From an entertainment perspective, it'd be great. The major downside is basically teams would then be required to scout the rest of the NCAA teams to make those decisions as to where they want to be placed. Do we really want dedicated "scout coaches" across the country and schools dedicating that much time, effort, and money to figuring out the most favorable matchups? That sort of expertise is probably not something that should be at play in determining a champion even though it sounds like a lot of fun.
I think Ken Pom does cap margin of victory. But I think it is around 25 pts and it was because he didn’t see increased predictive value in a 35 pt win vs a 25 pt win.
I agree that I have no idea why the NET would want a cap around 10. To me, there is a big difference between winning by 20 vs 10. It’s not “running up the score” at that level.
Coach K on Kyle Singler - "What position does he play? ... He plays winner."
"Duke is never the underdog" - Quinn Cook
When Steve Spurrier was at Florida, they ran up the score against UGA. The Georgia coach at the time (Ray Goff) was furious, and after the game Goff confronted Spurrier at mid-field and demanded to know why Steve had run up the score.
"Damn, Ray," responded Spurrier, "I didn't see in the rule book where it was my job to stop my team from scoring."
Also remember that while the MOV component of NET is capped at 10 points per game, there is an entirely separate net efficiency component. This is based on raw efficiency (not adjusted for opponent strength) and there’s no cap on efficiency margin, so this is essentially an uncapped margin component, just adjusted for tempo.
Coach K on Kyle Singler - "What position does he play? ... He plays winner."
"Duke is never the underdog" - Quinn Cook
It is hard to believe the ACC is only a 4-5 bid conference after the preseason expectations. Unfortunately the middle/bottom of the conference has really earned it. Honestly there might only be three deserving teams in the league, but Virginia’s coaching and experience combined with how awful the rest of the teams look should be enough to get enough wins. Hopefully 1-2 teams can take advantage like State and maybe BC to make good resumes...
I totally agree. And one of the *problems* right now with the tournament bracketing process is that the committee *does* care about being more entertaining. Once they opened Pandora's Box and started geographically placing teams past the 1-line, they tainted the whole thing.
I would be in favor of continuing to have a committee that selects the teams, but seeding should be done via a straight 1-68 ranking of the teams selected, based on whatever your favorite metric/s would be. (And not NET.)
It’s not that odd. There’s a lot of cross pollination between categories incorporated into the NET, especially on the results based side. The reality is that the NCAA is not very transparent on the exact calculation, so it’s hard to know how much each factor is weighted. Of the five categories they list, 3 are more about “did you win?” and the other two are about “How much did you win or lose by?”. Within that, each individual factor favors certain things over others. So having one that caps and one that doesn’t isn’t necessarily better or worse, but because one of the categories is specifically called “margin of victory” and that category is capped, it can lead to confusion that winning by more than the cap can’t help your NET, which isn’t true because it factors into another category. The link below is a primer article the NCAA released last year with some basic details.
https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball...etball-ranking
While I don't disagree with Lunardi having only 5 ACC teams in the bracket, what's up him cramming them all into one region?
Duke is in the East, FSU in the South, and everyone else is plucked into the Mid-West, including play-in NCSU. I can't see the selection committee doing that. Two teams, sure, but not three and leaving one region ACC free.
Also, Lunardi has set up a potential Duke - SFA rematch.
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-bas...l/bracketology
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
While that would be, objectively, fairer than the way they do it now, I seriously doubt it could happen because it would basically render moot the "selection show."
So, if the choice is between the current system of the bracketing being done by a committee of ADs -- who (non-transparently) sort of do it by the 1-68 rankings, but sort of do it by geography (and their guess as to which region would be perceived to be better for team x or y other than the overall #1 seed who gets to choose) and sort of do it by their rules about trying to avoid rematches (but not always) since the only rules they really have to adhere to are about keeping teams from the same conference out of the same region in seeds 1-4 and separated for a certain number of rounds depending on how often they played -- and one where each school, in the order of the straight 1-68 rankings, picks its spot in the bracket (presumably subject to the same rules about conference teams not being bracketed together), then I don't see any way it ends up worse than what we have now.
And to respond to the poster above about that somehow being undesirable because it would require coaches to spend time planning for which spot to pick, I don't see that as much of a downside. As with scouting generally, there would be some variance -- some would approach it analytically/methodically, others might apply some short of emotional decision (aiming for a particular matchup, like Wichita choosing to be an 8 seed in the Midwest to get a shot at Kansas rather than a 7 someplace else, or to avoid a particular matchup); but, I'm sure most coaches would simply pick based on the highest bracket spot they can get + geography, so wouldn't spend much time on the issue at all on the premise of "I don't care who we play, I'm worried about my team."
But, I'd much rather be debating the handful of interesting decisions that would occur -- "did Izzo choose to avoid Duke or be bracketed with Duke" than the current tiresome debate over who the Committee screwed.
They may not actually do it, but it falls within the rules about how early conference teams can meet based on how many times they played in the regular season/tournament (it happens to work out that it wouldn't matter if any of those teams met in the ACC tournament the way they're seeded).
With Kansas and now Michigan State losing this weekend, there's a new pecking order for 1 seeds.
Baylor, Duke, and Gonzaga appear to be clear-cut favorites as of now for 1 seeds in the South, East, and West, respectively. I would argue that Butler is in a pretty good spot for a 1 seed in the Midwest at the moment with San Diego State and Auburn worth considering as well. I guess the important factor here is that none of these teams are in a position to unseat Duke in the East region for the 1 seed.
Looking at the teams contending for a top 4 seed, Duke is in a really good position should the Blue Devils finish the season with the best record in the ACC. There just isn't another team in the northeast or Mid Atlantic that is there to challenge for the New York City regional. Maryland is the closest contender, but they would have to do a lot to truly contend. The same is true for Louisville.
A lot can and will change over the next 6 weeks, but I feel pretty good about how things look for Duke at the moment.
Louisville would prefer Indianapolis by a large margin. It's the equivalent of UNC drawing Greensboro. The under the radar schools that would want NYC are Seton Hall and Villanova. Both are capable of winning the Big East and making a claim for a #1 seed at this point.
Winning this ACC isn't going to guarantee you a #1 seed, particularly if KS and MSU continue to struggle. I would not complain too much if we were the #2 seed in NYC.
I think you are right about Villanova and Seton Hall being options for the #1 seed in NYC, although that would require a lot of things to happen, such as Butler collapsing. Speaking of Butler, the reason I don't see Louisville being competitive for the Indy region #1 is that there are so many teams in the Midwest that have an inside track to that Midwest #1 Seed, including Butler, Michigan State, Kansas, and others. I think being in the Midwest region is an option for Louisville, but not as the #1 seed.
Reminiscent of a Duke - UVA football game in which (IIRC which is perilous) Duke trailed 28-0 in the first quarter and lost by a huge margin. Crusty (but competent) UVA coach George Welsh continued to pour it on, and after the game said "I can't help it if they can't tackle." He was right, of course.