2023 NCAA Tournament

[SimpleCoach]

Calvin bowing out is also instructive when evaluating other teams regarding tourney success and lack thereof.  That is a truly excellent team with stars who have lost in 2nd round and failed to advance in Sweet 16 back to back years. And one could also ask why Calvin and Chicago were playing each other in the Sweet 16.

It will never happen, but my thinking has changed.  I think once the teams are selected, the bracket should filled out by drawing balls out of a big bowl.  Highest national ranking hosts  the weekend....

SC.

[Ejay]

And there goes my national runner-up :-(

[jknezek]

As an exercise someone should re-rank the Sweet 16 and repod them. See what you'd come up with.

[SKUD]

It is pretty much an unseeded tournament and the two best teams can meet at any time Round 2 on. Nobody is playing for 2nd place so who cares when they play.  Ask SC he thinks there was a team in the final last year that did not belong in tournament.  So clearly the best teams for him played in an early round.

[PaulNewman]

It is pretty much an unseeded tournament and the two best teams can meet at any time Round 2 on. Nobody is playing for 2nd place so who cares when they play.  Ask SC he thinks there was a team in the final last year that did not belong in tournament.  So clearly the best teams for him played in an early round.

So not a bit of difference to you if Babson loses in 1st round or Elite 8?  Nothing short of a title means anything?

[mngopher]

It is what it is in terms of when teams play. A 64 team single elimination tournament isn't designed to crown the best team as champion. You have to focus on the team you are playing and ignore everything else. And you never know what version of a team you are going to get. Take UW-Eau Claire for example. They wouldn't even be in this tournament if there were no Pool B bid. They played like the best team in their 1st/2nd round pod despite a significantly less accomplished resume than both of their opponents. And here they sit in the Sweet Sixteen.

[Nsno9]

With regional considerations, and the fact that there are only 16 teams remaining after the opening weekend, I think strong matchups in the second weekend should be expected. Frustration can certainly be understood when big matches come earlier than desired in the tournament, but I don't think the Chicago v Calvin matchup was particularly unfair to either team in this case. It was a top-15 matchup in the Sweet 16 which feels appropriate.

[SKUD]

PN it is always nice for a season to be extend.  But D3 does not seed their tournaments other than wrestling the realest sport of all. So we deal with it and move on to the next season.  The NCAA is so lazy that the top 2 teams all season (in another sport)  just played in a semi final.  Oh well.

[PaulNewman]

With regional considerations, and the fact that there are only 16 teams remaining after the opening weekend, I think strong matchups in the second weekend should be expected. Frustration can certainly be understood when big matches come earlier than desired in the tournament, but I don't think the Chicago v Calvin matchup was particularly unfair to either team in this case. It was a top-15 matchup in the Sweet 16 which feels appropriate.

Yeah, I'm not saying it was unfair or even unusual for the tournament.  In fact, I think they've faced off in the Sweet 16 a couple of other times.  I'm still gonna say it feels a little unfortunate.  Imagine if Amherst and Midd had to play each other in the 2nd round.  There would be screams that "that's too soon...they weren't seeded properly."  Even in the Sweet 16, there would be intense complaints.  And imo it wasn't a top 15 matchup...but rather top 7 or 8 or higher.

As for UWEC they've been very good for their entire two years.  They got knocked out last year by GAC in PKs before GAC bowed out in the Elite 8 to Chicago.  And yes, those two wins over North Central and Platteville seemed to verify that they are quite good.

And results DO matter to A LOT of teams.  Some are trying to win their first NCAA game ever.  Some trying to get to their first Sweet 16 or Elite 8 or Final 4 ever.  Just making the tournament at all is huge for a number of programs.

[jknezek]

It's interesting. In the final fan poll, released before tournament started, Chicago was 15, Calvin 9. By all rights, that's a pretty fair matchup in a round of 16. In 4 pods of 4, it's a 2.25 seed vs a 3.75 seed overall. Considering a 4 team pod should be 1v4 and 2v3, it's darn close.

That's the thing about having 16 teams left out of 400+. Anyone can win at any time. That's why Messiah (1) is out, North Central (6), F&M (7), Emory (T14) and Kenyon (16) are all out from the final Top 16 ranking. That's almost 1/3 (5/16). You can say, well, the seedings were wrong and they lost to good teams, but for the highly ranked teams that dropped, W&L (RV), Washington College (RV), Ohio Northern (RV), Occidental (RV), and UWEC, or 5/16 of the remainder, were outside the Top 25. UWEC wasn't even in the RV category.

To get to the Sweet 16, W&L had to beat SUNY Oneonta (18), Washington College (Otterbein T24, Kenyon 16), ONU (Lynchburg 22, Messiah 1), Occidental (Trinity TX 20), UWEC (North Central T9, UW-P 19). Everyone one of these teams had to beat at least one team ranked ahead of them.

Did the voters do a bad job? Did the committees do a bad job? No.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. For the most part, the difference between the top 5-7 schools is negligible. You can put them in order, but it's really who started faster, who had the blemish longest ago, or who has the most impressive victory. None of which are actually good measures of anything. The difference between 7 and 15 is essentially irrelevant. The difference between 10 and 25 is razor thin. The difference between 15 and 35 is basically squat. And somewhere from 25-50 is pretty much splitting hairs. Yes the groups overlap, and yes they should.

For all of us who have participated in these polls, we know anywhere you put teams in these groupings is essentially equal, you are just finding some way to justify them with a number, and rarely is that justification based on anything truly relevant.

So yeah, 2 very good teams played today in a hard fought game that sends one home. It's going to happen tomorrow a lot. Because within these final 16 teams, there isn't much difference. Some will play well, some may not. It may look like a big difference on the day, or it may look like the Chicago - Calvin razor thin match. But if you played these 8 games 10x, they would probably average out to mostly close games and probably a whole lot of overall close records.

There just isn't that much difference anywhere in the bunch.

So according to the voters, who has the easiest game in this round and who has the hardest?

Calvin (T9), Chicago (15)
St Olaf (12), UW-EC (None)
ONU (RV), CC (14)
Tufts (8), W&L (RV)

MW (2), WC (RV)
Montclair (7), Conn (5)
Amherst (3), Oxy (RV)
Cortland (6), Middlebury (4)

Well the biggest chalk should be Mary Washington or Amherst. For me, the toughest draw was not Calvin/Chicago, it's Cortland/Middlebury, followed by Montclair/Conn. The Calvin/Chicago game would have been the third most unfair out of the 8 games.

Overall, looking at the pods, the Amherst pod is by far the most brutal. Cortland/Middlebury is, in a 4 team pod, a 1 vs 1.5. That whole pod has a .75, a 1, a 1.5 and an Unranked. That's a savage pod. Not far behind is Mary Washington, with a .5, a 1.25, a 1.75, and an Unranked.

The easiest pod overall is Tufts'. That pod has a 2, a 3.5, and two Unranked. That actually leaves the Calvin, Chicago pod as second easiest, a 2.25, a 3.75, a 3, and an Unranked.

[PaulNewman]

PN it is always nice for a season to be extend.  But D3 does not seed their tournaments other than wrestling the realest sport of all. So we deal with it and move on to the next season.  The NCAA is so lazy that the top 2 teams all season (in another sport)  just played in a semi final.  Oh well.

I think there is some seeding...in recent prior seasons there were a couple of byes that iirc went to teams within the top few.  There are also attempts to even out quadrants via seeding and hosting to the extent that other factors like cost don't interfere.  But it's certainly not completely unseeded.

[Nsno9]

Just to look at this weekends matchups from Massey ratings:

Calvin (6) v Chicago (11)
St Olaf (7) v UW-EC (18)

ONU (38) v CC (21)
Tufts (4) v W&L (31)

MW (3) v WC (33)
Montclair (9) v Conn (8)

Amherst (5) v Oxy (16)
Cortland (10) v Middlebury (1)

The lowest rated team is 38th (and that's a team in ONU that won the OAC and just knocked off a top-5 team in Messiah), although this past weekend's matches would have impacted those scores a bit. 11 of those 16 are within the top-16, and a the rest aren't too far outside.

[PaulNewman]

It's interesting. In the final fan poll, released before tournament started, Chicago was 15, Calvin 9. By all rights, that's a pretty fair matchup in a round of 16. In 4 pods of 4, it's a 2.25 seed vs a 3.75 seed overall. Considering a 4 team pod should be 1v4 and 2v3, it's darn close.

That's the thing about having 16 teams left out of 400+. Anyone can win at any time. That's why Messiah (1) is out, North Central (6), F&M (7), Emory (T14) and Kenyon (16) are all out from the final Top 16 ranking. That's almost 1/3 (5/16). You can say, well, the seedings were wrong and they lost to good teams, but for the highly ranked teams that dropped, W&L (RV), Washington College (RV), Ohio Northern (RV), Occidental (RV), and UWEC, or 5/16 of the remainder, were outside the Top 25. UWEC wasn't even in the RV category.

To get to the Sweet 16, W&L had to beat SUNY Oneonta (18), Washington College (Otterbein T24, Kenyon 16), ONU (Lynchburg 22, Messiah 1), Occidental (Trinity TX 20), UWEC (North Central T9, UW-P 19). Everyone one of these teams had to beat at least one team ranked ahead of them.

Did the voters do a bad job? Did the committees do a bad job? No.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. For the most part, the difference between the top 5-7 schools is negligible. You can put them in order, but it's really who started faster, who had the blemish longest ago, or who has the most impressive victory. None of which are actually good measures of anything. The difference between 7 and 15 is essentially irrelevant. The difference between 10 and 25 is razor thin. The difference between 15 and 35 is basically squat. And somewhere from 25-50 is pretty much splitting hairs. Yes the groups overlap, and yes they should.

For all of us who have participated in these polls, we know anywhere you put teams in these groupings is essentially equal, you are just finding some way to justify them with a number, and rarely is that justification based on anything truly relevant.

So yeah, 2 very good teams played today in a hard fought game that sends one home. It's going to happen tomorrow a lot. Because within these final 16 teams, there isn't much difference. Some will play well, some may not. It may look like a big difference on the day, or it may look like the Chicago - Calvin razor thin match. But if you played these 8 games 10x, they would probably average out to mostly close games and probably a whole lot of overall close records.

There just isn't that much difference anywhere in the bunch.

So according to the voters, who has the easiest game in this round and who has the hardest?

Calvin (T9), Chicago (15)
St Olaf (12), UW-EC (None)
ONU (RV), CC (14)
Tufts (8), W&L (RV)

MW (2), WC (RV)
Montclair (7), Conn (5)
Amherst (3), Oxy (RV)
Cortland (6), Middlebury (4)

Well the biggest chalk should be Mary Washington or Amherst. For me, the toughest draw was not Calvin/Chicago, it's Cortland/Middlebury, followed by Montclair/Conn. The Calvin/Chicago game would have been the third most unfair out of the 8 games.

Overall, looking at the pods, the Amherst pod is by far the most brutal. Cortland/Middlebury is, in a 4 team pod, a 1 vs 1.5. That whole pod has a .75, a 1, a 1.5 and an Unranked. That's a savage pod. Not far behind is Mary Washington, with a .5, a 1.25, a 1.75, and an Unranked.

The easiest pod overall is Tufts'. That pod has a 2, a 3.5, and two Unranked. That actually leaves the Calvin, Chicago pod as second easiest, a 2.25, a 3.75, a 3, and an Unranked.

I especially agree with the bolded above. 

I should have just said I think Calvin and Chicago are really, really good.

This will sound very contradictory and probably is....I am probably someone who had Chicago at #15 or even lower as they picked up some blemishes.  That doesn't mean I think they were only the 15th (or worse) team in terms of chances to get to the F4 or win a title. 

Speaking of tough deals, I would put Babson vs JHU in 1st round and Conn vs F&M in 2nd round up there pretty high. 

Will be curious to see what the comments are after tomorrow and Sunday.

[camosfan]

When you reach the knockout stage of a tournament, got to be ready for who is on the other side and remember that the ranking systems are very far from perfect.

[SimpleCoach]

My WI Eau-Claire v St. Olaf Game Notes... and yes, I do think it was a foul throw.