[oldalum]

Vanderbilt getting seeded 4th seemed crazy to me, too, given that beat consensus #1 Florida twice this year and they won the SEC on a hot streak to end the season. I just looked at their schedule, though, and they do have 5 losses (though 4 of those were to Top 10 teams in Ohio State, Stanford, Texas Tech, and Michigan--the fifth loss was to #17 Kentucky).  That's a hard team to slot appropriately, given that Ohio State, Stanford, and UNC each only had two losses. 

Four of Vandy's 5 losses were early, before the start of conference play; and the last of the four was 4-3 to us at our courts. The only subsequent loss was at Kentucky when Vandy was missing their #2 singles player, so everyone else had to move up a court and a bench player had to play #6. The SEC was brutal this year, at one point claiming 11 of the top 25 ranked teams. Extremely hard to go through that schedule undefeated; Florida lost to Georgia at home before losing to Vanderbilt in the last conference game. It seems to me Vandy is a great example of a team that got dramatically better over the course of the season, and over the last month of the season I think they were hands down the best team in the nation. That should have been understood by the committee. I would have seeded them #1 for the NCAAs, no quarrel with #2, but moving them from 2 to 4 is extremely difficult to understand. Especially when it would likely mean they'd play Florida for the 3rd time in a month; given that seeding is an inexact science, I think the committee should try to avoid that type of scheduling when it would not compromise seeding to do so.

[oldalum]

Vanderbilt getting seeded 4th seemed crazy to me, too, given that beat consensus #1 Florida twice this year and they won the SEC on a hot streak to end the season. I just looked at their schedule, though, and they do have 5 losses (though 4 of those were to Top 10 teams in Ohio State, Stanford, Texas Tech, and Michigan--the fifth loss was to #17 Kentucky).  That's a hard team to slot appropriately, given that Ohio State, Stanford, and UNC each only had two losses. 

Four of Vandy's 5 losses were early, before the start of conference play; and the last of the four was 4-3 to us at our courts. The only subsequent loss was at Kentucky when Vandy was missing their #2 singles player, so everyone else had to move up a court and a bench player had to play #6. The SEC was brutal this year, at one point claiming 11 of the top 25 ranked teams. Extremely hard to go through that schedule undefeated; Florida lost to Georgia at home before losing to Vanderbilt in the last conference game. It seems to me Vandy is a great example of a team that got dramatically better over the course of the season, and over the last month of the season I think they were hands down the best team in the nation. That should have been understood by the committee. I would have seeded them #1 for the NCAAs, no quarrel with #2, but moving them from 2 to 4 is extremely difficult to understand. Especially when it would likely mean they'd play Florida for the 3rd time in a month; given that seeding is an inexact science, I think the committee should try to avoid that type of scheduling when it would not compromise seeding to do so.