February 21 Update: Iowa State's and Oklahoma's Diverging Paths

For years the Big 12 Conference has been well-represented in the NCAA tournament. 50% or more of its teams have been selected for the tournament in 13 out of the 17 years of the Big 12's existence.  It has been 8 years since fewer than 6 teams were selected to go to the tournament, including the most recent two years since the Big 12 has been shrunk from twelve members to ten members.

The S-Factor today shows only four Big 12 teams in the tournament: Baylor, Texas, West Virginia and Oklahoma State.  Given the conference's history one would speculate that this estimate is probably too low, and that surely Oklahoma and Iowa State would be offered invitations to the big dance also, like Charlie Creme says.  I think this is half true.  I believe that Iowa State is likely going to be out of the tournament, but Oklahoma will be in.  Here's why.

Oklahoma had a big gutsy win against Texas on Pack the Place Pink Night at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman on Wednesday.  As a Sooner fan, I'm still on an adrenaline high from the win.  The Sooners had no business even being competitive, what with star guard and leading scorer Aaryn Ellenberg out with a concussion, and yet they pulled out the win in dramatic fashion, with Morgan Hook scoring the team's final three points and Texas not getting a fast break layup off in time before the final buzzer sounded.

On the same night as Oklahoma's big win, Iowa State went down to Waco and laid a turd, losing by 38 points.  No one expected a Cyclones win, but the apathy with which they played was surprising. 

Now Iowa State is at 6-8 in conference (tied with TCU) and Oklahoma is at 7-7.  For Oklahoma, three out of the remaining four games are against the bottom four teams in the conference (the other one is at Baylor).  It is very likely that Oklahoma will be 9-9 or 10-8 in conference play when the regular season concludes on March 3.  With Iowa State, it's a completely different story.  Three out of the remaining four games for Iowa State are against the top four teams in the conference (the other one is at Kansas, a team the Cyclones beat by only 3 points last weekend at home in Ames).  It is very likely that Iowa State will be 7-11, and 8-10 is impossible unless they can beat either Texas, Oklahoma State or Baylor, teams the Cyclones are 0-3 against this year. 

So let's say that Iowa State manages to achieve an 8-10 record for the 6 seed in the Big 12 tournament.  Would that be enough to get them in the NCAA tournament?

In the 17 year history of the Big 12 Conference, there have been 21 teams that have finished with a record of one game under .500 (7-9 or 8-10).  Only 8 of those teams have been offered tournament bids (38%).  But, six out of the last seven teams that finished one game under .500 in the conference has made it to the tournament, the lone exception since 2006 being the 2012 snub of 8-10 Oklahoma State.  That would be great for Iowa State then, right?

Well, the reason that the NCAA selection committee felt such generosity for mediocre Big 12 teams in years past is because that since 2008 the Big 12 has been the toughest conference in the country in terms of RPI.  Before this season, one could make a strong argument that 8-10 in the Big 12 was equivalent to, let's say, 11-7 in the PAC-12; on any given night, a pretty good team could easily lose to an overperforming eleventh place team. (Imagine removing the bottom half of the ACC and replacing it with, like, six TCUs). 

This year though, the Big 12 is fourth in RPI.  Of the five teams that have gone one game under .500 in a season that the Big 12 has been ranked fourth or worse, zero of them have received tournament berths.  Even getting to .500 is no automatic path to the Big Dance in years where the Big 12 is down: only one of the four teams that went .500 in conference play in a year that the Big 12 was fourth or worse in RPI has received a tournament bid (Oklahoma, 2005).  And if Iowa State finishes 7-11? No team 2 games below .500 in conference has ever received an at-large tournament berth in the Big 12. 

What about Oklahoma's chances this year?  9-9 in the Big 12 (or 8-8 in the old Big 12) has been good enough for a berth 59% of the time, though it's been 100% of the time since 2006 and only 30% of the time before then.  And teams going one game above .500 (10-8 or 9-7) have missed out on the tournament only twice since 1997: once in 2006 when the selection committee decided to snub Marsha Sharp in her last season at Texas Tech for some reason, and once for Missouri in 2003 when the Big 12 was the fifth strongest conference.  Both of those teams had 14 losses and RPI's over 60.      
This is why I believe that barring a very surprising last four games, Iowa State is out and Oklahoma is in.  Hopefully S-Factor will catch up to this prediction before the season is out :)

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Now in:
Bowling Green (Bowling Green and Central Michigan have now split wins and lead the conference, but I'm giving the automatic to Bowling Green for now)

Southern Cal (bracket churn)

Southern Miss (the only team in Conference USA to beat Middle Tennessee this year)

North Dakota (back in solo first place in the Big Sky)


Cal State Northridge (now in solo first place in the Big West)

Now out:
Central Michigan (first conference loss of the season)

UTEP (their loss to North Texas on Wednesday was their first sub-200 RPI loss of the season)

Florida State (the Seminoles are at Iowa State-levels of freefall at this point.  They are 3-8 in their last eleven games)

Montana (lost to sub-300 RPI Weber State, truly an awful loss)

Cal Poly (fallen into a 3-game slide)



ACC Teams:
(1) Notre Dame
(2) Duke
(3) Maryland
(4) North Carolina State
(4) North Carolina
(5) Syracuse
(10) Georgia Tech

AAC Teams:
(1) Connecticut
(2) Louisville
(10) Rutgers

Atlantic 10 Teams:
(8) Dayton
(9) St. Joseph's

Big East Teams:
(7) St. John's
(9) DePaul

Big Ten Teams:
(2) Penn State
(4) Iowa
(4) Purdue
(5) Nebraska
(7) Michigan State

Big 12 Teams:
(3) Baylor
(3) West Virginia
(6) Oklahoma State
(9) Texas

PAC 12 Teams:
(1) Stanford
(6) Arizona State
(6) California
(11) Oregon State
(11) Southern Cal

SEC Teams:
(1) South Carolina
(2) Tennessee
(3) Texas A&M
(5) Kentucky
(5) Vanderbilt
(7) LSU
(8) Georgia
(11) Florida

West Coast Teams:
(6) Gonzaga
(7) BYU
(10) San Diego*
(10) St. Mary's*

*I should just replace these two spots with "Boomer" and "Sooner".
 

Sorting Out the Big 12

The Big 12 is a difficult problem to tackle from a tournament selection standpoint.  Baylor is obviously the best team in the league and has sewn up the regular season. No one else in the league can beat them.  TCU is pretty obviously the worst team in the conference, though Kansas State and Texas are certainly not tournament bound either.  This leaves six teams in the middle who keep failing to differentiate themselves.

It seemed like there was a little bit of distance between the top and the bottom of the pack before this last week.  The top teams were Iowa State and Oklahoma, the bottom teams were West Virginia and Kansas, and the middle was occupied by Texas Tech and Oklahoma State.  This stratification ended this week. The top teams went 1-3, the bottom teams went 3-1, and the middle teams went 3-1.  So now these six teams all have between 5 and 7 losses in conference.

The problem lies in tournament selection. It is not unprecedented for the Big 12 to get 7 teams into the tournament. It is unprecedented for a conference with only ten teams to get 7 teams into the tournament.  There's no rule against having 70% of a conference attend the big dance though, and the tournament selection committee may have a very difficult time justifying excluding one or two teams given the similar resumes of all six.

Assuming all six lose matchups against each other on the road (and also Baylor wherever) and win all matchups against each other at home (and also TCU, Texas and Kansas State wherever), the final standings in the Big 12 will look like this:

1. Baylor (18-0)
2. Iowa State (13-5)
3. Texas Tech (12-6)
4. Kansas (10-8)
4. West Virginia (10-8)
4. Oklahoma (10-8)
4. Oklahoma State (10-8)
8. Kansas State (4-14)
9. Texas (3-15)
10. TCU (0-18)

Given the ease of remaining schedule, Iowa State has the inside track to second place in the conference, but nothing is certain: the Cyclones just lost at Hilton to West Virginia.


____

Now in:
Iowa
Army
Oral Roberts

Now out:
Duquesne
Navy
Sam Houston St.


Conferences with multiple bids:
Big 12: 7
Big 10: 7
Big East: 6
SEC: 6
ACC: 5
Pac 12: 4
Atlantic 10: 3
Missouri Valley: 2
West Coast: 2

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.

__________________

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 Danielle Show

In a spectacularly entertaining game to watch, Texas A&M squared off against Oklahoma last night at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, and the Aggies walked off the court with a two-point squeaker of a win, 80-78.

Players named Danielle combined to score 64 of the 158 points. Neither Danielle Adams nor Danielle Robinson would give an inch; both players had more than 30.

But Danielle Adams was more dominant all around. Gary Blair had this to say to Sooner fans: "You all had Courtney Paris for four (years). I only get (Adams) for two."

The result moved Texas A&M up to a number 1 seed in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor, but a better predictor of a #1 seed will come this weekend for the Aggies. They face top-ranked Baylor at College Station on Sunday.

Now in: Kansas State
Now out: Arizona State

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
Big Ten: 8
ACC: 7
Big 12: 6
SEC: 5
PAC-10: 3
Atlantic 10: 2

Better Sooner Than Later

Hey y'all, Oklahoma's back! The Sooners' ugly, zero-three-pointers victory over Kansas State gives them two wins to start the conference season, and they have now ascended back to a ranking of 39 and a predicted 10 seed in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor.

Other games of note:

• TCU rode into Laramie, Wyoming and absolutely demolished the Wyoming Cowgirls 68-47, which shifted the Mountain West's presumed automatic bid over to the Horned Frogs.
• Some other Cowgirls, those from McNeese State, did a little bit better. McNeese State ended Lamar's 21-game home winning streak with a 57-53 victory on a night Lamar was playing without their leading shot-blocker and rebounder Trashanna Smith. Lamar's senior guard and former Sooner Jenna Plumley scored 11 points.
• Connecticut routed St. John's last night in Madison Square Garden by a score of 84-52. The win put Connecticut back into the #1 position in the S-Factor, and also removed St. John's from the group of teams with predicted at-large bids.

Now in: TCU, Oklahoma, McNeese State, Vanderbilt
Now out: Wyoming, Lamar, Syracuse, St. John's

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

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