Lopez Shines The Light On NCAA Tourney Committee
The Chronicle's John Lopez has a nice column on the politics of NCAA tourney selections.
I'll take this opportunity to ask all of you who ripped me when I defended the college football computer rankings that put Oklahoma in the BCS championship one year even though they lost their conference championship game -- Wasn't that system, with its objective rules clearly established at the start of the season (flaws and all), better than the murky, almost dirty, sorts of selections that result when humans (and not computers!) are in charge of selecting teams?
Utah State. George Mason. Air Force.
Whatever.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/13/06 22:48 | Sports | Technorati
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Posted by TP @ 09:49 on 03/14/06
The BCS objective rules, although they are clearly established at the start of the season, are set up to arrive at a purely subjective conclusion, and they exclude all but two teams from a chance at the national championship. Does the basketball selsction committee make mistakes? Absolutely. It's unconscionable that George Mason, Air Force, and and four MVC teams are in and UofH and Cincinnati are out. For that matter, the seeding is often suspect as well. The main point, though, is that no team with a legitimate shot at the national championship is left out of the tournament. While the choice this year in football was pretty clearcut, it hasn't always been that way. Ask last year's Auburn team if they got a fair shake. I'm not even saying it should be a 16-team field. Eight's fine with me.
OU should certainly have been in the mix that year for their absolutely outstanding season. They shouldn't have been the only team in the mix, that's all I'm saying.
Posted by another precinct chair @ 10:48 on 03/14/06
APC: I'm not really that bothered by the fact that UH didn't get an invite. They had their shot at playing their way in, and just weren't quite good enough (CUSA did them no favors for a variety of reasons, but that's a topic for another time). But some of those teams that did make it in because of the human element on the selection committee... that's irksome.
Posted by Kevin @ 10:53 on 03/14/06
Yeah, but the human element plays a large role in the BCS as well, in the form of the coaches poll and the Harris poll, which count for a high percentage of the overall ranking. In fact, the polls were given a larger role recently, because people thought the computers were being given too much influence.
Sorry, I've been turning this into a BCS post (speaking of a topic for another time), but it's kind of a pet peeve of mine.
Posted by another precinct chair @ 14:06 on 03/14/06
I'm essentially agreeing with you on the NCAA basketball selection committee stuff, by the way, I just got sidetracked on the other thing.
Posted by another precinct chair @ 14:10 on 03/14/06
64 teams leaves a lot of room for error (65, technically), so I don't think the comparison to the BCS is apples to oranges. But if the NCAA is going to publish their RPI, then they are going to have to stick with it.
Posted by el_longhorn @ 16:53 on 03/14/06
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