Based on the KenPom ratings, the NIT semifinal between Washington State (#35) and Texas A&M (#41) has a lower summation of total ordinal rankings (76) than the sweet 16 game between Iowa State (#38) and Miami (#44) (82).

On Friday, March 25, 2022 at 9:28:03 AM UTC-5, JGibson wrote:
> Based on the KenPom ratings, the NIT semifinal between Washington State (#35) and Texas A&M (#41) has a lower summation of total ordinal rankings (76) than the sweet 16 game between Iowa State (#38) and Miami (#44) (82).

This is a good example of why people should focus on the rating more so than the ranking when viewing kenpom/sagarin/bpi type ratings. According to kenpom, if any two of these teams played each other on a neutral court, then the predicted MOV would be <1 point.

JGibson <james.m.gibson@gmail.com> wrote:
> Based on the KenPom ratings, the NIT semifinal between Washington State
> (#35) and Texas A&M (#41) has a lower summation of total ordinal rankings
> (76) than the sweet 16 game between Iowa State (#38) and Miami (#44) (82).
>

It’s to be expected that the top teams in the NIT could have been
NCAA-worthy. It’s just a question of how many small conference auto-bids
you want to take away to rectify this. Heck the whole reason we have a
first four is to try squeeze in more at-large teams as the number of
conferences entitled to auto-bids increased.

--
“I usually skip over your posts because of your disguistng, contrarian,
liberal personality.” — Altie

> It’s to be expected that the top teams in the NIT could have been
> NCAA-worthy. It’s just a question of how many small conference auto-bids
> you want to take away to rectify this. Heck the whole reason we have a
> first four is to try squeeze in more at-large teams as the number of
> conferences entitled to auto-bids increased.

Actually, that's the reason they created the "first one" (i.e. the one Dayton game, always between two 16-seeds, and somebody probably still has to explain to Jim Rome that yes, it did count as a tournament game). The NCAA added three more mainly because it got tired of listening to too many people whine about the teams that got left out. I am all for additional expansion to 80 - why not have a separate "first four" city in each region - but there will still be whining from some of the teams left out; at what point do you say, "Sorry, but we think that the at-large teams in the tournament have a legitimate shot at winning, and you don't"?

How about this: every conference gets 1; every team that got into the second round the previous year earns its conference another team - that's 64.

On Friday, March 25, 2022 at 2:42:03 PM UTC-4, xyzzy wrote:
> JGibson <james.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Based on the KenPom ratings, the NIT semifinal between Washington State
> > (#35) and Texas A&M (#41) has a lower summation of total ordinal rankings
> > (76) than the sweet 16 game between Iowa State (#38) and Miami (#44) (82).
> >
> It’s to be expected that the top teams in the NIT could have been
> NCAA-worthy. It’s just a question of how many small conference auto-bids
> you want to take away to rectify this. Heck the whole reason we have a
> first four is to try squeeze in more at-large teams as the number of
> conferences entitled to auto-bids increased.

Nothing really to rectify. A run by St. Peter's, who would have been excluded if there were no auto-bids, is actually more fun than a run by Washington State or A&M. It was more just an amusing note. Note that the other NIT semifinal between Xavier (#56 kenpom) and St. Bonaventure (#73 kenpom) does not have the sam effect. In fact, even after NIT and NCAA games have been played, St. Bonaventure is still only above 1 NCAA at-large team - Rutgers (#77), while Xavier adds the other play-in game loser in Wyoming (#65).

Watching the changes of the teams as the tournament goes on always amuses me. Using, kenpom, North Carolina was seeded correctly as a #8 seed (30th) going into the tournament, but if we reseeded the entire tournament now, they should be a #4 seed. Washington State was 55th when the tournament was selected but their NIT run has them up to 37th (was 35th when I posted my post above).