I was told by a bracketologist that predictive metrics for ISU were better than. Ours. The nerds have ruined everything.

Method Man said:

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I was told by a bracketologist that predictive metrics for ISU were better than. Ours. The nerds have ruined everything.

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The problem is consistency. If predictives were the only thing that mattered Memphis would be a 13 seed and not a 5.

So, why are we matched up to play all top seeded teams? If we are top #4, shouldn't we be matched to the lowest # 13 as well placed in the bracket with the lowest seeded #1 pod?

ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Sometimes it is hard to compare across conferences because the resumes are so different.

But Louisville an 8 seed....

And UNC an 11 seed in the same region...

so only 3 seed lines different.

Louisville
KPI 16
SOR: 11
WAB: 17
4 quad 1 wins
27-7
18-2 in the ACC
wins over Clemson (N) x2, @SMU, Indiana(N), UNC, Wake

North Carolina
KPI 54
SOR 38
WAB 43
1-12 vs. quad 1
Wins over UCLA (N)
23-13
13-7 in the ACC

To justify just a 3 seed difference between these 2 is absolutely wild.

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The maddening part about this for me is that if you switch the names on those resumes, UNC would undoubtedly be a 2 seed AT WORST

stoneca said:

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Colleyville will you be sharing your complete bracket picks before the tournament starts? Would love to see your view on how it all shakes out.

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I don't want to speak for Colleyville, but picking brackets and who is going to win are two different things.

OKC~Ag said:

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So, why are we matched up to play all top seeded teams? If we are top #4, shouldn't we be matched to the lowest # 13 as well placed in the bracket with the lowest seeded #1 pod?

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My guess is it has to do with all the rules about not playing teams you have already played until a certain round and placing teams in locations as close to their schools as possible

And it just worked out that way

But I think they need to try harder to keep seed integrity in tact

I've had a good answer for it for a few years now. Expand the selection committee to like 100 people, include former coaches and media members, and have them just submit their rankings remotely on Sunday once all the games are finished. Any extreme outlier votes are thrown out (to prevent people from trying to game the seedings by ranking a bubble team first or something).

Then have a smaller subset of them, say five people voted on by the larger committee, jump on a zoom and create the actual bracket following the bracketing protocols but record that part and put it online after the bracket is released so if people think they got screwed they can go check why their team was placed where it was.

No politics behind locked doors, no starting the process before all the data is in, etc.

They'd probably have to push back the selection show by a couple of hours, but that's not a big deal. This whole process can be done in a few hours, it doesn't take like five days.

Here is my homer bracket:

bobinator said:

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I've had a good answer for it for a few years now. Expand the selection committee to like 100 people, include former coaches and media members, and have them just submit their rankings remotely on Sunday once all the games are finished. Any extreme outlier votes are thrown out (to prevent people from trying to game the seedings by ranking a bubble team first or something).

Then have a smaller subset of them, say five people voted on by the larger committee, jump on a zoom and create the actual bracket following the bracketing protocols but record that part and put it online after the bracket is released so if people think they got screwed they can go check why their team was placed where it was.

No politics behind locked doors, no starting the process before all the data is in, etc.

They'd probably have to push back the selection show by a couple of hours, but that's not a big deal. This whole process can be done in a few hours, it doesn't take like five days.

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Just makes way too much sense and removes all the politics, so tgst last part is why it will never happen

These ad's etc… want control over the selection process to ensure their teams/conferences get something out of it

ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Lt. Joe Bookman said:

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Zachary Klement said:

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Whether North Carolina should be in or not is a good debate. Their AD is the chairman of the selection committee but cannot be in the room when the Tar Heels are discussed. But it’s human nature that it doesn’t hurt UNC’s chances when other members of the committee have spent so…

— Fran Fraschilla (@franfraschilla) March 16, 2025

Insane that this is the way the system works…same with the CFP. Anyone affiliated with the schools should not be a part of any committee that is selecting the teams to compete. Why isn't the selection committee the ten best bracketologists who just live and breathe college hoops?!

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I don't really know a good answer for it. Most bracketologists are tied into a media entity (Lunardi -ESPN, Palm-CBS), which opens a new can of worms if they are the ones who make the decisions…

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Most of the GOOD bracketologists are just random internet nerds who love college basketball and are watching Santa Clara play Oregon State at 1 am on a Friday morning.

I fully believe the committee followed their protocol and Bubba left the room when UNC was discussed in the room. But come on....these guys are in a hotel for 4 days and like all of you i am sure you know the real decisions don't happen in the room. I am sure there were drinks at a bar or over dinner and discussions where agreements were made to get UNC in but that Louisville gets punished, has to play the best 9 seed and the best 1 seed. There are always trade offs.

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somebody on premium said that Bubba gets 100K bonus for UNC making the tourney

my guess is Bubba was buying all the drinks,

LouisvilleAg said:

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stoneca said:

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Colleyville will you be sharing your complete bracket picks before the tournament starts? Would love to see your view on how it all shakes out.

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I don't want to speak for Colleyville, but picking brackets and who is going to win are two different things.

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Can you elaborate? Maybe I've been doing it all wrong all of these years. My brackets always suck.

The committee (if there even needs to be one), at minimum should be expressly forbidden from using any information that's not in their empirical data. They should not be deciding qualitatively how injuries can affect a team. I guarantee you that whole concept affecting the field now is just the result of some committee in the past needing it as an excuse, using it, and now its a tool in the toolbox. Nobody should give a flying **** about what Bubba Cunningham or Greg Byrne or whoever "thinks" about how good West Virginia is without Tucker Devries. They are not qualified to make that kind of evaluation. A better committee would probably actually be expressly forbidden from watching or reading about basketball at all. All they get is being handed some numbers and a database of results, and lock em in a room like a jury trial with no extra information except whats presented to them.

The tournament should be picked by the 100 or so bracketologists who actually live and die for this stuff. Just give them the keys.

picking and seeding teams in brackets is all about quality of team.

picking winners is all about matchups

Two complete different things. Just because a team is more talented and played a tougher schedule means they are going to win.

Take the A&M - Yale matchup. People think this is a bad matchup. I don't. I think it is a great matchup. A&M is not horrible guarding the 3. They are vulnerable when a team is able to get penetration, cause rotation, and then kick it out for a 3 (which would be wide open). Yale shouldn't be able to penetrate as well and therefore I don't see them causing a lot of rotation. So Yale may be shooting a lot of 3s, but they should be guarded relatively well. So if they make them, they make them.

The A&M - Michigan matchup is more of a tough matchup. I don't think Michigan will be able to penetrate much, but they have Golden and Golden will cause the defense to collapse. And when the defenses collapses down on Golden, the 3 will be open.

The A&M - UC San Diego matchup is a nightmare. I think UC SD can penetrate and they also have good 3 point shooting. I honestly would rather face Michigan.

Further into the bracket, the A&M - Auburn matchup is pretty even. I don't like the Louisville matchup. Creighton, we should be alright.

Michigan State will challenge us in rebounding and physicality but I am not worried about their offense. I don't like the Ole Miss matchup. And Marquette worries me a little. Not really worried about anyone else in the bracket.

stoneca said:

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Colleyville will you be sharing your complete bracket picks before the tournament starts? Would love to see your view on how it all shakes out.

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I am happy to share my bracket for those interested. I tend to do fairly well and do decent at the office/neighborhood pools, but maybe that's just recency bias because I correctly picked UConn the last 2 years.

As Louisville points out it is a completely different skill set to mock a bracket vs pick who will win it. One takes an understanding of the criteria and process for selection and the other actual ball knowledge and a lot of luck.

Just as important as it is to understand matchups is knowing the rules of your bracket. Do you get a reward for upsets? How much is the reward weighted for an early round upset vs in the final 4? In many scoring systems you get the seed total for points, this would reward picking first and 2nd round upsets but the point reward for a 12 seed making the final 4 isn't that valuable.

What I will do a lot of is say I think Auburn is definitely going to lose to A&M, I will back up 1 round and say how likely is it they will get by Louisville and call an upset 1 round earlier if I have them going out in the next round anyways.

And then there are of course scoring systems with no bonus for upsets where you should mainly be going chalk other than targeting a few upsets in each round based on matchups.

Great summary. Definitely agree with the approach of looking who you're going to eliminate at around the E8, and then backing up and seeing if it makes sense to eliminate them earlier.

A big thing I focus on as well is not just upset picks that have good value, but good value relative to what the public is picking. I do a lot of comparing on each of the seed lines. Example, let's say Team A & B are both 3 seeds:

- I think Team A has a 45% chance of making the S16, but only 40% of the public is picking them
- I think Team B has a 50% chance of making the S16, but 55% of the public is picking them

I would be more likely to send Team A to the S16 and eliminate Team B, even though they have a lower probability. There's only a 5% lower chance of it happening, but greater gain relative to my bracketmates if it does.

Apart from the leg work to do this in Excel, the difficulty is finding good public pick info. ESPN used to put out a table of the % that the public picked every team to make every round. Now they just show a single bracket of the public's favorite picks. So you don't get data on every team for every round. But on CBS' site when you're filling in your bracket, for every game it shows you what % the public is picking each team. So you can switch out teams to see % for every team at every round, if you go through the process (lots of clicks).

Anyone know a better source of info for what the public is picking?

ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Method Man said:

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ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Yale the top seeded 13th seed. Because of course.

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Why would any Ag complain about that?

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From the committee rankings Yale is considered the best 13 seed. That's my complaint. That the top seeded 4 has to play the top seeded 13.

And if we win - we would play either the best 5 seed or the best 12 seed (according to the committees rankings, no i do not actually think Michigan is the hardest 5 seed)

And if we win that - guess what....we play the overall top seeded 1 seed- or the highest seeded 8 or highest seeded 9.

I have never seen anything like it that an entire quadrant is packed with the best team on each seed line at every single spot.

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I also disagree with Auburn being the overall #1, UF and duke would walk them

whytho987654 said:

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ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Method Man said:

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ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Yale the top seeded 13th seed. Because of course.

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Why would any Ag complain about that?

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From the committee rankings Yale is considered the best 13 seed. That's my complaint. That the top seeded 4 has to play the top seeded 13.

And if we win - we would play either the best 5 seed or the best 12 seed (according to the committees rankings, no i do not actually think Michigan is the hardest 5 seed)

And if we win that - guess what....we play the overall top seeded 1 seed- or the highest seeded 8 or highest seeded 9.

I have never seen anything like it that an entire quadrant is packed with the best team on each seed line at every single spot.

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I also disagree with Auburn being the overall #1, UF and duke would walk them

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Seriously?!? They might have the most Q1 wins and Q1+Q2 wins in the history of the sport. And in the last 4 games, they had to play us at home, Alabama, Ole Miss, and Tennessee all while none of those games meaning a damn thing. Don't mistake their "rough" patch for weakness.

LouisvilleAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Method Man said:

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ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Yale the top seeded 13th seed. Because of course.

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Why would any Ag complain about that?

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From the committee rankings Yale is considered the best 13 seed. That's my complaint. That the top seeded 4 has to play the top seeded 13.

And if we win - we would play either the best 5 seed or the best 12 seed (according to the committees rankings, no i do not actually think Michigan is the hardest 5 seed)

And if we win that - guess what....we play the overall top seeded 1 seed- or the highest seeded 8 or highest seeded 9.

I have never seen anything like it that an entire quadrant is packed with the best team on each seed line at every single spot.

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I also disagree with Auburn being the overall #1, UF and duke would walk them

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Seriously?!? They might have the most Q1 wins and Q1+Q2 wins in the history of the sport. And in the last 4 games, they had to play us at home, Alabama, Ole Miss, and Tennessee all while none of those games meaning a damn thing. Don't mistake their "rough" patch for weakness.

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True

But Florida is winning g this whole damn thing and I don't think they get challenged that much

NyAggie said:

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LouisvilleAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Method Man said:

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ColleyvilleAg06 said:

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Yale the top seeded 13th seed. Because of course.

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Why would any Ag complain about that?

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From the committee rankings Yale is considered the best 13 seed. That's my complaint. That the top seeded 4 has to play the top seeded 13.

And if we win - we would play either the best 5 seed or the best 12 seed (according to the committees rankings, no i do not actually think Michigan is the hardest 5 seed)

And if we win that - guess what....we play the overall top seeded 1 seed- or the highest seeded 8 or highest seeded 9.

I have never seen anything like it that an entire quadrant is packed with the best team on each seed line at every single spot.

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I also disagree with Auburn being the overall #1, UF and duke would walk them

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Seriously?!? They might have the most Q1 wins and Q1+Q2 wins in the history of the sport. And in the last 4 games, they had to play us at home, Alabama, Ole Miss, and Tennessee all while none of those games meaning a damn thing. Don't mistake their "rough" patch for weakness.

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True

But Florida is winning g this whole damn thing and I don't think they get challenged that much

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I do agree with that statement.