Bracket Up: We are #2 Seed and will travel

I may be crazy, but here is my message to our athletic department. Just sent it. Curious to see if there is a response. They should not be let off the hook after three years of total discrimination towards the Pilots ladies:


Mr. Williams and Mr. Stroud,

I know that it is not fair to blame you for the inequity of the NCAA process for selecting playoff sites but, I for one, and I am sure thousands of other dedicated fans agree, would like to know what the administration has done, and is doing, to correct such a messed up process. I hope that you agree that it is wrong that a process is accepted as the way to do things when it clearly puts schools like UP in the position of working to improve local teams if they want to have a chance of hosting in the early rounds. Obviously, this is impossible. Please tell us that you agree with the fans who have made your jobs possible by providing the highest grossing sports support at the school. Once again, you tease us into committing to season tickets with the dream that the world is fair and we can have our seats when the Pilots host a playoff game. Now you have teased us for three straight years with absolutely no apparent fight for your team and your fans. Are you afraid to take on the bureaucrats who call themselves the NCAA? It's about time someone had the guts to get the job done with that group and I am disappointed that Buzz has been a part of this without any success at making things right. Sure you can't speak up in the meetings when the Pilots are discussed but we all know that the real work is done outside of the official meetings in this world. The Pilots could easily guarantee that the NCAA will make money hosting versus sending them to any other site in the country, outside of Texas A&M. I hope you guys are as absolutely outraged as the many faithful fans who pay your salaries.

Cheer up!
Kelin and Kendra get to play at home.


Think of it as a recruiting trip....

While the need to travel is disappointing and short sighted by the NCAA.... what I want to know is what is being done to CHANGE the rule going forward?! I know that #1 seeds will be protected next year, but that just means that the NCAA can manipulate the travel schedule by who they give the top seeds to...

What is outgoing WCC Commissioner Gilleran doing about it? My guess: nothing.

Speaking of which, any word on who will replace him?

I went to the NCAA website and wrote to the person they list as the soccer contact asking why the UP is always treated unfairly when it comes to hosting. I don't expect a rational answer but I felt better for having written.

Could you provide the email to the rest of the board... I'm sure there are several other members of this board that would be open to giving the NCAA a piece of their mind.

I'm not commenting about the Tournament Committee, or its individual members, or anything related, until I've had time to cool down. Once the tournament is over, let's get together and figure out how to raise a big enough stink that this never happens again.

My wife's family is from Denver, so we're going to go visit family, recruit Denver area Pilots soccer fans, and scream our lungs out.

I agree with the person who said he/she can't really object to our seed. Notwithstanding what I think the Pilots' RPI may be, it's hard to argue that we should have been seeded ahead of USC. But USC should be really fried. They tied Stanford at Stanford. And now they have to travel? The west coast gets only two sites, notwithstanding having four seeds and certainly a competitor (San Diego) for a fifth seed? (Although I have to say I don't think San Diego should have been seeded. As we all know, Santa Clara is better.)

But, on a much more positive note: We were at the UCLA game. We were the better team, without Stephanie and with an exhausted Sophie playing midfield and with a concussed Kelsey who never would have let the overtime goal in if she'd been fully conscious. I'm willing to bet that UCLA is saying, "Oh ...., we're s....ed." We're in the best quarter of the draw.

No worries friends. UCLA will be in a world of hurt on their side of the bracket. Cal State Fullerton and USD match up well against the Bruins. They won't be pushovers.

Cal State Fullerton played us tough. They only lost to us 2-1. USD (our WCC bretheren) played the Bruins to a 0-0 (2 OT) tie in September. That's not bad...not bad at all! Its a good sign and indication to me that UCLA could be knocked out early....and not even survive their own home field advantage. I'm fully expecting the Titans or the Tereros to give us the "Upset Special" this weekend. We may just get the home playoff games (for the 3rd Round and Quarterfinals rounds) we've been wanting to be at Merlo!

The Pilots are Ready and Primed. They've played through much adversity this season. The MACHINE is ready. Mission accepted. This short deployment is only motivation for them to unleash some furious shock and awe! I'm with you Geezer. Doesn't matter!

EYE ON THE PRIZE GUYS!.....EYE ON THE PRIZE!

GO PILOTS!!!!

My guess is that Virginia will beat UCLA in the third round, and we'll be hosting the quarterfinals anyway. At least we won't have to meet NC until the finals.

Seedings aside, the majority of the travel issues over the past couple of years can be linked to the decline of the UW women's program and the slow ascension of the Oregon, PSU and OSU programs. When UW was decent they were always our second in region and they would fly in the 3rd and 4th to PDX, boise state, utah, byu, denver, etc. We need better quality play in the region for UP to host in the future or we will be destined for first round travel indefinetly.

The seedings are another story. While it is difficult know what exactly what transpires in the room, it is clear than most of the representatives do not know soccer. Each most likely have some ax to grind for their conference or region. Football dollars have changed the women's soccer landscape forever. What ever happened to Colorado College, William and Mary and other small programs with a history of competitive women's teams? I suspect the WCC schools will always be subject to some negative bias. The trick is to win and if not win then tie. Play a tough schedule. We should probably get rid of PSU from our schedule because it hurts our RPI. For example, Penn State only played 3 teams with a losing records and those were all Big 10 teams with higher RPI's. UP played 7 teams with a losing record.

USC didn't deserve a #1 because they lost to WSU and I don't think they got screwed. I suspect they are good enough to beat Penn State but a long flight will hurt them. Portland-Stanford#1 seed was probably a push. Standford toughest patch was 1 win, 1 loss and 2 ties against, Cal, USC, UCLA and Santa Clara. UP was two losses to UCLA and USC. I can believe that UCLA doesn't want to see UP again. I can't recall when we have lost 3 consecutive to a team on this coast. I would love to see USC take Penn State and UP beat UCLA for another repeat match up.

My upset specials are
SanDiego over UCLA (tied them earlier in the year, UCLA is know for a bobble now and then and hasn't had one in a while), if not USD then Virginia (only allowed 7 goals all year)

Santa Clara over Stanford. Santa clara has no fear (or respect) for the stanford team, it will be like a home game. Expect them to bite back hard from last years premature exit. If not SC then A and M will take care of standford.

An observation. I've just gone through the at large selections and the seeds in relation to teams' RPI ranks. For the at large selections, the Tournament Committee followed the RPI closely. The first 31 at large selections (out of a total of 34) were completely consistent with the RPI. The teams "on the bubble" were Miami, Auburn, Colorado, Dayton, Arizona State, and Washington State. The first three were selected and the last three were not. These teams are in the area of the RPI that begins to involve penalty adjustments, so I don't know if the selections exactly followed the RPI with proper penalty adjustments, but they came very close.

On the other hand, the seeds did not follow the RPI. I've wondered if this would happen. If you read the NCAA rules carefully, they create criteria for the selection of participants in the Tournament, but nowhere is there an explicit statement that these are the criteria that will apply to the seeds. In fact, so far as I can find, there are no published criteria that apply to the seeding process.

UPSoccerFanatic
On the other hand, the seeds did not follow the RPI. I've wondered if this would happen. If you read the NCAA rules carefully, they create criteria for the selection of participants in the Tournament, but nowhere is there an explicit statement that these are the criteria that will apply to the seeds. In fact, so far as I can find, there are no published criteria that apply to the seeding process.

That's what I thought when I read it and commented on it yesterday in the More RPI News thread. It's very carefully worded. All that RPI stuff is ONLY FOR SELECTION according to the tournament handbook. They can seed any way they want, and can completely ignore the RPI or other criteria.

Also They are STILL ignoring what the handbook says on travel. They aren't supposed to pair up seeds for travel. They are supposed to pair the lower 48 teams geographically NOT the seeds.

Here's the quote again:

NCAA Tournament Handbook
There will be four number ones, four number twos, four number threes,
and four number fours. The remaining 48 teams will be paired geographically.

(emphasis mine)

How they get from the rule that a seed is supposed to travel to make up their pairing, I don't know.