[BostonCard]

As an aside, the way teams are placed into regionals for Kick-Off Weekend is very interesting.  Once the 15 host teams are decided by final season ranking--the 16th spot at Indoor Nationals is given to the host institution, which next year will be Washington--the remaining teams choose which regional site they want to attend, in order.  Not surprisingly, teams stayed away from Stanford and the other top 3 teams, Vanderbilt, UNC, and Duke.  So, after just 7 selections, the regionals for #14 Oklahoma State and #15 Northwestern filled up very fast.  The bottom seeds always fill up first, but it makes even more sense this year, as Northwestern loses 3 starters, including its top 2 singles players, and Oklahoma State also loses two Top 50 players, so those will be very competitive regionals.  #5 Georgia Tech filled up next, which seems odd at first, but Georgia Tech lost two starters to graduation and a third starter to Florida as a transfer, so it made a lot of sense for, say, #26 Kentucky to decide to be the 3 seed in that regional rather than be the 2 seed against a stronger team.  Towards the end, a team like St. Mary's is content to play at Stanford and get crushed locally, rather than fly to Nashville or Chapel Hill and get crushed there.  Thus, while Stanford hosts the #42, #54, and #63 teams, Northwestern hosts #17, #19, and #22, while Oklahoma State hosts #18, #20, and #23.  Whoever emerges from those regionals will see a tangible boost in their ranking just from Kick-Off Weekend, while teams like Stanford and Vanderbilt will have to win a couple matches at Indoor Nationals to see any kind of boost.

Just want to say, that is fascinating and brilliant.  First off, it makes complete sense for the teams having to play the regionals to decide what is a tougher match-up for them rather than rely on flawed rankings. The team is going to be most incentivized to find the best match-up for themselves, rather than some arbitrary committee, weighing the strength of the opposition, match-ups, and locations.  It is fascinating that some teams opted to be three seeds in weaker regional than a two seed in a stronger one (though as a two seed they would likely face a weaker first round match-up).

I would advocate that a similar approach be used in designing the NCAA draw.  I am sure seeds below us would have avoided early round match-ups with us like the plague despite our 15 seed.  And we might have played a draw that had teams seeded in the middle earlier to avoid the #2 overall seed in the round of 16.  Interesting to think about strategy here.

BC

[BostonCard]

As an aside, the way teams are placed into regionals for Kick-Off Weekend is very interesting.  Once the 15 host teams are decided by final season ranking--the 16th spot at Indoor Nationals is given to the host institution, which next year will be Washington--the remaining teams choose which regional site they want to attend, in order.  Not surprisingly, teams stayed away from Stanford and the other top 3 teams, Vanderbilt, UNC, and Duke.  So, after just 7 selections, the regionals for #14 Oklahoma State and #15 Northwestern filled up very fast.  The bottom seeds always fill up first, but it makes even more sense this year, as Northwestern loses 3 starters, including its top 2 singles players, and Oklahoma State also loses two Top 50 players, so those will be very competitive regionals.  #5 Georgia Tech filled up next, which seems odd at first, but Georgia Tech lost two starters to graduation and a third starter to Florida as a transfer, so it made a lot of sense for, say, #26 Kentucky to decide to be the 3 seed in that regional rather than be the 2 seed against a stronger team.  Towards the end, a team like St. Mary's is content to play at Stanford and get crushed locally, rather than fly to Nashville or Chapel Hill and get crushed there.  Thus, while Stanford hosts the #42, #54, and #63 teams, Northwestern hosts #17, #19, and #22, while Oklahoma State hosts #18, #20, and #23.  Whoever emerges from those regionals will see a tangible boost in their ranking just from Kick-Off Weekend, while teams like Stanford and Vanderbilt will have to win a couple matches at Indoor Nationals to see any kind of boost.

Just want to say, that is fascinating and brilliant.  First off, it makes complete sense for the teams having to play the regionals to decide what is a tougher match-up for them rather than rely on flawed rankings. The team is going to be most incentivized to find the best match-up for themselves, rather than some arbitrary committee, weighing the strength of the opposition, match-ups, and locations.  It is fascinating that some teams opted to be three seeds in weaker regional than a two seed in a stronger one (though as a two seed they would likely face a weaker first round match-up).

I would advocate that a similar approach be used in designing the NCAA draw.  I am sure seeds below us would have avoided early round match-ups with us like the plague despite our 15 seed.  And we might have played a draw that had teams seeded in the middle earlier to avoid the #2 overall seed in the round of 16.  Interesting to think about strategy here.

BC