It looked like Ohio State was going to pull off a nice home win over the higher ranked Wolverines, but the Buckeye shooters went cold late in the second half, allowing Michigan to go on runs of 12-0 and 8-0 in the last 12 minutes of the game. The win all but locks up a bye for Michigan in the Big Ten tournamen, as they have a four game lead over 5-seed Ohio State with just six games remaining.
Oklahoma State had no viable replacement for suspended Marcus Smart, as they lost by 19 to a surging Longhorns squad.
The most news-worthy game of last night has me kicking myself for not writing about it yesterday. I saw San Diego State @ Wyoming on the schedule, and I thought it'd be a trap game for the Aztecs, but I didn't mention it in my post. I even went so far as to run the potential outcome through an scenario calculator to see how far the road loss would drop San Diego State's RPI. They only fell from 16th to 18th, but the 2nd loss of the season will hurt more in Tournament selection than RPI standing.
1's: Arizona, Syracuse, Wichita State, Florida
2's: Villanova, Saint Louis, Kansas, Cincinnati
3's: San Diego State, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Creighton
4's: Massachusetts, Duke, Iowa State, Kentucky
5's: Gonzaga, Pittsburgh, Virginia, UCLA
6's: New Mexico, Michigan, George Washington, Texas
7's: Louisville, Ohio State, VCU, Connecticut
8's: Oklahoma, Memphis, Iowa, Colorado
9's: SMU, Arizona State, Kansas State, Xavier
10's: North Carolina, Toledo, Oklahoma State, Saint Joseph's
11's: Stanford, Indiana State, Missouri, Saint Mary's
12's: Minnesota, North Dakota State, Oregon, Richmond, Southern Miss, North Carolina State
13's: Belmont, New Mexico State, Stephen F Austin, Harvard
14's: Green Bay, Delaware, Mercer, Manhattan
15's: Georgia State, UC Santa Barbara, North Carolina Central, Boston University
16's: Bryant, Vermont, Weber State, Elon, Southern, Radford
FFO: BYU, California, LSU, Dayton
NFO: Mississippi, Providence, Georgetown, Tennessee
Why is Duke a 4, why is UMass a 4? How is Saint Louis a 2? #biased
ReplyDeleteMy response is based on the assumption that you're implying Duke should be higher, and UMass and Saint Louis should be lower...
ReplyDeleteI agree that there may be some bias in favor of win-loss record over strength of schedule, but I can't claim that bias as my own. My predictions are based on a regression analysis of the last three years' tournament seedings, as selected by the committee. Basically, they're more of a technical analysis and less of a fundamental one.
If anything, my method removes school and conference bias that exists in favor of ACC teams like Duke, over A10 teams like Saint Louis.
I'll admit it's very hard to compare teams with very different SOS numbers. Duke has 4 quality wins, but also two bad losses. Saint Louis lacks any quality wins, but their only two losses come to top-7 RPI teams. I believe the committe shows favor to teams who take care of what they can control (wins) over those who have the advantage of a strong schedule - something they can't.
Regarding UMass, they're tied for the 15th best win-loss record in the country, with a better than average #45 SOS. I'm not sure how one can make the case for them being lower than a 4 or 5 seed. Duke is tied for the 22nd best record, and moves up from a six to a four seed based on their outstanding #4 SOS. I'll also mention that UMass' worst loss (St. Bonnie) isn't as bad as Duke's worst loss (Notre Dame).
Was Michigan on the bubble before they won?
ReplyDelete