2010 Bracket

From Official UP Athletics twitter page: Stanford, Maryland, North Carolina, Portland #1 seeds.

I'm at work, no video for me. Updates as I find them...

#1 seed AND staying at home. Very nice.

http://www.portlandpilots.com/news/2010/11/8/WSOC_1108105944.aspx

PORTLAND, Ore. --- The Portland Pilots women’s soccer team was rewarded with a No. 1 seed and will host the first and second rounds of the NCAA Playoffs this weekend at Merlo Field at the Clive Charles Soccer Complex. Portland draws UT-San Antonio in the opening round scheduled for a Friday kickoff at 7 p.m.

....and a link to the Bracket PDF.
http://www.portlandpilots.com/documents/2010/11/8/2010_WSOC_NCAA_Bracket.pdf?id=3238

Can you women's soccer experts help me understand how BYU ends up playing host UCLA in the first round? I don't know much about seeding (except that I like to complain about it when convenient). I recognize that BYU has a poor RPI but it seems like a good record, good rankings throughout the entire year, and a dominant run through the MWC tourney (with wins over SDSU and New Mexico) would warrant more than a homer seed against the Bruins. Any sympathetic ears for me?

tyscat wrote:Can you women's soccer experts help me understand how BYU ends up playing host UCLA in the first round? I don't know much about seeding (except that I like to complain about it when convenient). I recognize that BYU has a poor RPI but it seems like a good record, good rankings throughout the entire year, and a dominant run through the MWC tourney (with wins over SDSU and New Mexico) would warrant more than a homer seed against the Bruins. Any sympathetic ears for me?

There are two things that are key to understanding seeding.

1) RPI and who you beat are key to a top seed. The rankings mean nothing. In fact, the comitte is prohibited from using them in soccer. your RPI had better be good enough to be in the top 16 or you have to have beaten the teams above you in the RPI to bump them and get a seed. Here is a bit more, of course, but that's the concept.

2) if you aren't a top 16 seed, you are pretty much at the mercy of the NCAA travel computer. Even if you are a seed, you get shipped out if there isn't a team within 400 miles for the first weekend. The computer figures the cheapest tournament travel. Here in the West it bites teams bad sometimes. You aren't safe even if you are seeded. If you recall, UP was a #1 seed one year and got sent to Utah with you and Utah instead of hosting. Another year we got sent to colorado as a higher seed, and in the 2005 championship year we got shipped to corn country as a 1 seed. Had Oregon State and UW not gotten in, we would have been shipped out again.

Maybe you going to UCLA is karma coming back to bite you.

Also, in the first Cup year of 2002, we were the national #8 seed (back then there were 8 total seeds and 64 teams). We went to (I think) Utah the first weekend, were home to Richmond in the Round of 16, then went to Stanford for the quarters where we advanced on penalties.

One home game that entire tournament. Makes it even more amazing.

This info is extremely helpful. Thanks for taking the time to explain it for me.