Conference Season: A Blessing, A Curse

Kentucky jumped up in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor by 10 spots by beating Middle Tennessee State 81-72 last night with the assistance of Victoria Dunlap's 13 second half points.

For Middle Tennessee, it was their last game before the Sun Belt conference season begins. Middle Tennessee has built up a high RPI ranking (18th) both by playing very few bad teams and by playing winnable games against moderately good teams. But the problem for Middle Tennessee, as far as their at-large tournament hopes go, is that the Blue Raiders don't have a signature win over a top 50 team. In that sense, the beginning of the Sun Belt conference regular season is a bit of a curse because there aren't any more chances to score a big name win.

For Kentucky, it's just the opposite. Kentucky has mostly laid low in the non-conference season. Except for a win over Notre Dame, Kentucky has not beaten a team ranked better than 90th all season prior to last night's victory. Kentucky had been ranked #41 in terms of RPI. But the beginning of the SEC regular season a week from today is a blessing, because there are ample opportunities to score big name wins in the SEC conference. (Also, the fact that Kentucky plays Duke next Tuesday will help them immensely).


Now in: Tulane, Oklahoma State
Now out: Oklahoma

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
ACC: 7
Big Ten: 7
Big 12: 6
SEC: 5
PAC-10: 4
Atlantic 10: 2

California Creamin'

With every victory now, the Connecticut Huskies set a new Division 1 record for most consecutive wins, and they got another one last night. The Huskies made it out of snowy Connecticut to travel to Stockton, California, where they creamed Pacific 85-42 for their ninetieth straight victory.

But more impressive was Stanford's victory over Xavier yesterday in the friendly confines of Maples Pavilion. It was a rematch of the elite eight matchup from last year which was won by Stanford by an amazing drive performed by Jeanette Pohlen in the final 4.4 seconds that ended in a layup at the buzzer. This game was supposed to be close, but Stanford creamed Xavier 89-52. The victory shot Stanford up 13 spots in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor to number 10 and a predicted 3-seed. I'd wager the ranking will be higher by season's end.

This sets up Connecticut vs. Stanford tomorrow, which will of course be a huge game.

Other events that happened in California yesterday:

• UCLA lost their first game of the season at home to LSU, which propels LSU into a predicted at-large bid according to the S-Factor.



• Texas A&M slammed a formerly-ascendant Drexel team 74-45 in San Diego behind an impressive performance from Danielle Adams and a double-double from Adaora Elonu.



• Texas beat Cincinnati 80-77 in San Diego with a 3-pointer by Chassidy Fussell with 1.3 seconds left. Texas lies just outside of the S-Factor at-large bids, a status that will change as the season progresses.

Now in: Duquesne, LSU
Now out: Saint Joseph's, Drexel

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
ACC: 7
Big Ten: 7
Big 12: 6
SEC: 5
PAC-10: 4
Atlantic 10: 2

Happy Holidays!

All college women's basketball teams took a couple of days off for the holidays, but soon all will be back to a regular schedule. Many teams are in the final week of their non-conference schedule; a few (like the Big West) will start conference games this week, while others (like the Ivy League) won't start the conference season for another two weeks.

The game that impacted the College Women's Hoops S-Factor the most from last week was Drexel's win over Penn State from last Tuesday. Junior Lithuanian-born guard Kamile Nacickaite matched her career high 27 points to lead the Dragons to victory. That win propelled Drexel into the top 40 in the S-Factor; even though Hofstra with only one loss has a better record among the Colonial League teams, Drexel is currently positioned for an at-large bid.

Now in: Drexel, Michigan, Saint Joseph's.
Now out: Oklahoma State, Duquesne, Arizona

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
ACC: 7
Big Ten: 7
Big 12: 6
SEC: 4
PAC-10: 4
Atlantic 10: 2
Colonial: 2

Duel in the Desert

Few pre-season tournaments have much of a lasting effect on the season, with some exceptions like the preseason NIT. Which is why it was surprising to me to see how the Duel in the Desert, a four team tournament put on by Basketball Travelers Inc., turned out.

The tournament pitted Houston (C-USA), Marist (MAAC), Nebraska (Big 12) and Louisville (Big East) against each other, with Nebraska being the only tournament participant to be nationally ranked (#21). Turns out, Nebraska tanked. They lost three games in a row.

Little Marist got three wins in a row to win the tournament, with Houston getting two wins over Nebraska and Louisville.

Before the Duel in the Desert tournament, the College Women's Hoops S-Factor had both Nebraska and Louisville in the NCAA tournament. Now they are both out, while Houston and Marist are in with automatic bids and may be in good position for at-large bids as the season progresses.

Now in: Duquesne (Atlantic 10)
Now out: Kansas State (Big 12)

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
Big 12: 7
ACC: 7
Big Ten: 6
PAC-10: 5
SEC: 4
Atlantic 10: 2

The State of Connecticut Beats Florida State

I'd be willing to bet that Florida State was expecting to lose one game out of the two games in a row that they play in the State of Connecticut. I'd also be willing to bet that the Seminoles were expecting the loss to come in the second of those two games and not the first, but instead it was Yale that snapped its 7-game losing streak to best Florida State by 6 points. As a result, Florida State plummets 23 positions in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor and is now in 40th place, the final at-large team in the tournament. (Yale, meanwhile, jumps 74 positions to 198th place.)

The S-Factor now puts Tennessee in as a #1 seed due to their win over Stanford, whose coach Tara VanDerveer is still awaiting her 800th career NCAA win.

Purdue, USC, and Vanderbilt now replace Louisville, Nebraska, and Michigan (all teams that lost over the weekend) in the predicted tournament bracket.

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
Big 12: 8
ACC: 7
Big Ten: 6
PAC-10: 5
SEC: 4

DePaul beats Stanford

Tara VanDerveer has to wait for her 800th win, as DePaul shut down previously-undefeated Stanford last night. As a result of this quality victory, DePaul shoots up to fourth place in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor and a #1 seed, much the same way Baylor's win over Tennessee a couple of days ago shot Baylor to a #1 seed temporarily. As of now, the S-Factor gives three of the four #1 seeds to Big East teams, a scenario that almost certainly won't happen. But the Big East is the only major conference to have played some conference games, which gives every team in the conference an advantage in the S-Factor. Can't wait 'til January when the rest of the conferences start their regular season!

Conferences with multiple teams:
Big East: 10
Big 12: 9
ACC: 7
Big Ten: 6
PAC 10: 4
SEC: 3

December 16, 2010

As I keep stressing, the season is early, and the data used by the College Women's Hoops S-Factor is highly incomplete. There are some obvious flaws in the S-Factor's selection as it stands today.

1. The S-Factor ranks teams from mid-major conferences really low right now.
This is due to the fact that there is a large differenc in conference RPI among the conferences relative to their positions at the end of the year. As the season wears on, the range of conference RPI values will narrow and the mid-majors will be more equal to the big conference teams than they are now.

2. The S-Factor seems to like Big East teams more than it should.
This is due to the fact that the Big East is the only major conference to have started its conference season, and conference wins are valued by the S-Factor. So the Big East teams that have won their only conference game so far (in UConn's case, two games) are at a relative advantage over teams from other conferences who have yet to play a conference game.

I've never looked at the S-Factor this early in the season, so it will be interesting to see how the S-Factor rankings change with the progression of the college women's basketball season.

2010-2011: Hello, world!

This is the first assessment of the NCAA women's basketball field for the 2010-2011 season!

The season is young, so everything should be taken with more than a few grains of salt.