Grading the Committee

This was probably my best year predicting the bracket. I nailed every team in the tournament.  I had half the field on their exact seed line and 63/68 within one seed line.  Honestly, the ones I missed on I’m mostly OK with as it was the committee to give a little weight to predictive metrics where they often seemed to ignore them.  In fact, I’d argue that though the committee still largely based their field on the resume factors of Q1/Q2 wins/record, they seemed to balance outliers by giving some weight to predictive metrics.  That’s good.  We should value overall performance and that sometimes isn’t just a win/loss thing.  You need to get wins.  Texas is probably an at large caliber team, but the committee appropriately left them out…it’s nice to see some adjustments that seem predictive metric driven.

For example only big misses on the bracket were Iowa (I had as an 8, given a 10), Seton Hall (I had as an 8, given a 10), Ole Miss (I had as an 11, given an 8), Oklahoma (I had as an 11, given a 9) and Northeastern (I had as a 15, given a 13).  Let’s look at these teams:

Iowa- Finished 36 kenpom and 42 Sagarin.  Predictive metrics have them about a 10 seed quality.  They struggled late in the year.  I thought their overall resume was a bit stronger, but have no issue with them as an 10.

Seton Hall-  Predictive metrics like Sagarin and Kenpom have them as one of the worst teams in the field.  They had great wins, probably the best wins among the bubble type teams that made it.  I thought their resume wins would move them up.  It wasn’t the case and I’m good with it.

Ole Miss- My biggest miss.  They were dreadful down the stretch.  Their resume looks like a bubble team and they were somehow an 8 seed.  I think this is probably the worst seed in the bracket.  Their predictive metrics aren’t even in line.  I don’t know what the committee was doing with Ole Miss. 

Oklahoma-  31 Sagarin, 38 kenpom.  They have solid wins.  I thought this was high but the predictive metrics are good so it’s not a miss. 

Northeastern- It’s just sometimes hard to differentiate some of these small conference champions.  No issue with this one either.

As far as Cincinnati’s seed, I’m good with it, though I thought they’d be a six.  I had 22 teams I thought definitively had better resumes than Cincinnati.  That means UC is starting at the 3^rd 6 seed.  I had 5 other teams UC had a resume close to, where the committee could go any direction.  Those teams were Buffalo, Wofford, Nevada, Louisville and Maryland.  The committee gave Maryland and Buffalo those two six seed spots and put UC, Nevada, Wofford and Louisville on the 7 line.  This seems completely reasonable and they did UC the favor of putting them in Columbus.  Not bad and not unfair.