Did WVU Get Hosed by the Selection Committee? The Metrics Raise Questions

West Virginia is excited to host a regional for the first time since 2019, and they should be. But that doesn't mean we'll just turn a blind eye to the egregious move by the selection committee to put Kansas and WVU as the final two hosts.

I'll get to that here in a second, but first, let's get to WVU head coach Steve Sabins reaction to the placement of the two teams and whether or not he believes there is a lack of respect for the Big 12 overall.

“No. Like I said, I don’t go there. You could view it that way, or the fact that there were zero Big 12 hosts last year. So maybe a ton of respect for the league this year. Those were the two clearly best teams in our league this season. One and two in just about everything, and then you look at the statistics and the analytics, and we’re almost identical to each other. Our league plays incredible baseball. I would have really liked to see TCU get in the field. They’re deserving. They have a lot of history. They have a great team. They were injured in the middle of the year and then got healthier down the stretch. Being able to have half of our league make the postseason felt appropriate, and that didn’t happen, but we got two hosts in.”

I love the answer from a head coach's perspective. You can only control what you can control, and by feeding into it, you create this sorry for yourself type of vibe, and that can't spread throughout the team. He answered the question exactly how he should and is taking the right approach.

That said, West Virginia, and Kansas, for that matter, got screwed.

The Jayhawks won both the regular season and conference tournament championships, yet were placed behind teams that were one-and-done in their respective conference tournament and did not win the league in the regular season.

West Virginia not only finished one game behind Kansas in the Big 12 standings, but swept the Jayhawks on the road and then made it to the conference championship game to play them for a fourth time.

If you've read my stuff over the past decade, first of all, shoutout to you for continuing to come back, but you also know I'm coming with data to back up my stance.

Let's look at the metrics, shall we?

KPI, RPI, DSR = average ranking

West Virginia: 12, 17, 10 = 13
Kansas: 17, 19, 9 = 15
Southern Miss: 13, 12, 20 = 15
Nebraska: 16, 10, 21 = 15.6
Oregon: 20, 15, 18 = 17.6

There are three teams that WVU and Kansas should be seeded higher than, according to the analytics — Southern Miss, Nebraska, and Oregon.

This first batch of data that we are looking at is where each team stands in the KPI, RPI, and DSR rankings.

The KPI evaluates every result and gives the game a rating, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.0 to -1.0. The catch with it is that the selection committee does not have to use it as part of their process, although they are given the data. Of the five teams we're discussing, West Virginia has the highest KPI (.355)

The RPI is the one you are most likely familiar with since it is used in men's and women's basketball as well. The formula is 25% of your winning percentage against D-I foes, 50% of the combined winning percentage of the teams on your schedule, and 25% of the winning percentage of the opponents of teams you play. Because the selection committee uses this data point heavily, it's likely why WVU got the 16th seed. That doesn't mean it's right, though.

Lastly, the DSR is a more complex metric, but it ultimately evaluates a team's ability to beat an "average team." Here, Kansas and WVU were the highest among the teams we're talking about.

Let's take it a step further.

Strength of Schedule per DSR

Southern Miss: 13
West Virginia: 23
Kansas: 39
Nebraska: 45
Oregon: 62

W-L (W%) vs. Quad 1

Kansas 11-6 (.647)
WVU 8-5 (.615)
Southern Miss 9-7 (.562)
Oregon 12-10 (.545)
Nebraska 9-8 (.529)

These two are pretty straightforward, and once again, you'll see both the Mountaineers and the Jayhawks at or toward the top. So, using all of these data points, how is it that the two Big 12 schools are the 15th and 16th national seeds? I mean, seriously?

For West Virginia, they will be put in an incredibly difficult position if they win the Morgantown regional because they would almost certainly face the No. 1 overall seed, UCLA (51-6), in the super regional. Although moving up two or three spots would have still had the Mountaineers playing a top-five team, it wouldn't have been the team everyone is picking to win the national title.

But hey, if you're going to make it Omaha for the first time in program history, what better way to do it than to shock the world?

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