NJCAA Tournament seeding

I’ve paid attention to seeds for the past few years….basically since 2012.  Every year, coaches complain about seedings–who they have to play, whether they should have been ranked higher, etc.  This goes on in every sport and every college level.  –If a coach isn’t complaining, s/he isn’t happy, right??

In any event, I coach in the NJCAA, the organization with most two-year colleges in the U.S.  None of our schools have the budgets of athletic departments like you find in the Big 12 or the SEC, so when it is time to do seedings and the NJCAA people get together, they’ve got an interesting dilemma, since teams aren’t always (actually, rarely) seen by most of the committee, many of the schools do not share common opponents, and because there is a mandate for geographic representation, you have teams that are weaker who need to be included.  Thus, we can expect the committee to fail pretty often, right?

So how do they do?  There are 16 teams, so the top 8 ought to advance.   Why not check the available record….

2015: 1st rd seeds advancing: 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,12    –7 of 8…not bad. 2nd rd advancing: 1,2,4,6   –3 of the top 4 seeds still alive 3rd rd advancing: 1,6  –for posterity, we were the 6-seed, and I was upset–thought we should have been top-4.  Reaching the title game proves that to me. Champion: 1

2016: 1st rd seeds advancing: 1,2,3,4,5,6,9,10  –got the top 6, pretty good. 2nd rd advancing: 1,2,3,4  –perfect 3rd rd advancing: 1,3   –again, a case of how it should have been seeded, but things lined up regardless, because 2-3 would have simply flip-flopped seeds in any event. Champion: 1

2017: 1st rd seeds advancing: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9  –7 of 8, and got the top 7 2nd rd seeds advancing: 1,2,3,4 –perfect 3rd rd seeds advancing: 1,3 Champion: 3    –But the seeding was correct as #3 played 5-set matches in ALL of the first three rounds and did not dominate anyone until the title game.

So basically, us coaches have no right to complain.  Y’know?

PS.  I’m writing this before 2018’s tournament is done.  The top 8 seeds moved on in the first round and 1-2-3-5 got to the Final Four with 1-2 reaching the title game.  That’s  four years of being spot-on.  Nice work by the committee.

Now off to the gym!