The best thing to say about Western Athletic Conference’s new approach to seeding annual conference tournaments is to remind everyone that the Western Athletic Conference still exists.
My own reaction can be printed on this family-friendly publication, so it may not be the worst thing one can say. This is what I tweeted after Matt Norlander of CBS Sports broke the story about WAC’s stupidity.
If you used to think that the WAC was small, now you can prove that the WAC is overrated. https://t.co/pc6uP8ETAV
— Michael DeCourcy (@tsnmike) July 11, 2022
The point of the idea is that WAC men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will no longer be seeded, depending on how the team finishes in the regular season standings.Instead, the team is seeded through a formula developed by statistician Ken Pomeroy. It utilizes the NCAA’s NET ranking.. NET is designed to reward teams for more challenging competition inside and outside the meeting, but to some extent there are also components that emphasize the margin of victory. This approach also means that games outside the meeting influence how the competition in the meeting is held.
No to the team that the team finished 18-0 and was 15-3 but had a tighter non-conference schedule. 1 WAC Tournament Seeds may be lost.
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Why do you want every league to be as basic as the meeting rankings are so complicated? Why does the league want to devaluate something that is essential, such as a regular season conference title?
The new WAC Commissioner, Brian Thornton, was Xavier’s 2006 team star forward, winning the stunning Atlantic 10 Tournament Championship with a 21-10 record and 14th place seed. He told Nolander that this approach would maximize the potential NCAA tournament seeds offered for WAC automated bidding and increase the likelihood that meeting members would win large bids.
Last season, New Mexico was WAC’s highest rated NET team, ranked 78th according to WarrenNolan.com. Aggie’s also won first-place seeds in WAC tournaments and won automatic bids. They won the 12th seed in the western region and suffered a slight defeat to the 4th seed Arkansas after defeating the 5th seed UConn in the first round.
Thornton said other WAC participants are unlikely to get lower seeds and move forward. Perhaps this approach motivates members to put together a more challenging non-conference schedule and perhaps strengthen their NET rankings, which could even lead to bids for large NCAA tournaments.
The WAC is still a member of teams such as Nevada, Fresno, Louisiana Tech, and Boysi, and is the second NCAA bid since 2010 when New Mexico (automatic qualifying) and Utah (overall) participated in March Madness. Have not won. No.12 seed.
Now it’s another league, and the road to bidding for the second NCAA tournament is a long way off. It is certainly not worth distorting the competition of the conference to this extent in pursuit of the equivalent of a dream.
College basketball conferences rarely try to experiment like this, but it happened. In the 2018-19 season, Conference USA chose to adopt a new schedule format devised by consultants. This changed the last three weeks of the league schedule, allowing the top teams to play exclusively with each other, making the schedule just as powerful. Whenever possible, each had more opportunities to achieve a higher quality victory.
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However, the schedule is intended to be modified. Fans need to be able to see before the season begins and predict when a particular team will come to town. Season ticket owners need to be able to plan when to join the game. TV tweaks have been with us long enough for everyone to understand that game time may need to be flexible, but fans still play games on certain days or weekends. You should be able to expect.
Using the traditional 2018 schedule, C-USA saw Marshall win the conference tournament, win the 13th seed, and beat the 4th seed Wichita to move forward.
In 2019, using a bad schedule, Old Dominion claimed the 1st seed and won the C-USA auto bid … then the committee presented the 14th seed and the 1st round. I was defeated in.
When the league returned to its normal schedule in 2022, the UAB won the league’s automatic bids against candidates North Texas and Louisiana Tech, and the league’s highest 12th NCAA since 2017, when Middle Tennessee was seeded 12th. I got the seed. South region. This is as remarkable as the C-USA team has been seeded since Memphis left the meeting in 2013.
The Conference USA team was unable to play the game to increase the attention of basketball. They had to play better, and they did.
The strangest thing about WAC being twisted into this particular pretzel is to stage the entire men’s basketball championship on the Las Vegas Neutral Court. Therefore, the difference in seeds is not the advantage of the home court, but the match.
College basketball coaches love everything related to gaming efforts, such as sweat, floor burns, and charging calls. WAC is displayed, but I may do my best.
