Comparisons to Charlie Creme's Bracketology

The penultimate run of the S-Factor changed little from Monday's run since most conference tournament games happened over the weekend.  It should be even less volatile for the last run, excepting Delaware, St. Joseph's, Green Bay, Creighton, and other teams from conferences whose tournaments have not yet been completed.

This is as good a time as any to point out the major differences between the S-Factor and Charlie Creme's bracketology, which has become the industry standard. 

S-Factor: Duquesne in, West Virginia second out
Creme: West Virginia in, Duquesne first out

The S-Factor favors Duquesne due to a better RPI ranking (41 to 52), fewer losses (7 to 13), and conference tournament wins (1 to 0). This outweighs West Virginia's better conference RPI and record against top 50 teams in my model. When weighted against conference RPI, 9-9 in the Big 12  is about equivalent to 11-3 in the Atlantic 10.


Purdue
S-Factor: 4-seed
Creme: 7-seed

5% of the S-Factor score comes from conference tournament performance. Winning the Big Ten tournament bumped Purdue from a 7-seed to a 4-seed in the S-Factor. Tournament games also bumped SEC-winning Texas A&M from a 5-seed to a 3-seed in the S-Factor, which is where Creme has them.

Michigan State
S-Factor: 5-seed
Creme: 8-seed

The S-Factor has been a little more bullish on Michigan State since February when they beat Purdue, a team high in RPI and low in respect.

Gonzaga
S-Factor: 7-seed
Creme: 11-seed

The West Coast Conference is in 7th place out of 31 conferences in terms of RPI, ahead of even the Atlantic 10. It has four teams in the top 75 in RPI and no teams with a strength of schedule in the bottom half of the country, which makes Gonzaga's current 15 game winning streak more impressive than similarly positioned teams like Delaware and Green Bay. That would be my pitch to the selection committee to give Gonzaga the 7-seed rather than a 10- or 11-seed (as a host school it is unlikely to get an 8- or 9-seed because that would involve a 1-seed playing an away game in the second round.).  

Green Bay
S-Factor: 10-seed
Creme: 7-seed

It's hard to feel confident in an evaluation of a team when that team plays few marquee games. An impressive 26-2 record is hedged by the fact that all we really know is that Green Bay is the best team in Wisconsin. 

Texas Tech
S-Factor: 10-seed
Creme: 6-seed

As much as conference RPI plays a role in the S-Factor (and therefore teams in the Big 12, the nations top RPI conference, get a slightly larger boost than other major conferences), a team's RPI  counts for more, as do top 25 and top 50 wins. The entire non-Baylor Big 12 has no non-Iowa State top 25 wins (Iowa State is 22nd in RPI but has been in and out of the top 25 all season).

Texas Tech doesn't even have an Iowa State win. The Red Raiders have a 48th ranked RPI, which is solidly in the  bubble team zone historically.  I'm not saying there's a chance Tech will miss the tournament (a Big 12 team missing the tournament after winning more than 60% of their games would be an outrage). I'm just saying that everything besides conference winning record (three straight losses to unranked opponents, no conference tournament wins, ten losses on the season, soft non-conference schedule coupled with an unimpressive performance, best win all season was against the Big 12's 5th place team) points to a 10-seed or worse (like Gonzaga, Tech is a host school unlikely to be an 8- or 9-seed even if their resume was up to that level)

Princeton
S-Factor: 12-seed
Creme: 9-seed

I'd like to say Princeton's downfall in the S-Factor was their loss to Harvard, the lone blemish against a dominating Ivy League performance, but it would be untrue: the S-Factor has never had Princeton higher than a 12 seed. Princeton's impressive 26th ranked RPI is offset by the Ivy League's unimpressive 18th (of 31) conference RPI. 

New Human-Made Bracket Guess

I've used my puny human brain to craft a new bracket prediction:

This differs from the S-Factor in the following notable ways:

1. The S-Factor favors Creighton and Duquesne to get in, I favor Iowa and Miami to get in. Iowa gets in because they have many more impressive wins than the other three bubble teams I mentioned, despite their February slump. Miami gets in because their best long-ago win (Penn State) is more impressive than Creighton's best long-ago win (Nebraska) and Duquesne's best long-ago win (Delaware). 

2. The S-Factor still has Duke as the #3 overall, a shade ahead of Connecticut. Connecticut will definitely pass them by the time the season is done (they have more basketball left to play than does Duke), and I believe Stanford is a slightly more deserving team of the final #1 due to their win over Baylor.

3. The S-Factor has Gonzaga as a 9 seed. I bumped them up to a 7 seed so that Notre Dame didn't have to play on someone else's home court. I chose to bump high to a 7 rather than low to a 10 because I think it's more fair to make 10 seeds play away games than it would be to make 7 seeds play away games.  Note: this applies to LSU as well, though S-Factor has them in at a 7 seed  anyways.

4.  I think the committee will be a lot kinder to Green Bay (assuming they win out and finish the season with 2 losses) than the S-Factor is. I stuck them in as a 10 in this bracket, but I think if they win out, an 8 seed is their absolute floor and even a 6 seed wouldn't be surprising.

Upset Wednesday

In women's college basketball, there aren't usually a whole lot of upsets on any given night. Which is why last night could be classified as "Upset Wednesday" with only two really big upsets: Louisville over no. 7 DePaul, and Colorado over no. 16 Oklahoma.

There were a couple of smaller upsets too. A Big 12 northern division team finally won a game on the home court of a Big 12 southern division team for the first time this year when Kansas beat Oklahoma State in Stillwater. And a struggling Duquesne got a much needed road victory over a good Charlotte team.

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Now in: Navy, Vanderbilt, Arizona State
Now out: American, Kansas State, Texas

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 10
Big Ten: 6
ACC: 6
Big 12: 5
SEC: 5
PAC-10: 4
Atlantic 10: 3
Colonial: 2

The Atlantic 10's Big Five; Plus Weird Big 12 Numbers

As I mentioned back in January, the Atlantic 10 is having a great year. Five teams have garnered predicted at-large bids in various bracket predictions: Xavier (of course), Temple, Charlotte, Duquesne and Dayton. As of Tuesday, the College Women's Hoops S-Factor was predicting 4 Atlantic 10 teams would make the tournament.

But then Charlotte lost on Wednesday night against LaSalle and Duquesne lost a home game against St. Joseph's. It was not an uncharacteristic loss for Duquesne, but for Charlotte, it was their first conference loss against a team outside of the big five in the A10.

But it also pushed both Duquesne and Charlotte out of the top 50 in RPI. This meant that Temple, a team that is still undefeated in the Atlantic 10 conference and is on a 13-game winning streak, lost two of their three top 50 wins, and so lost ground in the S-Factor rankings. But if Temple wins every game except for their regular season finale against Xavier, there is no chance they will not be rewarded with an at-large bid from the NCAA selection committee.

It's interesting to look at the big five's record against each other.

Xavier: 3-0 with Duquesne and Temple left
Temple: 2-0 with Dayton and Xavier left
Duquesne: 1-1 with Xavier and Charlotte left
Charlotte: 1-2 with Duquesne left
Dayton: 0-4 with Temple left

That big doughnut in the win column for Dayton against the other big five teams will surely weigh heavily on the minds of the selection committee.

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Weirdness in the S-Factor in the Big 12 conference. Iowa State lost to Texas Tech last night, and plummetted outside of the S-Factor's predicted at-large bids, while Texas Tech rose up 13 spots. Meanwhile, Kansas State got a routine win over Colorado and is now being shown at the cusp of the at-large bids.

But the S-Factor is more of a prediction of the tournament if the season ended right now, and it does not take into account the future schedule and predicted future wins. Texas Tech closes its regular season with 4 top 26 (RPI) games out of 5, while Iowa State will feast upon Big 12 north teams, and gets Texas at home. And conference record means a lot in the Big 12, the most difficult of all conferences from top to bottom. (Although probably not enough for Kansas State, who may be left to a WNIT bid if they go 9-7 in conference.)



Now in: Middle Tennessee State, USC, Arkansas, Texas Tech, Kansas State
Now out: UA Little Rock, Iowa State, Charlotte, Temple, Syracuse

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
Big Ten: 7
ACC: 6
Big 12: 6
SEC: 6
PAC-10: 3
Atlantic 10: 2
Colonial: 2

Atlantic 10 Ruling; Mountain West Drooling

Of all the mid-major conferences (defined as conferences that are not the Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10, Atlantic Coast and Southeast Conference), two of the 26 (counting the Great West) rank higher than all others in terms of the number of at-large bids garnered over the past few years: the Atlantic 10 and the Mountain West. It seems like it's a rare year when the Atlantic 10 doesn't get three teams into the NCAA tournament, and the Mountain West is so full of parity that the annual conference tournament is often completely up for grabs.

But this year there is no question as to which conference is better. The Atlantic 10 is having a great year as a whole. As of right now, eight teams from the 14-team conference are ranked in the top 75 of RPI. Three Atlantic 10 teams are in Charlie Creme's field of 64, and two more are on the cusp. While the College Women's Hoops S-Factor only lists two, the S-Factor is unreasonably stingy to mid-major conferences at this point in the year. Xavier is being talked about as a 2 seed; Duquesne has been on everyone's list since they beat Ohio State; Temple, Charlotte and Dayton are all very close to being in the big dance; and St. Joseph's, St. Bonaventure, and Richmond have all been competitive in their biggest games.

The Mountain West, however, has been pretty weak as a conference whole. Many of the traditional powers are having off years. Both the Utes of Utah and the Lady Lobos of New Mexico lost a lot of games in a difficult non-conference schedule, but kept losing once the conference season began. San Diego State has achieved an 8-8 record so far with their best win coming against Dayton and a loss to the non-aligned Roadrunners of Cal State Bakersfield. BYU and Wyoming are the only two challengers to what is looking like a dominant run by TCU this year. Wyoming was crushed by TCU last week, and BYU travels to Fort Worth to play the Horned Frogs tonight. With only a single top-50-RPI win in the entire conference this season (that being TCU's victory over 50th ranked Oklahoma earlier this year), the Mountain West is looking like a one-bid conference this year.

Now in: Vanderbilt
Now out: Missouri State

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