Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Seeding and Polls and RPI, oh my!

Whether you think the Selection Committee got it right or not, the 2011 Tournament seedings are final, and we’re all stuck with them.
Last season, the committee did a generally poor job of ranking—and, therefore, seeding—the top 8 (missing four of the Elite Eight) and the top 4 (missing three of the Final Four.)
This season, the committee figures only one Pac-12 team—USC—will reach the Elite Eight (compared to four last season), and that no Pac-12 teams will reach the Final Four (compared to two last year.) In ten short days, we’ll know whether they figured right.
2010 Final Four: Cal vs. Penn St.
[Volleyblog Seattle photo by Leslie Hamann]
You may have noticed that this year’s committee completely ignored Nebraska’s Saturday night loss to Northwestern. It also overlooked Stanford’s loss to California and USC’s win over UCLA. Some wonder whether committee members filled out their bracket Saturday morning and went to Disneyland for the rest of the weekend …
The coaches did not have a poll this week, so we don’t know how the Nebraska, Stanford and UCLA losses might have changed their rankings. The final media poll was released this morning.
So … here’s the fun part.
Let’s compare the ability of the committee, the coaches, the media—and Volleyblog Seattle—to forecast this season’s Elite Eight and Final Four. The committee's choices are easy to calculate, since its rankings and seedings were one and the same. For everyone else, we calculated brackets (below) based on expected outcomes using the committee’s seedings. We also remind you how the Final Four might have looked if the non-committee prognosticators had been able to seed the bracket themselves.
[Note: When three or more of a prognosticator’s top 16 ranked teams were seeded by the committee into the same region, one or more of those teams has to drop out before the Elite Eight. For example, both coaches and media rank Hawai’i in the top four, but the Rainbow Wahine are stuck behind each poll’s top two teams, USC and Nebraska. With similar disagreements over seeding for Cal and Penn State, Washington slips into the Elite Eight in both scenarios.]

Okay … before the first match is played, share YOUR Elite Eight picks, using the committee’s bracket? Don't forget to tell us who (in order) would be in the Final Four if YOU had seeded this tournament!
Tourney
Seed
RPI
School
2011 Record
Coaches’
Poll
Media
Poll
Volleyblog
Seattle
1
2
Texas
21-4
5
3
5
2
4
Nebraska
24-4
2
2
6
3
1
Illinois
27-4
7
8
7
4
3
Iowa State
22-5
14
14
15
5
6
Purdue
27-4
8
7
2
6
5
Northern Iowa
32-1
12
11
13
7
8
USC
25-4
1
1
1
8
11
Penn State
23-7
9
9
3
9
15
UCLA
24-6
4
5
4
10
7
Hawaii
29-1
3
4
12
11
18
Stanford
21-7
6
6
9
12
10
Florida St
24-6
21
--
--
13
12
Minnesota
18-11
19
19
--
14
9
Tennessee
27-3
15
15
16
15
16
Pepperdine
21-6
18
16
14
16
17
Texas A&M
22-7
--
--
20
--
29
California
26-6
10
10
10
--
35
Washington
23-7
11
12
8
--
30
Oregon
21-9
13
13
11
--
13
Kentucky
26-5
16
17
17
--
20
Florida
24-5
17
18
18
--
25
San Diego
27-4
20
20
19
--
23
Michigan
20-12
22
--
--
--
41
Long Beach St
23-6
23
--
--
--
21
W. Kentucky
31-3
24
--
--
--
22
Miami (FL)
25-4
25
--
--
--
14
No. Illinois
--
--
--
--
--
19
Cincinnati
26-9
--
--
--
--
24
Tulsa
26-7
--
--
--
--
26
Kansas St
20-10
--
--
--
--
27
Oklahoma
21-11
--
--
--
--
28
Colorado St
23-5
--
--
--
--
31
N. Carolina
23-8
--
--
--
--
32
W. Michigan
24-8
--
--
--
--
33
Missouri
21-12
--
--
--
--
34
Ball St
25-7
--
--
--

No comments:

Post a Comment

[It's okay to comment as "Anonymous," but please feel free to share your name and/or alias.]

Have your friends discovered Volleyblog Seattle? Number of unique visits: