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

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.