East Coast Conferences' Regular Seasons are Over

There's a new bracket prediction up in celebration of the end of the regular season for many conferences.

Anybody want to play Ohio State right now? The Buckeyes are winners of their last six, including a road win at conference leader Michigan State and a 33-point blowout of Wisconsin, a team that has gone 10-6 in conference. They are finally peaking after such a terrible start, a start which resulted in Ohio State not attaining the Big Ten regular-season title for the first time in six years.

Another regular season streak came to an end officially this weekend. For the first time in eleven seasons, Chattanooga did not win the regular season title in the Southern Conference this year. Appalachian State took seventeen of their twenty scheduled SoCon games and the conference title. They will face either Davidson or the College of Charleston on March 4th to start the SoCon Tournament.

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Now in: Northern Colorado, Michigan
Now out: Montana State, Texas

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

Host Teams and the Brackets

There's a new bracket prediction up.

The first and second rounds of the women's NCAA tournament will be played at 16 predetermined sites hosted by 16 different schools. Unlike in the men's tournament, the women's tournament rules state that if a host school gets into the tournament, that school is required to play at its own site.

This year six out of the AP poll's top seven teams are slated to host: Baylor, Connecticut, Stanford, Tennessee, Xavier and Duke. Most brackets (including mine) seed these teams #1 and #2.

Since no other host team can be grouped with these teams, it means there will not be a host team seeded 8 or 9, and there may be fewer host teams seeded 7 or 10 than the S-curve would predict.

Could this have bracketing implications? Most definitely. The other host teams likely to make the field this year are Louisiana Tech, Penn State, Gonzaga, Ohio State, and Maryland. Maryland looks like a lock for a 3, 4, 5, or 6 seed and would therefore be unaffected, but one of the other four may artificially move up or down depending on bracketing needs.

And I'm sure none of the other potential 2-seeds who are not hosting do not relish the thought of having to play a second round game on the road. I think it's fairly likely that one of the potential 2-seeds (Texas A&M definitely, maybe UCLA, Michigan State or Notre Dame) will end up playing in Columbus, OH; University Park, PA; or possibly even in Bossier City, LA or Spokane, WA.

Whatever the result, Texas A&M will surely be the best team in the tournament to be shipped 1000 miles away for their first two games. Bossier City (the closest first round site not located in Waco) would actually be the most attractive scenario for the Aggies.


Now in: Montana State, Charlotte, Temple, Southern California, Princeton, St. Francis (PA)
Now out: Northern Colorado, Harvard, Robert Morris, Arkansas, Arizona State, Boston College

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 10
Big Ten: 7
ACC: 6
Big 12: 5
SEC: 5
Atlantic 10: 4
PAC-10: 3

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

Buckeyes Going Off the Rails

On Sunday, December 5th, 2010, 6th ranked and undefeated Ohio State walked off their home court in Columbus, Ohio after handing a game Oklahoma team its first loss of the season thanks in part to Jantel Lavender and her 32 points. It was a given that the Big Ten conference season was going to be Ohio State's to lose, again, for the seventh straight regular-season championship.

Since going off the court that day, Ohio State has gone off the rails. Ohio State has recorded three wins and six losses since that day. Last night Ohio State lost to Northwestern for the first time since 2000. The previous 19 games between the two teams had been won by the Buckeyes. And for the first time this season, Ohio State has lost its College Women's Hoops S-Factor-predicted at-large bid.

It won't get much easier for the Buckeyes. Thanks to the Big Ten's unusual number of teams, each team plays 6 of the other conference teams twice and 4 of them just once. The four teams Ohio State plays only once are the four worst teams in the league in terms of S-Factor ranking (Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin). Ohio State's next game is against conference leader Michigan State.

While Ohio State's difficult schedule will weigh on the minds of the selection committee, it will mean nothing if Ohio State can't crack .500 in the Big Ten conference (they're currently 1-3).



Now in: Cal Poly, East Tennessee State, Wisconsin, LSU
Now out: Lipscomb, UC Irvine, Ohio State, Vanderbilt

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

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

Slouching Tigers, Rising Techsters

The first conference games for the Big 12 occured this past weekend, a very active weekend for almost every team. Iowa State started the conference season with arguably their hardest game, Baylor at Waco; the Cyclones lost. Texas failed to secure a win after leading Missouri by 12 points with under three minutes to go. And Texas Tech scored an important win over Kansas at Lawrence, propelling the Red Raiders up to a dubiously high 5-seed in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor.

One unusual game that had ramifications for many teams was on Thursday when LSU lost to South Carolina. The loss pushed the Tigers down out of the S-Factor-predicted at-large bids, but it also knocked LSU out of the top 50 in RPI.

Because of this, several teams that scored victories against LSU suddenly had a weaker strength of schedule. Tulane, most precipitously, dropped 28 spots in the S-Factor just because of the LSU loss (even though Tulane now has won 6 games in a row and is still slated in the S-Factor to get the automatic bid from Conference USA).

Ohio State and Northwestern, teams that have beaten LSU this year, dropped 15 spots and 5 spots respectively (although Ohio State's loss to Iowa on Saturday certainly doesn't help matters).

The biggest gainer from LSU's loss? Louisiana Tech. LSU had beaten the Lady Techsters earlier this year. It seems counterintuitive that an opponent that beat your team earlier in the year and now has a lower RPI than before can actually boost your team's ranking. But now instead of winning 2 out of 4 against top 50 teams, Louisiana Tech has won 2 out of 3. It's enough of a difference to lift Louisiana Tech 20 spots in the S-Factor. Sometimes the numbers are just crazy in Mid-Majoropolis.



Now in: California, Purdue, St. John's
Now out: LSU, Arizona, Texas

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

Happy New Year!

And what a crazy weekend. The Pac-10 and Big Ten conference seasons started since last I updated the numbers. In the Big Ten, highly-ranked Ohio State and highly-ranked Iowa are a combined 0-3 in conference games, having both lost to Michigan, a team that surged 32 spots in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor rankings to #9.

Tennessee State, in a game against Georgia Tech, shot 6% (3 for 50) from the field on their way to setting a new NCAA record for fewest points in a game. Georgia Tech won 82-11. Tennessee State's three first half points was also a new record for least points in a half, coming on three free throws. The good news? Tennessee State nearly tripled their first half production in the second half.

Nebraska's Lindsey Moore achieved a triple double (12 points, 11 assists, 10 boards) against Florida A&M, the program's first.

The triumphant return of Whitney Hand to Oklahoma's lineup was not enough to overcome the sizeable duo of TCU's Emily Carter and Helena Sverrisdottir. Three Sooners fouled out in the 76-69 loss, which allowed TCU to attempt 38 free throws, 27 of them in the second half alone. Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale called it "obscene".

And I hear there was some game out in the bay area. Something about a streak ending.



Now in: Arizona, Texas, Louisville
Now out: LSU, Purdue, Vanderbilt

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 10
ACC: 7
Big 12: 7
Big Ten: 6
PAC-10: 5
SEC: 3
Atlantic 10: 2