Crashing The Dance

Quick first take

More analysis (hopefully) later this week. First priority, of course, is filling out the brackets and second priority is watching the games.

Some highlights (all counts unofficial, and I'll double-check them later):

• 32 of 34 at-large teams correct - I had Illinois State and Dayton; the committee picked Oregon (CTD's second team out) and Kentucky (CTD's eighth team out). I had mentioned earlier in the week and today that Dayton and Kentucky could be tricky for CTD, so I'm not surprised. Illinois State is another of those mid-majors I was worried about.
• 27 of 65 (41.5%) seeds exactly right, 53 of 65 (81.5%) within 1 seed line, and 61 of 65 (93.8%) within 2 seed lines. Other than the two at-large teams I missed, the big seed misses were Butler (I had them No. 3; they were No. 7) and Indiana (had No. 5; were no. 8).
• I got all four No. 1 seeds correct along with their regions, as well as the correct pod sites for 9 of the top 12 teams on the S-Curve in my "unofficial" guess based on the CTD results.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the results this year.

Region and pod guesses

Here are my "unofficial" top 4 seed lines with regions and pod sites assigned. Just for kicks.

	East		South		Midwest		West
1	UNC	Raleigh	Memphis	Little Rock	Kansas	Omaha	UCLA	Anaheim
2	Tennessee	Birmingham	Texas	Little Rock	Duke	Raleigh	Wisconsin	Omaha
3	Georgetown	Birmingham	Stanford	Anaheim	Xavier	D.C.	Butler	D.C.
4	Indiana	Denver	Louisville	Tampa	Drake	Denver	Pitt	Tampa

Note: Indiana was moved up to the No. 4 line because to satisfy bracketing rules.

T-3 hours

Today's the day.

First, sorry I haven't posted the last several days. You may have heard that a tornado came through the heart of Atlanta. Between huddling in our closet during two tornado warnings and keeping an eye on the deadly storms to our north and south, I've been focused on things other than basketball. Thankfully, there was no damage where I am, but it was certainly a scary few days.

As of Sunday morning, the CTD four No. 1 seeds are (in order) Memphis, UNC, Tennessee and Kansas. UCLA and Kansas are essentially tied for the last slot with 15.93 seed points, so CTD thinks there are five teams worthy of a #1 seed. I think that Memphis, UNC and UCLA are locks, so the fight will be for that last slot. Before my last bracket, I'm planning to estimate the coaches poll, so that may move the Vols out of the top 4.

On the bubble side of things, our last four in are Dayton, Mississippi State, Villanova and New Mexico. The first four out are Oregon, Syracuse, Ohio State and UMass. Illinois and Georgia could crash the dance today with wins in their respective conference finals, forcing out up to two of those last teams in.

A few other selection and seeding notes:

The last No. 1 seed: Even if Texas wins, they probably won't move up to a No. 1 seed in our model. With a late start, the committee may have a contingency set up with the Big XII champ as the last No. 1, so that may be a miss for us if Texas defeats Kansas.

Big Mo: There are a few cases where the committee will consider the unquantifiable "momentum," both in good and bad ways. As I mentioned before, that's a factor CTD can't model, so we may miss some of those. After winning the Big East, Pitt exemplifies positive momentum. As of Sunday morning, CTD has them up to the No. 5 line, pending my updated estimate of the coaches poll. I expect they'll be in the Top 25, so that may move them up to a No. 4. Quite a difference from their outlook after losing Mike Cook for the year and Levance Fields for a chunk of it. Vanderbilt is going in the other direction - since their win over Tennessee, they've struggled. They're the first No 5 seed on our board; it wouldn't surprise me if they stay there, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them move down to a 6 either.

(Mid-)major trouble: I'm also a little worried about how CTD handles the mid-major champs, especially Butler and Drake. As of Sunday morning, Butler is a No. 3 and Drake is a No. 4. Butler has no Top 25 wins and is only 2-1 against the RPI Top 50, but the model seems to be giving more weight to their #10 coaches poll ranking and lack of bad losses. Over the last 8 years, the 10th ranked team in the coaches poll has received worse than a #4 seed only twice - Marquette in 2002 and Wisconsin in 2004. Last year, Southern Illinois (another mid-major) received a 4-seed. Drake is a little more tricky they're 7-1 against the RPI Top 50 (better than, for example Louisville's 7-4 and Stanford's 7-6). Unfortunately, they don't have the same quality wins as either. I'd expect each Butler and Drake to move down one seed line from where CTD has them.

Expect one more update before the selection show and my guess at the regions and pod sites for the top 4 seed lines.

T-2 days and counting

It was certainly a rough day for many of the bubble teams trying to make a case for selection. So many in fact, that I had to use a table rather than a paragraph for each. Here's a look at the CTD selection confidence before and after Thursday's games for these teams.

Team	Result	Opponent	Opp.RPI	Before	After
Baylor	91-84	Colorado	166	100% (21st of 34 at large)	99.4% (26th)
Ole Miss	97-95 (OT)	Georgia	148	100% (24th of 34)	<0.1% (way out)
Arizona	75-64	Stanford	17	99.9% (29th of 34)	99.3% (27th)
Dayton	74-65	Xavier	9	98.7% (29th of 34)	96.2% (30th)
Villanova	82-63	Georgetown	7	92.6% (31st of 34)	77.2% (31st)
Oregon	75-70	Washington State	21	88.4% (32nd of 34)	45.8% (last in)
UMass	69-65	Charlotte	78	55.3% (last in)	8.0% (3rd out)
New Mexico	82-80	Utah	105	35.1% (2nd team out)	64.3% (33rd)
Arizona State	59-55	USC	33	7.4% (6th team out)	0.1% (8th out)
Florida	80-69	Alabama	119	0.1% (8th team out)	0.1% (way out)
UAB	78-68 (OT)	Tulsa	122	<0.1% (way out)	<0.1% (way out)
Maryland	71-68	Boston College	140	<0.1% (way out)	done

With so many teams losing, there no surprise several teams saw decreases in selection confidence but moved up on the board because other bubble teams fared worse. Some even saw an increase in selection confidence. Ironically, New Mexico's loss to Utah moved the Utes into the RPI Top 100, giving New Mexico two more Top 100 wins from their earlier victories over Utah. (UTEP's win over Houston also moved the Miners into the Top 100, giving the Lobos another boost. Is this realistic? Maybe not as extreme as this, but this shows why it is important to consider the entire profile and not just start from yesterday's bracket and shift teams around. It's just as likely that Utah and UTEP move back out of the Top 100 and negate this gain.

This might be another area where the committee considers factors we can't model. All of the bubble teams have one last chance to prove they belong. When teams like Baylor, Ole Miss, New Mexico, Florida, UAB, and Maryland lose to sub-100 RPI teams, that can leave a big last impression on the minds of the committee members. Fair or not, people have a natural tendency to weight recent events more, and some of that might come through here.

On the other hand, opening round bye teams in the Big East took a hit Thursday, with three of the top four seeds losing. How did Thursday affect their CTD S-Curve outlook?

Team	Result	Before	After
Louisville	76-69 (OT) to Pitt	11th	12th
UConn	78-72 to West Virginia	16th	17th
Notre Dame	89-79 to Marquette	17th	19th

By the end of Friday, every team will have played at least one conference tourney game, and things start to get serious. I can't wait.

What? Aren't computers perfect?

I'm so excited someone has finally experimentally recreated what we've all known for years! The most common cause of traffic jams is people driving like idiots!

Anyway, I'm not naïve enough to think that our results should be treated as gospel. The selection committee is made of people. As much as we can try to model their behavior, people are inconsistent and sometimes subjective. I have no doubt that we'll whiff on some of their choices. However, it can be useful to try to understand where our mistakes are and how we can correct them, if indeed we can. (Plus there's no sense in arguing with these ilk of writers who think that the BPs and Bill James of the world are enslaved to what the computer spits out).

One way is to review performance from previous years and look for patterns in the big mistakes. I've incorporated some of those changes into this year's model. Of course, we won't know how that worked until this Sunday.

Unfortunately, there are some aspects of the process that would be difficult, if not downright impossible, to model accurately.

Injuries

We know the committee takes injuries into consideration, but the problem is that each case is unique and subjective. Trying to include that in the model would be tricky and may cause more problems than it solves. Lack of historical data to use in comparisons is also a problem. And what if a team performs better while a key player is missing - are they penalized when the player returns?

As a result, I haven't even tried to include injuries and I don't foresee doing so any time soon. Fortunately, there aren't many Kenyon Martin situations where injuries have a significant impact.

What about this year? Here are a few cases we might mishandle because of injuries. (See this post if you're not familiar with the sparklines used here.)

• Dayton - Probably the most affected and most difficult for the committee to judge. They started 14-1 with Chris Wright but are 7-8 without including a number of bad losses. If he can't return to give the committee a chance to see him, they'll likely judge Dayton more on the latter than the former.
• Pitt - The Panthers lost Mike Cook and Levance Fields in successive games at the end of a 10-1 start. They were a good (though inconsistent) 7-4 in conference without both which is probably enough to make the field. Since Cook will not be returning and Fields has been back since mid-February, the effect may not be as bad as I fear. In fact, Pitt is 4-4 since his return, though the losses were against four of the top six in the Big East. Seeding will be our biggest problem evaluating Pitt.
• Arizona - National POY candidate Jerryd Bayless missed four games, three of which the Wildcats lost. I don't think they'll get much consideration from the committee on these games because one was at likely one-seed Memphis, which they may have lost anyway, and they lost rematches against Arizona State and Oregon after Bayless returned. Even without a free pass on those games, they're in the field as of Thursday.

Jekyll and Hyde teams

Some teams have bipolar profiles and they may be treated differently by the committee than teams with the same overall numbers but a more even level of performance. CTD looks at the overall profile of teams, not caring in what order the numbers accumulated. Two teams this year will provide a good test for how the committee handles such cases.

You may have heard that Kentucky struggled early in the year but turned it around once SEC season arrived . In the years we have data (2000-7), there has not been a team with a Top 10 RPI in conference games (#6) with a lower non-conference RPI (#207) than Kentucky.

Top 10 conference RPI and sub-100 non-conference RPI, 2000-2007

Team	Season	Seed	RPI Rank
			All	Conf	Non-conf
Miami FL	2000	6	37	6	150
Kansas	2006	4	20	6	134
West Virginia	2006	6	38	9	123

The better half of the season is more recent, so conventional wisdom says the committee will overlook that loss to Gardner Webb and include the 'Cats. We train the CTD predictor on data from past seasons. When it encounters a team like this where there is no real comparison in previous years, we can have problems. My guess is that barring an SEC tournament collapse, they're in, but certainly not seeded as high as those comps without a strong tourney.

Ole Miss has a mirror resume to Kentucky, with the good non-conference portion (#8 non-conference RPI) first and the mediocre and maddeningly inconsistent conference portion (#105 conference RPI) second .

Top 10 non-conference RPI and sub-100 conference RPI, 2000-2007

Team	Season	Seed	RPI Rank
			All	Conf	Non-conf
Toledo	2001		84	168	8
Rhode Island	2004		82	160	10
Southern Mississippi	2000		62	127	10

This will be a great test of what the committee looks for. Conference vs. non-conference? (Notice the seed column in the above tables - blank means they didn't make the field.) Overall profile or recent play only? If you look solely at the profiles, Ole Miss would seem to have a slight edge.

			Rank			Conf		N/C	1-25	1-50		1-100		1-200	101+
School	Conf.	W-L	Sag.	Poll	RPI	RPI	+/-	RPI	W	W	+/-	W	+/-	+/-	L
Mississippi	SEC	21-9	44		45	105	-2	8	2	5	2	8	4	7	5
Kentucky	SEC	18-11	51	30	51	6	8	208	2	4	-3	5	-5	1	1

Am I hot or not?

Related to the Kentucky/Mississippi situation in a more generic way is how is a team playing at the end of the season? CTD include each team's record in their last 10 in the last few seasons, but it didn't seem to make much difference. The problem is that last n games (previously 10, but 12 this year) is arbitrary. What the committee looks for is recent performance, which is a bit too Potter Stewart for me. (Hey, Prof. Stone's censorship course finally paid off!) How many games does "recent" include? Do they only look at W/L record or also quality of opponents?

Some of the teams I've mentioned in the other categories can also fall under this one, making it even harder to separate how the committee came to their conclusions. If they include Kentucky, is it because they have won 11 of 13, or because their conference RPI is in the top 10?

Potential vs. resume

I thought that the committee's decision to place Florida as the #1 overall seed (much less a #1 seed period) last year was a terrible decision. There were at least 4 teams with better profiles than the Gators, and the outcome of a one-and-done tournament is irrelevant in the discussion. This is a perfect example of seeding teams based on potential (perceived or otherwise) over the documented accomplishments on the resume. Because this is a subjective measure, there's no way we can account for it.

Kansas is a good example of this mentality this year. The proverbial "many people" (i.e., I'm too lazy to find links right now) have said Kansas may well be the "most talented" team in the land, but haven't been getting much love from CTD or other Web bracketologists. The same thing happened last year with Florida, though Kansas doesn't have the same sense of inevitability as the defending champs did last years. I doubt they'll make it up to the #1 seed line without some help, but with a few pre-Sunday upsets they may sneak in.

Bad calls?

Luke Winn brings up the idea that the committee will entertain evidence that teams were harmed by poor officiating, specifically mentioning Villanova's tough zebra luck in losses against N.C. State and Georgetown. It's hard to know what effect that will have; bad calls are a part of the game, and everyone seems to get their fair share. What about teams that benefit from a few favorable calls? (I'm looking at you, UCLA.) Can arguments be made against those teams? I'm not going to worry too much about this one.

T-5 days and counting

There's still nothing like a nighttime space shuttle launch. Wow.

While the Endeavour had a good night, it was a rough night for the bubble teams. With Gonzaga and South Alabama taken down in their respective conference tournaments, two strong (if not certain) at-large candidates that would have received automatic bids were tossed into the at-large pool. That means likely two fewer spots for that weak bubble I discussed last week.

I don't like throwing around the "lock" label, but Gonzaga is in. USA is a little more tricky. I week ago I would have felt better about the Jaguars' chances, but they're now 53rd in the Sagarin ratings and just 4-3 against the RPI Top 100 and several bad losses with no great wins to speak of.

With strong showings later this week by some of the other bubble teams or more losses by the more one-bid conference leaders (I'm looking at you Butler, BYU and Kent State), the Jags could still be sitting on the launch pad come Sunday night.

Reviewing 2007 (a.k.a., Oh no they didn't!)

As I noted after the field was announced, last year's CTD oracle (or, Ron as I'll call it this year) performance was a mixed bag, Some misses (see Arkansas) couldn't have been predicted with an automated approach, and some came down to a close call between several teams.

But 2007, more than any year in recent memory, was the Year of the Committee Head Scratcher. Here's a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly from last year. One argument you will not see me use is how a team performed in the tournament. Anything can happen in a one-and-done situation.

The good

Drexel seemed to be a problem for many bracketologists, but CTD correctly slayed the Dragons. ESPN's Andy Katz says about Drexel:

Drexel was done in more by the way it played in the Colonial than by how it performed out of conference. The committee celebrated the Dragons' nonconference road wins -- like Syracuse, Villanova and Creighton -- but going 1-5 against the top teams in the CAA (Old Dominion, VCU and Hofstra) essentially eliminated the Dragons.

Indeed, CTD correctly weighed Drexel's #5 non-conference RPI against their #88 conference RPI along with the rest of their similarly hit (8 games over .500 on the road) or miss (2-4 vs. RPI top 50; #74 Sagarin ranking) resume.

The bad

Here, in geeky tabular form with equally geeky yet endearing commentary, is where I and/or CTD messed up:

I let in, they left out

I let in, they left out			CTD		Web		Rank			Conf		NC	Road	L10	1-25	1-50	1-100	101+
School	Conf.	W-L	Conf	Seed	%sel	Seed	Sag.	Poll	RPI	RPI	+/-	RPI	+/-	W	W	+/-	+/-	L
Missouri St	MVC	21-10	>99%	8	27%	10	26		35	42	6	41	4	7	1	-2	-1	1
Air Force	MWC	22-8	96%	10	17%	11	42	29	30	67	3	24	1	4	1	-2	1	3
Syracuse	BE	22-10	91%	11	97%	10	49	36	51	32	4	80	1	7	3	-3	0	2

Syracuse

Ah yes, Syracuse. There wasn't much uproar about their omission, was there? While 97% of the Bracket Project participants included Syracuse, this was the least surprising of the three CTD missed in terms of the confidence (91%) assigned to the pick.

Missouri State and Air Force

CTD sure didn't get a whole lotta love from the wisdom of the bracketology crowds with these two. Despite the 99+% (Missouri State) and 96% (Air Force) confidence values assigned, they were only included on 27% (MSU) and 17% (AF) of the brackets surveyed for the Bracket Project.

You may remember that Missouri State was also a problem for CTD in 2006. I'm not sure I understand this one. Their RPI rankings (conf/non-conf and overall) were essentially top 40, and their Sagarin raking of 26 also supports at-large selection. However, they only had one RPI Top 25 win (Wisconsin) and records against RPI Top 50 and Top 100 were sub-.500.

Interestingly (I don't know whether it's intentional) the at-large split point for games +/- .500 against RPI Top 50 teams seems to be right at .500. Since 2000, 77% of the eligible (those with RPI rank 105 or better) teams with better than .500 records against such teams were (or we estimate would have been based on their seed) selected, while only 34% of the teams at or below .500 were selected.

I left out, they let in

I left out, they let in				CTD	Web		Rank			Conf		NC	Road	L10	1-25	1-50	1-100	101+
School	Conf.	W-L	Seed	Conf	%sel	Seed	Sag.	Poll	RPI	RPI	+/-	RPI	+/-	W	W	+/-	+/-	L
Arkansas	SEC	21-13	12	45%	17%	11	38		37	60	0	29	-6	6	1	-1	0	2
Texas Tech	B12	21-12	10	27%	90%	10	64		46	62	2	38	1	6	3	-1	-3	2
Stanford	P10	18-12	11	<1%	43%	11	53		64	49	1	99	-2	4	2	-3	-2	1

Arkansas

Again, here's Andy Katz:

Not all Sunday games are created equal. The committee had one spot open Sunday, and it was going to go to NC State, if it won the ACC tournament with a win over North Carolina, or to Arkansas. NC State lost, so the Hogs were in -- even though they were losing to Florida in the SEC tournament final while the selection committee was making its decisions.

I can live with Arkansas (they were CTD's first team out), but it seems that making the SEC final was enough to get them in.

Stanford

On the other hand, I can't live with Stanford. CTD interpreted their profile as less than a 1% match of an at-large selection.

One more time, the Katz writes:

Unbalanced scheduling is common in the high-majors (save the Pac-10), yet that's the reason some teams -- like Syracuse and Kansas State -- didn't get into the field... Unbalanced scheduling hurt those teams, but a true round-robin, and going 10-8 in the Pac-10, actually helped Stanford, according to (selection committee chairman Gary) Walters.

RPI rankings for conference games only: Syracuse 32, Kansas State 35, Stanford 49. So Stanford benefitted simply because they had a true round-robin schedule? They had a worse non-conference RPI than the supposedly dreadful Syracuse and they were demolished by Air Force.

Texas Tech

The favorite team of toddlers everywhere, the Red Raiders were our third team left out, so I guess I'm also OK with them. Only 14 teams had more than their 3 wins over RPI Top 25 teams (though Syracuse also had 3), but their 3 games under .500 against RPI Top 100 and rough finish (6-7) didn't help.

Big seed misses

Big seed misses			Seed			Rank			Conf		NC	Road	L10	1-25	1-50	1-100	101+
School	Conf.	W-L	Real	CTD	Web	Sag.	Poll	RPI	RPI	+/-	RPI	+/-	W	W	+/-	+/-	L
Virginia	ACC	19-10	4	10	7	40	24	54	18	5	143	-3	6	4	3	4	3
Southern California	P10	23-11	5	10	7	34	34	50	28	5	98	-2	5	4	-1	4	2
Vanderbilt	SEC	19-11	6	10	8	54	28	47	22	3	103	-2	5	4	0	2	3
Illinois	B10	23-11	12	8	11	45		27	47	3	25	-3	7	1	-5	-3	0
UNLV	MWC	27-6	7	4	4	29	20	10	14	11	14	3	9	3	2	6	2

UNLV (too low) and Virginia (too high) seem to attract the biggest complaints in the seeding department. In most of these cases, the Web consensus agrees that Virginia, USC and Vandy were overseeded, and UNLV was underseeded. Several employees of the Worldwide Leader also agreed:

The following teams were measurably underseeded in the 2007 Tournament: UNLV, Niagara, UCLA, Marquette, Texas, Nevada, Creighton. And the following teams were demonstrably over-seeded: Gonzaga, George Washington, Texas Tech, Long Beach State, Virginia, Albany, Stanford. (Joe Lunardi - ESPN Insider required)

Virginia is a 4-seed. Texas also is a 4-seed. Huh? ... Look closer at Virginia and you will see that this team is supremely lacking in its qualifications for such a high seed... Texas, on the other hand, makes sense; the Horns very well could be underseeded at 4... If the 4-seed is supposed to be better or more worthy than, say, a 7-seed such as UNLV, I must have missed something. (Doug Gottlieb - ESPN Insider required)

Virginia, USC and Vandy

We seem to have overestimated the importance of non-conference RPI and underestimated the importance of conference RPI and good wins with these three. While each had 4 wins over RPI Top 25 teams, most of their other attributes didn't support their 4 (Virginia), 5 (USC) and 6 (Vandy) seeds. Notably, each had bad non-conference RPIs (100 or worse) and Sagarin rankings not in line with their seeds. While their conference RPIs were nearly correlated with their seeds, so the committee sure didn't apply that consistently to UNLV (#14 conference RPI = #7 seed line?).

It seems like one factor that we don't consider may have been part of it. Virginia won 7 games against RPI Top 50 teams. (CTD only considers games +/- .500 against RPI Top 50 teams.) Only 14 teams won 7 or more such games, so that attribute supports their #4 seed, as does does their record of 3 games over .500 against the same teams (only 13 teams did so). However, with most of their other attributes not supporting a #4 seed, it looks like the committee is selectively applying their principles. That is not only difficult to predict, but unfair to the teams.

Illinois

Their RPI (#27) and non-conf RPI (#25) support a higher seed than #12, but their single win over an RPI Top 25 team, 5 games under .500 against RPI Top 50 teams and 3 games under .500 against RPI Top 100 teams, and conference RPI (#47) don't. Sounds like more arguments against than for CTD's #8 seed prediction, so I (and the Web consensus) tend to agree the committee was closer.

UNLV

The committee gave UNLV a #7 because... Anyone? Anyone? Yeah, they blew this one. Most writers (see above), the Web consensus and all but the Sagarin ranking had UNLV much higher than the #7 the committee gave them. I still don't understand this one. Wow.

Top 2 seed lines

Top 2 seed lines			Seed				Rank			Conf		NC	Road	L10	1-25	1-50	1-100	101+
School	Conf.	W-L	Real	CTD	Pts	Web	Sag.	Poll	RPI	RPI	+/-	RPI	+/-	W	W	+/-	+/-	L
Ohio St.	B10	30-3	1 (#3)	1 (#1)	16.00	1	2	1	1	1	17	20	4	10	5	7	12	0
UNC	ACC	28-6	1 (#2)	1 (#2)	15.96	1	1	7	2	7	9	3	2	7	6	8	13	0
UCLA	P10	25-5	2	1 (#3)	15.95	1	6	6	3	13	11	1	2	7	6	9	12	0
Wisc.	B10	29-5	2	1 (#4)	15.89	2	5	3	5	5	11	11	4	7	5	4	9	0
Kansas	B12	30-4	1 (#4)	2	15.71	1	4	2	11	4	15	33	7	10	3	3	10	0
Florida	SEC	29-5	1 (#1)	2	15.64	2	3	5	6	3	13	36	1	7	4	4	11	0
Memphis	CUSA	30-3	2	2	15.15	2	7	4	8	11	19	17	7	10	1	-1	3	0
G'town	BE	26-6	2	2	14.83	2	8	8	9	2	13	64	6	9	5	4	7	0

Not much about this one, just that Florida makes absolutely no sense as the #1 seed overall, and the mainstream and non-mainstream media agree. Not to mention the #2 seed given by the Web consensus. I think the committee violated their principle that neither previous season performance nor potential should enter into selection or seeding.

Admittedly, it was a pretty tight race this year. Several complications with the Sunday games likely also had an effect. I couldn't find any links either way, but with Ohio State and Wisconsin playing in the Big Ten championship (the game started at 3:30 ET), the committee my have decided to slot the winner as a #1 and loser as a #2 to minimize bracket complications. (To my credit, I did note this hours before the brackets were unveiled.)

The ugly

ESPN's Joe Lunardi basically ripped the committee a new one: "[2007] was, quite simply, the worst seeding/pairings performance we've seen in my 13 years of Bracketology." Wow. Seriously, if you have an ESPN Insider subscription, Lunardi's review of the committee's performance since 1995 is a thorough and accurate (though slightly self-back-patting) analysis.

Let's hope for a less ugly 2008.

Senseless

Hark the sound of Tar Heel voices
Ringing clear and true.
Singing Carolina's praises.
Shouting N-C-U.
Hail to the brightest star of all
Clear its radiance shine
Carolina priceless gem.
Receive all praises thine.

I'm a Tar Heel born
I'm a Tar Heel bred
And when I die
I'm a Tar Heel dead.
So it's Rah, Rah, Car'lina-lina
Rah, Rah, Car'lina-lina
Rah, Rah, Car'lina-lina
Rah! Rah! Rah!

RIP, Eve Carson

Weak bubble

The Crashing the Dance model of the at-large selection part of the committee's process gives each team a confidence rating between 0% to 100%. This is a measure of how well the CTD oracle thinks the team's profile matches that of an at-large selection based on comparisons to the at-large selections from the 2000-2007 seasons. 100% confidence means we have no doubt that team will be an at-large selection and 0% confidence means NIT.

Of course that's the easy part. A ham sandwich could identify the teams with 100% confidence. It's those pesky bubble teams that give everyone trouble. Some parts of their profiles look like Sweet 16 material while other parts look like NJIT. (Well, not that bad.) That's what makes it difficult.

As outside observers, we obviously have no way to know which factors the committee values more, and whether they even apply their philosophies consistently. (Usually, but not always, is my guess.) What we try to do is look at teams in the past with similar profiles and see how the committee treated them. That's where the confidence value comes from.

We rank each team by the confidence value and take the first 34 non-conference-champs as the at-large selections. The Type column in the selection report shows whether each team is an automatic qualifier (Q) or at-large selection (L). Hovering the mouse over the Type column will show the confidence value for the team.

In a perfect world, we'd have the 34 at-large selections with 100% confidence, and everyone else with 0%. What ends up happening is a bunch (20ish) of them with 100% followed by a transition down to 0%, crossing the bubble somewhere in between 0% and 100%.

Last year, we crossed the bubble between the 75% and 45% confidence levels. This means that the teams on the good side of our bubble made strong cases (even if all did not make it in), and the our bubble was approximately a 50-50 shot.

With less than two weeks to go to Selection Sunday, that's not the case this year. Through Tuesday's games, the bubble is split at 3% and 0.5%. In other words, there will be some teams that make the field with weak arguments for being there.

Let's take a look at some of these bubble teams with arguments for and against (all results through Tuesday's games).

Team	Sparkline	Confidence	Pros	Cons
Arizona State		82.5% #28 of 34 at-large	4 W over RPI Top 25 5 W over RPI Top 50	9-10 vs. RPI Top 200 L 8 of 12
New Mexico		43.7% #29 of 34 at-large	14-7 vs. RPI Top 200	1-4 vs. RPI Top 50 3-5 vs. RPI Top 100
Davidson		10.8% #32* of 34 at-large	W 19 straight Top 30 coaches poll	#125 non-conf RPI 0-5 vs. RPI Top 100
Ohio State		0.4% 3rd team out	#29 non-conf RPI #39 Sagarin rank	1-7 vs. RPI Top 50 L 9 of 15
Syracuse		0.1% 7th team out	#33 non-conf RPI 6 W over RPI Top 100	#92 conference RPI 1-8 vs. RPI Top 50
Kentucky		0.1% 8th team out	#5 conf RPI W over Tenn, Vandy	#208 non-conf RPI 10-10 vs. RPI Top 200

* Note: Davidson is their current conference leader; they would be the 32nd at-large selection otherwise.

Of course this may all change as conference tourneys commence. The good thing (for those with no vested interest, anyway) with a weak, fluid bubble is that, well, it's fluid. And that means exciting. One of those teams (cf. Arkansas 2007) with a weak argument could go on a nice run, knock off a few highly ranked teams, and boost that confidence. Not to mention their own confidence.

March is here

Nothing says spring is near like that first delivery of Girl Scout cookies and conference tournaments starting up.

For the final two weeks leading up to Selection Sunday, I plan to change my posting habits. I intend to write more frequently and about a variety of bracket-related issues. This means you've seen the last of my Best Week Ever posts for this season. Yes, please try to hold back the tears.

Here are a few topics that I hope to address:

• The bubble this year is weaker than the dollar. We'll look briefly at how our at-large selection modeling works and what shows us just how fluid this year's bubble is.
• The number of suitors for the coveted (and not really important?) #1 seeds is dwindling, though far from decided. We'll give an in-depth look at who is still in the running and make the case for and against each.
• There are some factors of the committee's behavior that can't be factored into our model, or in some cases even predicted by human bracket experts. I'll try to identify some of those and how they will affect this year's predictions.
• I've been sitting on a review of last year's results and commentary on the CTD's (and the committee's) performance. I may just post it as-is or review it to see how we can apply the lesson's learned to this year's predictions. Some of those lessons have already been applied.
• I'll also just post randomly on games or other topics that come up.

As a sports fan, particularly one who grew up in the Triangle, I love this time of year more than any other. So sit back, grab that box of Samoas, and enjoy the madness. (And check back often!)