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GO UCONN!!!!!
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The Boys and their Dogs -
Under the UConn blanket!!
GO UCONN!!!!!
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Only a few days left!!
Naismith fan voting has started. You can vote once a day. Paige and Aaliyah are on the ballot.
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Another first team All-American for Paige and great recognition for Nika and Aaliyah as they were Honorable Mention.
So happy for Nika. With all the crap that she had to put up with on fan message boards all season, this is some vindication for her. Well, at least for her biggest fans.
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mispronouciation of Paiges name
Bob Joyce joins Tiger Talk
to talk UConn women's Basketball
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By PHIL
A look at the 2023 Tournament
Part I
With that as a tease, I urge you to read an article in Sportico:
Women's Basketball Hosts Get Home Edge While NCAA Keeps The Cash
If I wanted to be charitable, I would note that I agree that the conclusion starting the second paragraph is valid - "home court advantage is significant". I might quibble whether the word "significant" is the best word to use but let's not quibble. I'm confident that all knowledgeable basketball fans would agree, ceteris paribus, that playing at home is better than playing on the road or even on a neutral court.
Did you gloss over that Latin phrase, often expressed as "all other things being equal"? The author did but we won't.
The author compares the men's and women's NCAA tournaments.
There are some differences, the most obvious of which is that one tournament includes men and the other women but there are several other differences:
- two regional locations versus four
- two 30-minute halves versus four quarters
- one-and-one foul shots in some situations in the men's game
- inbounds at your own end in the last minute of the game
There are probably more, but while the principle of ceteris paribus, taken literally, is that all other factors must be identical, it is usually and understandably interpreted in practice as all the factors must either be equal or negligible. Each of the differences listed have been debated, but if the context is the number of upsets in a tournament, I don't think any fans will make a serious argument that any of those differences are contributing factors.
However, the author has ignored the elephant in the room. While I am in agreement with the author that home court advantage contributes to the number of upsets, the author goes on to explain why home court advantage is significant, citing the fact that in the 2023 NCAA tournament "every host team one of the first round compared to the neutral-court setting on the men's side, where seven higher seeds lost their first game. Home court was less of an advantage in the second round, but still notable, with four hosts losing at home-compared to five higher seeds that lost on the men's side."
The implicit assumption is that there are no other materially significant causes for upsets.
I find it incomprehensible that a sportswriter could be unaware of why there are more upsets in the men's tournament than the women's.
The answer is Parity (or lack thereof)
Everyone who follows basketball knows that parity discussions are omnipresent. It's been a big subject on the men's side in discussions about top seeds not even winning the conference tournament (except for UConn) and on the women's side it's been a subject for years discuss the extent to which it is improving across the board over time. Many of those discussions are silo discussions, with fans of men's teams talking about the changes in parity within the men's game, and fans of women's games talking, mutatis mutandis, about parity changes in general and how they are impacted by the portal etc. etc. etc.
In a nutshell, the weakest men's team in the tournament is closer in strength to the strongest men's team in the tournament than the weakest women's team is to the strongest women's team. That's awkward phrasing, maybe someone can help me come up with a better way of expressing it, but I don't think you can find a fan on the face of the earth, not even a Lady Vols fan, who would disagree with this obvious statement.
I'm tempted to stop here but I have a bad habit when beating a horse to keep on beating even after it's dead. That is usually a waste of time, but in this case, it had an interesting benefit, one that involves UConn.
I thought about how best to demonstrate that home court advantage, while it may be a contributing factor to upsets, isn't the most important factor. This probably a lot of ways but I came up with three:
1. Empirical - the author acknowledges the existence of "11 years of neutral court rounds". Why not look at that data and see how the number of upsets in those 11 years compares to upsets in more recent years where the top four seeds get home advantage? If the author's thesis is correct, the number of upsets in those 11 years would be substantially more, comparable to the number of upsets on the men's side. I'm not even gonna look it up, it's nonsense.
2. Model-based - there are lots of places including Massey where one can select two teams and get a likelihood that that the first team will beat the second team, and this can be done for home versus away versus neutral court. One could use that data to estimate the contribution to the number of upsets from home versus neutral court. I'm tempted to do that, but it's a fair bit of work to do it right (I can think of a shortcut, I might try that) but I'm virtually certain that it will conclude there are some impacts of home-court advantage due to home-court advantage but those don't come close to accounting for the differences between men and women's results.
3. Anecdotal - I deliberately use this term which is a red flag in statistical circles - drawing conclusions from anecdotal results is problematic. That said, it can sometimes be insightful. I'm going to look at the 2023 NCAA tournament results for the first and second rounds (where home-court advantage exists) and see what I can conclude.
Interestingly, my decision to look at 2023 results and label them anecdotal is a slam against the author, because that's what he did, except that he did it badly. He noted the number of upsets in the first round (zero for women, seven for men) and the second round (four for women, five for men) to conclude that home-court advantage is significant.
Let's do it right.
Check back tomorrow for Part II to take a look at the data. (We have a graph!!)
Interestingly, my decision to look at 2023 results and label them anecdotal is a slam against the author, because that's what he did, except that he did it badly. He noted the number of upsets in the first round (zero for women, seven for men) and the second round (four for women, five for men) to conclude that home-court advantage is significant.
Let's do it right.
Check back tomorrow for Part II to take a look at the data. (We have a graph!!)
Milestone Watch
• Nika Mühl has 651 assists after her 9 assists in the Georgetown game. She passed Diana Taurasi to move into second place all-time! She needs eight more to tie Moriah Jefferson.
• Paige Bueckers has 725 points this season. That ranks her 8th for points in a single season by a UConn player. She needs 11 to tie Maya Moore’s 736 in the 2009-10 season.
• Geno now has 1209 wins.
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Tournament Section
Date, Time and TV
Play-in Games
16 Sacred Heart vs 16 Presbyterian Tuesday, March 19, 7:00 ESPNU
12 Vanderbilt vs 12 Columbia Tuesday, March 19, 9:00 ESPNU
12 UT Martin vs 12 Holy Cross Thursday, March 21, 7:00 ESPN2
11 Auburn vs 11 Arizona Thursday, March 21, 7:00 ESPN2
Albany 1 Region
Columbia, SC
1 South Carolina v 16 Sacred Heart/Presb Friday, March 22, 2:00 ESPN2
8 North Carolina vs 9 Michigan State Friday, March 22, 11:30 ESPN2
Bloomington, Indiana
4 Indiana vs 13 Fairfield Saturday, March 23, 1:30 ESPN
5 Oklahoma vs 12 Florida Gulf Coast Saturday, March 23, 4:00 ESPNN
Corvallis
3 Oregon State vs 14 E. Washington Friday, March 22, 8:00 ESPNU
6 Nebraska vs 11 Texas A&M Friday, March 22, 10:30 ESPNU
Notre Dame, Indiana
2 Notre Dame 15 Kent State Saturday, March 23, 2:15 ESPN
7 Ole Miss vs 10 Marquette Saturday, March 23, 4:45 ESPNU
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Albany 2 Region
Iowa City, Iowa
1 Iowa vs 16 Holy Cross/UT Martin Saturday, March 23, 3:00 ABC
8 West Virginia vs 9 Princeton Saturday, March 23, 5:30 ESPN2
Manhattan, Kansas
4 Kansas State vs 13 Portland Friday, March 22, 4:30 ESPNN
5 Colorado vs 12 Drake Friday, March 22 7:00 ESPNN
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
3 LSU vs 14 Rice Friday, March 22, 4:00 ESPN
6 Louisville vs 11 Middle Tennessee Friday, March 22, 1:30 ESPN2
Los Angeles, California
2 UCLA vs 15 California Baptist Saturday, March 23, 9:30 ESPN2
7 Creighton vs 10 UNLV Saturday, March 23, 7:00 ESPNN
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Portland 3 Region
Los Angeles, California
1 USC vs Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Saturday, March 23, 4:30 ESPN
8 Kansas vs 9 Michigan Saturday, March 23, 2:00 ESPNN
Blackburg, VA
4 Virginia Tech vs 13 Marshall Friday, March 22, 3:30 PM ESPN2
5 Baylor vs 12 Vanderbilt/Columbia Friday, March 22, 6:00 ESPNU
Storrs, Connecticut
3 UConn vs 14 Jackson State Saturday, March 23, 1:00 ABC
6 Syracuse vs 11 Auburn/Arizona Saturday, March 23, 3:30 ESPN2
Columbus, Ohio
2 Ohio State vs 15 Maine Friday, March 22, 12:00 ESPN
7 Duke vs 10 Richmond Friday, March 22, 2:30 ESPNN
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Portland 4 Region
Austin, Texas
1 Texas vs 16 Drexel Friday, March 22, 3:00 ESPNU
8 Alabama vs 9 Florida State Friday, March 22, 5:30 ESPN2
Spokane, Washington
4 Gonazaga vs 13 UC Irvine Saturday, March 23, 7:30 ESPN2
5 Utah vs 12 South Dakota State Saturday, March 23, 10:00 ESPNU
Raleigh, North Carolina
3 NC State vs 14 Chattanooga Saturday, March 23, 2:30 ESPNU
6 Tennessee vs 11 Green Bay Saturday, March 23, 12:00 ESPN
Stanford, California
2 Stanford vs 15 Norfolk State Friday, March 22, 10:00 ESPN2
7 Iowa State vs 10 Maryland Friday, March 22, 7:30 ESPN2
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UCONN's Bracket
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UCONN LINKS
Several links are pay sites. Sorry!
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Message Boards
UConn Territory - The best UConn women's message board ever!!!
Vol Nation - Tennessee women's basketball board
ND Nation - Notre Dame women's basketball board
Rebkell - WCBB for everyone that thinks they are smarter than everyone else
UCONN Information
UConn 2023-2024 Statistics (updated after 1st game)
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