ISU snubbed by NIT - declines CBI & CIT

[sportsnut2]

regardless of their seeds - I documented that VERY few midmajor (non-power) conference teams got at-large bids - that were ranked any lower by the selection committee than Wichita..

Read it - I gave the link - just Boise State, St. Mary's, LaSalle, MTSU (and that one caused a lot of uproar) and all the rest who had lower seeds got there automatically - NOT BY at-large bid.
So like it or not - Wichita was seen by most as one of the LAST mid-major teams in..

Ok, so they were 5th to last MID MAJOR team in. So, not counting the bubble teams from major conferences, I'd say they were pretty much a lock to make the tourney. According to what you just posted they would not even have been the "last 4 in" of mid majors, let alone from all conferences.

[sportsnut2]

This thread disappeared then magically reappears.

[Da Coach]

I think you are mistaken. Nothing in this thread has been edited or removed.

[tornado]

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21927

and Wichita wasn't that far from being left out

[TheAsianSensation]

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21927

and Wichita wasn't that far from being left out

This is a thread from December. What's the point. Resumes change from December to March. Wichita played their way up. ISU played their way out. I had the Valley at 2 bids, with possible variance. What happened was within a normal range in what I was projecting as an average Valley.

[Tulsa Brave]

Wichita State was the 12th to last at-large team selected. In the worst of years, anyone with a clue can get the field right with at most 3-4 teams wrong. In an average year, you may miss 1 or 2 teams. This year was easier than normal, and the entire field was easy to predict...the only possible team to have missed was swapping Tennessee for Middle Tennessee. Anyone who bothered to do the math and use the criteria the committee uses knew this. Wichita State and the next 10 teams behind them were all virtual locks this season. It was simple this year, and the only way it could have been mire simple would have been if Middle Tennessee had gone ahead and won the Sun Belt tourney. Then Tennessee would have been in, and virtually every bracketologist with a brain would have predicted all 68 teams in the field correctly.

[Tulsa Brave]

Somebody didn't like the fact that the MVC was so weak it only had 1 team in the NCAA tourney from '08-'11????

I guess facts here are deleted if they don't match the company line that the MVC is so weak this year compared to all those past years...

[AE Braves Fan]

LOL @ the guy who counted CIT/CBI teams as "dancing".

Those tournaments are for schools willing to pay $$ for a couple extra games.

If you don't think The Valley was down this year then you weren't paying attention.

[Tulsa Brave]

LOL @ the guy who counted CIT/CBI teams as "dancing".

Those tournaments are for schools willing to pay $$ for a couple extra games.

If you don't think The Valley was down this year then you weren't paying attention.

Have you emailed Pomeroy or Sagarin to tell them their formulas are way off??? I'm trusting them, especially those efficiency based numbers, long before some message board hacks who likely have little or no statistical background...

[TheAsianSensation]

Yeah there's a TB post missing from last night. Harrumph.

The fact is the Valley had an average year for them. Not great. No one's championing the MVC this year. They had an average year. You could even argue a bit below average if you wanted to. Not much, but a little. I'm actually on board with that.

But to think that other people are celebrating this year for the Valley is wrong. Also to say it's way down is just factually wrong.

[tornado]

one more time for those who chose to miss it...
the Valley had two solid teams - then the rest was weak - weak enough that the weakness below the top two was enough to drag the entire MVC down to where it's as low as it has been in almost any year since the early 2000's
..whether the MVC got 1 bid or 2 in any given year had more to do with selection committee bias than strength of conference..
One or two wins over a Miami or a VCU doesn't prove a thing if then those team can't even beat SIU..
The 7-3 in BracketBuster was a result of matchups with pretty weak teams - and you need go no further than to look at BU - the 8-9th best team in the MVC - beating UIC on the road - a middle-of-the-pack Horizon team.
When we have a team in this year's Sweet Sixteen then I still wouldn't be convinced since I already told you we had TWO solid teams at the top...but the fact that even the NIT was totally unimpressed with what we had knowing that Valley teams draw way better than those low-majors...and then still gave us only one NIT bid...

[TheAsianSensation]

one more time for those who chose to miss it...
the Valley had two solid teams - then the rest was weak - weak enough that the weakness below the top two was enough to drag the entire MVC down to where it's as low as it has been in almost any year since the early 2000's

Conference RPI, by year, for the Valley, in terms of ranking, and raw value:

2013 MVC 9th .534
2012 MVC 9th .526
2011 MVC 11th .515
2010 MVC 7th .537
2009 MVC 9th .523
2008 MVC 8th .536
2007 MVC 6th .554
2006 MVC 6th .547
2005 MVC 8th .536
2004 MVC 7th .510
2003 and before, MVC was much worse

So this was the MVC's best year in the last 3, and 2nd best year in the last 5. That's not "as low as it's ever been since the early 2000s". It IS lower than the peak of 04-08, for sure.

I would actually argue we're on par with 2010 because this year we had a one-year anomaly with the super-expanded A-10 throwing off the numbers a bit.

[TheAsianSensation]

When we have a team in this year's Sweet Sixteen then I still wouldn't be convinced since I already told you we had TWO solid teams at the top...but the fact that even the NIT was totally unimpressed with what we had knowing that Valley teams draw way better than those low-majors...and then still gave us only one NIT bid...

First off, with higher seeds hosting, they don't even consider attendance anymore. If they did, they would send Kentucky to Northeastern or some other AQ school that draws better than RMU. All the teams on the NIT bubble don't host anyways. So I'm not sure why you're bringing up attendance.

And I've been saying this for years upon years: The NIT selection committee is awful. They should never, ever, ever, be used as a barometer of how successful a team or league really is

The 7-3 in BracketBuster was a result of matchups with pretty weak teams - and you need go no further than to look at BU - the 8-9th best team in the MVC - beating UIC on the road - a middle-of-the-pack Horizon team.

Indiana State beat Iona, a NCAA tournament team (yeah Iona was in a crowded top of the MAAC, but still. NCAA tournament team)
Wichita State beat a team good enough to get an at-large NIT bid
Evansville beat a T-3 Horizon program
Drake beat the other T-3 Horizon program
now SIU and MSU did beat bad MAC teams, we beat a marginal Horizon team

The 3 losses were on the road to Utah St (of course, ISU screws up the comparison), at home to Denver (a team good enough for an NIT at large bid) and a roadie to St Mary's (good enough for NCAA at-large bid).

Sure, the schedule wasn't gangbusters, but I wouldn't call Iona, Detroit, Green Bay, and Wright St weak.

7-3 in BB was perfectly average.

One or two wins over a Miami or a VCU doesn't prove a thing if then those team can't even beat SIU..

Kansas lost to TCU, Temple lost to Duquesne and got a 9 seed, and so on. Bad losses happen. They don't erase the good. As evidenced by Wichita's 9 seed itself.

..whether the MVC got 1 bid or 2 in any given year had more to do with selection committee bias than strength of conference..

True to a degree, but as mentioned in my previous post, the 1 bid years generally coincided with the down years of the Valley. It's trended back up, and 2 bids. There.