# Of B10 NCAAT teams?

[tjreese]

I may surprise people with this sort of non-curmudgeonly take....haha.

The tournament committee generally does a pretty darn good job in selecting the field and the seeding. Although the NET ratings and the Quads are not perfect - think they're more representative of the objective criteria you'd want over our former tired old friend, the RPI. Also, expanding to 68 and the pod-system has evened things out more so geographically, so there's less of a tendency for one of the top-16 seeds to get a raw deal, so-to-speak.

Now, I do think it would be interesting to go back to the fixed bracket (w/o pods), and see how the top seeds perform, or if you reversed some of the rules for teams in the same conference.

'84 and '86 - yeah, Purdue got no favorable treatment playing Memphis and LSU on their respective home courts. Then, they really got dinged in '87 for one really bad (well, terrible) game to end the regular season. Now, to be fair - Purdue's last National Semi-Finals appearance - 6th-seeded Boilers played the first two rounds in Mackey Arena, IIRC. That Mideast Region was all set up for Kentucky/Indiana in Rupp Arena, but Duke and Purdue did not get the memo.

Now.....you still don't know the rest of the story......good day!

yes, pointing out bias in selection is real. People are real and their judgement can be biased through a lot of different things or ways...some intentional and others not. The reality is there is no way a selection will ever be unbiased or fair to all teams or fans. Even if you put all the teams in a jar and drew names, places and opponents randomly it would not be fair to those that believed the season results should have a preference due to seeding. Once you started taking teams that were not conference champions pandora's box was open...and yet even if it was 100% up and up people knew teams inside the conference were better than conference champs elsewhere and so expansion came and which you can clearly see some fans care so little for the long season performance. I don't recall why IU got the route they did in 87 versus the route Purdue did, but anything outside of all teams playing in a totally random selection absent any seeding has bias. Bias does NOT have to be intentional, although it could

 

[tjreese]

I may be off some here TJ, but I believe they used to look at your last 10 games and that was used as a criteria for selection if needed. That has been dropped and it is whole body of work.

Of course, in the end it a panel of humans picking the teams, but I agree with Tex, it is very much improved over what it used to be. In this case it actually helps that it has been become a very big business, there are so many people watching and analyzing the bracket, that they have to be more accurate and have reasons for what they do. They know they are going to get all kinds of scrutiny. It has forced the process to get better.

don't recall if 10 was the number, but yes they used to consider hot teams as well as the whole body of work. It is better today, because we also have bias in the math and it doesn't change while the selection committee is deciding and so it holds people's bias to the fire a bit...and as you say reduces the desires of people some. The tourney is not a randomized design and so nesting or bias will always exist. That doesn't mean that it is less fair than a randomized seeding of all teams...because "fair" is a subjective word as well. As of now, it is MUCH better than it used to be.

 

[Purdue Grad in Texas]

don't recall if 10 was the number, but yes they used to consider hot teams as well as the whole body of work. It is better today, because we also have bias in the math and it doesn't change while the selection committee is deciding and so it holds people's bias to the fire a bit...and as you say reduces the desires of people some. The tourney is not a randomized design and so nesting or bias will always exist. That doesn't mean that it is less fair than a randomized seeding of all teams...because "fair" is a subjective word as well. As of now, it is MUCH better than it used to be.

Yes - last 10 games (good and bad) used to be a specific criterion considered.

 

[Chi-Boiler]

I may be off some here TJ, but I believe they used to look at your last 10 games and that was used as a criteria for selection if needed. That has been dropped and it is whole body of work.

Of course, in the end it a panel of humans picking the teams, but I agree with Tex, it is very much improved over what it used to be. In this case it actually helps that it has been become a very big business, there are so many people watching and analyzing the bracket, that they have to be more accurate and have reasons for what they do. They know they are going to get all kinds of scrutiny. It has forced the process to get better.

You are correct that, objectively anyway, the last 10 games is not an actual category in the room. Subjectively though, it has to be a part of their thought process. If Indinia loses to Purdue in BT Championship, they will be looked at as winning 7 in a row at that point. Will that make their profile look better than a team that finished 5-3 that has a similar profile overall? Probably.

 

[RDUBoiler]

Who is the 7th?

Ah, it was six. Typed that before I had any coffee and miscounted.