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beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
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 Posted: 03/29/10 2:58 pm ::: Conference results v. seeding |
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I like this analysis better than pure W/L, since it compares how conferences are doing to what you would expect from the seeding. In other words, it's a measure of how good a job the committee did when it said that the Big 12 deserved 6 top-4 seeds and that the SEC deserved 2.
The results below are for any conference that got at least one at-large or that won at least one game. As usual, the non-majors will look a bit better, and that's largely because they have more opportunities for upsets. (To give you an idea, there were only 4 major conference teams with seeds worse than 8.) If a major conference does as well as its seeding predicts, that's actually a good performance.
I'll do an update after the Elite 8 games.
+2
SEC (-1 for the Tennessee loss, +1 each for Kentucky, Georgia and Mississippi State)
Mountain West (+2 for San Diego State)
+1
Atlantic 10 (+1 for Xavier)
Horizon (+1 for UWGB)
Sun Belt (+1 for UA Little Rock)
West Coast (+1 for Gonzaga)
America East (+1 for Vermont)
Even
Pac-10
WAC
-1
ACC (+1 for Florida State, -1 each for Virginia and Georgia Tech). (If you look at how the conference should have done against actual opponents, it's -2, since FSU got #7 seed Mississippi State in the Sweet 16.)
-2
Big East (-1 each for Notre Dame and West Virginia)
-3
Big Ten (-2 for Ohio State, -1 for Wisconsin)
Big 12 (+1 each for Baylor and Oklahoma, -2 each for Nebraska and TAMU, -1 each for Oklahoma State and Texas)
I'm going to say that the best performance is the SEC, with three teams that outperformed their seeds and only one that underperformed. The worst performance is the Big Ten, since half of its teams lost earlier than they should have lost. The Big 12 is very uneven, and still has a chance to improve its results if Baylor and/or Oklahoma can win.
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/29/10 3:03 pm ::: Re: Conference results v. seeding |
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| beknighted wrote: |
| (To give you an idea, there were only 4 major conference teams with seeds worse than 8.) |
And they went 0-4. This year is a strong argument that the committee should lean more towards strong mid-majors instead of middling majors.
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beknighted
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
Posts: 11050
Location: Lost in D.C.
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| Posted: 03/29/10 4:03 pm ::: Re: Conference results v. seeding |
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| pilight wrote: |
| beknighted wrote: |
| (To give you an idea, there were only 4 major conference teams with seeds worse than 8.) |
And they went 0-4. This year is a strong argument that the committee should lean more towards strong mid-majors instead of middling majors. |
I don't know that I'd call it a particularly strong argument, although I do think it's an interesting question. The truth is that pretty much all of the credible non-major candidates got at large bids this year, so you'd be talking about replacing DePaul or North Carolina with Boston College or USC, not with Old Dominion.
I'm working on a longer analysis of upsets in the tournament, which I think might shed some light on the question of whether non-majors should be given more slots and/or better seeding. I don't have any particular hypothesis on that point yet.
Mind you, there is an argument that having more non-majors in the tournament would make it more interesting, in which case you would then tend to want to pick them over the DePauls of the world. I'm not sure I agree, but it isn't a crazy idea, either.
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/29/10 4:16 pm ::: Re: Conference results v. seeding |
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| beknighted wrote: |
| pilight wrote: |
| beknighted wrote: |
| (To give you an idea, there were only 4 major conference teams with seeds worse than 8.) |
And they went 0-4. This year is a strong argument that the committee should lean more towards strong mid-majors instead of middling majors. |
I don't know that I'd call it a particularly strong argument, although I do think it's an interesting question. The truth is that pretty much all of the credible non-major candidates got at large bids this year, so you'd be talking about replacing DePaul or North Carolina with Boston College or USC, not with Old Dominion. |
I'm not necessarily talking about replacing anyone this year, but looking at how the mid majors did (four of the five non-BCS, non-A10 conferences to get at large bids won at least one game) it seems reasonable to think that the next time they have a situation like last year where they had to choose between Georgia (18-13) and Bowling Green (27-4) that they should look at this year and think seriously about going the other way from what they did then.
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ladydawgs96
Joined: 23 Aug 2006
Posts: 734
Location: Georgia
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| Posted: 03/30/10 6:49 am ::: |
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| As much as they claim they do not look at host schools, I think UGA hosting last year was the reason they were in the tournament
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