What About Us? Blind Resume Friday

Submitted by twotrueblue on March 15th, 2019 at 1:18 PM

Yesterday was about the bubble watch. Four of those five teams played yesterday, and the two teams with the resumes that we thought were best lost. Interesting to note, ESPN's bracketology had these 5 teams in this order at some point before the games yesterday: Florida, Ohio State, Indiana, Creighton, Clemson with the first two of them being in. So here's how the ranking went yesterday.

Looking at bracketologies out there now, Creighton and Indiana are now probably out due to their losses. Ohio State is in now projected to be in as well as Florida. Clemson is probably out right now, too. Interestingly enough though, Florida and Clemson have by the far the best NET rankings out of the five listed here, coming in at #32 and #35 respectively.

So today, let's look at the competition for the top two seeds. From my perspective there is ten teams vying for those eight spots. I took the four resumes most similar to Michigan to compare. (worthy to note: NET ranks are as of yesterday, today's rankings didn't come out until I already had this finished.)

For those who care about the slight change from yesterday to today:

  • Quadrant results remain the same.
  • Resume A's worst loss is now #59
  • Resume B's two best wins are #9 and #9. Their worst loss is now #109
  • Resume C's third best win is #20, and their worst loss is #21.
  • Resume D's third best win is #16. Their worst loss is now #47
  • Resume E's worst loss is #80

So basically, the changes are pretty negligible.

Now let's get some Quad 1 wins this weekend, boys! Go Blue!

tkokena1

March 15th, 2019 at 1:48 PM ^

C>D>A>B>E

C - has the 2 best wins, the best losses, and is undefeated in Q2. 

D & A - are a toss-up but D has the better losses and swap out a Q2 loss with a Q1 loss. Could go either way because I think they are very close. 

B - great Q1 record but the loss to #105 is really bad, plus they have 2 Q2 losses

E - has the worst Q2 record

gobluejrm

March 15th, 2019 at 2:00 PM ^

I went E , A, C, B, D   I was sure on E and D, not sure on the other 3.  C had fewest losses and didnt lose to any bad teams, but they also played the least amount of high end games.  They and D had 7 Q4 games where as A had 5, B had 4, and E had 3.  

ish

March 15th, 2019 at 2:21 PM ^

A or E is LSU.  some bracketologists have moved LSU in front of michigan for the last 2 seed, so we want LSU to lose.  right now they're beating the pants of florida with javonte smart.  he was reinstated for this game.

let's follow the logic in reinstating him.  coach wade is suspended because he was caught on a wire talking about a financial offer he made to smart via smart's handler/runner.  but smart isn't suspended because we're going to assume that he hired a handler who took offers, but smart didn't end up accepting one?  yeah, that's the ticket.  just another example of the ess eee see pissing on the feckless ncaa and knowing they can get away with it.

mfan_in_ohio

March 15th, 2019 at 2:38 PM ^

There is no good reason for LSU to be ahead of Michigan.  They have three q2 losses, they are well below Michigan in the metrics the committee uses.  LSU is 14th in NET, 17th in KenPom, 19th in Sagarin, 23rd in ESPN BPI, and 11th in ESPN SOR (average 16.8) In those metrics, Michigan is 9th, 6th, 8th, 10th, and 4th respectively (average 7.4).  The only metric on the committee's sheet that has LSU higher is KPI, where LSU is 8th and Michigan 9th.  By those numbers, LSU should be closer to a 4 seed than a 2.

Also, if we're going strictly on resume, both teams have the same record but Michigan played a tougher schedule and had no bad losses.  And we shouldn't forget that LSU's biggest win was the result of a missed goaltending call at the buzzer, so that should have a bit of an asterisk.  As, of course, does their whole season.

mfan_in_ohio

March 15th, 2019 at 2:30 PM ^

D has to be ahead of E, as both have 5 losses in q1 and q2, but D has more overall wins, and E lost to worse teams.  Parsing A and C is tough, but since I know who they are I'll wait for their conference tournament to settle that.  B has to get dinged for the worst loss, and two q2 losses compared to none for D.  Also D goes ahead of B just because.

At the moment I'll go C>A>D>B>E.

ak47

March 15th, 2019 at 2:40 PM ^

On the one hand this is fun, on the other hand there is zero practical difference between being the bottom 2 or top 3

mfan_in_ohio

March 15th, 2019 at 2:45 PM ^

The practical difference is that, due to the NCAA's bracketing procedures, the bottom 2 seed will likely get sent to the West region and will be paired with Gonzaga.  If Michigan is the top 3 seed, we will wind up in either the Midwest or South (wherever MSU isn't), with probably the strongest 2 seed and a good 1 seed.  Just as with last year, the West will probably be the weakest region among the top 4 seeds.

TrueBlue2003

March 15th, 2019 at 3:46 PM ^

Yep, their bracketing procedures need to be changed.  I feel like instead of going by straight distance from campus, the ADs should submit an order of preference for every location at each level.  And then the committee goes by that list when slotting the teams in.

For instance, let's say Michigan is the top 3 seed.  Like you said and as I understand it, the "reward" for being the top seed out of the 3s is that you get slotted into the closest location (within the other bracketing rules). To me, that's really dumb because it ignores the opponents in the bracket and it ignores whether you actually want to play in that location even if it is closer.

By allowing ADs to do this, you enable higher demand and attendance.  You give ADs the ability to choose instead of blind distance.

So for instance, Warde would submit something that says these are our top choices for first round in this order: 1) Columbus 2) Hartford 3) San Jose 4) Des Moines 5) SLC 6) J'ville 7) Tulsa 8) Columbia.  These are our top choices for second round: 1) Louisville (maybe? cuz UK will probably be here and so I'd lean against) 2) Anaheim (maybe 1st) 3) Washington DC 4) Kansas City (yes, the "midwest" regional host city is the least attractive).  

So then instead of the committee slotting them into Des Moines or Tulsa or some place where no one will show up just because 1000 miles < 2000 miles, you allow the AD to say, yes, we have a TON of people in the tri-state area and bay area that will attend these early round games.  Put us there.

As they currently do it, San Jose would end up with two 4 seeds like Wisconsin and Kansas State and that will be a half empty arena.

They need to allow a school like Michigan to say, we don't want Des Moines even if it's closer than Hartford and San Jose, give us San Jose and put Kansas State in Tulsa and Wisconsin in Des Moines and everyone wins.

LSAClassOf2000

March 15th, 2019 at 3:56 PM ^

I actually like this idea, although depending on the distribution of teams, it would be interesting to see if one bracket is heavily requested over another based on the venues. 

I wonder if they'd help mitigate the problem of one region being Murderer's Row versus one being the Upset Special each year. Probably not, but still....

TrueBlue2003

March 15th, 2019 at 4:40 PM ^

I'm sure there would be locations more heavily requested than others just as there are currently some locations desired more than others. 

At least with this method, the committee would know where teams actually want to be and would have some input from the institutions that know their fanbases best.

It would definitely enable giving more teams what they want and increase overall attendance.  It's a win for the teams and a win for the NCAA and host cities and it's not hard for the ADs of the top teams to submit these lists.

ak47

March 15th, 2019 at 3:50 PM ^

The top 1 seed doesn't get the top 2 seed. The bottom 2 seed and top 3 seed are the in the same bracket to play each other.

Top 1 seed gets weakest 4, weakest 2 top 3

2nd 1 seed gets, second weakest 4, 2nd weakest 2, 2nd 3

3rd 1 seed gets, second 4, second 2, third 3

4th 1 seed gets strongest 4, strongest 2, last 3

at least I think. Of course than they do so some juggling to make sure no rematches in rd 64 no conference before sweet 16, protect top 4 seeds geographically etc so it doesn't break out perfectly

mfan_in_ohio

March 15th, 2019 at 4:31 PM ^

The general principle is actually that, within each seed band, the top team gets to go to the closest available regional, but teams from the same conference in the top 4 seeds won't go to the same regional.  Also the top 2 seed can't go with the top 1, but any other 2 seed can.  So let's assume that the top 16 teams are in this order:

1. Virginia

2. Gonzaga

3. North Carolina

4. Kentucky

5. Duke

6. Michigan State

7. Tennessee

8. Michigan

9. Houston

10. Texas Tech

11. LSU

12. Purdue

13. Kansas

14. Florida State

15. Kansas State

16. Wisconsin

1 seeds: Virginia goes to the East, Gonzaga to the West, North Carolina to the  South, Kentucky to the Midwest.

2 seeds: Duke can't go to the East or South, so they go to the Midwest.  MSU goes to the South because it's closest.  Tennessee goes to the East, so Michigan goes to the West.

3 seeds: Houston goes to the Midwest because it's closest.  For the rest, LSU can't go to the East, and Purdue can't go to the South, and Texas Tech is about the same distance from both Louisville and Anaheim, so they can go to either.  As a result, Texas Tech goes West, LSU goes to the South, and Purdue goes to the East.

4 seeds: Kansas and Kansas State can't go West.  Wisconsin has to go to the Midwest.  And Florida State has to go West because there are ACC teams in all the other regions.  So FSU goes to the West, Wisconsin to the Midwest, Kansas to the South and Kansas State to the East.

So the brackets are set up like this, with overall s-curve number:

East:

1. Virginia

7. Tennessee

12. Purdue

15. Kansas State

Midwest:

4. Kentucky

5. Duke

9.  Houston

16. Wisconsin

West:

2. Gonzaga

8. Michigan

10. Texas Tech

14. Florida State

South:

3. North Carolina

6. Michigan State

11. LSU

13. Kansas

 

Not quite exact bracket integrity, but pretty close.  Obviously a very small change in the s-curve order could have big ramifications for all the teams after that.  For example, swapping Duke and Kentucky puts Duke as the 1 in the Midwest, but moves Kentucky to the South, MSU to the Midwest,  LSU to the East, Purdue to the South, Wisconsin to the East, and Kansas State to the Midwest.  

ehatch

March 15th, 2019 at 4:15 PM ^

1. A -- 2nd Most wins in Q1. 1 Loss in Q2 drags it down a bit. 

2. B -- Most wins in Q1, but 2 losses in Q2 put them below A for me. Plus they have the worst loss.

3. D -- Pretty sure this is Michigan so am I being too homer-y here? I don't think so, They have no Q2 or 3 losses, and only 2 games against Q3, so they aren't beating up on inferior competition.

4. C -- They clearly have the weakest SOS. They have been beating up on bad competition, but they haven't lost to them. They have the fewest Q1 wins. 

5. E -- Building a record against the cream puffs. And not even beating them all the time with 3 Q2 losses. 

 

Overall, the 3 best wins are pretty interchangable. Is beating the same team twice good or bad? Could just be a favorable matchup rather than actually being better.  

4th phase

March 15th, 2019 at 4:27 PM ^

These are super close. 

1. E - that Q1 win % is impressive, probably best collection of wins. 

2. A - same thing, good Q1 record, good wins, no truly terrible loss.

3. B - sucks cause this is MSU but they have 11 Q1 wins, fell below A because of their worse loss which shows up in the worse Q2 record and worse overall record.

4. C - wins over 2 and 5 with worst loss being #20.

5. D - unfortunately have to put Michigan last. The most Q1 losses and the best wins aren't as high as the others excepting MSU which has 2 wins over us. Splitting the MSU games would have been a game changer, I'd probably put them at 2 if that were the case.

Comments saying E is LSU so they would have to drop down I'd think after losing.