I agree Indiana St was snubbed but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter much since they weren't going to do anything other than maybe win one game. I thought the seeds were pretty good. You could argue that JMU could've been seeded over Maine but I thought Colgate deserved a seed, I thought all 3 Big Sky teams that got them deserved a seed, and grudgingly I even thought Kennesaw deserved it (although they seem the most Jacksonville State-ish of any of this year's seeds).
If I'm the selection committee I don't give two shits about the optics of putting SDSU and JMU on NDSU's side of the bracket if that's the way it works out. Blame SDSU for a losing a game they shouldn't have at UNI or they'd be the 2 or 3 seed. Blame JMU for losing games they shouldn't have to Elon and UNH or they'd be the 2 or 3 seed. They're both easily justifiable in the spots they're at due to on-field performance (or lack thereof). The minute they try to start moving teams around based on optics is when things will really get politically messy inside that committee room. "Wait!" says Big Sky rep "if you're going to put SDSU on the bottom side of the bracket to get them away from NDSU than I want my top 2, EWU and Weber, separated as well". I keep hearing that the selection committee approach is too political already and you'd just be inviting more politics into the fray to consider optics when it comes to building the bracket.
Too lazy to keep going back to find your original post, so quoting this one.
I ran some crude statistical analyses to test whether the two sides of the bracket differed in perceived strength. For simplicity I used Sagarin ratings. Again, these are quick and borderline unacceptable given the low sample size (12 scores per group).
Left side:
Mean: 57.70
Variance: 148.44
Sum of Squares: 1632.89
df: 11
Right side:
Mean: 53.80
Variance: 92.77
Sum of Squares: 1020.48
df: 11
With a 2-tailed hypothesis test the t statistic is 0.87, which leads to a p value of .39 at alpha = .05. The effect size is small to medium (Cohen's d = .36).
Removing NDSU from the calculations reduces the variance from our side of the bracket, but reduces the p value to .67.
In other words, even though the mean Sagarin ratings are numerically higher for our side of the bracket (w/ or w/o NDSU in the calculation), the sides do not differ statistically. Now, if we had these same means and a sample size of 40 teams per group, this would be a meaningful difference, so grain of salt.
Well if you consider Incarnate Word's conference wins in the Southland equal to ISUb's conference wins in the MVFC I guess, but I think that's kinda crazy.
I wonder if the politics of the MVFC and the CAA each getting a team in with 6 wins led to the Southland getting one in as well as opposed to the MVFC getting two?
Last edited by EC8CH; 11-19-2018 at 08:38 PM.
Who the hell said life was fair anyway?
Not aimed at anyone in particular, but with the exception of last year, BV bitching about how NDSU is treated by the Committee has almost become an annual event. All through the season, most have said the Bison are better than the rest of the FCS. Now is the time to really prove it.
The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
Paul Fix.
Nope, never said it needed to be fair. It could make for a better tournament with tougher teams being spread out a bit more. More compelling games.
That said, I don't think JMU is the juggernaut they think they are and might actually get trucked by Colgate. (hope that doesn't go up on the bulletin board).
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We see it every year, teams we think should be seeded higher or are a better team and put in the wrong spot, end up choking and losing a game they shouldn't. I sort of care about ISUb but not for the Valley aspect, but more for Grant and his fellow coaches. I know they worked their tails off this year and just came up short. Other than them, I don't give a rip about where anyone else is at. I say bring anyone on, I'm ready for some physical smash mouth football from a confident team that wants to come in and punch us in the mouth. Come in like GSU and stand at midfield during the intro. Come in like Richmond and crawl around on all fours like a bunch of spiders as the Bison are coming out. JMU came in to the FFD and knocked us out, props. I want those types of teams to come in. Sure makes beating them feel that much better. We're on a totally different level than the rest of the field.
Go Bison!
8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17>1