Bracketology, Or More Like Racketology

Upset now? Just wait ‘til mid-March

By CARLTON REESE

GatorBaitMedia.com

Todd Golden strategizes with the Florida Gators basketball team during a timeout.Todd Golden discusses strategy with the Florida Gators basketball team during a timeout Photo Credit UA

Florida routed No. 1 Auburn on its home court, just a month after crushing undefeated and No. 1 Tennessee in Gainesville. 

At 20-3 and with two of the best victories of any team in the country, the Gators find themselves ranked in a tie for No. 3 in the Associated Press poll – the 20-3 Duke Blue Devils share the spot with Florida.

The important thing to consider, though, is at this point in time what seed in the NCAA Tournament has Florida earned? 

Whatever the accounting, the Gators certainly seem a no-brainer for a No. 1 seed what with their overall record combined with those two wins that are an absolute rarity. 

Truth is, it matters not a whit because the date is Feb. 11 and not March 16 and a whole lot of jostling will take place over the next month.

Why it does matter is that the thought process going into today’s determinations are the same processes that will take place on Selection Sunday – so if the calculus today seems at best strange and at most extremely flawed, expect a skewed accounting next month as well, and be prepared to throw an object at your flatscreen.

So what is this new-fangled Pythagorean Theorem at the heart of tournament seeding? 

Prepare for the onslaught of “Quad 1” and “Quad 2” wins and losses, the product of some unwashed hippie walking out of Princeton’s Fine Hall. By instituting some banal definition for a quality win or loss, we have supplanted critical thinking with some sterile analysis that bears some fairly rotten fruit.

We are also to become familiar with the none-too-recent arrival of the “bracketologist” – a shameful title that would be funny if it were not actually taken seriously by a large number of fans. It was bad enough that we had to listen to Dick Vitale yell every Selection Sunday that “these kids are crying their eyes out!” that now we have to pay attention to some pseudo-scientist with a fake label speak with some self-anointed authority on a human subject he has only examined through some ledger generated by faulty computer models.

Take, for example, the recent “ludis peritis” at CBS Sports who graced us with their wisdom on the subject. These bracketologists, as they call themselves without recognizing their hubris which defeats them every week, recently gave their reasons why Florida right now actually is NOT a No. 1 seed.

Gary Parrish: “Florida’s record in quadrant one just doesn’t stack up to the other one seeds (Auburn, Duke, Alabama and Tennessee). Auburn is 12-2 in the same quadrant (where Florida is 4-3), Duke 5-3, Tennessee 8-4.”

Jerry Palm: “The (Gators’) win at Auburn would be the best win of any team all year… but, they didn’t play the nonconference schedule these other teams played.”

Put aside for a moment that you may have never heard of Gary Parrish or Jerry Palm – I’m sure they’re capable journalists and know a thing or two about college basketball – one could have a bot propped on a table spewing out the information these two bring. They are just talking heads coughing up tired statistics birthed from uncreative minds in order to supplant serious research. 

Florida is 4-3 in Quad 1 games and Duke is 5-3 – what more analysis than that is needed? 

The data is clear, now shut up and bow before the Mathematica Principia.  

Just what are these quads, anyway? 

Simply put, every team is given a ranking based on an NCAA metric (NET). Any home game played against a team ranked in the top 30 of this metric is deemed to be a “Quad 1 Game” as is any neutral-site game against a team in the top 50 or road game against a team in the top 75. Quad 2, Quad 3 and Quad 4 games follow a similar formula, but with lower rankings in their determinations.

Georgia’s NET ranking is 34, so Florida’s blowout of the Dawgs is not a Quad 1 (for the purpose of the discussion, a “quality”) win. But Cincinnati’s win at Central Florida (ranked 72) IS a Quad 1 win. Anyone beginning to see the absurdity in all this?

In determining the NET rankings, the NCAA uses some alchemic formula that factors in “results, scoring margin, strength of schedule, game location, and efficiency on both sides of the court.” That clear enough? 

The circular logic in this whole thing is more than maddening, it’s like a debate with Steven Bonnell, aka, Destiny. 

“Strength of schedule” is the gerrymandered product of inherent bias; “efficiency on both sides of the court” is, —well, who knows but it sounds smart.

According to these CBS oracles, Tennessee’s nonconference was much better than Florida’s. In fact, Palm stated that Tennessee has at least six more quality wins than Florida in the non-conference – this based on his opinion that Florida had zero quality wins before SEC play. 

Let’s accept the premise then that Florida had no quality wins in non-onference, so that means Tennessee had six by this Muppet’s definition.

The Vols’ three best wins in the nonconference were most definitely against Louisville, Baylor and Illinois, of which only Baylor was ranked at the time. 

Louisville went 0-4 against SEC teams this season and the 6-5 nonconference record translated into a feasting on a buffet of ACC weaklings. 

Baylor, ranked 13 when the Vols drubbed them, had earlier lost by 38 to Gonzaga and has since lost five more times, including at home to TCU. 

Illinois lost by 2 to the Vols, but was destroyed by Alabama and has now dropped from the rankings with a rather-ordinary 16-8 record.

By any rational statistical measure, this is not a verdict in Tennessee’s favor, yet in the eyes of Parrish and Palm, there is no questioning of the narrative —they are inclined to force feed their audience. They have not even examined the numbers and completely ignored any human element involved.

On Feb. 11, all this talk is merely a slice of time that will be long forgotten in a month when losses pile up and victories astound here, thereby changing the names and faces of those dominating the discussion. But all must keep in mind, the cold numbers and narrow insights that today produce these absurd conclusions will be what also determines the absurd conclusions we are likely to see on Selection Sunday. 

Go ahead and save your ire for March 16, but don’t say you weren’t warned.