02-11-2019, 10:10 PM
Amen, oldalum. From the official team preview of the National Indoors:
[quote]Simply participating in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships should only cement the Cardinal's already lofty ranking. It would also likely translate into a more manageable postseason path for Stanford, which has inexplicably been seeded higher than No. 5 only once (at No. 1 in 2011) over the last 10 years. [/quote]
https://gostanford.com/news/2019/2/7/wom...doors.aspx
That's now how this works. That's not how any of this works. (Also, to further beat this dead horse, our seeding is super explicable. "We play a lighter and weaker schedule than most other teams, and the rankings weigh the quality of your wins against the quality of your losses, so any attempt to capture--in ranking/seeding form--just how good our season was will generally underrate how good we are, and therefore, how likely we are to win the NCAA tournament." There, I explicated it. I mean, I've argued the NCAA tennis tournament committee should take more data points into account rather than just rely on the ITA rankings, but it's not like it's a mystery how they calculate this stuff.)
And that's a great point on scheduling, oldalum, and one I always try and stress--yes, you have to win the matches, but losing to great teams ain't so bad. College tennis incentivizes scheduling tough matches, and that's kind of awesome. Go to Athens and play Georgia. Go to Nashville and play Vanderbilt. Go to Chapel Hill to play UNC. If you win, it's a major boost to your ranking, but if you lose, it barely affects you. Can you imagine if college football had a structure that only dinged you the tiniest bit for losing to Alabama or Clemson? I can only imagine the HOT TAKES that would erupt if a 10-2 Stanford team that beat Notre Dame and swept through the Pac-12 but lost to Alabama made it into a future hypothetical playoff over, say, 11-1 Oklahoma who played nobody tough in the non-conference portion. That'd be great! More high-caliber non-conference matchups is great for the sport, and I'm glad tennis recognizes that.
[quote]Simply participating in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships should only cement the Cardinal's already lofty ranking. It would also likely translate into a more manageable postseason path for Stanford, which has inexplicably been seeded higher than No. 5 only once (at No. 1 in 2011) over the last 10 years. [/quote]
https://gostanford.com/news/2019/2/7/wom...doors.aspx
That's now how this works. That's not how any of this works. (Also, to further beat this dead horse, our seeding is super explicable. "We play a lighter and weaker schedule than most other teams, and the rankings weigh the quality of your wins against the quality of your losses, so any attempt to capture--in ranking/seeding form--just how good our season was will generally underrate how good we are, and therefore, how likely we are to win the NCAA tournament." There, I explicated it. I mean, I've argued the NCAA tennis tournament committee should take more data points into account rather than just rely on the ITA rankings, but it's not like it's a mystery how they calculate this stuff.)
And that's a great point on scheduling, oldalum, and one I always try and stress--yes, you have to win the matches, but losing to great teams ain't so bad. College tennis incentivizes scheduling tough matches, and that's kind of awesome. Go to Athens and play Georgia. Go to Nashville and play Vanderbilt. Go to Chapel Hill to play UNC. If you win, it's a major boost to your ranking, but if you lose, it barely affects you. Can you imagine if college football had a structure that only dinged you the tiniest bit for losing to Alabama or Clemson? I can only imagine the HOT TAKES that would erupt if a 10-2 Stanford team that beat Notre Dame and swept through the Pac-12 but lost to Alabama made it into a future hypothetical playoff over, say, 11-1 Oklahoma who played nobody tough in the non-conference portion. That'd be great! More high-caliber non-conference matchups is great for the sport, and I'm glad tennis recognizes that.