T-Ranketology note

Well, it's Selection Sunday and the current version of the T-Ranketology algorithm has the same at-large field as the consensus (of which it is a small part) over at Bracket Matrix.

Mission accomplished.

I say this because the point of T-Ranketology isn't to try to predict the most accurate bracket on Selection Sunday. The point is to project a reasonably plausible bracket earlier in the season, so that we can see where things are reasonably likely to end up if teams keep performing like they have been. That T-Ranketology is able to basically produce the consensus field on Selection Sunday, with most teams seeded within one line of the consensus, shows that it is "good enough" to provide those useful projections earlier in the season.

ADDED:

Should note somewhere, so might as well be here, that I added one tweak to the algorithm on Selection Sunday: a good record bonus. One of the notable things about the bracket the algorithm was producing over the past few weeks was that it was notably down on the three PAC-12 teams. It seemed to me that this was probably a result that those teams just had really great records in their so-so conference. Whatever you want to say about the Pac-12, it's just hard not to be impressed by a team that's 29-4 or 30-4.

But I resisted adding a good record bonus—until Gonzaga fell off the one-line. I thought it was pretty clear that Gonzaga was going to get a one seed. The only drama on the one line was whether Duke or UNC would get the ACC's slot. After winning the ACC tournament, Duke did indeed sneak onto T-Ranketology's one-line—but at the expense of Gonzaga, not UNC.

So I pulled the trigger on a record bonus—really a "few losses bonus:" Teams got one point subtracted from their score for each loss under five. In other words, four-loss teams (like Arizona and UCLA) got one-point subtracted, and teams with one loss (Gonzaga) got four points subtracted. This not only got Gonzaga back on the one line, but it was also just enough to push Arizona onto the two line, which was pretty clearly where it was going to end up.

The result was that T-Ranketology was one of the few brackets to nail both the ones and the twos. I'll take it.