Womhoops Guru

Mel Greenberg covered college and professional women’s basketball for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he worked for 40 plus years. Greenberg pioneered national coverage of the game, including the original Top 25 women's college poll. His knowledge has earned him nicknames such as "The Guru" and "The Godfather," as well as induction into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Geru'a NCAA Selection Skinny 2: Finding At-Large, Discerning Bubbles, and Fielding WNIT

By Mel Greenberg

Here after Sunday's games is a look at an attempt to guess the at-large hunt now that the games have all come to an end.

Teams already AQ’d not spoken to for obvious reasons. If a conference seems one-bid, the Guru won’t mention at-large candidates for obvious reasons. If it seemed one-bid conference team lost and goes to the bubble because of upset, he will mention though some will be moot.

This is also being done more on the conservative side of things to look at total numbers so some teams will be called bubble but are closer to locks.

After this, the Guru will look at a projected WNIT contender field in the last part of this post

American Lock – Louisville. Bubbles - South Florida, Rutgers. L-1 B-2
Atlantic Coast Locks – Duke, Md., NC St., UNC, Syr., Fl St., Ga Tech: L-7
Atlantic Ten Locks - - Dayton. Bubble – St. Joseph’s. L-1 B-1
Big Ten Locks – Mich St. PSU. Iowa, Purdue. B-Minnesota: L-4 B-1
B12 Locks – W. Va., Texas. Okla St. Bubbles-Iowa St, Okla. L-3 B-2
Big East Locks – St. John’s. No bubbles
MAC Bubble – Bowling Green and Cent. Michigan. B-1
PAC-12 Locks -- Stanford, Ore. St., California, Arizona St. L-4
SEC Locks – S.C., Tex A&M, Ky, LSU B-Ga, Vandy, Florida. L-4, B-3
WCC Bubble – BYU B-1

Totals: Locks: 25. Bubbles: 11.
So we’re perhaps three or four over – quite a small number. This will be altered maybe later Monday after arrival of additional data Sunday night.

Because Jim Sukup had his RPIratings measurement done and posted to the public, the Guru shifts to his data for the RPI, Strength of Schedule and Sagarin indices.

But here is the RPI and SOS thru Sunday.

Additionally, the Guru was told by a very good person with experience at first hand at in the room, that Winning Average RPI and Losing Average RPI is a key number since teams are compared in a bunch, not just one or two teams.

Same with nonconference rpi and nonconference sos.

So if someone can direct the Guru to an RPI simulation with those numbers it would be appreciated. Some help is rumored to be on the way.

The Guru was also told SOS is lesser but still important since all SOS amounts to is the won-loss percentage of opponents.

St. Joseph’s (22-9 AtlT 10-6) RPI 22 SOS 21
Bowling Green (27-4, MAC 17-1) RPI 32 SOS 173
BYU (26-6, WCC 14-4) RPI 38 SOS 132
Cent. Michigan (20-11, MAC 16-2) RPI 40 SOS 48
Iowa St (20-10 Bg12 9-9) RPI 42 SOS 36
Vanderbilt (18-12, SEC 7-9) RPI 43 SOS 18
Minnesota (20-12, 8-8 Big10 RPI 46 SOS 24
Georgia (20-11, SEC 7-9) RPI 47 SOS 47
Rutgers (22-9, AAC 12-6) RPI 51 SOS 91
South Florida (19-12, AAC 13-5) RPI 57 SOS 30
Oklahoma (18-14, Bg12 9-9) RPI 61 SOS 17
Florida (19-12, SEC 8-8) RPI 63 SOS 53

Bubbles by Sagarin Ratings

Oklahoma (18-14, Bg12 9-9) 19
Iowa St (20-10 Bg12 9-9) 22
South Florida (19-12, AAC 13-5) 32
Georgia (20-11, SEC 7-9) 35
Rutgers (22-9, AAC 12-6) 37
Vanderbilt (18-12, SEC 7-9) 38
Minnesota (20-12, 8-8 Big10) 39
Florida (19-12, SEC 8-8) 43
St. Joseph’s (22-9 AtlT 10-6) 46
BYU (26-7, WCC 14-4) 48
Bowling Green (27-3, MAC 17-1) 52
Cent. Michigan (20-11, MAC 16-2) 73

NIT Projector
AQs- 32

AEC – Stony Brook
AAC – South Florida, Rutgers or SMU pending NCAA
A10 – St. Bonaventure
ACC – Miami
ASun – Stetson
B12 – Iowa State, Oklahoma or TCU
Big East – Creighton
Big Sky – Southern Utah
Big South – High Point
Big Ten – Minnesota or Michigan
Big West – Cal-Poly
CAA – Delaware
C-USA – Southern Miss
Horizon – Wis.-Green Bay
Ivy – Princeton
MAAC – Iona
MAC – Bowling Green
MEAC – N. Carolina A&T
MVC -- Indiana State
MWC – Colorado State
NEC – Robert Morris or Mount St. Mary’s
OVC – Belmont
Pac-12 – Arizona State or Washington
Patriot – Navy
SEC – Florida, Georgia, Vanderbilt or Auburn
Southern – Furman
Southland – Lamar
SWAC – Texas Southern
Summit –South Dakota State
Sun Belt – Arkansas State
WCC – BYU or Pacific
WAC – CS Bakersfield

WNIT At-Large Candidates

AEC: New Hampshire
AAC: South Florida or Rutgers or SMU
A-10: George Washington, Duquesne, VCU
Big 12: Pending NCAA, Iowa St, Oklahoma, TCU
Big East: Villanova, Creighton, Marquette, Seton Hall
Big Sky: Montana
Big South: Liberty, Campbell
Big Ten: Michigan, Indiana
Big West: Hawaii
CAA: Charleston
C-USA: UTEP, Tulane, East Carolina
Horizon: Illinois-Chicago
Ivy: Harvard
MAAC: Fairfield, Quinnipiac
MAC: Cent. Michigan
MEAC: Savannah State
MVC: Unknown
MWC: Nevada, Wyoming
NEC: St. Francis, Brooklyn
OVC: Eastern Kentucky
PAC-12: Washington, Washington State, Colorado
Patriot: American U., Holy Cross
SEC: Auburn, Arkansas, Missouri, NCAA leftovers take precedence
Southern: None
Southland: Stephen F. Austin, Cent. Arkansas
SWAC: Texas Southern
Summit: IUPUI
Sun Belt: Arkansas-Little Rock
WCC: Pacific, San Diego, St. Mary’s
WAC: Grand Canyon

Rough Long List for Now: 50 needs to be cut to 32

That’s it till later Monday.

-- Mel


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad


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