NCAA seed

[YardBirds13]

Its higher than that for sure. No need to further discuss this, though.

You gotta look at their overall resume tho Mack. They have played as well as anyone the past month and a half or so. But you have to remember that OOC play matters in the seeding of these teams. Maryland didn't beat anyone out of conference. That has to matter some when you are seeding them.

Look, I'm not saying it's completely out of the question that they could get a #2 seed, and hey, with as bad as UVA is right now, I'm rooting for the Terps.

But I just can't see how even with an ACC Tournament Title that their resume is better than a Villanova, or an Ohio State etc.

I guess it's silly to argue now. But hey, I'll be in Greensboro next week, and after UVA gets knocked out on Thursday I'll be rooting for the Terps to win the whole thing and prove me wrong.

[Floater]

At this point I really hope we get the 3 seed or mess up and get the 6th seed...makes the road to the Elite Eight so much easier. But I say we end up with a 4 seed and will most likely have to go through Cuse Kentucky or Kansas, all very scary teams in terms of size and talent. It is all gonna come down to matchups for Maryland. If they run into big teams, they are done. I hate the matchups that Lunardi has us with right now. We'd have to go through Uconn and Mich St just to get to Kansas St. Good God

[mweb]

MD is 20th in RPI right now, winning out with another win against Duke would give them a huge boost in rpi, likely into the top 12. That plus winning 10 in a row, including two against Duke gives them a seed most likely, but gives them an outside chance at a 2 depending on what other teams do. Either way, there's not that much of a difference between a 2 and a 3 imo.

BTW, right now with their #5 seed on Lunardi's bracket, they'd have KState as the #1 seed, which would be the best #1 to face imo.

[TakebackOPACY]

I just voted (#5) and then read the thread... the thread changed my thinking a bit, but I think I come up with the same result.

Here's what I thought before reading the thread:

• If the season ended right now, they'd be a #4.
• If they win out and beat Duke, they'll be a #3.
• If they win out and are fortunate enough to avoid Duke, they'll be a #3 or #4, probably a #4.
• If they do any less than that, they'll slip to a #5. This is the most likely scenario.
• It wouldn't take much to slip to a #6 (lose badly, lose in the 1st round of the ACC, lose at UVA).

After reading the thread, I think they are a #5 today, but are a little less likely to slip if they lose just one more. Beat UVA and make it the 2nd round of the ACC and they might hold onto that #5.

The important thing beyond getting to the tourney was to get better than a #7. The last two wins (especially last night) locked that up in my opinion unless they really play themselves out of it.

[JamesI]

Right now I'll say a 4. Get to the ACC championship and you're up to a 2 or 3 depending on how the others falter.

[sportsfan8703]

If we win out we could get a 2. I think we will probably be a 4. I'm not afraid of any of the possible number 1 or 2 seeds.

[Don Quixote]

Recent NCAA tournament seeding history for Maryland (Gary Williams tenure), and some background figures:

1994: #10, Midwest (16-11 regular season [including ACC tournament], 8-8 ACC regular season, lost in quarterfinals of ACC tournament; made NCAA Sweet Sixteen)

1995: #3, West (24-7, 12-4 [regular season champion], lost in ACC semifinal; #10 in final AP poll; made NCAA Sweet Sixteen)

1996: #7, West (17-12, 8-8, lost in ACC semifinal; lost in NCAA first round)

1997: #5, Southeast (21-10, 9-7, lost in ACC semifinal; #22 AP; lost in NCAA first round)

1998: #4, West (19-10, 10-6, lost in ACC semifinal; #20 AP; made NCAA Sweet Sixteen)

1999: #2, South (26-5, 13-3, lost in ACC semifinal; #5 AP; made NCAA Sweet Sixteen)

2000: #3, Midwest (24-9, 11-5, lost in ACC final; #17 AP; lost in NCAA second round)

2001: #3, West (21-10, 10-6, lost in ACC semifinal; #11 AP; made NCAA Final Four)

2002: #1, East (#1 overall seed) (26-4, 15-1 [regular season co-champion], lost in ACC semifinal; #4 AP; won NCAA championship)

2003: #6, South (19-9, 11-5, lost in ACC quarterfinal; #17 AP; made NCAA Sweet Sixteen)

2004: #4, West (19-11, 7-9, won ACC tournament; #19 AP; lost in NCAA second round)

2007: #4, Midwest/St. Louis (24-8, 10-6, lost in ACC first round; #17 AP; lost in NCAA second round)

2009: #10, West/Glendale (19-12, 7-9, lost in ACC semifinal; lost in NCAA second round)

Looking back, the general numbers indicate a resemblance to the '94-'95, '98-'99 and '99-'00 seasons, in which they garnered #3, #2, and #3 seeds respectively. If they win out including the ACC tournament, they'll be 26-7, have at least a share of the regular season championship as well as the tournament title, and will most likely be a #2 seed, since even in the not-so-great '03-'04 season, they grabbed a #4 seed by virtue of winning the conference tournament. If they win Saturday and lose in the tournament semifinal, which has happened surprisingly often, then that'll be 24-8 and #3/#4 territory - #3 in a "bad" region, #4 in an okay one. Lose Saturday and win the tournament, that's 25-8 and probably #3/#4 territory as well, but more towards #3 by virtue of the title. Lose Saturday and fail to win the tournament, and that's nine losses and probably a #5, with #6 being the absolute worst I can see, and probably only happening if they have a two-game skid Saturday and in the tournament quarterfinals (they'll be the #2 seed, and #5-12 play in the first round, so they can't lose there).

[O'sFanThruJune]

Watching Sportscenter today, they were discussing the 4th #1 seed (after the three obvious ones), and mentioned Duke, Kansas State, and... Ohio State? In this thread, I'm seeing Ohio State listed as a 2/3 seed, but even that has me a little confused. Could someone tell me what I'm missing with this team?

Record: 24-7 (14-4)

Home/Road/Neutral: 17-1; 6-5; 1-1

vs. RPI top-50/top 100: 5-4; 8-6

Good wins (RPI): Cal (22), @Purdue (13), Wisconsin (18), @Mich St (24)

Bad losses (RPI): @Michigan (132)

I think RPI is an extremely overrated metric, but it's not completely meaningless, and an RPI of 29 should tell you that a team should not be in the running for a 1/2 seed. How is this team #6/7 in the polls right now?

To compare:

Record: 21-7 (12-3)

Home/Road/Neutral: 15-1; 6-3; 0-3

vs. RPI top-50/top 100: 5-5; 9-7

Good wins (RPI): Clemson (25), Duke (2)

Bad losses (RPI): None

It seems to me that Maryland is one strong road win (maybe @Clemson) away from being pretty much equal to Ohio State. So how is OSU considered to be three seeds ahead (predicted 1-3 whereas Maryland is predicted 4-6)?

[O'sFanThruJune]

In the last six weeks, OSU has climbed from #20 to #6 in the AP poll on the strength of a 10-1 run, which is pretty impressive until you see who they've been playing:

1 win against Indiana (9-20, 220 RPI)

2 wins against Iowa (10-20, 195 RPI)

2 wins against Penn State (11-18, 190 RPI)

1 win against Michigan (13-15, 132 RPI)

That's 6 of their 10 wins against those four terrible teams. Here are the rest:

1 win against Minnesota (17-12, 76 RPI)

2 wins against Illinois (18-12, 73 RPI)

1 win against Michigan State (23-7, 24 RPI)

1 loss against Purdue (25-4, 13 RPI)

They've jumped 14 spots in the AP poll by basically taking care of business against terrible and average teams, and splitting their two games against good teams (winning @MSU, and losing at home to Purdue). How is that worth a 14-spot climb? I know I shouldn't worry too much about the polls, which are pretty meaningless, but the bracketologists are in agreement. At the bracket project website, only 7 out of 74 brackets have them projected with worse than a #3 seed.

[Don Quixote]

Ohio State lost to three unranked (at the time) teams; one of them is now ranked (Wisconsin, #17). North Carolina is now unranked, but when they beat Ohio State they were #4 and went to 4-0 with that win. Their lone home loss is to Purdue, ranked #4 then and #6 now, by three points.

Maryland lost to four unranked (at the time) teams; one of them is now ranked (again, Wisconsin). Clemson is now unranked, and was #21 when they beat Maryland. Their lone home loss is to WILLIAM & MARY.

That is what they're looking at also, especially the William & Mary loss. If they can start to look past that and Maryland stays on a roll, however, see my post above for possibilities. If they had beaten W&M and didn't have that overtime loss at Wake back in January (the teams were fairly evenly matched at the time), they would have a perfect home record, and control their own destiny as far as the regular season ACC crown, as well as possess an overall record of 24-5, which looks a little more fearsome than 22-7. People would likely be talking #3 seed with a shot at #2 based on games already played.

[Don Quixote]

Forgot to mention - Ohio State currently holds a conference lead in a conference with three other top 20 teams, while Maryland shares a conference lead in a conference with one other national power (I believe Duke eats those three Big Ten teams for lunch most days of the week, mind you). Ohio State also has a bigger conference schedule, albeit only by two games. They're also looking at those factors.

[O'sFanThruJune]

I really can't agree with looking at rankings at the time of the games, except in certain cases (like if you beat a team when they were top-10, but then their best player got hurt and they fell out of the rankings). I'll admit that UNC falls in this category with the sheer number of small injuries they've had, but outside of that I think the current rankings/RPI/Sagarin ratings/whatever else you like are much more germane to the conversation. And those rankings say that OSU and UMD's performance against teams at each tier are pretty similar.

Yes, Maryland lost at home to W&M, but they are currently #59 in RPI, and knocked off some pretty good teams (@Wake, Richmond and VCU at home). That's a disappointing loss, but I don't think it's as bad a loss as losing @Michigan, which OSU did.

I'm not saying that Maryland should be ranked above OSU, I'm just saying there's no way that OSU should be #6 and be talked about as the third-best contender for the last #1 seed. To me, OSU is at most one seed better than Maryland.

[O'sFanThruJune]

At the bracket project site, there are 21 brackets that have been updated since Maryland's win over Duke. Here's how many times OSU and UMD get each seed:

OSU:

1.....1

2.....8

3.....10

4.....0

5.....2

UMD

3.....1

4.....4

5.....14

6.....1

7.....1

With the exception of a couple contrarians, everyone agrees that OSU is a 2/3. Maryland is pretty firmly entrenched as a 5, with only a few people bumping them to a 4. I could buy OSU as a 3 and UMD as a 4, or as 4 and 5 respectively, but I can't put them any farther apart than that when they look so similar to me.

Sensible people can disagree about how to compare teams with completely different kinds of records, like mid-majors vs. majors, or consistently good vs. up-and-down teams, but it seems very easy to me to compare OSU and UMD because they have the same kind of records (very few bad losses, and average records against top-50/top-100 teams). And that comparison tells me that they really just aren't far apart.

I feel like I'm starting to go overboard with this OSU hate; I assure you it's not what's keeping me up all night. I'm working night shift and have very minimal work, so it's just keeping me awake.

[ccbird]

A couple of notes. Not my research, pulled from another board but I'm assuming it is true.

9 teams have finished 12-4 in the ACC, only once did they receive a seed lower than a 3 (UVA in '95)

11 teams have finished 13-3. Only once have they received a seed lower than a #2(GT in '96)

No 13-3 ACC team who won the ACC Tourny has ever been lower than a #1 seed.

Now, we can all agree the ACC is down but it's still 2nd or 3rd in all the conference power rankings I have looked at. I think we can probably downgrade a seed for all of these notes above, but not two. Also, quietly our statistical resume is becoming solid. I think we are a step higher than where most people think we are right now. I would say a high 4 at the moment. These are the remaining scenarios and my seeds for each.

Worst cast scenario: We lose at UVA and first ACC tourny game: 5 seed

Mid scenario: We lose to UVA and win 1 ACC tourny game: 5 seed.

Mid scenario: We lose to UVA and get to the ACC tourny final: 4 seed

Mid scenario: We beat UVA and win one ACC tourny game: 4 seed

Good scenario: We beat UVA and get to the ACC tourny final: 3 seed

Best scenario: We win out: High 3 seed is a lock and 2 seed is a possibility depending on what other teams do in their conference tournys.

[Sports Guy]

Keep in mind that Ohio St lost some games with Turner hurt.

The committee takes that into account in a major way...as they should.