Why the S-Factor is Cramming Ten Teams In From One Conference

The College Women's Hoops S-Factor shows ten of the sixteen Big East teams getting into the dance: Connecticut, DePaul, Georgetown, West Virginia, Marquette, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Louisville, St. John's and Rutgers. This, frankly, is absurd.

The Big East chart shows the rigid stratification of the conference. Basically the Big East can be divided into 4 groups: the Connecticut Group, the Ranked Group, the Middling Group and the Big Least.

The Big Least is composed of six teams (Villanova, Providence, Seton Hall, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and South Florida) who have gone a combined 6-43 in conference games. They have achieved zero wins against teams from the other groups.

The Connecticut Group is composed of three teams (Connecticut, DePaul, Notre Dame) who have combined for only one loss in an intragroup game (Notre Dame losing to Connecticut).

The most mixing occurs in the two middle groups; the Ranked Group (Georgetown, Marquette, West Virginia), and the Middling Group (Rutgers, St. John's, Syracuse, Louisville). The Middling Group has achieved two wins over the Ranked Group (Rutgers over Georgetown, Syracuse over Marquette). These two wins have kept the Middling Group as a whole above the at-large bubble line in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor.

Here is a table of the relative records against each other:

	C.Gr.	R.Gr.	M.Gr.	Least
Connecticut Group	1-1	4-0	7-0	13-0
Ranked Group	0-4	3-3	4-2	11-0
Middling Group	0-7	2-4	4-4	13-0
The Big Least	0-13	0-11	0-13	6-6

Besides those two wins previously discussed, there is no intergroup mixing of wins. And it is this oddly stratified configuration that is tricking the S-Factor into thinking there will be ten Big East teams in the tournament.


Now in: BYU, St. John's
Now out: Wyoming, Boston College

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