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Post by nyline on Nov 28, 2016 7:08:02 GMT -5
VolleyTalk has totally exploded about this -- and the vitriol against Penn State getting seeded is through the roof, then through the other roof, and then back through the first roof. Personally, I think Penn State is one of the top 16 teams in the country, without question. And I think RPI is a fatally flawed system. But the NCAA Committee did appear to ignore, in many instances, two of the criteria they claimed they would focus on -- RPI and winning your conference. It definitely is a travesty when #2 seeded Minnesota has a tougher (to me) draw in the first two rounds than #16 seeded Penn State. And Washington being seeded lower than Stanford? I'm confused by that.
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Post by Millennium on Nov 28, 2016 8:26:26 GMT -5
VolleyTalk has totally exploded about this -- and the vitriol against Penn State getting seeded is through the roof, then through the other roof, and then back through the first roof. Personally, I think Penn State is one of the top 16 teams in the country, without question. And I think RPI is a fatally flawed system. But the NCAA Committee did appear to ignore, in many instances, two of the criteria they claimed they would focus on -- RPI and winning your conference. It definitely is a travesty when #2 seeded Minnesota has a tougher (to me) draw in the first two rounds than #16 seeded Penn State. And Washington being seeded lower than Stanford? I'm confused by that. Minnesota got hosed, unlike the other top 3. Although, I think they're good enough to get to the final four regardless. I don't trust the selection committee's discretion, or lack thereof. They really need a new system. They ignore their own criteria multiple times, this happens way too many times for it to be overlooked. Stanford and PSU, it seems, are getting the benefit of the doubt with the committee. Track record is lifting them up in the eyes of the country. |
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Post by cross5 on Nov 28, 2016 12:15:17 GMT -5
Nit. Stick to volleyball please.
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Post by elliotberton on Nov 28, 2016 14:08:41 GMT -5
I have followed others' recommendations and avoided Volleytalk. It can blow roofs or itself up all it wants, and I remain unaffected.
My own observations are that there are lots of little anomalies in this bracket. Just to name one: PSU swept Michigan State at home, finished ahead of that team in the conference, but is seeded lower. The Committee rep said that they looked at non-conference schedules, which the teams supposedly control, and used that as a barometer. So a 5 set loss to UNC, and losing a tough match to Stanford was not impressive compared with Michigan State's win over San Diego, and loss to Florida. One can only conclude that head to head match ups and common opponents are not as significant.... Not sure why that would be.
Regardless, we get to host so that is a positive. If we can get out of our own gym with two wins (not certain since we seem prone to errors both serving and hitting), we get to go back to Nebraska where we were pretty badly beaten not that long ago.
I remind myself that this is entertaining.
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Post by traveler on Nov 28, 2016 18:43:28 GMT -5
Incidentally, you noted Mary Wise giving props to the BIG OH she got to play libero for her, Caroline Knopp, frmr 5'8" OH for Michigan.
Also, she says libbarrow. Apparently something in the ESPN code that requires the silly leebro pronunciation.
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Post by elliotberton on Nov 28, 2016 19:03:16 GMT -5
And yet she made no mention of a certain setter who transferred to a BiG school ...
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Post by Millennium on Dec 11, 2016 21:49:17 GMT -5
Regarding Penn State's low RPI and #16 seed.
I finally got a chance to put together a definitive answer to those on VT who were questioning PSU's seed.
I spent some time putting this together, so I figured I'd post it here for posterity's sake.volleytalk.proboards.com/thread/66769/chair-peterson-explains-seedings-decisions?page=15It's not that we hate PSU. I think we all respect the sustained excellence of the PSU volleyball program. And PSU is (according to pablo and AVCA) quite a bit better than the #26 that their RPI says. But... MANY other programs have been better than their RPI over the years, and they don't get seeded. They (like PSU would have been this year) get sent to some really unlucky seeded team. And they are always told the same thing -- "your RPI just wasn't good enough." Everybody has been told for years that if you want to get seeded, you need to get your RPI up. And then this happens. So now it really feels like there are different rules for Penn State versus everyone else. And that, I think, is why people are really mad. It's not just getting a seed (Although getting a 10-point bump over RPI seems unprecedented - maybe someone can find other examples of such a bump in the past 20 years); but it's also getting the best possible opening round draw. They open against the worst RPI team in the tournament, a team that, by RPI, is the 196th best team in the country. It sort of defeats the purpose of playing a regular season. The committee got it right, although their reasoning on how they seeded teams is flawed. They obviously need to find a better way to seed teams and be more consistent with their approach. Penn State absolutely deserved a seed, and probably a higher seed than some of the other seeded teams. I'm not saying San Diego or Creighton should not have been seeded but the process needs fixing. Perhaps, some of the other seeded teams should not have been seeded at all. In any case, it's a moot point now. No one here has the ear of a Selection Committee member. In regard to your other statement, Penn State came with 2 match points of sweeping #1 Nebraska. I certainly believe Penn State could defeat both Creighton and Washington. I'd love to see the Pablo odds of those match ups. The issue with Penn State was never whether they were a good team. The issue was whether they were going to be treated like good teams with bad RPIs have always been treated before. And the answer was -- no, they weren't. Unlike EVERYONE else who has previously had a good (ie. top 10) team but a bad RPI, PSU got seeded anyway. And not only did they get seeded, but they got their usual automatic entry to the Sweet Sixteen. If PSU got treated like everybody else, you wouldn't be hearing any of these complaints.
I set out to verify whether the Selection Committee's decision to place Penn State as the #16 seed (with an RPI of #26) was an isolated incident this year or if they had made similar decisions in the past.
I had a sense that Penn State was not the first team to get a seed with a low RPI. Having said that, I was surprised to find not only comparable incidents, but one that was even more extreme (see UCLA 2008 below).
NCAA Selection Committee's decisions over the past 9 years to seed or increase the seeding spot of low/bad RPI teams:
1) There were 3 instances where the Selection Committee placed a seeded team 7 spots higher than their RPI: i) Illinois in 2013 - RPI of 20 (pre-tourney record 16-14) - received the #13 seed.
ii) USC in 2012 - RPI of 13 (pre-tourney record 27-5) - received the #6 seed. iii) Stanford 2011 - RPI of 18 (pre-tourney record 21-7) - recieved the #11 seed.2) There was 1 instance where the Selection Committee placed a seeded team 8 spots higher than their RPI: i) Oregon in 2009 - RPI of T-21 (tied with USC, who were ranked higher before Adj-RPI) (pre-tourney record 19-9) - received # 14 seed.3) There was 1 instance where the Selection Committee placed a seeded team 10 spots higher than their RPI: i) Penn State in 2016 - RPI of 26 (pre-tourney record 22-9) - received the # 16 seed.
4) There was 1 instance where the Selection Committee placed a seeded team 13 spots higher than their RPI: i) UCLA in 2008 - RPI of 27 (pre-tourney record 20-10) - received the # 14 seed.There were additional comparable incidents in the past 9 years (albeit, to a lesser degree) of the committee placing teams in higher spots than their respective RPI:
a) There were 5 instances where seeded teams were placed 6 spots higher than their RPI. b) There were 7 instances where seeded teams were placed 5 spots higher than their RPI. c) There were 6 instances where seeded teams were placed 4 spots higher than their RPI. I'm assuming that I would've found more such examples, if I had gone back even further.
Unfortunately, I could not find the Selection RPI data prior to 2008.I have embedded my spreadsheet here for posterity's sake (just click to download): Selection RPI and Seeds - 9 Years.xlsx (33.95 KB) I'm putting it out there in case I made an error. You can find the NCAA's RPI Archive here (thanks to n00b ): extra.ncaa.org/solutions/rpi/default.aspx"Selection" gets you to the final regular season numbers.
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Post by Millennium on Dec 11, 2016 21:51:18 GMT -5
I followed that up with this brief response, as well.The committee got it right, although their reasoning on how they seeded teams is flawed. They obviously need to find a better way to seed teams and be more consistent with their approach. Penn State absolutely deserved a seed, and probably a higher seed than some of the other seeded teams. I'm not saying San Diego or Creighton should not have been seeded but the process needs fixing. Perhaps, some of the other seeded teams should not have been seeded at all. In any case, it's a moot point now. No one here has the ear of a Selection Committee member. In regard to your other statement, Penn State came with 2 match points of sweeping #1 Nebraska. I certainly believe Penn State could defeat both Creighton and Washington. I'd love to see the Pablo odds of those match ups. The Selection Committee's decision to give Penn State a seed was not isolated. They have made comparable decisions with other low RPI teams in years past (see my post above). Actually, Oregon was a beneficiary of such a decision back in 2009. RPI was T-21 (tied with USC at 21, although USC was ranked higher before the Adjusted-RPI), their pre-tourney record was 19-9, and the seed given was #14. This season was unprecedented in the B1G, with the top 3 seeded teams in the tourney and in the AVCA poll all coming from the same conference. I'm certain that had an effect on the committee's decision to seed PSU.
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Post by nyline on Dec 12, 2016 6:55:14 GMT -5
Your RPI analysis is terrific. I never thought to do this, but it really is illuminating. Thanks.
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Post by Millennium on Dec 12, 2016 7:35:43 GMT -5
Your RPI analysis is terrific. I never thought to do this, but it really is illuminating. Thanks. I'm glad you like it. It took me several hours to find the data, manually enter half of it, then comb through the results. Here's some more good stuff from n00bSo nine years, times 16 = 144 seeds. PSU 2016 is one of only two times that a team with RPI > 25 was seeded. That makes it a pretty big outlier. And that's why people are bothered by it. Except Penn State this year WAS an outlier. I challenge you to find a team that was top 5 in Pablo on selection day and did not get a seed. I'd be willing to bet the the region rankings had Penn State ahead of both Michigan schools so the RPI did drag down their seed A LOT. Think about the alternative. Think Creighton would've been happy getting that #16 seed, but having Penn State shipped to your subregional? Penn State was without a doubt one of the 16 best teams in the country. They had four wins over seeded teams to prove it (Michigan State, Michigan, Minnesota), they scheduled a couple of top 10 non-conference opponents (UNC and Stanford). Every single thing about their resume indicated a good seed except their final RPI rank. They WERE an outlier this year and the committee got it right (in fact, I think they should've been seeded ahead of Kansas State). |
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Post by traveler on Dec 12, 2016 13:10:45 GMT -5
Great job!
I think the committee likely considered some less tangible factors. Not to seed a team very capable of high-performance post-season play can cause other inequities in a seeded tournament.
If we were a #1 seed, would we want to have to play a team like us in round 1 or 2? Would like to hear the howls from some of these folks if we had been paired against their fav early.
Now, for idle speculation: based on how EASY it was for NE to down WA, i think had we sealed set 3, we would have had a great chance to do what NE did to WA.
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Post by nyline on Dec 12, 2016 15:22:49 GMT -5
Great job! I think the committee likely considered some less tangible factors. Not to seed a team very capable of high-performance post-season play can cause other inequities in a seeded tournament. If we were a #1 seed, would we want to have to play a team like us in round 1 or 2? Would like to hear the howls from some of these folks if we had been paired against their fav early. Now, for idle speculation: based on how EASY it was for NE to down WA, i think had we sealed set 3, we would have had a great chance to do what NE did to WA. Maybe not a great chance for the "whompin'" (although we've done it before  , but certainly a chance to beat them. |
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, but certainly a chance to beat them.