March 14 Update: New Bracket Prediction

(click on the image for better viewing)

I break down the differences between the S-Factor and this bracket on my Bracket Prediction page.

Bowling Green and Central Michigan both lost in the MAC semis today. Bowling Green's loss was unexpected, and it put Bowling Green on the bubble.  The bubble looks like this, in no particular order:

Oklahoma
Rutgers
Florida
Bowling Green
James Madison (if they lose)
Southern Miss (if they lose)
Minnesota
BYU
South Florida
St. Joseph's
Villanova
Creighton
Florida State

Only five of these teams are getting in. If James Madison wins the Colonial tournament, the list of five won't have to consider them.  If Southern Miss beats Middle Tennessee for the CUSA title, the list shrinks to four: the Blue Raiders are definitely an at-large team.

UConn tops both Stanford and S-Factor

The game of the year was supposed to have been played on Saturday, but Stanford unfortunately didn't show up to play.  Or rather, Connecticut put on a walloping (in Maples Pavilion!) crushing the former number one team 61-35.  There was also a corresponding surge in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor, with Connecticut gaining two positions to top the chart.

Like Stanford, Dayton played and got humiliated this weekend (at least it wasn't on their home court), being beaten by Bowling Green 65-40.  Unlike with Stanford, Dayton did not suffer any ramifications in the S-Factor rankings.  This is because two of their opponents that they have previously beaten, Toledo and Michigan State, moved into the top 25 of RPI this weekend, which therefore improved Dayton's top 25 wins to 3 for 3. 

Now in: 
Western Kentucky
Minnesota
Delaware
Georgetown
Ohio St.
Louisiana St.
Murray St.

Now out:
UA Little Rock
Rutgers
St. Mary's
Texas Tech
Kansas St.
New Mexico St.
UT-Martin

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big Ten: 8
Big East: 7
SEC: 7
Big 12: 6
ACC: 5
PAC 12: 4
Atlantic 10: 2
Colonial: 2

It's Foe Week

One of the biggest unknowns in bracket prediction is trying to guess which small conference bubble teams are going to be in the tournament if those teams lose their conference tournaments. Teams like Gonzaga, Middle Tennessee, Bowling Green and Green Bay are all good teams. Their non-conference schedules have shown they can compete with the big conference teams, and in some cases win. But they have to be almost perfect against the conference spread if they want any sort of insurance policy against an unusual loss in their conference tournament.

These teams all have foes, teams from within their conference that are good enough to steal a win away. For Gonzaga the foe is usually St. Mary's, and this year is no exception. Middle Tennessee State's intra-conference foe is the very good team from Little Rock, which made the tournament last year as an at-large team to the surprise of many. Green Bay's foe is Butler this year; like Green Bay, Butler is undefeated in the Horizon. And the MAC has evolved to create two foes for Bowling Green this year: Kent State and Toledo both share Bowling Green's 5-1 conference record.

Foe games are important because they are the only challenges these elite small-conference teams have between December and March, a sparse data point or two for bracketologists.

This week is setting up to be quite a week for foe games. Gonzaga plays St. Mary's for the first time tomorrow, Bowling Green plays Toledo tonight for the only scheduled time this season, and Green Bay travels to historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis tomorrow to challenge Butler for sole Horizon League supremecy.

Now in: (same as yesterday)
Now out: (same as yesterday)

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
Big Ten: 8
ACC: 7
SEC: 5
Big 12: 5
PAC-10: 4
Atlantic 10: 2

Ohio Stuff

The Big 12 had an exciting weekend as a conference. All twelve teams played in six games. Of those six games, four went to overtime. The two that didn't: Texas A&M and Baylor both blew out their opponents. Judging by the results so far in the first three rounds of Big 12 games, it's probably safe to say that anything can happen on any given day ... except for Baylor or Texas A&M losing, which probably won't happen unless they're playing each other.

Ohio State may have ended their long slump into mediocrity by beating Michigan State 67-53 and giving the Spartans their first conference loss and their first overall loss since Baylor way back in November.

Other big news in Ohio; Bowling Green lost to Kent State 44-43 in Mid America Conference action, Bowling Green's second loss of the season and the first since a rather fluky one point loss to the Purple Aces of Evansville at the beginning of the season. This means Bowling Green has lost by a combined two points in their two losses this season.

Now in: Kent State, St. John's, Ohio State, Charlotte
Now out: Bowling Green, California, LSU, Wisconsin

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

The Outliers

It's hard to tell which teams selected by the College Women's Hoops S-Factor are mistakes and which ones are legitimate since there is only one confirmation test per year. But when one compares the S-Factor to other rankings generated by humans and computers, one gets a sense of where the outliers are.

Clearly the S-Factor is having problems seeing the merit of teams from mid-major conferences. The Horizon League's Wisconsin-Green Bay is ranked in both national polls, Charlie Creme's week old bracket has them in as a 5 seed, and a collection of models (Massey Ratings, Sagarin Ratings, Steven Jens and Sonny Moore) puts the Phoenix somewhere around a 7 seed. Yet the S-Factor huffily bestows an automatic-only seed of 11. Bowling Green, out of the Mid America Conference, winners of 14 games in a row and very close to being nationally ranked, is getting an average of a 7 seed by the computers (Steven Jens thinks they're the 16th best team in the country). But the S-Factor deigns only to give them a 12 seed, and nothing at all if they lose their conference tournament.

There are also teams that the S-Factor is infatuated with. Michigan, despite dropping their last two games, shows up high in the S-Factor with a predicted 6 seed, which is 4 seeds higher than the nearest outside computer model (Sagarin) would have them. (The S-Factor really loves those wins over Ohio State and Iowa). Creme's bracket doesn't even show Michigan in the "last four out" category. Another Big Ten team much loved by the S-Factor is Penn State, a team both humans and computers agree should be seeded somewhere south of an 8 seed (if at all). But the S-Factor puts them as the highest of the 5 seeds.

Some teams that seem too highly ranked with regard to human polls and brackets are actually mostly in line with other computer rankings. DePaul (2), Marquette (3), Texas Tech (5) and Louisville (7) are all teams that get more respect from number crunching than from human prognosticators, and the S-Factor sides more with the computers. The S-Factor also agrees with computers when humans appear to be overly sympathetic to some teams, like Ohio State (9), Kentucky (9), Syracuse (10) and Boston College (10).

And then there's the curious case of Oklahoma. Charlie Creme has them as a 6 seed. The polls would have them in with a 4 seed. Looks good for them, right? But according to RPI, the Sooners aren't anywhere near being in the tournament. The computer models Massey, Sagarin, and Jens all put them about where the S-Factor does around the mid-forties. But Sonny Moore ranks them 12th in the country, which would correspond to a 3 seed. Crazy!


Now in: (same as yesterday)
Now out: (same as yesterday)

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