This is not specifically related to any specific situation this year, just more of a curiosity of opinions of the board (though after thinking about it, it may very well apply to UCLA this year....). This kinda came to mind as it was being discussed in another thread about Purdue got the #1 ranking back in December, but isn't playing like a 1 seed now.
There have been several cases where a team is playing well, deserving of a decently high seed, but one of the starters gets injured late in the season and will be out for the remainder.
More often than not, the selection committee ends up dropping that team a seed line or two. The argument being that the selection committee is putting together a list of the "best" teams and how they are playing right now.
Is that right or wrong though? Should you be ranking / seeding teams based upon how they are currently playing (the old, "last ten games record" index that the committee used to use as a data point), or should it be based upon your collective body of work?
I tend to lean towards the "collective body of work", but I suspect I am in the minority on that. Yet every year we get a team like Iowa that will get hot for a week or two, blow through their conference tournament, and all the media / sport-writers will say "Look out for Iowa, they are coming into the tournament on a 7 of 8 winning streak, you don't want to see them in the tournament!!1", only then to have said team bow out in the first round to Richmond, or North Texas, etc. Some teams get hot at the end of the year, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are good.
There have been several cases where a team is playing well, deserving of a decently high seed, but one of the starters gets injured late in the season and will be out for the remainder.
More often than not, the selection committee ends up dropping that team a seed line or two. The argument being that the selection committee is putting together a list of the "best" teams and how they are playing right now.
Is that right or wrong though? Should you be ranking / seeding teams based upon how they are currently playing (the old, "last ten games record" index that the committee used to use as a data point), or should it be based upon your collective body of work?
I tend to lean towards the "collective body of work", but I suspect I am in the minority on that. Yet every year we get a team like Iowa that will get hot for a week or two, blow through their conference tournament, and all the media / sport-writers will say "Look out for Iowa, they are coming into the tournament on a 7 of 8 winning streak, you don't want to see them in the tournament!!1", only then to have said team bow out in the first round to Richmond, or North Texas, etc. Some teams get hot at the end of the year, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are good.
