Pitt Mens Soccer

[Joe the Panther Fan]

But teams get credit from the committee for those quadrant 1 and 2 games. There were teams with horrible records in Quadrant 1 and 2 who were the apple of bracketologist and committee eyes.

Well first of all, that's something different. What Q your opponent is in is on your opponents not you. It's a crude substitute for strength of schedule.

Secondly, no one who didn't win any (or many) of those games was the apple of anyone's eye. For instance last year Louisville played 17 Q1 and Q2 games. Everyone thought they stunk. Why? Because they lost 16 of those 17 games. No one cared that they played the same number of Q1 and Q2 games as Utah State, or four more of them than Florida Atlantic or one more than St. Mary's.

It's just like Pitt men's soccer. We played a bunch of those games. We did not win very many of them. And we are going to be holding our breath on selection day.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

In college soccer, where the clock stops after a goal, I do not understand some players feeling the need to grab the ball out of the goal, especially taking it from an opponent, and take it to the center spot. If our guy doesn't needlessly try to do that, none of that scuffle happens.

They simply ought to put a rule in place, after a goal if a player from the team that scored the goal goes into the net and attempts to pick up the ball, automatic yellow card.

They did that against PSU too, resulting in red cards unfavorable to Pitt. This one at least they got a Louisville guy to get a red. The only explanation is they dont know the obscure college rules and still dont.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Which has always been my NET and Big12 argument. Just because you play what’s deemed as a good team, doesn’t mean that your ranking should go up or that you should be overvalued. You gotta win some of those games.

I agree and that's always been my argument against RPI and NET, especially NET because losing close games to good teams in NET really helps you. The argument against Pitt and B12 basketball teams who who 18-15 is that you get SO MANY "at bats," yea, you are going to win a couple, especially at home but since you lose so many, why should you be rewarded for simply getting off the bus.

In Pitt's case with soccer its a little different though because draws vs RPI 16, 19, and 37 can be viewed as a good result I guess. RPI is 26 so they are probably in. I think it would be the wrong message to basically tell them to schedule Robert Morris instead of Georgetown next time. But they shouldn't feel 100% safe.

 

[Fk_Pitt]

I agree and that's always been my argument against RPI and NET, especially NET because losing close games to good teams in NET really helps you. The argument against Pitt and B12 basketball teams who who 18-15 is that you get SO MANY "at bats," yea, you are going to win a couple, especially at home but since you lose so many, why should you be rewarded for simply getting off the bus.

In Pitt's case with soccer its a little different though because draws 16, 19, and 37 can be viewed as a good result I guess. RPI is 26 so they are probably in. I think it would be the wrong message to basically tell them to schedule Robert Morris instead of Georgetown next time. But they shouldn't feel 100% safe.

That’s a bingo

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Your NET doesn't go up just by playing a good team. Your RPI can, but your NET will only go up if you play better than you were expected to play. And that's the same no matter the opponent.

There's more to it, but basically if you lose to a good team by more than you were supposed to your rating will go down. If NET thinks you should lose to a good team by three points and you lose by 23 points your NET is going to go down. If NET thinks you should beat a bad team by 20 points and you win by 30 your NET will improve. On the other hand, if NET thinks you should lose to a good team by 10 and you lose by two your NET will (likely) go up, because you outperformed expectations.

The RPI was different. The RPI didn't care whether a game was close or not. You could lose to the number one team in the country by 50 points, and just because you played the number one team in the country your RPI would go up. On the other hand, you could beat a bad team by 50 points, or 60, or 80, or 100, and your RPI would go down. How well you played had nothing to do with it, only THAT you played.

That's why basketball gave up the RPI, because at it's core it doesn't make any sense. How well you played, or didn't play, never comes into play.

They over-corrected RPI. They went from scoring margins not mattering at all to making them matter far too much. They can still take scoring margins into account but not weight it so heavily. For Pitt to have a bad day at the office vs Duke in the ACCT and drop 8-10 NET spots and nearly miss the NCAAT was simply ridiculous. 1 loss shouldn't count as 2 or 3, which is basically how NET weights bad scoring margins.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

They over-corrected RPI. They went from scoring margins not mattering at all to making them matter far too much. They can still take scoring margins into account but not weight it so heavily. For Pitt to have a bad day at the office vs Duke in the ACCT and drop 8-10 NET spots and nearly miss the NCAAT was simply ridiculous. 1 loss shouldn't count as 2 or 3, which is basically how NET weights bad scoring margins.

Play like crap and some people might think you are crap.

Play better and you don't have to worry.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Play like crap and some people might think you are crap.

Play better and you don't have to worry.

A win is a win. A loss is a loss. A 30 point loss should matter only a tiny bit to the "metrics" than a 1 point loss.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

A win is a win. A loss is a loss. A 30 point loss should matter only a tiny bit to the "metrics" than a 1 point loss.

Spoken like someone who doesn't understand the game.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Spoken like someone who doesn't understand the game.

Literally no one agrees with you. The NCAA should be in the business of awarding accomplishment not "how you played." If you jump across the Grand Canyon and make it really far, you are still dead. You still lost. The NCAA would be like "well, look how far he jumped, that was quite efficient." And the funny thing is that the reason this will never he changed is because the coaches are so stupid, they dont understand it. Forbes and Brownell figured it out late. They are the only 2.

It goes against the sacred laws of sport to reward teams for losing and penalize teams for winning. Winning and losing should still be far more important than point spreads. But, hey, we live in a country where the votes only matter in 5 of the 50 states.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Literally no one agrees with you. The NCAA should be in the business of awarding accomplishment not "how you played." If you jump across the Grand Canyon and make it really far, you are still dead. You still lost. The NCAA would be like "well, look how far he jumped, that was quite efficient." And the funny thing is that the reason this will never he changed is because the coaches are so stupid, they dont understand it. Forbes and Brownell figured it out late. They are the only 2.

It goes against the sacred laws of sport to reward teams for losing and penalize teams for winning. Winning and losing should still be far more important than point spreads. But, hey, we live in a country where the votes only matter in 5 of the 50 states.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, who thinks that the NCAA tournament should be made up of the best teams that they can pick agrees with me. Which is just about everyone.

And again, for the 4,789,322nd time, the NCAA does not select the tournament based on a team's NET rating and it does not seed the tournament based on the team's NET ratings. As was obvious when they picked us to make the field last year.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, who thinks that the NCAA tournament should be made up of the best teams that they can pick agrees with me. Which is just about everyone.

And again, for the 4,789,322nd time, the NCAA does not select the tournament based on a team's NET rating and it does not seed the tournament based on the team's NET ratings. As was obvious when they picked us to make the field last year.

If we are up 25 with 8 minutes left vs NC A&T and sit our starters and end up winning by 9, do you think those last 10 minutes of garbage time should count the same as an ACC game in February?

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

If we are up 25 with 8 minutes left vs NC A&T and sit our starters and end up winning by 9, do you think those last 10 minutes of garbage time should count the same as an ACC game in February?

One of your problems in this whole thing is that you don't understand how little those eight minutes will make a difference at the end of the season. Whether you outscore someone by ten or get outscored by ten in those minutes it really won't make much difference in the end.

Or in other words, this is another in the long line of examples of you not really understanding math.

Which is why you don't really understand the NET, and you never have.

 

[Fk_Pitt]

One of your problems in this whole thing is that you don't understand how little those eight minutes will make a difference at the end of the season. Whether you outscore someone by ten or get outscored by ten in those minutes it really won't make much difference in the end.

Or in other words, this is another in the long line of examples of you not really understanding math.

Which is why you don't really understand the NET, and you never have.

It can be problematic and was last year for all of us who followed it.

Last night over dinner, my son was talking about how loaded the B12 is. And the season hasn’t even started yet. So by the end of November, all theses teams and leagues will have a value assigned to them and it will carry into conference season and won’t change. So every single night WVU will have a chance for a Q1/Q2 win and won’t get dinged for the loses. So at the end of the year, a team will be in the tourney because they had 4 quality wins. Meanwhile they lost 14 of them. And then they will take the spot of a team who might have gone 3-5 in such games. All because League X performed in November. And it’s the same with Pitt men’s soccer. Somewhere someone in a weaker league is going to miss the tourney and Pitt’s gonna make it, and they are going to be saying Pitt should have won more of those games and not rewarded for a perceived difficult schedule.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

It can be problematic and was last year for all of us who followed it.

Last night over dinner, my son was talking about how loaded the B12 is. And the season hasn’t even started yet. So by the end of November, all theses teams and leagues will have a value assigned to them and it will carry into conference season and won’t change. So every single night WVU will have a chance for a Q1/Q2 win and won’t get dinged for the loses. So at the end of the year, a team will be in the tourney because they had 4 quality wins. Meanwhile they lost 14 of them. And then they will take the spot of a team who might have gone 3-5 in such games. All because League X performed in November. And it’s the same with Pitt men’s soccer. Somewhere someone in a weaker league is going to miss the tourney and Pitt’s gonna make it, and they are going to be saying Pitt should have won more of those games and not rewarded for a perceived difficult schedule.

The counter to that is that B12 basketball is legitimately good because they win all those Nov games. Its probably the best, deepest league. But if you play in B12 basketball or ACC soccer, my opinion is mediocrity shouldn't be rewarded. WVU is going to get in at 18-15 with a 4-14 record in Q1/2. That's not good enough. Wake should make it at 22-10 even though the ACC is "weaker." That’s just too many losses....and for Pitt soccer, not enough wins. Pitt soccer is going to make it and they absolutely are one of the best 25 or so teams but they didnt win enough

 

[Fk_Pitt]

The counter to that is that B12 basketball is legitimately good because they win all those Nov games. Its probably the best, deepest league. But if you play in B12 basketball or ACC soccer, my opinion is mediocrity shouldn't be rewarded. WVU is going to get in at 18-15 with a 4-14 record in Q1/2. That's not good enough. Wake should make it at 22-10 even though the ACC is "weaker." That’s just too many losses....and for Pitt soccer, not enough wins. Pitt soccer is going to make it and they absolutely are one of the best 25 or so teams but they didnt win enough

Yeah. You have to at least flirt with .500 in your league if you want a post season bid. 5-13 or 6-12 shouldn’t even get you consideration. 7-11 probably not either.

I don’t know what to think about Pitt soccer being below .500 in the league and .500 overall. All I know is it’s not impressive and if they couldn’t win more than 2 games in a row all year, they’ve shown that they shouldn’t be considered to play for a championship.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Yeah. You have to at least flirt with .500 in your league if you want a post season bid. 5-13 or 6-12 shouldn’t even get you consideration. 7-11 probably not either.

I don’t know what to think about Pitt soccer being below .500 in the league and .500 overall. All I know is it’s not impressive and if they couldn’t win more than 2 games in a row all year, they’ve shown that they shouldn’t be considered to play for a championship.

Based on the criteria they use, Pitt soccer should absolutely make it. #1 SOS. RPI is 26. Beat RPI #8 and #19. Drew #16, #18, #38. Pretty close to a lock. But if the NCAA came to some decision that requires power conference in all sports to be somewhere close to .500 in their leagues, I would have no issue with Pitt not making it or a 7-11 B12 bball team.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

It can be problematic and was last year for all of us who followed it.

Well first of all, neither you nor SMF have been following basketball advanced metrics (which is what the NET is attempting to be) for as long as I have. In fact not the two of you combined.

Which is probably why I understand how they work and SMF clearly doesn't.

If you want to argue that our NET rating last year was problematic because way too many ACC teams lost to way too many really crappy non-conference opponents then yeah, sure. But those games happened. Those results happened. You can't pretend a Louisville team that lost to Bellarmine or Wright State was good. You can't pretend that the Florida State team that lost to Sienna and Stetson is good. Boston College did, in fact, lose to Maine, Tarleton State and New Hampshire. And sure, they played those games without their starting center. But if you can't beat someone as bad as Maine was last year with a starter out then you just aren't that good. Heck, Pitt beat two teams in the NCAA tournament with their starting center out.

Or if you want to argue it the other way, Pitt actually became a better team when their roly-poly starting center stopped playing and they were forced to use the backup.

But in any event, yeah, sure, when you play a team as bad as Louisville was last year you better beat them bad if you don't want people to question how good your team is. In fact we see all the time in the football and basketball polls teams that win a game in unconvincing fashion drop in the poll. Or even they don't drop, but several teams who were behind them jump ahead of them. Because people understand the notion that a close win over a bad team doesn't actually say something good about your team. No matter how desperately SMF thinks that it does. All the metrics that drop a team down when that happens are doing is exactly the same thing that the humans who watch the games do.

 

[Fk_Pitt]

Well first of all, neither you nor SMF have been following basketball advanced metrics (which is what the NET is attempting to be) for as long as I have. In fact not the two of you combined.

Which is probably why I understand how they work and SMF clearly doesn't.

If you want to argue that our NET rating last year was problematic because way too many ACC teams lost to way too many really crappy non-conference opponents then yeah, sure. But those games happened. Those results happened. You can't pretend a Louisville team that lost to Bellarmine or Wright State was good. You can't pretend that the Florida State team that lost to Sienna and Stetson is good. Boston College did, in fact, lose to Maine, Tarleton State and New Hampshire. And sure, they played those games without their starting center. But if you can't beat someone as bad as Maine was last year with a starter out then you just aren't that good. Heck, Pitt beat two teams in the NCAA tournament with their starting center out.

Or if you want to argue it the other way, Pitt actually became a better team when their roly-poly starting center stopped playing and they were forced to use the backup.

But in any event, yeah, sure, when you play a team as bad as Louisville was last year you better beat them bad if you don't want people to question how good your team is. In fact we see all the time in the football and basketball polls teams that win a game in unconvincing fashion drop in the poll. Or even they don't drop, but several teams who were behind them jump ahead of them. Because people understand the notion that a close win over a bad team doesn't actually say something good about your team. No matter how desperately SMF thinks that it does. All the metrics that drop a team down when that happens are doing is exactly the same thing that the humans who watch the games do.

I hear ya. And while NET has done its best to fix all the flaws in the system, I just think it’s a flawed system when so much weight is placed on what happens in November. Coaches are figuring out rotations, etc then. Then for the entire conference season, a conference is established and there is no changing it. So a team from the Big12 has a resume builder each night with no harm done if they lose…while an ACC team has half the resume builders, and better not lose any of the other games on their conference schedule or they will be punished.

I get it, that’s the system. And teams in the ACC need to figure out how to get better so that the league is strong too top to bottom. But…

A suggested fix would be to do what they do in football. In football you gotta win 6 games to be bowl eligible. They should do the same in hoops too by requiring that you have to win X amount of league games to be tourney eligible. This won’t help an ACC team that is 12-6 in the league per se, but it might help them or another mid major by reducing the amount of teams the B1G or B12 gets in while they sleep walk through their league schedule and finish several games below .500. How could we forget tOSU was 5-15 and 16-19 on the year…but was right there in it on selection Sunday threatening to take a bid from Pitt or another deserving school.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

I hear ya. And while NET has done its best to fix all the flaws in the system, I just think it’s a flawed system when so much weight is placed on what happens in November. Coaches are figuring out rotations, etc then. Then for the entire conference season, a conference is established and there is no changing it. So a team from the Big12 has a resume builder each night with no harm done if they lose…while an ACC team has half the resume builders, and better not lose any of the other games on their conference schedule or they will be punished.

I get it, that’s the system. And teams in the ACC need to figure out how to get better so that the league is strong too top to bottom. But…

A suggested fix would be to do what they do in football. In football you gotta win 6 games to be bowl eligible. They should do the same in hoops too by requiring that you have to win X amount of league games to be tourney eligible. This won’t help an ACC team that is 12-6 in the league per se, but it might help them or another mid major by reducing the amount of teams the B1G or B12 gets in while they sleep walk through their league schedule and finish several games below .500. How could we forget tOSU was 5-15 and 16-19 on the year…but was right there in it on selection Sunday threatening to take a bid from Pitt or another deserving school.

But the thing is, it is a conscience decision by the NCAA to count all the games, November games and February games, all the same. Because they don't want to devalue the only chance that the mid-majors have of playing a high level team.

If games in February count for more then how does Gonzaga, for example, come up with any sort of schedule so that they don't get screwed on selection day? They can schedule a game against Purdue in November and UConn in December, but for the most part they can't schedule a game like that in February (although for the record, they somehow got Kentucky to agree to play them in February this season, probably largely because they agreed to a one off road game). Or take Memphis for another example. They managed to schedule games against P6s Missouri, Michigan, Mississippi, Texas A&M, Clemson, Virginia and Vanderbilt in November and December. But they aren't going to get anyone like that on their schedule in February. So if you tell everyone that those games don't matter so much, how does someone like Memphis overcome that?

But all that is why they don't just use the NET rankings to select and seed the field. And from our point of view, thank god for that. Those numbers are a starting point, but that's why there is a human element that can and does override the numbers. And from our point of view, thank god for that. The computer doesn't need to know that someone had a guy who was injured the first six weeks of the season, because the humans should know that. The computer doesn't need to know that a really young team stumbled some at the beginning of the year due to inexperience but got better as the season went on, because the humans should know that. And from our point of view, that god for that.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

I hear ya. And while NET has done its best to fix all the flaws in the system, I just think it’s a flawed system when so much weight is placed on what happens in November. Coaches are figuring out rotations, etc then. Then for the entire conference season, a conference is established and there is no changing it. So a team from the Big12 has a resume builder each night with no harm done if they lose…while an ACC team has half the resume builders, and better not lose any of the other games on their conference schedule or they will be punished.

I get it, that’s the system. And teams in the ACC need to figure out how to get better so that the league is strong too top to bottom. But…

A suggested fix would be to do what they do in football. In football you gotta win 6 games to be bowl eligible. They should do the same in hoops too by requiring that you have to win X amount of league games to be tourney eligible. This won’t help an ACC team that is 12-6 in the league per se, but it might help them or another mid major by reducing the amount of teams the B1G or B12 gets in while they sleep walk through their league schedule and finish several games below .500. How could we forget tOSU was 5-15 and 16-19 on the year…but was right there in it on selection Sunday threatening to take a bid from Pitt or another deserving school.

I like it. The NCAA runs the NIT and they are guarantering P5 spots and removing auto bids so there is now some conference performance threshold. For me, its gotta be 40%. You have to win 40% of your league games to be considered. I dont care what league you play in. If you go 7-11 and 0-1 in the conference tournament, have fun in the NIT. 7-11 + 1-1 in the tournament isnt asking a lot. If your league is really tough.....like say ACC soccer, get better and win games. I would have no issue with a Pitt soccer type team being left out if they made this a standard.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

The NCAA runs the NIT and they are guarantering P5 spots and removing auto bids so there is now some conference performance threshold.

Two things. First of all, the two teams from each conference that are guaranteed an NIT spot actually have NO performance standards. If, for example, seven ACC teams make the NCAA tournament this year then teams eight and nine in the NET make the NIT. It doesn't matter if those team's record is 22-10 or it's 10-22. If you are next on the list, you are in.

Secondly, the reason the NCAA made this change is out. Fox was putting together a post season tournament that would be played in Las Vegas that they were looking for a commitment from the P6 conferences to agree to play, with the caveat that their two highest rated teams that didn't make the NCAA tournament would be guaranteed/required to participate in.

The people running the NIT realized that if Fox gets a tournament like that off the ground that the NIT will basically cease to exist in a year or two. If for no other reason than they saw the ratings that they got for the NIT last year when the semifinals were North Texas v Wisconsin and Utah Valley v UAB, with a championship game of North Texas v UAB.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Two things. First of all, the two teams from each conference that are guaranteed an NIT spot actually have NO performance standards. If, for example, seven ACC teams make the NCAA tournament this year then teams eight and nine in the NET make the NIT. It doesn't matter if those team's record is 22-10 or it's 10-22. If you are next on the list, you are in.

Secondly, the reason the NCAA made this change is out. Fox was putting together a post season tournament that would be played in Las Vegas that they were looking for a commitment from the P6 conferences to agree to play, with the caveat that their two highest rated teams that didn't make the NCAA tournament would be guaranteed/required to participate in.

The people running the NIT realized that if Fox gets a tournament like that off the ground that the NIT will basically cease to exist in a year or two. If for no other reason than they saw the ratings that they got for the NIT last year when the semifinals were North Texas v Wisconsin and Utah Valley v UAB, with a championship game of North Texas v UAB.

I see Fox stole my idea. Figures. I posted on here a few years ago that with the NIT being so hard to make now with so many auto bids....and with all the P6s turning down the pay for play CBI, there had to be a market for an all-P6 tournament for teams who dont make the NIT. At that time, I proposed a 16 team P6 tournament in Dayton for teams that didnt make the NIT. Actually, I think I might have said to include the high major leagues (A10, American, MWC, WCC) if needed. So they stole my idea and substituted Vegas for Dayton. How can I copyright these message board posts because this has to stop happening.

 

[ThePanthers]

Play James Madison thursday

 

[daytonpanther]

Play James Madison thursday

At Home! Pitt will likely away for remainder of tourney. Georgetown is awaiting the winner and was one of the worst losses by the Men this year. If we get by Georgetown and James Madison then its likely out to West Coast and better weather.