So Wrong

My comments on the outcome of the seeding are a little less emotional than most as I am an outsider. I was, however, surprised that the Pilots ended up with a #2 seeding. In my past blogs, I commented that I was sure that the three #1's would be Stanford, UP & UNC, in that order. My bubble teams were UCLA & FSU. Maybe others have a clearer understanding of how the committee chooses, in particular, the top 4, whether this is strictly based upon the RPI and or some other subjective criteria. Regardless, it is understandable that the Pilot fan base would be somewhat incensed.

Having said that, if you're going to point the finger, you may want to spread the blame around on more than just one team that you may feel was less deserving. Certainly, there are probably 5 to 6 teams that could win it all but it certainly helps when 4 are awarded the #1 seeding. I look at UNC with a little more disdain in how they get treated. Regardless of their coming back and winning the ACC tournament, they lost 3 games, and tied one. Why are they a #1 seed? Because they're UNC? FSU lost 3 regular season games and tied 1 and then lost to UNC in the ACC finals. So, do they deserve to be a #1 at your expense? UCLA gets pounded on the road (1st game) vs. then #1 UNC, and then loses to then & current #1 Stanford on the road and ties SD on the road. Do they deserve a #1? Then we have the Pilots, who I said from the very beginning, had the softest schedule (no offense) which I commented the toughest game on the schedule would be A&M, and short of having a hicup there, (which you subsequently did), you should run the table. Well, are you guys more deserving of a #1 seeding than any of the other three? It's been stated by others that a little tougher non conference schedule may go a long ways to help prevent what happened this year. Obviously, you can't control the schedule but in the end, I think that was the undoing, whether that's fair or not.

I hate to bring up the Trojans of '07 becuase I can't stand them but look at what they went through in the tournament. They were on the road, I believe, the whole time and when the made their way to the college cup, and who did they have to face but their cross town rival who they hadn't beaten, forever. That had to be physcologically, very difficult but they prevailed. Your journey will be less arduous and you have the team to go all the way. So, with respect, I would say, man up and do what you have to do. There could be a lot worst things to condend with than traveling down to socal and playing, essentially, the #4 or 5 rated team. Good luck.

Oh we know we could have it harder. The committee has a history of hosing us worse.

We only played one game at home in 2002 and won everything, and we were sent on the road in 2005 despite the best record and RPI in soccer that year. we did OK then, too.

Besides, it's open to question whether UCLA can beat Penn State or Virginia. They haven't demonstrated they can even beat USD in their bracket. If UCLA isn't there in the quarters, the game is here.

They did seem to luck out in their ACC draw, though.


One game at a time.

See you in the finals.

OK... so I'm trying to think. Since 2000, has UP ever been a #1 seed AND hosted the first two rounds? Have we ever gotten good news on Selection Monday?

Everyone is shocked FSU got a one seed, and honest Seminole fans will tell you we do not deserve one. I was sure FSU would land a two seed. Here is a quote from Coach K.

"It's great," said head coach Mark Krikorian on receiving one of four No. 1 seeds. "Quite honestly, I was a little surprised … we were right there with Portland and I thought they were a most worthy group of being a No. 1 seed. I think the strength of our schedule and playing in the ACC carried us to that No. 1 seed. We feel good about the opportunity to play at home in front of our crowd again and to bring the NCAA Tournament back to Tallahassee."

Personally I don't think it came down to Portland vs. FSU per se for a one seed, at least I don't think it should have. If anything it should have been UCLA, ND and FSU vying for the last spot, with UCLA landing it. Geography obviously played a key roll, unfair as that is.

Please do not misinterpret my post, Portland should have a landed a one seed and I am sorry that did not happen. Best of luck this post season and from what I was told FSU and Portland will be seeing each other on the pitch very soon.

Nah, I don't think anyone really has a problem with FSU getting the #1 seed. The ACC was clearly the best conference and deserving of two #1 seeds.

It's UCLA that sticks in all of our craws. Ugh.

Yes. I think you can make good cases for us, Stanford (of course), and UNC. The fourth spot should really have been between UCLA and FSU and I think FSU should have prevailed.

This is why I (personally) haven't fully dedicated myself to relying on the RPI. We've been burned too often. Unfortunately, UP will always be at an inherant disadvantage because we're a mid-major. When all is said and done... the choice will always be at the Selection Committee's "discretion" on who they "believe" should be seeded! How much of their their "supposed" criteria was actually followed or used to seed us? NADA.....It all went out the window!

GO PILOTS!!!

Right on the button, Phantom!

How's the oxygen up there?

Stonehouse wrote:Nah, I don't think anyone really has a problem with FSU getting the #1 seed. The ACC was clearly the best conference and deserving of two #1 seeds.

It's UCLA that sticks in all of our craws. Ugh.

I agree the issue is whether UCLA should have gotten a #1 seed ahead of the Pilots. Committee Chair Bradshaw certainly put his foot in his mouth with his rationalization. He also broke what at least previously were Committee rules about disclosing the substance of Committee discussions.

I don't agree, however, that the ACC is "clearly" the best conference. Both the RPI and Massey disagree, and if and when Jones gets up and running, I'm sure he will disagree too. The Pac 10 is stronger than the ACC. But, there's a lot of mythology about the ACC stuck in peoples' brains. That's why we're seeing a lot of protests about Arizona State getting an at large selection rather than Duke even though Arizona State had a better record and the only reason Duke even qualified was a win over Alabama A&M, literally one of the worst teams in the country.

I agree with everything you've said, but wanted to note that Duke got an at large selection also.

'78 Alum wrote:I agree with everything you've said, but wanted to note that Duke got an at large selection also.

I just posted something about this on BigSoccer. Let me say first, though, that I think both Arizona State and Duke should have gotten at large selections, and indeed they did. But, in the broader Women's College Soccer bolgosphere over on BigSoccer, there been a lot of negative feeling aimed at Arizona State's getting a selection and very little aimed at Duke. Yet Arizona State (9-7-3) had a better record than Duke (8-8-4). What most people don't know about, though, is part of how Duke got there. You must have at least an 0.500 record to be considered for an at large selection. One of Duke's wins, every one of which it needed to meet the 0.500 requirement, was against Alabama A&M. Heard a lot about them? Probably not, because the end-of-season RPI ranks them at #318 out of 322 teams. Duke was up in the game 8-0 by the 32nd minute and after that had the good grace to simply pass the ball back and forth in the backfield. As soon as the game reached the 70th minute, which is the time they had to play to in order for the game to be counted for NCAA statistical purposes, they stopped the game. The publicly stated reason for stopping the game was that Alabama A&M had run out of healthy players. I'm not kidding about this, it is what happened. Yet almost all of the griping is aimed at Arizona State.

This is part of what I mean about the ACC mythology. People don't let go of those myths easily.

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:
This is part of what I mean about the ACC mythology. People don't let go of those myths easily.

You mean they DIDN'T have to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis, blind a cyclops and fall capture to Calypso during their season?

Beautiful literary allusion, DTR.

Odyssey references FTW!

Got an interesting response from Paul Bradshaw, the committee chair for the selection committe. He seems to be changing his tune a bit... now he's saying UCLA had a better record against Top 25 teams, not against elite teams. Hmm:

Mr. Stonehouse,

You are correct, I have heard quite a bit from Portland fans. It is that same type of passion and loyalty towards one’s favorite school/team that makes college athletics so special. With regard to Portland being seeded as a #2, please know that the committee spent a great deal of time discussing the #1 seeds and a discussion of Portland was a big part of that. In the end, the committee felt that the other #1 seeds had done more against the top 25 teams than had Portland and thus deserved the #1 seeding.

Thank you for inquiry and best wishes.

Paul Bradshaw
Baylor University
Chair, NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Committee

You have to give the guy some credit for responding to the e-mails, even if he keeps changing his tune...

He actually says, according to your quote that "...the other #1 seeds had done more against the top 25 teams than had Portland..." etc. I'm not sure if you're just stating UCLA because they're in your bracket. Again, you should include UNC and FSU in your indictment.

Did you really call yourself Kyle Stonehouse when you wrote to him?

Ha ha, no... I just added that in for dramatic flair. I used my real name.

Actually, the REAL Kyle Stonehouse sent me a message on here a while ago. Probably the highlight of my life.

before forming a lynching party for the athletic department not scheduling tougher opponents, consider the 'tougher' opponents may not want to play us an all we can eventually get is the montana's of the world. also, when illinois, miami & cal were scheduled i think probably most of us here thought their records would be better then what they turned out to be, especially cal.

Perhaps the athletic dept should hire Miss Cleo for all future scheduling...

fozziewozzie wrote:before forming a lynching party for the athletic department not scheduling tougher opponents, consider the 'tougher' opponents may not want to play us an all we can eventually get is the montana's of the world. also, when illinois, miami & cal were scheduled i think probably most of us here thought their records would be better then what they turned out to be, especially cal.

That's a good point. I recall the year when we had UCLA and USC in the same weekend...the games had been scheduled well in advance before USC had won the championship the prior year. You just never know. We do need Miss Cleo!

FANatic wrote:

Right on the button, Phantom!
How's the oxygen up there?

BAD AIR up here FANatic! Severe turbulance! I was scrambled to catch a wayward NCAA WSOC Tourney Selection Committee! Here about that? They claimed to be "heavy in discussion with navigation procedures".....yet missed the airport they were supposed to land on.... by a couple of hundred miles!!!! Word is they may have fell asleep!.....Whatever!!!!


GO PILOTS!!!

And, the year the Pilots played USC and UCLA brings up another problem, namely, that the Pilots always are a much better team later in the season than in the early games, because of the team-oriented style of play. All teams get better as the season goes on, but Portland more so than most teams. So, we lost to UCLA and tied USC, whereas I will bet we would have won both later in the year. Since the conference is relatively weak, our toughest games need to be scheduled as the earlier non-conference games before the team is really going on all cylinders. It's too bad we can't start with the conference games as the early warmup learning games.

While we're talking about the non-conference schedule, I have an issue with the teams Washington has been scheduling for its tournament. The teams that are getting a lot of games against teams in the top 25, to use the "for the moment" new standard for #1 seeds, are playing two tournaments against top level teams. UW has not been good about scheduling teams at that level. If they're going to keep doing that, then I think we need to find a new tournament exchange partner that will agree to bring in top level teams. Oregon State, for example. (I know they had an exchange with Oregon this year, but I think we should horn in.)

I have not felt generally critical of scheduling, by the way. Going into the season, I thought we had a very tough schedule this year. It just didn't pan out. SMU I didn't like, but apparently we couldn't get Texas on the schedule when we went to Texas A&M. Texas Tech actually would have been a better opponent, but SMU I can live with. Montana, however, was a mistake. I'm sure the staff knows that now. It's the kind of mistake the Pilots can't afford to make in the future, given the high hurdle they must clear to get a #1 seed. I hope they know that, and unless Garrett does the scheduling I don't have confidence that they do.

GUPhantom wrote:

FANatic wrote:

Right on the button, Phantom!
How's the oxygen up there?

BAD AIR up here FANatic! Severe turbulance! I was scrambled to catch a wayward NCAA WSOC Tourney Selection Committee! Here about that? They claimed to be "heavy in discussion with navigation procedures".....yet missed the airport they were supposed to land on.... by a couple of hundred miles!!!! Word is they may have fell asleep!.....Whatever!!!!


GO PILOTS!!!

Now falling asleep makes a great deal of sense, Phantom. Did you try to shoot them out of the sky? They are the enemy, you know.