NCAA Tournament Bracket Formation: The Role of Standing Within Conference and Conference ARPI Rank

Over the years, some of the most adamant criticisms of the Women's Soccer Committee's at large selections have come when the Committee has denied an at large position to a team that has finished high in the regular season standings of a highly ranked conference.  Two recent examples of this are the Committee's decisions in 2015 and 2016 to not give at large positions to Wisconsin and DePaul, respectively.

The purpose of this post is to show the role of a team's standing within its conference and the conference's ARPI rank in the Committee's decision-making process, as evidenced by the Committee's decisions over the last 10 years.  This does not mean that the Committee members necessarily think about this the way I will write about it.  It does mean, however, that the Committee's decisions always have come out the way I will write about it.  So, you could take this as evidence of how the mind of the "Committee as a whole" works, even if the individual members don't think that way.

Within a conference (except for the Pac 12, Ivy, and West Coast), there are two sub-competitions.  There is the conference regular season competition and there is the conference tournament competition.  Having studied the Committee's decisions, I've concluded that the Committee, in evaluating where a team fits within its conference, does not look just at one of these or at the other.  Rather, it looks at a combination of the two.  Although there could be other ways to combine the two, one way is simply to take the average of where a team finishes in the conference regular season competition and where it finishes in the conference tournament to identify the team's ultimate conference standing.  This is a logical way to do it, it seems like how the Committee as a whole might do it, and it is how I do it.

To determine ultimate conference standing, the questions then are (1) what regular season standing positions do teams have if they are tied in points in the conference regular season competition and (2) what conference tournament standings do teams have that exit the tournament in the same round?  Here again, I look at this in terms of what seems logical and how the Committee as a whole might approach it:

• For the regular season conference competition, if two teams are tied in points, then their standing is the average of the positions they occupy.  Thus if two teams are tied for 1st in the competition, they occupy positions 1 and 2 in the conference, so each one has a conference regular season standing of 1.5.

• For the conference tournament, the tournament champion occupies position 1 and the runner up occupies position 2.  The losing semi-finalists occupy positions 3 and 4 in the tournament, so each one has a tournament standing of 3.5.  The losing quarter-finalists, if the conference has four quarter-final matches, occupy positions 5 through 8, so each one has a tournament standing of 6.5.  And so on, for other tournament formats.

Conference standing in isolation, however, has a very limited meaning.  Rather, what matters is a team's standing in its conference combined with the strength of its conference.  In order to have a measure of these two factors together, I use the following formula:

          2.8 x Conference Standing  +  Conference Rank

This formula has the effect, when applied to teams within the Top 60 of the ARPI rankings, of assigning equal weight to Conference Standing and to Conference Rank.

I need to be clear here that what I've described above is only one way to do it, and is the way I do it.  For purposes of my work identifying patterns the Committee has followed, however, it really doesn't matter so long as my method is reasonable.  All the Conference Standing and Conference Rank pattern will say is, "Using this method for assigning a value to a team's conference standing and conference rank, this is the pattern for the Committee's decisions."

So, using this method for assigning a value to a team's conference standing and conference rank combined, here are the Committee's patterns over the last 10 years for NCAA Tournament seeds and at large selections:

In this table, the lower the value the better.  Using at large selections as an example, the table says that a team with a conference standing and conference rank combined value of 12.0 or less always has received an at large selection.  And, a team with a value of 31.2 or more never has received an at large selection.  Thus, in terms of expectations, one reasonably can expect that a team with a value of 12.0 or lower will receive an at large selection.  A team with a value of 31.2 or higher won't receive an at large selection.  And for teams in the middle, the patterns don't indicate one way or the other: the team might or might not receive an at large selection.

Another table elaborates on this:

This table, which is a little hard to see, is part of a larger table.  (To see this table in a larger and clearer format: right click on it, then click on "Open link in new tab," and then at the top of your computer screen click on the new browser tab that just appeared.)  The row across the top is a team's conference standing determined as I described above.  The column down the left is the conference's ARPI rank.  Thus the yellow box at the upper left of the table is the value for Conference Standing and Conference Rank assigned to the #1 team in the #1 conference.  The yellow fill for that box indicates that a team with that value always has received a #1 seed.  Thus, over the last 10 years, the #1 team in the #1 conference always has received a #1 seed.

For a table like this, if there were orange infills, it would mean that teams with those values always have received at least #2 seeds.  For this particular set of patterns, there is not any value for always receiving #2 seeds.  The bright red means teams meeting those values always have received at least #3 seeds; and the darker red means they always have received at least #4 seeds.  The gold boxes on the left simply denote that those teams are unseeded automatic qualifiers.

In the table, the grey infill boxes represent Conference Standing and Conference Rank values that always have resulted in at large selections.  The "stair step" nature of both the grey area and the seed areas show how the Committee looks at Conference Standing and Conference Rank.  The better the Conference Rank, the lesser the Conference Standing needs to be in order to get a particular seed or an at large selection.  If I were to post the entire table, which is too big for this webpage, you'd see that at the bottom right of the table, there is another shaded area showing Conference Standing and Conference Rank values that never have received at large selections, with a similar stair step look.

And finally, the table has green infill boxes.  These are for the six teams, over the last 10 years, that finished #2.00 or better in their combined conference standings and that came closest to the "yes" at large selection area but were not within it and did not get at large selections.  These are the ones that have generated controversy:

• Wisconsin, Big 10 ranked #2; finished at 1.5 in regular season, at 6.5 in conference tournament, for average of 4.0; Conference Standing and Conference Rank value of 13.2

• DePaul, Big East ranked #6; finished at 1.5 in regular season, at 3.5 in conference tournament, for average of 2.5; Conference Standing and Conference Rank value of 13.0

• Santa Clara, West Coast ranked #7; finished at 2.0 in conference; Conference Standing and Conference Rank value of 12.6

• Penn, Ivy League ranked #8; finished at 2.0 in conference; Conference Standing and Conference Rank value of 13.6

• Long Beach State, Big West ranked #8; finished at 2.0 in regular season and 2.0 in conference tournament, for average of 2.0; Conference Standing and Conference Rank value of 13.6

• Missouri, SEC ranked #3; finished at 2.0 in regular season and 6.5 in conference tournament, for average of 4.25; Conference Standing and Conference Rank value of 14.9

All of these were close to the "yes" at large selection area, but none within it, and for whatever reasons applied in their particular cases, they did not get at large selections.

What the table demonstrates is that the Committee's decisions, in relation to teams' conference standings and ranks, follow a logical pattern.  One might argue, as a matter of policy, that the "yes" at large selection area should extend farther down on the table, which essentially is what fans of the above teams have argued.  The Committee, however, over the last 10 years, has drawn the line higher up.  Thus, using the table, a team is not assured of an at large selection if:

• It is in the #8 ranked conference and finishes at #1.75 or poorer in the combined conference regular season/tournament standings;

• It is in the #7 ranked conference and finishes at #2.00 or poorer;

• It is in the #6 ranked conference and finishes at #2.50 or poorer;

• It is in the #5 ranked conference and finishes at #2.75 or poorer;

• It is in the #4 ranked conference and finishes at #3.00 or poorer;

• It is in the #3 ranked conference and finishes at #3.25 or poorer;

• It is in the #2 ranked conference and finishes at #3.75 or poorer;

• It is in the #1 ranked conference and finishes at #4.00 or poorer.

And further, this pattern demonstrates that it does not matter to the Committee where a team finishes in the conference regular season standings, it matters only what the team's combined conference regular season/conference tournament standing is.

And, to add a few more details:

• Over the last 10 years, looking at teams that were in the Top 60 of the ARPI rankings, 4 teams tied for first in their conference regular season standings did not get at large selections, 18 teams that were #2 in their conference regular season standings did not get at large selections, and 4 teams tied for #2 in their conference regular season standings did not get at large selections.

• This pattern, by itself, identifies 5 #1 seeds, out of 40, over the last 10 years, 0 #2 seeds, 1 #3 seed, and 1 #4 seed.

• This pattern, by itself, identifies 33 unseeded at large selections and excludes 3 teams from at large selections over the last 10 years.  In other words, 3.3 "yes" and 0.3 "no" per year.