Joe’s Notes: NCAA Tournament Selection Is Too Far in the Weeds

Wake Forest is 1–1 over its last two games. It beat Duke in Winston-Salem. It lost to Notre Dame in South Bend. This pair of results improved their NCAA Tournament chances, from roughly 7-in-10 to roughly 8-in-10. This pair of results was…kind of the expectation?

Wake was favored in both games. Collectively, though, coming into the two-game stretch, the likeliest outcome was that they’d win one and lose one. It was likelier that they’d lose to Duke than Notre Dame, but 1–1 was likelier than 2–0 or 0–2. We aren’t upset about this part—that they did the likely thing and it was taken as a surprise. This part doesn’t affect Wake’s tournament chances. What affects Wake’s tournament chances is that the 1–1 they achieved—the win over Duke, the loss to Notre Dame—is a significantly better result for them than the possible alternative 1–1, in which they would have lost to Duke and beaten the Fighting Irish.

Why is it better?

That’s the part we’re upset about.

There’s nothing intrinsically better about going 1–1 in the order Wake did it than going 1–1 in the order Wake didn’t. Going 1–1 across the same two games is the same accomplishment regardless of which game you win. In the eyes of the NCAA Tournament selection committee, though, Wake chose the better option. A good win outweighs a bad loss…in Wake’s case. If they’d had plenty of good wins already and also plenty of bad losses (like Texas A&M), it would have been different, but in Wake’s case, the win over Duke was the high-profile, high-quality win their résumé needed to gain additional legitimacy in the committee’s eyes. We know this, though the committee hasn’t really met, because of precedent. The committee favors some medium level of inconsistency. Why? I have no clue.

The argument, as I understand it, is that an inconsistent team should be rewarded for its ceiling, but only if they’re not too inconsistent. They must have proven the capability to upset a Sweet Sixteen-caliber team, but if they’ve proven that too thoroughly and they’ve also lost to a lot of bad teams (again, Texas A&M is the exampl here), then it stops mattering. It’s arbitrary. It’s weird. Wake isn’t a better team because they beat Duke and lost to Notre Dame than they’d be had the results gone in the opposite order. They aren’t more accomplished, either. They will be treated as both.

If the NCAA Tournament selection committee existed to nail down the right ratio of good team vs. deserving team and tweak things a bit to account for injuries, it would be serving its purpose well. Instead, it’s gotten so lost in the details that it’s taking arbitrarily chosen numbers and elevating them to make-or-break status. Q1 wins? You need to at least have some, even if you’ve proven you’re good through your kenpom numbers and you’ve proven you’re deserving by avoiding upset losses. Your nonconference strength of schedule? It can’t be too bad, even if it’s bad through little fault of your own and you’ve still proven you’re both good and deserving through the totality of your performance.

We don’t need or support a purely numeric selection system. We understand the grayness is part of the draw, and we do not want to fight over which selection formula to use. But there are ways to leave the process gray without being so colossally arbitrary. Wake Forest is 1–1 over its last two games. It shouldn’t matter which one they won.

Bunting for a Hit

Dan Szymborski shared the following table on Twitter yesterday. It shows the optimal exit velocity on ground balls. It is oddly satisfying.

Obviously, there are ways to shift to account for this (even in a world of banned shifts), but the message is basically that if a baseball player can get really good at hitting the ball on the ground with an exit velocity between 15 and 39 miles per hour, they’re going to be a very successful baseball player. The table doesn’t distinguish between actual bunts and swinging bunts, and I’m not sure how it accounts for attempted sacrifices, but baseball is a game of hitting the ball really hard or really soft, and while it’s easier to emphasize the hard option, because that option is better served by straightforward approaches to strength and mechanics, there’s theoretical value in someone being very good at the soft option as well. Ideally, I suppose, you’d have a hitter as good as Shohei Ohtani who can also bunt with precision. When you need bases, swing away. When you need to avoid outs, break out the bunt, having kept the defense honest.

The Rest

College basketball:

• BYU got a massive win at Allen Fieldhouse against shorthanded Kansas, which—Kansas without Kevin McCullar is a really limited team, and I don’t know that there’s more to it right now. As for BYU: Yes, they’re a very good team. Kansas is limited, sure, but winning in Allen Fieldhouse is hard, and also? We knew BYU was good even before last night. Some people insist on stupid criteria when accepting that a team is good. A proven, strong analytical system like kenpom? They do not trust it. Beating Kansas one time without Kansas’s best player? If it’s a road game, then yes, BYU is good.
• Kentucky also got a massive win, though for them it was not about proving themselves and instead about avoiding another round of frustration in the Lexington ecosystem. Reed Sheppard is an awesome basketball player. He should be in that mix for the National Player of the Year runner up. Fourth in EvanMiya! Only trails Zach Edey, Donovan Clingan, and Jamal Shead. Pretty good start to your First Team All-Americans there.
• Is Texas Tech suddenly shaky? Are they that dependent on Warren Washington? Or is Texas putting it together? Ultimately, last night was probably mostly regression on both sides, and in some ways that look more predictable in hindsight than they did going in. Texas Tech has mildly outplayed its talent this year. Washington is key to a lot of what they do. Texas has a ton of talent, and it’s not receiving great coaching, but its reliance on veterans—a few of whom are straight-up rocks in the rock/jelly bean/marshmallow dichotomy—might help it reach what’s been a high level of success this year on the road. Neither is a serious Final Four threat.
• The Mountain West was electric again last night, with the Colorado State/Nevada finish capping it all off. Isaiah Stevens hit the big shot for CSU. Jarod Lucas hit the even bigger shot for Nevada. Around the same time, Darius Brown II banked in a three at the end of regulation to get Utah State to overtime in Fresno, dodging what wouldn’t have been a good loss. And in Laramie, Wyoming’s Kael Combs managed to steal the ball from UNLV’s Justin Webster when he was merely trying to foul, something which led to the Pokes forcing overtime. Unfortunately for them, overtime was not enough.
• Auburn plays Tennessee in Knoxville tonight in this week’s biggest game (second place is Tennessee at Alabama—nice scheduling by the SEC). We still really aren’t sure who the best team is in the SEC. We think it’s Tennessee? Some good tests this week, though they might not prove conclusive.
• In a lesser tilt (hopefully), Iowa State hosts Oklahoma. A win keeps the Cyclones one game back of Houston. Iowa State will need help to win that tiebreaker if they can get back even.

The NBA:

• In professional buzzer beater action, Max Strus hit one from beyond half-court to beat the buzzer and the Mavericks at the same time, capping off a stretch in which he hit five threes in four minutes to keep the Cavs in second in the East.
• Speaking of Strus, remember Heat Culture? Don’t look now, but since that seven-game losing streak in January, Miami’s won nine of eleven. Last night’s comeback to beat the Blazers pulled them up to fifth in the East, tied with the currently fading Sixers.
• The Lakers play the Clippers tonight, trying to pick up ground in a loaded Western Conference Play-In Tournament (we’re one Suns loss away from having Kevin Durant, Luka Dončić, Steph Curry, and LeBron James all in Play-In territory). The Pacers catch the Pelicans on the back end of a back-to-back, trying to get out of seventh place (or at least take sole possession).

The NHL:

• There was a lot of hockey last night and I haven’t seen much from it, but the Knights stopped the Leafs’ winning streak, winning 6–2 in Toronto after losing to them 7–3 in Vegas on Thursday. There are some good races right now for playoff seeding, but both conferences have multi-game gaps behind the playoff cut line.
• Not a lot tonight. Only two games. The Blues visiting the Oilers is the better one, and the Oilers are a –300 favorite.

Chicago, the Packers:

• The Bulls lost to the Pistons, and while they aren’t in serious danger of missing the postseason outright, the performance after the trade deadline and after the All-Star Break haven’t been what you’d want to see from a roster accepting what it is and trying to make a push. To bring it back to Max Strus again (it’s Max Strus Day, I suppose), the Bulls have to face the red-hot Cavs tonight. It’s in Chicago, which isn’t the worst draw. If you’re going to play Cleveland in February of 2024, doing it at home after they won via heart-stopping finish is a pretty good way to do it.
• On the Wisconsin side, Bart Starr’s widow, Cherry Starr, passed away yesterday at the age of 89. Here’s a brief obituary from the Starr Children’s Fund.