The Tournament Committee is a Fraud
The 2016 NCAA Tournament Committee was a fraud. It demonstrated no expertise in actually seeding the teams it took, and displayed nothing but greed for the moneyed conferences in deciding which teams to leave at home. Las Vegas oddsmakers, however, clearly knew what they were doing.
My argument has always been that anyone can pick the one and two seeds to beat the 15 and 16 seeds. The test of expertise lies in whether purported eight seeds beat the nine seeds, purported seven seeds beat the 10s, and whether six seeds can beat 11s. If an entity assigning these seeds can do no better than chance, then whatever is doing the seeding has no expertise. It's that simple. More importantly, if an entity fails at the seeding process for these teams, then why should anyone believe the same entity can discern the difference between teams #52-64 and #65-78? In other words, which teams are placed in the tournament and which aren't is a matter of chance (at best) or politics.
The 2016 tournament provided plenty of data to demonstrate the non-expertise of the committee. Las Vegas oddsmakers made all four nine seeds favorites versus the eights. Three of the four purported lower seeds won, and it took a waved off dunk as time expired to prevent a sweep. Las Vegas oddsmakers also made two of the 10 seeds favorites versus the sevens. Both (Syracuse and VCU) won. In the six versus 11 matchups, one lower seed (Gonzaga) was favored and one (Wichita) was pick versus Arizona. They both won.
When the committee and the oddsmakers were in disagreement the first round, the score was Las Vegas 7, Committee 1.
In the second round, 11th seed Gonzaga was favored versus third seed Utah. Gonzaga won easily.
After the first two rounds, the final tally in oddsmaker versus committee disagreements was Las Vegas 8, Committee 1.
In games involving 9/8, 10/7, and 11/6 matchups, the committee was correct four times and wrong eight times. If you include the 12/5 games, the committee had six correct and 10 wrong. So in games actually testing basketball expertise, a coin flip soundly trounced the committee.
Clearly, a Las Vegas based bracketing would be fairer and more accurate. A coin flip appears to be better. Why, one may ask, does the committee exist if it demonstrates no expertise?
