With Monday’s unveiling of the NCAA Men’s Soccer Tournament brackets and an unsettled postseason picture for the Terps, I figured I’d do a little digging and put on my best Joe Lunardi impression.
From my seat, two factors dominate a team’s seeding (or non-seeding) in the NCAA Tournament: human rankings, particularly the NSCAA’s, and computer rankings, namely the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI).
Earning a top-16 seed is what every team wants. It guarantees a first-round bye and at least one round of home field advantage. Last year, the Terps’ No. 2 overall seed gave them a bye, three straight home games and a path to Frisco, Texas as far away from No. 1 Wake Forest as possible.
What they’ll get Monday is anyone’s guess. But if history is any indication, it won’t be nearly as good.
Judging by last year’s seeding, the selection committee weighs the human and non-human evaluations of all tournament teams fairly equally. Here’s where each of those top 16 seeds stood in the NSCAA rankings and the RPI standings at the conclusion of the regular season. (One note: this RPI was not updated before many of the “bigger” conference tournaments, such as the Big East and ACC, which explains Maryland’s relatively low ranking therein.)
1 — Wake Forest: No. 1 (NSCAA) / No. 1 (RPI) / 1 (Average)
2 — Maryland: 5/4 (4.5)
3 — St. John’s: 3/3 (3)
4 — Michigan State: 16/14 (15)
5 — Akron: 4/5 (4.5)
6 — Indiana: 18/3 (10.5)
7 — Creighton: 2/10 (6)
8 — South Florida: 14/16 (15)
9 — Loyola (Md.): 6/7 (6.5)
10 — Virginia: 31/18 (24.5)
11 — Michigan: 10/6 (8)
12 — Notre Dame: 11/8 (9.5)
13 — North Carolina: 23/11 (17)
14 — UC Irvine: 8/24 (16)
15 — UC Santa Barbara: 20/9 (14.5)
16 — Dartmouth: 27/21 (24)
There are some obvious aberrations in that data, but hopefully you’ll see that a team’s seed generally correlated with their composite ranking. In the noteworthy exceptions, a strong finish in a competitive postseason championship (which teams such as Virginia and South Florida had) certainly burnished a team’s tournament resume and pushed their seeding even higher.
Now, where does that leave the Maryland of 2009? Well, right now the Terps are No. 6 in the NSCAA and No. 16 in the RPI. For the math-averse, that’s an average of 11, which sets them up for a No. 3 seed and at least one home game.
Of course, I could be completely and absolutely wrong. After all, look at Northwestern last year. The Wildcats had a 12.5 composite, but fell outside the top 16 seeds — and that was even after they’d won a game in the Big Ten Tournament. The Terps can’t claim the same, although Wednesday’s loss to Virginia may be mitigated by a Cavalier championship Sunday.
In conclusion, this is still one jumbled mess. Even with a bumbling finish to the season, the Terps’ pedigree and coach Sasho Cirovski’s larger-than-life role within the men’s soccer community should get them the all-important top-16 seed — and the nearly two-week long break — they want.
Jonas Shaffer is The Diamondback’s men’s soccer beat writer. He can be reached at shaffer@umdbk.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/jonas_shaffer.