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[pilight]

http://espn.go.com/womens-college-basketball/tournament/2015/story/_/id/12501014/harvard-historic-1998-ncaa-win

[cthskzfn]

I think I could read that every day.

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Silly, stupid white people might be waking up.

[GEF34]

That's pretty cool, I like the flash back. I enjoyed reading the thoughts of all the different players and staff involved on both sides.

On a side note I didn't know Rebecca Lobo was working for ESPN, doing the selection all the way back then.

[Youth Coach]

Thanks for the link. Definitely going to read this at home and put the link in my blog post this Sunday.

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The Cassette Chronicles #242 - Europe - The Final Countdown

CD Review - Judas Priest - Invincible Shield


Concert Review - Ronny Munroe's Holy Dio

[summertime blues]

I remember watching this game and being totally stunned. One of my brothers is a Harvard grad and the other is a graduate of their med school so there was much rejoicing in our little family that night.

_________________
Don't take life so serious. It ain't nohows permanent.
It takes 3 years to build a team and 7 to build a program.--Conventional Wisdom

[Youth Coach]

I didn't see the game but saw the news then the highlights and remember saying "HOLY SHIT!" and then feeling a little bit proud because Harvard is a Massachusetts school and I love to see any school from the state doing well.

_________________
The Cassette Chronicles #242 - Europe - The Final Countdown

CD Review - Judas Priest - Invincible Shield


Concert Review - Ronny Munroe's Holy Dio

[NoDakSt]

I was watching this game at my fave wateringhole in Spokane. What stands out to me is not only the upset but the fact that I had actually met someone that night at the bar who knew something about womens basketball (which, even in a basketball crazed town line the Lilac City requires some searching). She was a PAC 10 fan and we talked about Stanford's ill fortune leading into this game. She also new quite a bit about Harvards team as well.

[Howee]

Never got to see that game. I do remember Allison Feaster in the WNBA....was she the only team member to play pro? Also, how far did Harvard go in that tourney?

_________________
Oregon: Go Ducks!
"Inévitablement, les canards voleront"

[pilight]

[CalwbbFan]

I was there, at Maples, wearing my Harvard shirt--cheering for the Crimson, but never thinking in a million years we would win. Since I was 8 months pregnant at the time (my daughter was born three weeks later) I had to be careful not to jump up and down too much.

It was a sweet moment and one (as a former Harvard hoops player) I will never forget.

[pilight]

See the last four minutes here:

https://www.ncaa.com/video/basketball-women/2022-01-11/watch-final-4-minutes-1998s-historic-harvard-stanford-16-over-1-upset

_________________
I'm a lonely frog
I ain't got a home

[Youth Coach]

[PUmatty]

[Coyotes]

[PUmatty]

[readyAIMfire53]

So great to read a thread with Cth in it! It's time to bring back some posters who were kicked out.

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Follow your passion and your life will be true down to your core.

~rAf

[Coyotes]

[Stormeo]

another 16 seed (Fairleigh Dickinson) beat a 1 seed (Purdue) in the men's Tourney for the second time ever, with the first time coming in 2018 when 16-seed UMBC knocked off 1-seed Virginia.

kinda wondering when we'll see a full-strength 1 seed go down in the First Round like that on the women's side – if we ever will. (i assume Purdue mbb played at full-strength today, anyway.)

i think it only happens if the wbb scholarship count ever gets reduced from 15 down to 14 or 13, thereby spreading out more talent some. theoretically, anyway.

but that's just me. i'm expecting nothing of that magnitude in wbb anytime soon – though one can still hope.

[singinerd54]

All of this exacerbated since the women's 1 seeds get to play at home and the men's 1 seeds play at a neutral site.

[Stormeo]

i can absolutely understand the argument of not having the top seeds host for the sake of increasing the [likelihood of] parity.

the tradeoff theoretically then becomes decreased arena attendance and thus worse tv optics. how likely are those first-weekend games gonna attract a local audience or a school’s traveling audience for top teams when these top teams are expected to make the second-weekend? in which fans prioritize traveling for that more exciting, more competitive second weekend, cuz why would they want to be around to see their team get upset in the first round? but that’s just how i see it.

and it must be said that it’s more fair for all opponents to play exclusively on pre-planned neutral sites – full stop. however much the powers at be even care about that now or in the future.

though given how uncompetitive these 1-16, 2-15, 3-14 matchups have been, i just don’t know if being on a neutral site helps out the lower seeds enough. we’ve seen high seeds like Notre Dame, Stanford, and Indiana be missing not just key players but star players, and still blow out their first opponents.

[Phil]

I was struck by the comment from the selection committee chair:

Ponsetto, selection committee chair: "We had this big RPI book. We were really conscientious about how we placed conference champions. If Harvard ended up on that line, it's because their RPI, their body of work and their number of top-100 wins warranted it."
https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/tournament/2015/story/_/page/WHM-OralHistory/harvard-historic-1998-ncaa-win

The 16 – 1 upset understandably gets a lot of press every year, with the caveat of the loss of two All-Americans to Stanford also getting a lot of discussion. Less discussion is a point I've made on multiple occasions; it isn't just the miss- seeding of Stanford it's also the mis-seeding of Harvard. It appears that others have raised this point as the selection committee has found the need to justify their choice.

I don't think their response stands up to scrutiny.

I tried searching for RPI rankings for 1998 and came up empty. If someone has a source love to check them out, even though the RPI is a very flawed statistic and should relied on for much. "Body of work" is one of those catchall phrase that gives the committee carte blanche to do whatever they want. However, there is some data about 1998 worth reviewing. I was pleasantly surprised that Massey rankings are still available for 1998.
https://masseyratings.com/cbw1998/ncaa-d1/ratings

I am well aware that the committee doesn't openly use Massey rankings and for all I know never looks at them. That said they are highly correlated with other rankings, and have the useful benefit that they don't stop with the first 25 teams.

If we look at the Massey rankings for the 16 seeds in 1998 we see:
106 Harvard
222 St. Francis
138 Liberty
127 Grambling State

While Harvard clearly is the best on this metric that's not exactly useful. The question is whether they deserve to be a 16 seed not the pecking order within the 16 seeds. To see if they deserved a 16 seed, we ought to look at the 15 seeds and see if there is at least one where Harvard looks better.

If we simply look at the Massey rating this is easy:
164 Fairfield
179 Howard
155 UNC Greensboro
166 Middle Tennessee

Harvard is not just better than one of them, they are better than every single one of the 15 seeds, and by a considerable margin.

But let's not stop here. The committee chair mentioned the number of top 100 wins. On the surface, this sounds like a strong point as Harvard doesn't appear to have a single top 100 win. But when we look at the 15 seeds, not a single one of them has a top 100 win

Fairfield Best win 158
Howard Best win 188
UNC Greensboro Best win 157
Middle Tennessee Best win 140

Harvard's best win was over a team ranked 145 not exactly stellar, but better than anyone of the 15 seeds other than Middle Tennessee who just barely surpasses Harvard. Recall not comparing to the 16 seeds and comparing to the 15 seeds, and Harvard has a better ranking than all four and a better best win than three of the four.

Finally, while not explicitly mentioned in the committee statement, it is common to look at worst losses. Perhaps Harvard had an egregiously bad loss that caused the committee to feel they were worse than any of the other 15 seeds

Harvard's worst lost was to a team ranked 183. Not great but let's see how the other 15 seeds fared:

Fairfield worst loss 220
Howard Best worst loss 270
UNC Greensboro worst loss 244
Middle Tennessee worst loss 239

Not even close. Every one of the bad losses to the 15 seeds is more than 30 and as many as 90 places worse than Harvard's bad loss.

Again, I fully recognize these are not the only metrics the committee looked at, but my conclusion is not only did Harvard deserve a 15 seed they are almost certainly the best of the 15 seeds and I don't see how they could be remotely seeded as one of the 16 seeds.

What am I missing ?

[pilight]

Best source I've seen for 1997-98 RPI is here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020113221900/http://members.tripod.com/veneziano/rpi/archivepre99/rpi9798.html

_________________
I'm a lonely frog
I ain't got a home

[Phil]

Thanks

While not a big fan of RPI, if the committee use this Harvard's RPI is listed at number 88.

In comparison, the 15 seeds RPI's are:

98 Fairfield
102 Howard
73 UNC Greensboro
128 Middle Tennessee

One of them is just a bit ahead of Harvard but Harvard's better than three of the 4 15 seed teams.

[calbearman76]

Not only was Harvard a 16 seed (deserved a 13 or 14) but so was undefeated Liberty. The bracket was set up for two marketable matchups, Harvard-Stanford and Tennessee-Liberty (both undefeated), on ESPN. And for the committee chair to say that they had a big RPI book to make proper seeding decisions is preposterous. The only thing they saw was a letter from ESPN saying "We want Stanford-Harvard and Tennessee-Liberty."