NCAAT selection process involves analytics discussions

[Harry0569]

Thank goodness!

http://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men ... s-involves

The number crunchers are headed for the NCAA offices.

What happens if you put the top basketball metric gurus in the same room and let them talk analytics? They’re about to find out in Indianapolis. Oh, how the formulas will fly when the NCAA hosts a meeting on Friday, Jan. 20 designed to speed the inclusion of more metrics in the selection process for the basketball tournament.

From Jeff Sagarin and his golden mean, to Ken Pomeroy and his adjusted offensive efficiency, to Kevin Pauga and his KPI to Ben Alamar with ESPN’s BPI, they’ll all be there. A math geek’s dream team.
“It’ll be absolutely fascinating. I can’t imagine they’ve been together very much, if ever. There’ll be a lot of brain power in the room,” said Dan Gavitt, the NCAA senior vice president of basketball.

“I’m going to have to strap on in the meetings to stay up with all the calculus that’s going to be discussed, but I’m excited about it,” said Jim Schaus, the Ohio University athletic director who will be representing the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee.

There’s a reason for this meeting of the math minds. The NABC, representing the coaches, has sent a message that it would like to look into the use of more advanced metrics in the selection and seeding process. An even more powerful microscope to go with the time-honored RPI. The NCAA listened and agreed. A group of coaches and committee members is now at work, and this get-together is for everyone to hear the possibilities for the future — from those who know.

“They’ve got some pretty strong thoughts on what a composite metric could look like and maybe should look like,” Gavitt said of the working group. “I also think they recognize their fallibility in advanced mathematical and analytical areas, so they feel that it’s important to engage experts in the field.”

So are advanced metrics coming to an NCAA tournament bracket near you? Yep, and soon. Gavitt can give several reasons why.

“I think it’s very important because it’s the way so many people engage with following sports these days, and in particular in this case, college basketball. In some ways, maybe young people are right at the top of that list.

“You need to stay relevant in the age that you’re operating in. Certainly relevant today is embracing analytics and technology to the appropriate level.

“In an imperfect process, I think what the committee strives to get as perfect as possible is to have justification and rationale for their decisions. And the more that can be rooted in fact and in data, the more comfortable they can be with those decisions and the more justifiable they can be in explaining them.”

Or as Schaus said, “It’s one of the tools in the tool belt we look at when we try to differentiate teams."

“There’s many examples where when you look at team sheets and look at who they played and who they’ve beaten and where they played, there’s still not a lot of separation," he added. "I think it’s especially important when you look at teams that have very different backgrounds in terms of their schedule. Some teams have perhaps more ability and access to play higher ranked teams and to have their top 50 or top 100 wins than others. But when you look at those other things from a metrics standpoint, they kind of help level the playing field.”

So let the calculations begin. An aggregate metric could be an official part of the selection process as early as 2018.

There will be some challenges in the process. One will be distilling all the systems down to something clear and defined. Lots of decimal points floating out there among these guys, who use them in various ways. As Gavitt said of Friday’s guest list, “It’s a good mixture of folks who value different things.

“They all have their top 50s, so when you’re talking about top 50 wins or top 100 wins or bad losses, you can use several different metrics right now. I think the thought here is, if we can get to a composite that is a combination of many of those and come up with one metric, then the opportunity for debate and criticism isn’t quite as strong.

“Not one of them’s perfect. And even a composite of all of them will still be imperfect. Hopefully it will be closer to perfect than what we currently have and I think that’s where the group feels it can be, and that’s why we think it’s so important to do this.”

Another hurdle is making sure metrics are a valuable resource, but not the end-all.

Schaus: “I think always the most critical things in terms of determining where teams are placed is always going to be who you play and who you beat and where you played those games.

“But I think when you go through the process you realize there’s still a lot of other information that’s valuable. We can look back at metrics over the last number of years, and see they have been successful in providing predictive information. But I think we understand, when you have a committee, there’s always going to be some subjectivity when you have a human element. That’s a whole lot better than trying to create some kind of a metric that all you do is plug in the numbers and then you kick out teams and there’s the tournament. I hope we never get to that, because sometimes there have to be judgments made that a computer just can’t make.”

Gavitt: “I go to a lot of games. I watch a ton of games. So observation is always going to be high on the list for me, too. I think the two work hand in hand. Data has a potential to verify the things that you’re seeing, or bring into question things that you’re seeing.

“Sport is imperfect and the game’s imperfect by its nature, and so things you couldn’t possibly measure by data and analytics will always be part of the season. This is a good example this year with so many key players missing large portions of games, a pretty significant coach [Mike Krzyzewski] missing games. How do you figure that with data? Some things can’t be.”

But a lot of things can.

“Strength in numbers,” Schaus called it. “We want to make sure we’ve taken our time to do it right.”

Which is why they’ll be having algorithms with lunch Friday at the NCAA.

[hoopmanx]

I'm fine w/all that, cause you have to keep up w/the times, but honestly, I'd like to look at a tourney that loses automatic bids. Thats the biggest obstacle to getting the 64 or 68 best teams or whatever. As long as you're devaluing a 16 game regular season slate to reward one-off garbage tourney champs, imperfection is the only possible result. Bubble teams that deserve in based off their entire resume, end up sitting b/c a 12-17 team gets hot and wins the OVC. We can use analytics all day to determine seeding, but it still doesn't get the deserving in or off the bubble. Its just a means to determine which deserving team is slightly more deserving, since a far less deserving program has already eaten a valued spot. Beyond that, money be damned, reward major power conference elite for actually playing OOC on the road. This prevailing attitude of high major scheduling is 'we can't afford that loss' as opposed to encouraging programs to be road warriors and win anywhere.

[untitled]

How about an additional game the day after the conference tourney championship pitting the tourney champ against the regular season champ (if those teams aren't one and the same)? Winner gets the autobid.

It is really stupid that the regular season championship means basically nothing as to the one thing that really matters: access to the NCAAs. But I can't see them completely devaluing the conference tourneys, either - you need those games to mean something so people travel/show up.

[sadderbudweiser]

I hope there's a flatscreen with a good game on in that room otherwise I'm falling asleep. Analytics is one thing. Talking about analytics? Nah. ZZZZZZZZZZ

[smitty329]

Who will be the first school to protest that the Russians had hacked the analytics data/results to influence the outcome of the tourney seeding? Somewhat rhetorical - most likely one of the first four out.

[Stallion]

How about an additional game the day after the conference tourney championship pitting the tourney champ against the regular season champ (if those teams aren't one and the same)? Winner gets the autobid.

It is really stupid that the regular season championship means basically nothing as to the one thing that really matters: access to the NCAAs. But I can't see them completely devaluing the conference tourneys, either - you need those games to mean something so people travel/show up.

interesting-probably only necessary if a Tournament Champion wasn't otherwise qualified for NCAA Tournament. Hmm that might be something to look at

[Charleston Pony]

How about an additional game the day after the conference tourney championship pitting the tourney champ against the regular season champ (if those teams aren't one and the same)? Winner gets the autobid.

It is really stupid that the regular season championship means basically nothing as to the one thing that really matters: access to the NCAAs. But I can't see them completely devaluing the conference tourneys, either - you need those games to mean something so people travel/show up.

This is why the NIT gives auto bids to regular season champs who don't win their tourney. More of an issue for mid-majors as the P5 regular season champs all get bids and losing their tourneys only affects their seeding

[untitled]

How about an additional game the day after the conference tourney championship pitting the tourney champ against the regular season champ (if those teams aren't one and the same)? Winner gets the autobid.

It is really stupid that the regular season championship means basically nothing as to the one thing that really matters: access to the NCAAs. But I can't see them completely devaluing the conference tourneys, either - you need those games to mean something so people travel/show up.

This is why the NIT gives auto bids to regular season champs who don't win their tourney. More of an issue for mid-majors as the P5 regular season champs all get bids and losing their tourneys only affects their seeding

Ok, then the loser of the final game (regular season champ vs. tourney champ) gets an autobid to the NIT. Win the regular season or the conference tourney, and you're guaranteed an NIT spot, at worst.

It'll probably never happen, but it would be pretty cool and would be a bigger reward for regular season champs in the mid-major leagues.