tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7992272584755113776.post8341250361373749176..comments2024-03-28T12:14:33.801-05:00Comments on Adam's WI Sports Blog: The Committee Adamcwishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17089289786921330613noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7992272584755113776.post-92001559497977366372017-01-27T10:56:07.306-06:002017-01-27T10:56:07.306-06:00I don't think many disagree with your basic po...I don't think many disagree with your basic point that wins should be the paramount concern, and that Maryland should be awarded for its wins rather than penalized for its lack of style points. The ONLY people I've seen arguing for pure MOV / predictive metrics to be a major factor in selection are fans of mid-major teams that get systematically screwed by the current process.<br /><br />The big "problem" with the current system is just that the RPI has fundamental flaws that can be gamed by scheduling, which systematically favors programs with scheduling power. So if you rely on RPI (as the NCAA does) you are systematically favoring programs with scheduling power. That is really a difference in kind than the argument of "should we select the best teams or the most accomplished teams"? It's just not fair.<br /><br />I think it's telling that the counter-argument you make about how MOV considerations can be "gamed" is basically that teams will try to win by more and lose by less. There may be very very extreme examples when those goals aren't completely overlapping with the goal of winning of the game, but in 99.99999999999999% of situations, the best way to accomplish the uber goal of winning the game is to try to score as many points as you can and try to make your opponent score as few points as it can. This is very far removed from "try to schedule teams that will win a lot of games in their shitty conference to come play you at your place where they have almost no chance of winning and avoid road games against mid-majors" -- which not only has nothing to do with basketball, but actively makes the sport worse in my opinion.<br /><br />So far I've been accepting your premise that the committee is considering going to something that actively encourages increased margin of victory. But there is zero chance of that actually happening. That's why in my post I recommended something like WAB or strength of record, which provides absolutely zero incentive to run up scores. (In WAB, if you run up the score all that does is make your opponent seem like a marginally worse team, which on the margin decreases the value of that victory.)<br /><br />The ultimate fact is that ANYTHING would be better than RPI, which is a terrible rating system almost by design. A full 75% of your RPI rating is essentially predetermined the day the schedules come out, and that 75% of the RPI doesn't even attempt to account for the existence of home-court advantage!<br /><br />In the end I agree that the tournament is okay even with the terrible RPI, mainly because everyone is involved knows how terrible the RPI is and therefore they don't even pretend that it's a reliable indicator of team quality (thus their use of "buckets" -- top 50, top 100 -- on the theory that it is maybe okay to use RPI +/- 25 ranking spots). It could really be improved, though, or at least the selection process could be a lot more rational and less crazymaking if they switched to a non-terrible metric as the basis for all their decisions.Bart Torvikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13661031240106200076noreply@blogger.com