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The 2008 Tournament Field
Publication Date: May 27, 2008
I said last year, that, within the confines of the current system, that was probably the best it was going to get. They proved it by back-sliding a bit this year, although that may just be more a case of having more tournament-worthy RPI-challenged teams this year. My bile supply is about spent (I've been writing this particular review since about 1999, after all), but let's take a look.
The field, then. I'm not including the Massey ratings this year, not because they're not still valuable, but because they don't really add any new information -- all of the half-dozen or so Internet-available rating systems that aren't essentially built around similar base formulas to the RPI give similar results, so basically the only way to screw this up is to start with an explicitly short-distance opponents' winning percentage measure for strength of schedule. As always, the probabilities are the ISR-based odds of the team winning the regional, super, and CWS respectively.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Miami, Florida 47-8 1 2 74/45/10
Missouri 36-19 39 26 18/ 7/ 0
Mississippi 37-24 40 51 9/ 2/ 0
Bethune-Cookman 36-20 134 144 0/ 0/ 0
As I talked about last week, it's not like the committee does any obvious consistent weighting of the different factors that they use, so there's no real way to tell why they do things. Even when they get things right, like here, there's no way to tell why. Nonetheless, Miami has a fair regional here -- Missouri is underrated by the RPI (which has now missed on a Midwestern Big 12 team two years in a row, after Oklahoma State last year, which may or may not be a trend worth looking into), and, while Ole Miss probably should have missed the tournament (note to complaining 'Cane and Rebel [and Longhorn] fans: the season started before May 15), they're in that range where any of the replacements weren't going to be much better or worse.
Looking ahead, Miami probably did deserve better than their likely super matchup; if they go through Arizona to get to Omaha, that'll be the best team they've beaten to get there in the ISR era.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Arizona 38-17 10 4 70/37/ 7
Michigan 45-12 35 34 16/ 5/ 0
Kentucky 42-17 33 39 14/ 4/ 0
Eastern Michigan 23-31 160 152 0/ 0/ 0
Br'er patch, meet Wildcats. Wildcats, Br'er patch.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Georgia 35-21 17 31 47/28/ 1
Georgia Tech 39-19 7 33 39/23/ 1
Louisville 41-19 51 74 12/ 5/ 0
Lipscomb 32-28 151 146 2/ 0/ 0
At some point, we have to kind of quit pretending that this is a national sport. Now, that's a shame, and my personal theory is that it could be one (or at least one that draws as well on the West Coast as the East) if the deck wasn't stacked as hard as it is, but just accepting that there are going to be some parts of the tournament that are as purely regional as the tournament was in 1955 is better for all of our mental health, no matter how twisted the logic on travel costs that gets us here is. Georgia, who thoroughly cratered when trying to play a national schedule at the beginning of the season, is the best they could find to put in this whole bracket through the super, and that's that.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
North Carolina State 38-20 12 42 37/18/ 0
South Carolina 38-21 19 43 35/17/ 0
North Carolina-Charlotte 43-14 50 72 16/ 5/ 0
James Madison 38-17 60 81 12/ 3/ 0
Well, I suppose it's competitive.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Florida State 48-10 3 7 75/46/ 8
Florida 34-22 15 44 16/ 6/ 0
Tulane 37-20 49 58 10/ 3/ 0
Bucknell 25-22 165 202 0/ 0/ 0
You know, the system's not functional, so it's all just make believe anyway, but Florida should have a legitimate gripe here within the confines of the broken system. I mean, they finished in the RPI top 16, they finished third in a power conference, and they played FSU and Miami out of conference, so why weren't they a #1 seed? While we're at it, can anyone justify the Tulane seed to me, other than as a name recognition exercise similar to Robin Williams' drunken UN thing, "Oh, yeah, I recognize you."
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Oklahoma State 40-16 13 14 51/27/ 4
Wichita State 41-15 25 35 18/ 6/ 0
Texas Christian 43-17 31 19 28/12/ 1
Western Kentucky 33-25 79 88 3/ 0/ 0
Here we kind of have the counter to the Ole Miss/UT argument -- the last two weeks do count, in context. With the top three in the Big 12 desperately avoiding winning anything over the last couple of weeks, this was kind of inevitable. TCU deserved better, but the difference in a #2 and a #3 isn't too bad, especially when your #2 is really a #3.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Cal State Fullerton 37-19 11 3 66/40/ 8
UCLA 31-25 45 17 27/13/ 1
Virginia 38-21 23 62 6/ 1/ 0
Rider 29-26 185 209 0/ 0/ 0
To some extent, it really looks like the committee is lost; they've lost whatever faith they might have ever had in the RPI, but they don't know what to replace it with. This isn't a bad result, but I'll be darned if I can figure out how they got here.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Stanford 33-21 18 11 36/19/ 3
Pepperdine 36-19 34 15 33/15/ 2
Arkansas 34-22 32 49 8/ 2/ 0
UC Davis 34-22 52 18 23/ 9/ 1
Likewise, how on earth do you end up with UC Davis as a #4 seed? I mean, the RPI says to leave them out, which is pretty obviously wrong, but how do you get from that to seeding them below Elon?
Let's go ahead now and talk about the geographical silliness some more. You can make an economic case for it at the regional level, maybe, and it would take someone with actual access to the books to see if that case stands up. At the super-regional pairing level, though, it really doesn't stand up to even a cursory glance. No one really considers the Bay Area and LA to be bus distance unless they have to, especially at the one-last-weekend level, and certainly no one in their right mind is driving to Phoenix. You're already looking at flying Arizona to Miami and Okie State to Tallahassee, so you're quite a bit pregnant on that score as well. It's just not going to make much difference costwise to flip some of those around.
And the current system leaves absolutely everyone unhappy. It's not just the legitimate grievances of the West Coast teams -- most of the SEC/ACC fans, and a substantial number of Big 12/Rice fans, are convinced that the only reason that their group doesn't make up the entire field in Omaha every year is that they're forced to knock each other off earlier. We're lucky enough this year to get the Arizona/Miami matchup (although that one actually should have happened in Omaha), but let's let ASU match up with OSU, and let Stanford (or UC Davis) take on FSU, and make UNC actually play somebody before the final.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
North Carolina 46-12 2 12 75/54/ 7
North Carolina-Wilmington 41-15 22 60 13/ 5/ 0
Elon 43-16 38 59 13/ 5/ 0
Mount St. Mary's 21-31 245 264 0/ 0/ 0
You know, this isn't just a regional thing this year, but the only things they did to deserve this sort of kids-glove treatment were two one-run wins in rubber games.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Coastal Carolina 47-12 6 32 51/20/ 1
East Carolina 40-19 16 46 29/10/ 0
Alabama 33-26 48 61 20/ 6/ 0
Columbia 22-28 161 193 0/ 0/ 0
Dang, 'Bama's got a chance. You got any idea how hard that was to set up?
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Louisiana State 43-16 9 22 55/20/ 1
Southern Mississippi 40-20 36 37 27/ 8/ 0
New Orleans 42-19 44 54 18/ 4/ 0
Texas Southern 13-30 291 290 0/ 0/ 0
USM's a little shaky due to their late collapse, but this isn't awful, and LSU's going to have to work to get past the super, so no major complaints. In general, I discount partial season results, but 20-game winning streaks may reach the level of significance.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Nebraska 39-14 8 10 49/34/ 5
UC Irvine 38-16 20 6 38/28/ 4
Oral Roberts 46-12 37 25 13/ 7/ 0
Eastern Illinois 26-28 187 195 0/ 0/ 0
Like Texas last year, Nebraska deserved better than this. Given last year's results, you'd think the committee would have been a little more careful with the Anteaters.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Arizona State 45-11 4 1 81/51/16
Vanderbilt 40-20 30 41 9/ 3/ 0
Oklahoma 33-23 41 40 10/ 3/ 0
Stony Brook 34-24 139 164 0/ 0/ 0
I suppose there's an advantage to not being within 400 miles of anything but retirees and jackalopes. Vandy's had a bad injury-related multiple personality syndrome this year, but this still isn't all that scary; shame about the super matchup.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Long Beach State 37-19 24 8 34/15/ 3
San Diego 41-15 28 5 32/15/ 3
California 33-19 27 9 28/13/ 2
Fresno State 37-27 89 47 6/ 1/ 0
See the regionalization comment under Georgia above, take a deep breath, and move on. Just swapping UCLA and Cal would have made a lot of sense, unless you're fetishizing over one game in the conference standings.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Rice 42-13 5 13 57/35/ 5
Texas 37-20 21 24 30/14/ 1
St. John's 41-14 58 67 8/ 2/ 0
Sam Houston State 36-23 82 76 5/ 1/ 0
I've been pretty thorough in pointing out Texas' mistreatment by the committee since their probation ended, so hopefully I've built up enough credibility to say that this is exactly where they should have been; you can't start playing two weeks before the postseason and expect everyone to forget it.
Giving bids to "grow" the game in the North ignores the fact that the game has plenty of room to grow around the mistreated Western teams as well; there's a much better chance of increasing attendance at Santa Clara than there is at St. John's.
W-L RPI ISR Probs
Texas A&M 43-16 14 16 52/27/ 2
Dallas Baptist 34-17 29 27 27/12/ 1
Houston 39-22 43 38 20/ 8/ 0
Illinois-Chicago 28-19 157 137 1/ 0/ 0
Everyone's seeded exactly where they should be according to both the RPI and the ISR, which I don't remember happening before.
The Omitted
Nothing new here, although that doesn't make it feel any better for these teams:
W-L RPI ISR
UC Santa Barbara 33-21 61 20
Santa Clara 33-22 70 21
Oregon State 28-24 59 23
Washington State 30-26 42 28
Southern California 28-28 56 29
Washington 32-21 91 30
Gonzaga 30-22 98 36
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