NCAA Seedings

[mike412]

This probably has more to do with the nature of the sports than with the NCAA’s acumen in seeding team, but 15 of the top 16 seeds in Womens’ Volleyball all will be playing in the Sweet 16. In 7 of the 8 brackets, the #1 will play the #4 and the #2 will play the #3.

The only “bracket buster” is #5 Houston, which made it in place of #4 Creighton.

The mens’ soccer tournament seeded 16 teams. Only 2 of them are in the final 4: number 3 Syracuse and #13 Indiana. Pitt beat #1 Kentucky in the Sweet 16 and #16 Akron in the 2nd Round. All 16 seeds got first round byes. Six of the 16 lost their second round matches. Six more lost in the Sweet 16. Two more lost in the Elite 8.

Either mens’ soccer is much more difficult to seed or the soccer committee did a poor job. I think it’s mainly the former. I do think, however, that the committee overrated certain conferences, particularly the PAC-12. Washington, the overall #2 seed, went out in its first match, as did #8 Oregon State. UCLA and #5 Stanford fell in the Sweet 16. The ACC has had 4 teams go out but still has two in the Fibal Four and had 3 in the Elite Eight.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

There have been 21 games in the soccer tournament between seeded teams and unseeded teams. The seeded teams are 11-10 in those games. Two of the wins for the seeded teams were on PKs, as was one of the unseeded wins. So if you go by the way that FIFA counts the results, that would mean that the seeded teams were 9-9-3 against unseeded teams.

I agree that the nature of the sport is such that there probably are more upsets, but those numbers tell me that the really screwed up the seedings this year.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

This probably has more to do with the nature of the sports than with the NCAA’s acumen in seeding team, but 15 of the top 16 seeds in Womens’ Volleyball all will be playing in the Sweet 16. In 7 of the 8 brackets, the #1 will play the #4 and the #2 will play the #3.

The only “bracket buster” is #5 Houston, which made it in place of #4 Creighton.

The mens’ soccer tournament seeded 16 teams. Only 2 of them are in the final 4: number 3 Syracuse and #13 Indiana. Pitt beat #1 Kentucky in the Sweet 16 and #16 Akron in the 2nd Round. All 16 seeds got first round byes. Six of the 16 lost their second round matches. Six more lost in the Sweet 16. Two more lost in the Elite 8.

Either mens’ soccer is much more difficult to seed or the soccer committee did a poor job. I think it’s mainly the former. I do think, however, that the committee overrated certain conferences, particularly the PAC-12. Washington, the overall #2 seed, went out in its first match, as did #8 Oregon State. UCLA and #5 Stanford fell in the Sweet 16. The ACC has had 4 teams go out but still has two in the Fibal Four and had 3 in the Elite Eight.

1. Nature of the sport. Upsets are more likely in soccer

2. No OT in soccer anymore so teams like UK, who had 5 ties may have lost 3 of those games in OT and all of a sudden go from the 1 seed to unseeded.

3. Women's sports don't have the overall depth of men's sports. You see this on the international stage in basketball and soccer and you see it in college basketball and soccer. The difference between an ACC women's soccer team and an NEC soccer team is probably the same difference as an ACC men's team and a D3 team. Women's sports also tend to have all the best players cluster at a handful of schools similar to college football actually.