In a perfect world seeding teams 1-16 would be a positive. In the playoff committee’s world seeding would skewed badly due to tryng to take the cheapest way out.
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FUBeAR did some of his typical HEAVY-DUTY / Comprehensive analysis on Playoff Results vs. Playoff Seeds under the current 24 Team / 8 Seed structure (2013-2022; except 2020) last night. (216 data points to review/analyze)
He may share some of the details of his findings, but here a few 'bottom lines' and really interesting findings as a 'tease'
* a Top 3 Seed is REALLY critical for success in the Playoffs
* #3 Seed may be the best seed from which to 'meet & exceed' expectations (#3 Seed's have NEVER lost a Quarterfinal game)
* #6 Seed is weird - really an underperforming slot (for some reason?)
* #5 Seed is, shockingly, a better 'slot' than the #4 Seed
* #7 Seed ain't bad...not Top 3 and not as good a place to be as #5, but still an OK 'slot'
* Unseeded Teams' chances of making it to the Quarterfinal round are not much greater than 1 in 10.
As the Playoff Committee SUBJECTIVELY determines the seeds, we should all be 'pushing' (in whatever ways we might do that) for Furman (assuming we win a bunch of games (no less than 9, TBH)) to be, AT WORST, the #3 Seed in this year's Playoffs.
* Since 2013 (not counting 2020), the SoCon has only had 5 seeded Teams (out of 72)(6.9%). Big Sky has had 19 (26.4%), MVFC has had 16 (22.2%), CAA has had 13 (18%) - THIS IS INSANE!
* The highest seeded SoCon Teams in that timeframe have been #6 Seeds (2x) - see above - #6 Seed for whatever reason...and it ain't the 2 SoCon Teams (1 made a quarterfinal game (as expected) and the other lost to another Unseeded SoCon Team (DAMMIT!) in Round 2)...is the worst Seeded 'slot'
* Of the 45 Top 5 Seeds since 2013 (not including 2020), 31.1% have gone to the MVFC, 24.4% have gone to the Big Sky, 20% have gone to the CAA. That's 75.6% of Top 5 Seeds going to those 3 Conferences.
* Of the 36 Top 4 RESULTS (Semifinals or better) since 2013 (not including 2020), the MVFC has achieved 41.7% of those, the Big Sky has achieved 19.4% of those, the CAA has achieved 25% of those. That's 96.1% of the Top 4 Results going to those 3 Conferences.
* Interestingly, the Southland has only received 4 of the 45 Top 5 seeds (8.9%), but the Southland has attained 11.1% of the Top 4 Results...but, even more interestingly, the Southland's 4 Top 5 seeded Teams have achieved 0% of the Top 4 Results. 3 #4 Seeded Southland Teams and 1 #5 Seeded Southland Team didn't make it past the Quarterfinals
* The OVC is the only other Conference to have a single Top 4 Result in the 24 Team/8 Seeds era (excluding 2020) when Jax State was the Runner-Up in 2015 as the #1 Seed.
Using some FUBeAR 'voodoo math' which may (or may not) be valid and descriptive, FUBeAR calculates (using 'expected results' based on average seed (using 12.5 ((9+16)/2) as the value for ALL Unseeded Teams and the expected result for unseeded Teams is to win 50% of 1st round games) the following....(gotta remember though - FUBeAR STRONGLY believes a week off, a home game, and often an inferior opponent is WAY TOO MUCH of an advantage for many highly seeded teams - so their results are somewhat 'self-fulfilled' by the seed they were granted)
ALL SEEDS Including Unseeded
Rank Conference Perf. To Exp.
1 MVFC 168.51%
2 Big South 158.97%
3 Southland 149.28%
4 CAA 137.33%
5 OVC 122.00%
6 SoCon 118.42%
7 Patriot League 100.00%
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8 Big Sky 91.19%
9 PFL 44.44%
10 NEC 22.22%
11 WAC / ASUN-WAC 13.33%
12 Independent 0.00%
12 MEAC 0.00%
12 SWAC 0.00%
SEEDS NOT Including Unseeded
Rank Conference Perf. To Exp.
1 MVFC 114.69%
2 CAA 108.21%
3 Patriot League 100.00%
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4 SoCon 90.00%
5 Big South 88.89%
6 Big Sky 83.77%
7 Southland 79.17%
8 OVC 46.00%
9 WAC / ASUN-WAC 40.00%
This tells FUBeAR...
* MVFC probably deserves their seedings - might be interesting to extract NDSU, but think they will still look good (did it - was correct - MVFC still looks pretty good w/o NDSU in this analysis)
* CAA has been fairly deserving - thinking that FUBeAR will extract JMU and look at that though (did extract JMU - not much change)
* SoCon has been a bit under-seeded - #6 CIT losing to unseeded Woffy in 2016 AND small sample size skews this data
* BIGGEST FINDING - As expected...Big Sky has been consistently OVER-seeded
