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beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
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 Posted: 04/07/14 9:27 pm ::: Parity and the men's tournament |
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We often complain about how it seems like the usual suspects are playing for and winning the championships. I was thinking today, though, that it's pretty similar in the men's tournament, except that the pool of usual suspects in bigger. So I looked at the winners since 2000, and here's what I found:
Men
1st-time champions: Florida (2006), Maryland (2002), Syracuse (2003)
Repeat champions: Connecticut (2004, 2011, maybe tonight), Duke (2001, 2010), Florida (2007), Kansas (2008), Kentucky (2012, maybe tonight), Louisville (2013), Michigan State (2000), North Carolina (2005, 2009)
Women
1st-time champions: Baylor (2005), Maryland (2006), Notre Dame (2001), Texas A&M (2011)
Repeat champions: Baylor (2012), Connecticut (2000, 2002-2004, 2009-10, 2013)*, Tennessee (2007-2008)
Now, the women's championship is younger, but I think it's still interesting that the women's tournament has had more new champions in the last 15 years than the men's tournament. A George Mason or Butler may make the Final Four, but a lot of the same teams still win.
*BTW, the Wikipedia list shows UConn as winning this year, but without a score.
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PUmatty
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| Posted: 04/07/14 10:46 pm ::: Re: Parity and the men's tournament |
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Trying to watch the incredibly sloppy ugly basketball game tonight, I am glad that the women's tournament doesn't have this so-called parity. I am glad that tomorrow I will get to see the two best teams of the season play one another for a championship that will actually crown a champion that represents the season, rather than a battle against attrition for a few games.
The men's tournament is very good for upsets and underdogs and bracket contests. It is very bad for people who want to see the season culminate with the best teams playing one another in a tournament that actually means something.
I wish the scores were closer, but right now, the women's tournament works a lot better as a championship than the men's does.
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RP
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coffy73
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| Posted: 04/08/14 12:00 am ::: Re: Parity and the men's tournament |
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| PUmatty wrote: |
Trying to watch the incredibly sloppy ugly basketball game tonight, I am glad that the women's tournament doesn't have this so-called parity. I am glad that tomorrow I will get to see the two best teams of the season play one another for a championship that will actually crown a champion that represents the season, rather than a battle against attrition for a few games.
The men's tournament is very good for upsets and underdogs and bracket contests. It is very bad for people who want to see the season culminate with the best teams playing one another in a tournament that actually means something.
I wish the scores were closer, but right now, the women's tournament works a lot better as a championship than the men's does. |
I've greatly enjoyed the men's tournament more than the women's because of the parity on the men's side. The games, from the first round to the championship, have been awesome! It didn't matter what the seedings were, you never knew who was gonna come out on top; it really was great basketball throughout. The women's, not so much, mostly blowouts from the top seeds, not a lot of surprises. That's usual though, but I love both tournaments and will greatly enjoy the UConn/ND duel tonight!
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Phil
Joined: 22 Oct 2011
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purduefanatic
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| Posted: 04/08/14 8:18 am ::: Re: Parity and the men's tournament |
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| beknighted wrote: |
We often complain about how it seems like the usual suspects are playing for and winning the championships. I was thinking today, though, that it's pretty similar in the men's tournament, except that the pool of usual suspects in bigger. So I looked at the winners since 2000, and here's what I found:
Men
1st-time champions: Florida (2006), Maryland (2002), Syracuse (2003)
Repeat champions: Connecticut (2004, 2011, maybe tonight), Duke (2001, 2010), Florida (2007), Kansas (2008), Kentucky (2012, maybe tonight), Louisville (2013), Michigan State (2000), North Carolina (2005, 2009)
Women
1st-time champions: Baylor (2005), Maryland (2006), Notre Dame (2001), Texas A&M (2011)
Repeat champions: Baylor (2012), Connecticut (2000, 2002-2004, 2009-10, 2013)*, Tennessee (2007-2008)
Now, the women's championship is younger, but I think it's still interesting that the women's tournament has had more new champions in the last 15 years than the men's tournament. A George Mason or Butler may make the Final Four, but a lot of the same teams still win. |
I see what you're doing here...but here's the reality of it. The Men's Basketball National Championship featured a 7 seed and an 8 seed playing for the title! That is parity. When is the last time a seed that low even reached the women's Final Four, let alone won a title you ask? It would be 1998 when 9th seeded Arkansas reached the Final Four. The lowest seed to ever win a National Championship on the women's side was a #3 (North Carolina in '94, Tennessee in '97). The lowest seed to even make the championship game was #5 seed Louisville just in 2013.
Another fun fact...both teams playing last night for the MBB crown didn't even make the NCAA Tournament field last year!
On the men's side, here are some of the top seeds:
1 - Wichita State
3 - Creighton
4 - San Diego St
5 - St Louis, VCU
Honestly, someone could have looked at the bracket and could have reasonably picked 15-20 different teams and said the champion will come from this pool...and that pool may not have even had either team that played for the title last night!
On the women's side...I know a few people may have selected Tennessee or Stanford, but the reality is, there were only 2 teams. And I think that's evidenced by the fact that each won their semifinal game by about 20 points. That isn't parity...not even close.
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beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 04/08/14 9:50 am ::: Re: Parity and the men's tournament |
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I figured it might be corrected, but it still was pretty funny.
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beknighted
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| Posted: 04/08/14 9:55 am ::: Re: Parity and the men's tournament |
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| purduefanatic wrote: |
I see what you're doing here...but here's the reality of it. The Men's Basketball National Championship featured a 7 seed and an 8 seed playing for the title! That is parity. When is the last time a seed that low even reached the women's Final Four, let alone won a title you ask? It would be 1998 when 9th seeded Arkansas reached the Final Four. The lowest seed to ever win a National Championship on the women's side was a #3 (North Carolina in '94, Tennessee in '97). The lowest seed to even make the championship game was #5 seed Louisville just in 2013.
Another fun fact...both teams playing last night for the MBB crown didn't even make the NCAA Tournament field last year!
On the men's side, here are some of the top seeds:
1 - Wichita State
3 - Creighton
4 - San Diego St
5 - St Louis, VCU
Honestly, someone could have looked at the bracket and could have reasonably picked 15-20 different teams and said the champion will come from this pool...and that pool may not have even had either team that played for the title last night!
On the women's side...I know a few people may have selected Tennessee or Stanford, but the reality is, there were only 2 teams. And I think that's evidenced by the fact that each won their semifinal game by about 20 points. That isn't parity...not even close. |
There are two different kinds of parity at issue here. One is parity within a season, and I certainly agree that WCBB doesn't have that this year (and doesn't have it in a lot of years). The other is parity across a long period, which is to say whether teams rise and fall. My post was about that kind of parity.
The truth is that in the men's game there is a pool of about 15 to 20 teams that you can expect to include the champion, and that pool changes very slowly over time. Even casual fans could name nearly all of the teams in that group without much trouble. In the women's game, the pool is somewhat smaller, but it changes more quickly.
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Phil
Joined: 22 Oct 2011
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| Posted: 04/08/14 9:58 am ::: Re: Parity and the men's tournament |
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| beknighted wrote: |
I figured it might be corrected, but it still was pretty funny. |
I agree.
FWIW (not much, perhaps) it was a registered editor, it was a drive-by; one of the downsides of being the encyclopedia anyone can edit.
Back to the main point, thanks for pulling together those stats. I don't think we are there yet regarding parity, but that is an interesting way to look at it.
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ClayK
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| Posted: 04/08/14 9:58 am ::: |
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I don't think too many casual men's basketball fans would name Creighton and San Diego State as being in the pool of potential champions -- or Wichita State, either.
I think that's more true of football than basketball ...
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PUmatty
Joined: 10 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 04/08/14 10:00 am ::: |
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| ClayK wrote: |
| I don't think too many casual men's basketball fans would name Creighton and San Diego State as being in the pool of potential champions -- or Wichita State, either. |
There is no evidence that those teams are actually in the pool of potential champions. That is the BeK's point - for all the talk of parity, the same programs win the title.
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beknighted
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| Posted: 04/08/14 10:53 am ::: |
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| PUmatty wrote: |
| ClayK wrote: |
| I don't think too many casual men's basketball fans would name Creighton and San Diego State as being in the pool of potential champions -- or Wichita State, either. |
There is no evidence that those teams are actually in the pool of potential champions. That is the BeK's point - for all the talk of parity, the same programs win the title. |
Precisely. Wichita State didn't even make it out of the 2nd round this year, despite a #1 seed. (Yes, they lost to an eventual national finalist, but that team was one of the ones in the pool.)
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purduefanatic
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| Posted: 04/08/14 11:02 am ::: |
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So we are saying that an undefeated #1 seed in the men's tournament was NOT in the pool of potential National Champions this year?? Because they haven't won one yet?
How could they not?
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beknighted
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| Posted: 04/08/14 12:09 pm ::: |
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| purduefanatic wrote: |
So we are saying that an undefeated #1 seed in the men's tournament was NOT in the pool of potential National Champions this year?? Because they haven't won one yet?
How could they not? |
A fair question. First, the gist of my original post was that, over the last 15 years, we've been slightly more likely to get a national champion that never has won a national championship before in WCBB than in MCBB, and I don't think the question of who's in the pool affects that analysis.
That said, I think of the pool like this: If you were to make a list every year of the teams that would not surprise you if they won a national championship, and then compared the lists year to year, you'd find a lot of correlation among those lists. On the men's side, Wichita State (or, to pick another mid-major that got a #1 seed in recent years, St. Joe's) might appear on that list one year, but wouldn't be on the list consistently over time. It's the teams that appear consistently on the list that are in the pool; teams that are very good in a single year, or even two, are not on the list.
To use WCBB examples, Stanford is in the pool now, but wasn't in the early 2000s. Southwest Missouri State (now Missouri State) never was in the pool, even though they made the Final Four in 2001. Connecticut has been in the pool the entire 15 years.
As I said above, the pool on the men's side is bigger, but it still dominates the list of teams that win the tournament, perhaps more so because it is somewhat bigger than on the women's side.
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beknighted
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| Posted: 04/08/14 12:10 pm ::: |
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| Double post.
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purduefanatic
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| Posted: 04/08/14 12:47 pm ::: |
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| beknighted wrote: |
| purduefanatic wrote: |
So we are saying that an undefeated #1 seed in the men's tournament was NOT in the pool of potential National Champions this year?? Because they haven't won one yet?
How could they not? |
A fair question. First, the gist of my original post was that, over the last 15 years, we've been slightly more likely to get a national champion that never has won a national championship before in WCBB than in MCBB, and I don't think the question of who's in the pool affects that analysis.
That said, I think of the pool like this: If you were to make a list every year of the teams that would not surprise you if they won a national championship, and then compared the lists year to year, you'd find a lot of correlation among those lists. On the men's side, Wichita State (or, to pick another mid-major that got a #1 seed in recent years, St. Joe's) might appear on that list one year, but wouldn't be on the list consistently over time. It's the teams that appear consistently on the list that are in the pool; teams that are very good in a single year, or even two, are not on the list.
To use WCBB examples, Stanford is in the pool now, but wasn't in the early 2000s. Southwest Missouri State (now Missouri State) never was in the pool, even though they made the Final Four in 2001. Connecticut has been in the pool the entire 15 years.
As I said above, the pool on the men's side is bigger, but it still dominates the list of teams that win the tournament, perhaps more so because it is somewhat bigger than on the women's side. |
I guess I would argue the men's pool is MUCH bigger than the women's. Honestly, how big was the pool for this year and how many teams did people really think had a chance to win the women's championship? 2. I don't wanna hear Stanford, Tennessee, Louisville, Maryland, Baylor, Duke, etc...the reality was, there were 2 elite teams and everybody else.
On the men's side, I could list probably 20...and I don't think I would have included the team that actually won the title. I bet of the millions of brackets filled out for the men's tournament, there probably weren't more than a handful that would have actually had that matchup. On the flip side, I would bet over 90% of women's brackets filled out have this matchup.
And to ask this question...why is Stanford in the pool? They haven't won a title for over 20 years. If we are going to include them in the women's, we might as well include Arkansas, UCLA and Arizona in the men's. I mean, seems as though Wichita State got "poo poo'd" for this year yet they were in the Final Four last year and went undefeated this year with a #1 seed. If they don't belong in a pool of potential champions, I don't know why Stanford does.
The reality of this whole thing is that the likelihood of a surprise entrant into the Final Four (#7 & #8 seeds would certainly qualify as surprise entrants despite what the name on the jersey says) is much more likely on the men's side than the women's. And the pool of potential women's champions is hardly ever more than the number of fingers someone has on one hand.
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TechDawgMc
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| Posted: 04/08/14 2:06 pm ::: |
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| purduefanatic wrote: |
So we are saying that an undefeated #1 seed in the men's tournament was NOT in the pool of potential National Champions this year?? Because they haven't won one yet?
How could they not? |
Not only that, they were a Final Four team last year--losing by four to the eventual national champion.
Seems like a lot of spin going on here.
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beknighted
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| Posted: 04/08/14 4:02 pm ::: |
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PF, you might want to read my post again. The "pool" as I describe it - still, mind you, not the main point of my original post - is not a one-year analysis.
But going back to the pool, perhaps a better way to think about it is to ask yourself to list the teams that, in any random year, you would think would have a shot to win the national championship. In WCBB over the last, oh, ten years you'd of course include UConn and Tennessee, but you'd also include Notre Dame, Stanford, Baylor, Duke, probably Louisville and North Carolina and a couple of others. (Note that I haven't included Maryland or TAMU on this list, although I imagine some people would argue for them.) That absolutely is a smaller list than on the men's side (which I'd probably peg at about 15 schools), but like on the women's side, I don't think you'd include a Wichita State or a Butler - and certainly not a George Mason - because they don't have a sustained record of being likely to be in the mix. In either case, the idea is that, given a choice between the pool and the rest of the field in a random year (not any specific year), a team in the pool is a much better bet to win the national championship.
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