Final Bracketology

[MAKBison]

Will be interesting to see what the weather is like in Brookings that day.

cold as shit with no one in the mood for outside FB

[EC8CH]

Will be interesting to see what the weather is like in Brookings that day.

Cold and lonely.

[natstar1]

I'm curious how many playoff games has SDSU hosted in the D1 era?

[ndsubison1]

I'm curious how many playoff games has SDSU hosted in the D1 era?

2? 10char.

[bisonaudit]

Let’s see if we can enumerate the ways in which this process does or does not suck, depending on who you are and what you think a tournament like this should actually be trying to do.

You could start with the 24 best teams by some objective measure (for this analysis Sagarin, because I’m doing it, I like that one, and it gets talked about a fair bit here) and use that as a baseline to attempt to tease out where and by how much the field gets “distorted” by other goals and then decide if you think the pursuit of those goals is worth it or not.

Here’s who’d be in and their chance to win the title until they’re less and 1%

North Dakota State 45%
James Madison...... 26%
South Dakota State 14%
Western Illinois....... 5%
Northern Iowa........ 4%
South Dakota......... 2%
Jacksonville State... 1%
Weber State........... 1%
Southern Utah
Youngstown State
Central Arkansas
Illinois State
Samford
Furman
Kennesaw State
Northern Arizona
Sam Houston State
Richmond
Eastern Washington
Stony Brook
Wofford
Montana State
Sacramento State
Montana


Next, the NCAA has decided that it's good to reward conference champions with automatic bids to postseason tournaments. Let’s see what happens when we add that criteria (ignoring the conference who choose not to accept their auto bids).

Team................... Sag. Auto Bid
North Dakota State 45%.. 45%
James Madison...... 26%.. 26%
South Dakota State 14%.. 14%
Western Illinois....... 5%.... 5%
Northern Iowa........ 4%.... 4%
South Dakota......... 2%.... 2%
Jacksonville State... 1%.... 1%
Weber State........... 1%.... 1%
Southern Utah
Youngstown State
Central Arkansas
Illinois State
Samford
Furman
Kennesaw State
Northern Arizona
Sam Houston State
Richmond
Eastern Washington
Stony Brook
Wofford
Montana State
Sacramento State
Montana
San Diego
Central Connecticut
Lehigh

Three teams with very little chance to win the tournament are replaced by 3 others in the same boat. Obviously a very big deal to the teams and conference involved but in terms of crowning a champion not much effect. Even without the rounding as presented above only 0.2 percentage points chance to win flowed from one team to another as a result of adding auto bids to the scenario.

Ok, time to talk about the committee. Their job is to 1) select the at large invitations and 2) seed the top 8. So let’s see how their work changes things.


Team................... Sag. Auto Bid. At Large. Seed
North Dakota State 45%.. 45%... 46%..... 48%
James Madison...... 26%.. 26%... 26%..... 26%
South Dakota State 14%.. 14%... 14%..... 13%
Western Illinois....... 5%.... 5%.... 5%...... 2%
Northern Iowa........ 4%.... 4%.... 4%...... 3%
South Dakota......... 2%.... 2%.... 2%...... 2%
Jacksonville State... 1%.... 1%.... 1%...... 3%
Weber State........... 1%.... 1%.... 1%...... <1%
Southern Utah........ <1%. <1%. <1%..... 1%
Youngstown State
Central Arkansas..... <1%. <1%. <1%..... 2%
Illinois State
Samford
Furman
Kennesaw State
Northern Arizona
Sam Houston State
Richmond
Eastern Washington
Stony Brook
Wofford
Montana State
Sacramento State
Montana
San Diego
Central Connecticut
Lehigh
Elon
New Hampshire
Monmouth-NJ
Nicholls State

At-large: not much big picture change. Just 0.8 percentage points flowing around the board despite the replacement of the 10th and 12th best teams with objectively poorer choices (like 3 scores on a neutral field poorer). Again, huge impacts for the individual teams and conferences but, at least this year, not really making a mess of the championship.

Seeding: however, we can see even at the course grain presented above has real impact on the plausible outcomes of the event. Playing one fewer games and playing at home have substantive advantages. A full 6.3 percentage points change hands based on the committee’s subjective seeding compared to prior scenario with the committee’s field but objectively seeded by Sagarin ratings. Now individual teams with a chance to win the whole thing are being materially impacted, lots of them. NDSU chances improve 5%, SDSU decreases 10%, Western Ill down 63%, UNI down 23%, USD down 10%, Jax St up 156%, Weber St down 53%, Southern Utah up 84%, Central Arkansas up 336%.

Finally, the regionalization and bidding rules largely determine 1st round matchups and home field. The committee has some discretion but mostly this is a structural thing and it has real impacts as well.


Team................... Sag. Auto Bid. At Large. Seed. Actual
North Dakota State 45%.. 45%... 46%..... 48%..... 52%
James Madison...... 26%.. 26%... 26%..... 26%..... 26%
South Dakota State 14%.. 14%... 14%..... 13%..... 11%
Western Illinois....... 5%.... 5%.... 5%...... 2%...... 1%
Northern Iowa........ 4%.... 4%.... 4%...... 3%...... 1%
South Dakota......... 2%.... 2%.... 2%...... 2%...... 2%
Jacksonville State... 1%.... 1%.... 1%...... 3%...... 3%
Weber State........... 1%.... 1%.... 1%...... <1%
Southern Utah........ <1%. <1%. <1%..... 1%...... 1%
Youngstown State
Central Arkansas..... <1%. <1%. <1%..... 2%...... 2%
Illinois State
Samford
Furman
Kennesaw State
Northern Arizona
Sam Houston State
Richmond
Eastern Washington
Stony Brook
Wofford
Montana State
Sacramento State
Montana
San Diego
Central Connecticut
Lehigh
Elon
New Hampshire
Monmouth-NJ
Nicholls State

5.1 percentage points moving around the board. Not as big a deal this year as seeding, but more impact than at large our auto bids on title chances.

[MNLonghorn10]

Wow.......hell of a post there audit. It's as if you like to torture yourself with numbers for hours at a time

[bruinbison]

I’m surprised at Jacksonville State barely registering, and Sam Houston and Central Arkansas being a less than 1%.
Their conferences got some ‘splaining to do Lucy......
Maybe they will too......that is some of the fun I’ll have watching the playoffs.......
How do those 3 high seeds perform???

It’s also a bit of a surprise to see teams 4-7 all have to play 1st round games, but still have better odds than the 3 seeded teams.

[bisonaudit]

I’m surprised at Jacksonville State barely registering, and Sam Houston and Central Arkansas being a less than 1%.
Their conferences got some ‘splaining to do Lucy......
Maybe they will too......that is some of the fun I’ll have watching the playoffs.......
How do those 3 high seeds perform???

It's a travesty that conference received a 3rd bid. Sam and Central Ark aren't 2 of the 8 best teams in the bracket.

[Professor Chaos]

I’m surprised at Jacksonville State barely registering, and Sam Houston and Central Arkansas being a less than 1%.
Their conferences got some ‘splaining to do Lucy......
Maybe they will too......that is some of the fun I’ll have watching the playoffs.......
How do those 3 high seeds perform???

It’s also a bit of a surprise to see teams 4-7 all have to play 1st round games, but still have better odds than the 3 seeded teams.

This is the 3rd time in the last 4 years that JSU has been the #3 seed. They've yet to win a playoff game as a 3 seed in that span. They lost to SHSU in 2014 and YSU last year.

[MNLonghorn10]

It's a travesty that conference received a 3rd bid. Sam and Central Ark aren't 2 of the 8 best teams in the bracket.

Their mouth breathing fans, who are never right about anything when it comes to the fcs playoffs, disagree.