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As with most years, 2016's edition of Selection Sunday will be rife with controversy as fans of all teams complain about the seed - or lack thereof - given to them (or their opponents) by the committee. Michigan State's underseeding the last two years had Virginia fans crying rule 2(b), for instance. Kansas fans complained last year about being given the toughest bracket for a 2-seed. Which probably sounded petty to Illinois fans wondering why they didn't get a ticket to the dance at all.
On a personal level I feel bad for the committee. They'll never please everyone. They've just got to do the best with that they've got. Sometimes they do themselves no favors, but most of the time their decisions are, at worst, defensible.
So with that in mind, I always like to take a look at the teams in a blind resume comparison and see what I would think of them if looking at them without regard for the name on the jersey. My favorite way to do that is very simply: Overall record, and records against teams in various parts of Ken Pomeroy's rankings. Good wins. Bad losses. Once a team has gone through an entire 30ish game regular season, that's usually enough to give an idea of how good a team is. Since the committee will likely be more focused on the RPI, I've also included the same sets of wins and losses when using that metric as well.
Since this is a Virginia site, I'm going to focus on the teams that are competing for the same seed as the Cavaliers - specifically a 1 or 2 seed. I've picked a bunch of teams that I think are likely to end up in the discussion for those two lines. But fair warning, I've also thrown in some "trick answers" in a few places to keep you on your toes.
For each table, once you've made your choices on how those teams should be ranked, click the "Reveal!" button in the upper left corner of the table to show which team is which.
Enjoy!
Comparison 1
| Reveal! |
Team A
|
Team B
|
Team C
|
Team D
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record | 27-4 | 27-4 | 24-6 | 26-5 |
| KenPom Top 25 Wins | 6 | 1 | 7 | 4 |
| KenPom Top 50 Wins | 15 | 8 | 10 | 6 |
| KenPom 51+ Losses | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| KenPom 101+ Losses | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| RPI Top 25 Wins | 9 | 1 | 7 | 4 |
| RPI Top 50 Wins | 14 | 8 | 8 | 6 |
| RPI 51+ Losses | 1 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| RPI 101+ Losses | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Comparison 2
| Reveal! |
Team A
|
Team B
|
Team C
|
Team D
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record | 25-6 | 24-7 | 24-6 | 23-8 |
| KenPom Top 25 Wins | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| KenPom Top 50 Wins | 8 | 9 | 10 | 6 |
| KenPom 51+ Losses | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| KenPom 101+ Losses | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| RPI Top 25 Wins | 3 | 5 | 6 | 2 |
| RPI Top 50 Wins | 3 | 8 | 9 | 2 |
| RPI 51+ Losses | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| RPI 101+ Losses | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Comparison 3
| Reveal! |
Team A
|
Team B
|
Team C
|
Team D
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record | 26-4 | 25-6 | 24-6 | 24-7 |
| KenPom Top 25 Wins | 1 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| KenPom Top 50 Wins | 6 | 6 | 12 | 5 |
| KenPom 51+ Losses | 1 | 5 | 4 | 2 |
| KenPom 101+ Losses | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| RPI Top 25 Wins | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| RPI Top 50 Wins | 9 | 10 | 8 | 9 |
| RPI 51+ Losses | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| RPI 101+ Losses | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
Comparison 4
| Reveal! |
Team A
|
Team B
|
Team C
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Record | 24-6 | 28-2 | 25-6 |
| KenPom Top 25 Wins | 7 | 3 | 2 |
| KenPom Top 50 Wins | 10 | 9 | 8 |
| KenPom 51+ Losses | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| KenPom 101+ Losses | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| RPI Top 25 Wins | 7 | 5 | 3 |
| RPI Top 50 Wins | 8 | 8 | 5 |
| RPI 51+ Losses | 4 | 0 | 2 |
| RPI 101+ Losses | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Scroll down for the conclusion
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As you can see, Virginia fares favorably against most of this list of teams - and even against its 2014/2015 editions of itself. That is, at least when using these particular metrics. The committee will be looking at all of this and more, of course.
A particularly interesting comparison is that of Virginia and Miami. The two teams obviously play in the same conference and they ended the regular season with identical overall and conference records. They even split the regular season series with each other. Virginia has more Top-25 wins. Miami has more Top-50 wins according to KenPom, but the Hurricanes also have more on the loss side of the ledger. I'd give the nod to Virginia, of course, but it's certainly interesting to see how close the two teams are now that the season is over.
As with most years, it certainly stands out to me that this is not an easy process. Even based on simple numeric metrics like these it is hard to distinguish and rank some of these teams against each other. The committee has their work cut out for them as usual.