05-18-2018, 08:56 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-18-2018, 09:01 AM by ColoradoTree.)
UCLA over Ole Miss is one of those upsets that barely deserves the name. By UTR, UCLA is the 8th-best team in the country, and Ole Miss was 13th. UCLA had a slight edge in USTA ranking, and Ole Miss an even slighter edge in the slam.tennis ELO-ish rankings. UCLA is a terrific doubles team, so you'd give them the edge there (and that's how it turned out), and while the top 3 courts either favored Ole Miss slightly or were coin flips, UCLA had big UTR leads on the back three courts (though one of them, Abi Altick, lost again despite a 0.51 UTR advantage). UCLA won its other two singles matches where they had big UTR advantages and also won the coin flip, and Ole Miss won the two matches where they had a UTR advantage.
The result that really shocks me is that Georgia Tech beat Pepperdine. I know a 4 seed beating a 13 is what should happen, but by UTR, Pepperdine was 2nd and Georgia Tech was 9th, the Waves had decent UTR advantages on four singles courts and a slight lead on a fifth, and Pepperdine won the regular-season matchup. This was an interesting matchup in that it was something of a test case for comparing an excellent team who hasn't really been tested in months due to conference play versus a very good team who has been tested week in and week out in what is probably the best conference in the country, the ACC. (In all of our commiseration over how Stanford is treated in the seeding, while our conference may not have as many elite-level teams as it usually does, we still get tested by teams ranked in the 30s and 40s, at least.) In Pepperdine's one real test in the home stretch, they lost to UCLA in Malibu. While Pepperdine and Stanford have the same history of being underseeded and underranked, Pepperdine doesn't have the same track record of overperforming their seed (as the 12 seed last year, they beat 5th seed Georgia in the Round of 16 in Athens before falling to 4th seed Vanderbilt; two years ago, though, they lost to top seed Cal** in the quarterfinals, and that was the first time they'd reached the quarters since 1994).
So, eight teams left. Three from the ACC, two from the Pac-12, two from the SEC, and one from the Big 12. The Pac-12 may have been down this year overall, but the top held its ground. (Unlike the Big Ten, whose lone representative in Winston-Salem--Northwestern--got trounced by Duke.)
Comparing power conference performance so far, we have the following:
* Pac-12: 2/4 tournament teams made QFs, including both seeds advancing over higher seeds; 1 team lost in the first round, 1 team lost in the second round
* ACC: 3/10 tournament teams made QFs, including one unseeded team, the #3, and the #4; 2 teams lost in the first round, 3 in the second round, and 2 in the Round of 16 (2nd-seeded UNC and 16th-seeded Miami)
* SEC: 2/11 tournament teams made QFs: 4 lost in first round, 3 more lost in second round (incl. 9th-seeded Florida), and 2 more in Round of 16 (incl. 5th-seeded Ole Miss and 10th-seeded South Carolina)
* Big 12: 1/6 tournament teams made QFs: none lost in the first round, 4 lost in the second round (incl. 8th-seeded Oklahoma State), and 1 more in the Round of 16 (6th-seeded Texas).
* Big Ten: 0/4 tournament teams made QFs: 1 team lost in first round, 2 in second round, and 1 in the Round of 16 to a higher seed
I'll take what the Pac-12 did over anybody else. I think the Pac-12 is underrated, the ACC properly rated as excellent, the SEC overrated, the Big 12 probably rated as pretty good but not great, and the Big Ten either overrated or properly rated as not very good (its champion was unseeded and its top-ranked team the 14th seed, after all). Of the 5 ousted seeds that lost to either lower seeds or unseeded teams, 2 came from the SEC, 2 from the Big 12, and 1 from the ACC. Of the 5 teams that pulled off those upsets, two came from the Pac-12, 1 from the Big 12, 1 from the ACC, and 1 from the American Athletic Conference (Tulsa).
Quarterfinal matchups:
(1) Vanderbilt vs. Florida State
(4) Georgia Tech vs. (12) UCLA
(3) Duke vs. (11) Texas Tech
(7) Georgia vs. (15) Stanford
** You guys, Cal was the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament two years ago. I knew it at the time, but I've since put it out of my mind that they lost in the semis to Oklahoma State, who we then beat in the final. (Oklahoma State was way better than their seed that year, to be fair.) Cal was the best regular season team in women's tennis two years ago, and they missed the tournament altogether this year. Wowza.
One quick note on Washington. They were the first team out this year, but some folks have looked at the ITA rankings and when they ran the numbers again, Washington should have been the last team in, over Kansas State. What happened is that a couple of match results (involving neither Kansas State nor Washington, to be clear) weren't timely uploaded to the ITA's system, so they were omitted from the calculations. But had those two match results been included, it would have lowered the quality of one of KSU's wins and made one of their losses slightly worse, just barely enough to have Washington squeak ahead of them.
The Huskies should rightfully be upset (I haven't seen a statement from them, so I don't know if they are). It's unlikely that they would have done much damage, but if you put them in Kansas State's spot, they get a chance to play a mid-tier SEC team in Kentucky, and then challenge one of the weaker seeds, Northwestern, in the second round. I don't think UW had the depth to get past Northwestern, but it's not out of the question.
The result that really shocks me is that Georgia Tech beat Pepperdine. I know a 4 seed beating a 13 is what should happen, but by UTR, Pepperdine was 2nd and Georgia Tech was 9th, the Waves had decent UTR advantages on four singles courts and a slight lead on a fifth, and Pepperdine won the regular-season matchup. This was an interesting matchup in that it was something of a test case for comparing an excellent team who hasn't really been tested in months due to conference play versus a very good team who has been tested week in and week out in what is probably the best conference in the country, the ACC. (In all of our commiseration over how Stanford is treated in the seeding, while our conference may not have as many elite-level teams as it usually does, we still get tested by teams ranked in the 30s and 40s, at least.) In Pepperdine's one real test in the home stretch, they lost to UCLA in Malibu. While Pepperdine and Stanford have the same history of being underseeded and underranked, Pepperdine doesn't have the same track record of overperforming their seed (as the 12 seed last year, they beat 5th seed Georgia in the Round of 16 in Athens before falling to 4th seed Vanderbilt; two years ago, though, they lost to top seed Cal** in the quarterfinals, and that was the first time they'd reached the quarters since 1994).
So, eight teams left. Three from the ACC, two from the Pac-12, two from the SEC, and one from the Big 12. The Pac-12 may have been down this year overall, but the top held its ground. (Unlike the Big Ten, whose lone representative in Winston-Salem--Northwestern--got trounced by Duke.)
Comparing power conference performance so far, we have the following:
* Pac-12: 2/4 tournament teams made QFs, including both seeds advancing over higher seeds; 1 team lost in the first round, 1 team lost in the second round
* ACC: 3/10 tournament teams made QFs, including one unseeded team, the #3, and the #4; 2 teams lost in the first round, 3 in the second round, and 2 in the Round of 16 (2nd-seeded UNC and 16th-seeded Miami)
* SEC: 2/11 tournament teams made QFs: 4 lost in first round, 3 more lost in second round (incl. 9th-seeded Florida), and 2 more in Round of 16 (incl. 5th-seeded Ole Miss and 10th-seeded South Carolina)
* Big 12: 1/6 tournament teams made QFs: none lost in the first round, 4 lost in the second round (incl. 8th-seeded Oklahoma State), and 1 more in the Round of 16 (6th-seeded Texas).
* Big Ten: 0/4 tournament teams made QFs: 1 team lost in first round, 2 in second round, and 1 in the Round of 16 to a higher seed
I'll take what the Pac-12 did over anybody else. I think the Pac-12 is underrated, the ACC properly rated as excellent, the SEC overrated, the Big 12 probably rated as pretty good but not great, and the Big Ten either overrated or properly rated as not very good (its champion was unseeded and its top-ranked team the 14th seed, after all). Of the 5 ousted seeds that lost to either lower seeds or unseeded teams, 2 came from the SEC, 2 from the Big 12, and 1 from the ACC. Of the 5 teams that pulled off those upsets, two came from the Pac-12, 1 from the Big 12, 1 from the ACC, and 1 from the American Athletic Conference (Tulsa).
Quarterfinal matchups:
(1) Vanderbilt vs. Florida State
(4) Georgia Tech vs. (12) UCLA
(3) Duke vs. (11) Texas Tech
(7) Georgia vs. (15) Stanford
** You guys, Cal was the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament two years ago. I knew it at the time, but I've since put it out of my mind that they lost in the semis to Oklahoma State, who we then beat in the final. (Oklahoma State was way better than their seed that year, to be fair.) Cal was the best regular season team in women's tennis two years ago, and they missed the tournament altogether this year. Wowza.
One quick note on Washington. They were the first team out this year, but some folks have looked at the ITA rankings and when they ran the numbers again, Washington should have been the last team in, over Kansas State. What happened is that a couple of match results (involving neither Kansas State nor Washington, to be clear) weren't timely uploaded to the ITA's system, so they were omitted from the calculations. But had those two match results been included, it would have lowered the quality of one of KSU's wins and made one of their losses slightly worse, just barely enough to have Washington squeak ahead of them.
The Huskies should rightfully be upset (I haven't seen a statement from them, so I don't know if they are). It's unlikely that they would have done much damage, but if you put them in Kansas State's spot, they get a chance to play a mid-tier SEC team in Kentucky, and then challenge one of the weaker seeds, Northwestern, in the second round. I don't think UW had the depth to get past Northwestern, but it's not out of the question.