{"id":516,"date":"2011-01-31T02:52:26","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T08:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/67.227.157.91\/~kenpom\/wp_blog\/this-years-question-to-the-committee\/"},"modified":"2011-01-31T02:52:26","modified_gmt":"2011-01-31T08:52:26","slug":"this-years-question-to-the-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/this-years-question-to-the-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"This year\u2019s question to the committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last season, if you\u2019ll recall, I asked a question regarding the tournament selection process<\/a>: <\/p>\n

\n

Let\u2019s say you were given the following task: From a list of 320 college basketball teams, pick the 34 best. Not the most deserving, not the most difficult to play against, not the ones with the best athletes or the cutest stories. You had to pick the best teams. How would you do it? Would you use the RPI?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It was sort of rhetorical question, except that most people responded, \u201cI would use the RPI\u201d. So that didn\u2019t go so well. <\/p>\n

This year, I have a new question, or maybe it\u2019s more of a thought exercise. Do committee members really need to watch games? More specifically, should they make an effort to attend games in person? (I\u2019ve learned from my mistakes. I\u2019m going to answer my own question this time.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about this for years, but an experience last week compels me to write about it now. The backstory: We hear how wonderful it is that committee members are out watching games. Teams never know when one will be watching them on game night, so they must always strive to be on their best behavior. It\u2019s like each committee member is a regional Santa Claus, monitoring which clubs are naughty or nice. <\/p>\n

I happened to sit next to a committee member at the BYU\/San Diego State game last week. I thought it would be a great opportunity to trash the RPI, give a plug to Virginia Tech, mock Steve Lappas, etc. Unfortunately, none of that ever happened. <\/p>\n

For one thing, the guy had a game to watch. But also my attempt to break the ice \u2013 \u201cSo, you think these teams are going to be in the tournament?\u201d \u2013 wasn\u2019t met with the belly laugh it clearly deserved. In addition, the guy didn\u2019t know who I was, so my diva-like instincts made me promise myself I would never speak to him again. <\/p>\n

Regardless, the guy did<\/i> have a game to watch. It\u2019s not like that was the proper forum to explain why average RPI win is an absurd measure of a team\u2019s performance. One thing I did notice, though, was a somewhat detailed sheet the man was taking notes on. Presumably, it\u2019s used by each of the committee members that attends games, though that\u2019s not entirely clear. <\/p>\n

It was just one sheet of paper, but it was divided into perhaps a dozen categories. Things like \u201cpost-play\u201d and \u201cguard-play\u201d. Actually, those are the only ones I remember specifically. I didn\u2019t go there to write a story about the selection process nor look over the guy\u2019s shoulder as he was taking notes, and besides, there was a compelling game taking place in front of us. <\/p>\n

The note sheet could very well have just been a crutch to pay closer attention to the game. If so, great. However, comments from committee chair Gene Smith<\/a> before the season seem to indicate more than that.<\/p>\n

\n

Q: Talk generally about the work of the committee. For example, what will members being doing in November and December? Talk about the expectations of committee members and the integrity they have to bring to the table in order to serve in this role throughout the year.<\/p>\n

A: We\u2019ll be watching a lot of games in November and December, that\u2019s what. But it\u2019s a lot more involved than it sounds. Committee members have different methods in how they monitor and track the conferences they\u2019ve been assigned. Some use charts \u2013 you don\u2019t just watch games as an ordinary fan might. You are paying attention to the players, the types of defenses they play, what offense they run \u2013 you\u2019re juggling a lot of different aspects in your head.<\/b> There are times when I will watch four or five games in one night. Then as the year goes on, you take injuries into account \u2013 how does a team play without one of its starters, how does so-and-so play on the road, how deep is Team X? You start taking more and more into account in January and February.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Emphasis mine.)<\/p>\n

Maybe Smith\u2019s response to the question was just for PR (\u201cHey, look, we know X\u2019s and O\u2019s! You can trust us!\u201d), but I\u2019m not comfortable with the committee monitoring the kinds of offenses teams run. It\u2019s great in terms of having an intelligent discussion about basketball, but whether a team runs the DDM or the flex shouldn\u2019t have any bearing on the selection process, and it adds clutter to an already difficult task. <\/p>\n

Think about this in other sports. If I was selecting the best chess players for a tournament, should I care if a player is proficient at the King’s Indian Defense? If I was selecting the best players for a tennis tournament should I consider if a player can’t play at the net? All I should be evaluating is who the player played and how well. Style should be irrelevant. Same when filling out a college basketball tournament. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not suggesting that people merely look at the final scores. For instance, let\u2019s say one missed the St. John’s\/Duke game yesterday. St. John\u2019s won by 15, but clearly the final margin could have been arrived at in different ways. A game that was reasonably close before a late run by the Red Storm would be viewed differently than a game where St. John\u2019s got up big early and coasted. The thing is, that data is easily available. I think a win probability plot<\/a> conveys that information best, but any hoops web site worth its salt has a \u201cGame Flow\u201d which displays the running score. <\/p>\n

I suppose you might want to know why Duke was run off the floor, but the more I think about it, I\u2019m not sure what this would add. Its outside shooting was horrible and Duke is dependent on that more than most teams, but I don\u2019t see how this contributes to your determination of where Duke should be seeded beyond having a bad loss on the team sheet<\/a>. St. John\u2019s manhandled Duke. There\u2019s your data point for that game.  <\/p>\n

I actually can come up with some drawbacks of making a big effort to attend games. For one thing, committee members are like you and me in that they have day jobs. In fact, they probably work more hours than you do. Thus, it is difficult for them to attend many games. <\/p>\n

Perhaps a committee member only sees a certain team play once in person all season. Might this observation have undue influence in the selection process? If you watched a bubble team and saw them play very well (think St. John\u2019s against Duke), might you be more inclined to support their inclusion into the field? I could see that happening. We see people overreact to the significance of one game all the time. That\u2019s not a good thing when there is an additional mountain of data out there to utilize in the decision-making process.<\/p>\n

In the end, it probably doesn\u2019t matter either way. From all accounts, the selection process is chaotic, and RPI data is burned into the computer screens of committee members<\/a>. I\u2019m sure there\u2019s some time for qualitative discussion, but I hope it doesn\u2019t revolve around a committee member saying \u201cWhen I saw Team X play, they had really good post-play, and I think that\u2019s important to win basketball games. Therefore, Team X should get extra consideration.\u201d <\/p>\n

The committee\u2019s charge is to select the 37 best at-large teams. It should be based on the play on the court, not on things like how much depth a team has or whether they have an effective press. At selection time, we\u2019ll again hear about how the committee is seeing more games. However, I won’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling because I\u2019m not sure it makes a difference in terms of the quality of the bracket that\u2019s produced.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last season, if you\u2019ll recall, I asked a question regarding the tournament selection process: Let\u2019s say you were given the following task: From a list of 320 college basketball teams, pick the 34 best. Not the most deserving, not the most difficult to play against, not the ones with the best athletes or the cutest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenpom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}