The Women’s Soccer Committee will face major challenges this year in making the 19 at large selections for the NCAA Tournament.
Two NCAA requirements that apply to normal years may create big problems this year:
Policy Against Using Past Years’ Performance. The NCAA has a policy that the Committee cannot consider past years’ performance in making at large selections. Rather, selections must be based only on teams’ performance this year.
Use of the RPI. The only statistical rating system the Committee is allowed to consider is the RPI. In addition, it cannot consider polls.
These requirements create a problem: The RPI depends on teams playing enough games and sufficient proportions of non-conference and out-of-region games. Teams this year likely will play neither enough games nor sufficient proportions of non-conference and out-of-region games for the RPI to work. If that happens, what is the Committee to do?
Here are some thoughts on this question:
Conference-Only Conferences. Seven conferences are playing conference-only schedules: Big Ten, Horizon, Metro Atlantic, Mid American, Mountain West, Ohio Valley, and Patriot (except for Navy, which played three Fall non-conference games, 2 against Pittsburgh and 1 against Virginia Tech). The problem with this is: If a conference has a conference-only schedule, it is impossible for any statistical rating system to rate the conference’s teams in relation to the teams of other conferences. Thus the RPI rankings for teams from these conferences will be meaningless in relation to the rankings of teams from other conferences.
Given this, if you cannot refer to history, you have no way to know where the teams of a conference-only conference fit in comparison to teams from other conferences.
What if you refer to history regarding this year’s conference-only conferences?
Based on past seasons since 2013, 6 of the 7 conference-only conferences are not strong enough to get any at large selections, as they have gotten no at large selections to the NCAA Tournament: Horizon, Metro Atlantic, Mid American, Mountain West, Ohio Valley, and Patriot.
The Big Ten, however, is different. Since 2013 it has had a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 11 teams in the RPI Top 60 with an average of 7.7, of which 1 each year has been an automatic qualifier. And, it has had a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 2 at large teams seeded, with an average of 1, which means it has had these numbers in the Committee’s actual Top 16.
Of course, regarding the conference-only conferences, the Committee could decide: If your conference went conference-only for this season, then you get only your automatic qualifier in the Tournament; you get no at large positions. The only real alternative would be to decide: We are going to refer to past history; and you will get roughly the number of at large positions that past history indicates is appropriate for your conference.
To summarize for conference-only conferences, the Committee’s dilemma is this: Either it gives conference-only conferences no at large positions, which will not be consistent with true conference strength so far as the Big Ten is concerned; or it uses past history as its basis for at large selections.
Conferences Playing Non-Conference Opponents. What about teams from conferences that are playing non-conference opponents? If you think about them as first having played all their conference games, at that point they will be in the same position as the conference-only conferences as described above. Then, as you add non-conference games, their ratings and rankings adjust in relation to those of teams from other conferences playing non-conference opponents. The more non-conference games you add, the more accurate the adjustments.
In a normal season, 56.0% of games are conference games and 44.0% are non-conference. It would be better if the proportion of non-conference games were higher, but these proportions are workable given that the Committee supplements the RPI with other data-based considerations such as head to head results and results against common opponents. This year, however, according to the schedule as of March 21, 83.3% of games will be conference and only 16.7% will be non-conference. Or, limiting consideration to conferences playing non-conference opponents, 78.6% will be conference and 21.4% non-conference. Thus the opportunity for ratings and ranks to adjust in relation to teams from other conferences will be less than half what it is in a normal year. This will cause the RPI to greatly underrate teams from strong conferences and overrate teams from weak conferences.
Here again, the Committee could decide that notwithstanding the problem it is going to use the RPI ranks in the at large selection process. If it does this, however, it is going to end up with at large selections that obiously will be not consistent with true team strength. Alternatively, the Committee can decide the RPI is not usable and use past history as a basis for allocating at large positions to conferences and then choose teams from each conference based on their performance this year.
Regional Playing Pools. Based on historical scheduling patterns, the Division I conferences play in four regional playing pools. They are:
Middle: Horizon, Mid American, Missouri Valley, and Summit
Northeast: America East, Atlantic 10, Big East, Colonial, Metro Atlantic, Northeast, and Patriot [and Ivy]
South: ACC, American, Atlantic Sun, Big South, Big 10, Big 12, Conference USA, Ohio Valley, SEC, Southern, Southland, Southwestern, and Sun Belt
West: Big Sky, Mountain West, Pac 12, WAC, and West Coast [and Big West]
The situation is the same for regions as for conferences. If you think about regions as first having played all their in-region games, at that point they will be in the same position as the conference-only conferences as described above -- there will be no way to know how each region’s teams rank in relation to teams from other regions. Then, as you add out-of-region games, a region’s teams’ ratings and rankings adjust in relation to those of teams from other regions. The more out-of-region games you add, the more accurate the adjustments.
In a normal year, the Middle plays 33.0% of its games out-of-region, the Northeast 17.8%, the South 14.6%, and the West 17.4% This year, however, based on the schedule as of March 21, the Middle will play 6.0% of its games out-of-region, the Northeast 16.0%, the South 6.9%, and the West 4.4%. These proportions of out-of-region games are not enough to allow the RPI to rank the teams from any one region in relation to the teams from the other regions.
Here again, the Committee could decide that notwithstanding the problem it is going to use the RPI ranks in the at large selection process. If it does this, however, it is going to end up with at large selections that are not consistent with true region strength. Alternatively, the Committee can use past history as a basis for assuring the distribution of at large allocations among regions is appropriate.
If the Committee is going to use past history to be sure it has appropriate conference and region representation in its at large selections, how can it do it? I will address that in my next article.
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