The Selection Committee is made up of athletic directors and conference commissioners. I believe that they work to get the best teams because they would want their teams treated just fairly in the future. In the end, most of the bitching comes from (a) idiotic talking heads (See Digger Phelps and Dickie V), (b) talking heads trying to stir up controversy (everyone at CBS), or (c) mid-majors that want an invite even though they didn’t beat anyone.
Funny I thought it was about something else? Agents, exposure, profiling talent so they can get more lucrative contracts, money to the coaches that showcase the agents players.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/latest-news/article200583749.html
But hey I’m just an old cynical dude, I’m sure you’re right Va, its about the purity and integrity of the game.
I would also think the NCAA would be highly sensitive to ratings so they can sell advertising but again, I’m sure metrics wins out in this process. Just the businessman in me, the analytical engineer in me left 3 years out of college when I went into sales and marketing.Show me where it hurt the UNX women’s BB program.
I’m not familiar with what happened there. Can you please summarize?
Thhis may be all smoke and mirrors at this point – but my instincts say this is going to be cataclysmic.
Rye and wulfpack – that is my concern as well. I hope You thoroughly vetted Keatts. I know that it’s just our luck for us to dragged into this while the school down the road walks away from the biggest cheating scandal in college sports virtually unscathed (though t did hurt their women’s program.)
I don’t have any info that Keatts is involved in any way. But yea, I surely hope the proper due diligence was done. Other programs wanted him, too. So there’s that.
My fear is we’re just getting things going with the whole sport (and us) about to be blown apart…
No kidding. I’m surprised more people aren’t following this. I understand it is all innuendo now but just reading the tea leaves – it’s about to hit the fan.
Why would I follow it? I already know how the story will play out and UNC-CH will be as guilty as anyone but one of the few major HOF/top BB schools to walk away untouched while others, including plenty of sacrificial lamb programs, will be slaughtered. No major reform will come out of it either.
If you doubt this then look at the NCAA stance on the Notre Dame program allegation that they had easy classes for athletes. Enough said.
Maybe but I am certain that UNC-CH (along with a few other untouchables) is involved (as I witnessed and knew first hand of drugs, money and no classes in the 1980’s at that fine upstanding institution) and I am very certain that they will come out unscathed. So I stand by my comment that I could give two sh*6$ about it because justice will not be served fairly if at all.
I also strongly suspect that Coach K^2 will be railroaded regardless of whether he was involved or out (of which I think he definitely was not). So forgive me if I don’t follow another investigation that will lead to a laughable outcome of justice.
Listen once you get below like 100 or so in the power ranking you’re pretty much splitting hairs aren’t you?
To expand this line of reasoning…you are splitting hairs between 5 and 10…and 20 and 35…and 40 to 60. What is the Vegas line if these teams played each other….a point?! (Many times in the contradictory direction!)
Said another way, popular rankings (RPI, coaches, AP poll, BPI) imply a linear relationship but as Goldenchain points out, this is not reality. In some ways the quadrant system reduces this issue because it cohorts wins/losses though that argument does not hold up because there is a circular reference and therefore a non-sequitur.
The only folks that have any business ranking teams are the Vegas odds-makers. Those quant ex-Wall Street guys that set the books are breathtakingly accurate. Hire them and call it a day…(although of course Vega loves these silly rankings which are used by dumb money bettors to inform opinions.)
The only folks that have any business ranking teams are the Vegas odds-makers.
IIUC, the science behind sports betting is not purely predictive. It’s designed to set the point spread so that an equal number of people bet on each team. That’s why the betting line sometimes changes as the date for the game approaches. I know very little about sports betting, so if I’m wrong maybe someone can correct my misunderstanding.
Right now, the Selection Committee is test driving five new algorithms as discussed above. Two of the new algorithms attempt to do the same thing as RPI…measure a team based on past accomplishments. The other three algorithms are designed to be predictive. If you look at the snip for State’s team sheets, there are three average rankings reported…one for the ones based on accomplishments, one for the three predictive algorithms and one for all six algorithms. AFAICT, no one knows exactly how these averages are going to be used.
The issue with the predictive algorithms is that they all include the final point spread of the games. So if predictive algorithm(s) were the only one(s) used by the committee, teams would no longer pull starters at the end of the game because suddenly winning by 30 would be better than winning by 10. We’ve already watched this exact scenario play out in college football in the BCS days and the NCAA has already said that they do not want that to happen in basketball.
What the NCAA is trying to do is set up an analytical system that basically takes all responsibility off of them to make any decisions.
GC, I withdraw my previous response and want to take another crack at this.
I don’t believe that they are trying to pass off responsibility onto an algorithm. But it’s obvious that they are trying to reduce complaints. I hope that they are trying to address the concerns of their member schools (ie coaches, AD’s, and conference commissioners)…and not idiots in the media. But there’s always the possibility that the changes are trying to address both.
Specifically, the mid-majors don’t like the RPI and didn’t think that their road games against power conference teams were given enough weight. So the Selection Committee used the advice from the geek squad to come up with the different ranges in each quadrant (home/neutral/away) and are including five new algorithms in the mix. If the Selection Committee uses the exact same yard stick to measure everyone, then the mid-majors shouldn’t have any complaints if they come up short.
But in the real world, losers are always going to complain. So it will be interesting to see exactly how the whining shifts this year.
I may have been too quick to dismiss the positive effect that the quadrant system will have for mid-majors. I happened to think about Sendek’s tenure and remembered how few Top25 wins he got while at State. Which means that a lot of the wins that got Sendek and State into the NCAAT would be reduced in “value” if the quadrant system was used.
Just another way of saying that Selection Sunday will be more interesting than normal this year.
Who is Al Gore Rithm?
Is he the guy who created the internets thingy while spittin a beat?
thanks ryebread;
“agree that the committee’s “mix of inputs” leaves it open to them doing whatever they want.”
and diverting responsibility: analytics says so.
VA I’ll accept that 8:49 response. I do accept that the mid-majors want and actually need a bigger piece of the pie (because I honestly believe at some point the Powers 5s will likely split off somehow and the NCAA needs to groom a new base).
There is still a part of me that thinks the ads fund the payouts (which is another reason the mid-majors complain when they get shunned) so there is a balancing act going on behind the scenes and then throw in the shoe-gate and people getting palms greased to showcase the wares of certain players, and some of those palms are likely on the committee.
It will be interesting.people getting palms greased to showcase the wares of certain players, and some of those palms are likely on the committee.
We’re talking about vast amounts of money…which could always affect the brackets. But I don’t think the any such conspiracy is involved for the following reasons:
1) The committee members rotate on for a few years and then may never be involved again. Thus the shear numbers of people that would have to be bought off and then remain quiet for all time grows quickly.
2) AD’s don’t on their own team. Conference commissioners don’t vote on anyone in their conference. So you would have to buy off members from other conferences to conspire and possibly hurt their own conference members.
3) Statistical analysis (Dance Card) shows that the teams selected can be predicted based on that season’s results.
4) Those that have gone through a mock selection event have concluded that such conspiracies are not possible:
Some people come in with preconceived notions of how it works,” Worlock said. “Then they find out about some matchup conspiracies … even if the committee wanted to put on a mad scientist hat and create these juicy matchups, there’s just no time for it because of the bracketing principles.”
In other words, if the real bracket contains a matchup between West Virginia and Cincinnati, it’s not because committee members are trying to tweak Bob Huggins.
Dave Revsine, lead studio host for the Big Ten Network, did the mock selection a few years back. As he says of the exercise: “It debunks all the myths.”
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