[ColoradoTree]

good points, there is trivial downside to tough scheduling in college tennis, except you have to get your points (wins) somewhere so you can't overdo the tough scheduling unless you win some of them. And you get a 10% points bonus for an away win (but not a neutral site win).

My main criticism of the women's tennis NCAA tournament seeding is that the committee too slavishly follows the computer rankings without making adequate adjustments for unusual circumstances. For example, when we lost all those matches three years ago because we were missing our number 1 player for them (off playing internationally), most (or all?) of those losses were 4-3 and we would have won most of them with our #1 player in the lineup. Our seeding should have reflected that.

I completely agree on both of your points. Our seeding should have been adjusted last year due to Lord's injury and a few years ago because Zhao was off playing with Team Canada (your memory is pretty good, too--4 of our 5 losses in 2016 were by 4-3 scores). I think tournament organizers have an obligation to present a bracket that is fair to the teams in it, taking into account the performance that year through whatever calculation they prefer, but also with an eye toward how personnel changes have affected the team's level. It shouldn't affect whether a team makes the tournament--you can't wipe away the wins a team earned, even if its #1 is now out for the season--but seeding should more comprehensively get at how good a team is right now. North Carolina earned the #1 seed last year, and it was fair to neither them nor us to put those two teams on a collision course in the Round of 16, when that's a final- or semifinal-caliber match. (Of course, we shouldn't have been seeded in the top handful of teams, though, even if you account for Lord's injury. Take the Texas and Florida losses and turn them into wins (I still think we lose to Vandy in Nashville--I still can't believe we lost that match 7-0), and we're top 8 at 20-1, but we still didn't schedule hard enough to deserve to be seeded at the very top. But we should've been higher, certainly.) I'd be all for an approach that used the ITA rankings as a cutoff to establish the tournament field, while then adjusting seeding to reflect the kind of roster issues you mention. 

There is absolutely a downside to tough scheduling, and Cal experienced it last year. Even though they played some very good teams close (they lost 4-3 to Texas and UCLA), they didn't turn close losses into wins, and they were left outside the NCAA tournament field for the first time in program history. They doubled up with USC and UCLA and lost 3 out of those 4 matches. They lost to Pepperdine, and had the bad luck to have a match against a good Texas Tech team rained out. They also gambled that they'd make it to Indoor Nationals and get a couple wins, but they got upset by Texas (it's really been a meteoric rise for the Longhorns) at Kick-Off Weekend, meaning they had that weekend off. But if they'd taken care of business in the Pac-12, they still would have made the tournament and could have played spoiler to some regional host. They didn't, losing 4-0 at Arizona State, 5-2 at Washington, 4-3 at USC, and 4-3 vs. Washington State in the conference tournament. Win two of those three and they're in. Or beat Texas to make it to Indoor Nationals, and win one of your three matches there, and you're in. It was really a combination of bad luck and a certain approach to scheduling, but that Florida road win gives Cal's case this year a big boost, and they seem improved this year anyway. 

It helps to have a good--but not too good--conference to bail you out if you schedule too hard but lose a lot of those matches closely. If you're, say, a top-10 caliber team who can reliably beat teams in the 20s and 30s, you'll still be OK even if you swing and miss when you play the other top 10 teams. (In terms of making the tournament, that is. You're not getting seeded without some better wins than that. Beating UCLA last year in early March was absolutely necessary for us getting seeded; we probably don't even host a regional without that one.)

Stanford's approach has generally been to do just enough to get into the top 16, but not have too many early-season tests, and betting that we'll win the few ranked matchups that we do schedule. Rather, we build throughout the season so we're in peak form at NCAAs. I don't know that this year's schedule is robust enough to absorb many more ranked losses and still see us make the top 8 (now that it's super regionals rather than the final 16 making the final site), but lucky for us, we get Vanderbilt and Texas at home. We play at UCLA, at USC, and at Cal, though, so our road to another Pac-12 title will be tougher than usual, especially since UCLA is still good and USC and Cal look to be good again. I think we're the best team in the conference, to be sure, but road conference matches are tricky things.

[ColoradoTree]

good points, there is trivial downside to tough scheduling in college tennis, except you have to get your points (wins) somewhere so you can't overdo the tough scheduling unless you win some of them. And you get a 10% points bonus for an away win (but not a neutral site win).

My main criticism of the women's tennis NCAA tournament seeding is that the committee too slavishly follows the computer rankings without making adequate adjustments for unusual circumstances. For example, when we lost all those matches three years ago because we were missing our number 1 player for them (off playing internationally), most (or all?) of those losses were 4-3 and we would have won most of them with our #1 player in the lineup. Our seeding should have reflected that.

I completely agree on both of your points. Our seeding should have been adjusted last year due to Lord's injury and a few years ago because Zhao was off playing with Team Canada (your memory is pretty good, too--4 of our 5 losses in 2016 were by 4-3 scores). I think tournament organizers have an obligation to present a bracket that is fair to the teams in it, taking into account the performance that year through whatever calculation they prefer, but also with an eye toward how personnel changes have affected the team's level. It shouldn't affect whether a team makes the tournament--you can't wipe away the wins a team earned, even if its #1 is now out for the season--but seeding should more comprehensively get at how good a team is right now. North Carolina earned the #1 seed last year, and it was fair to neither them nor us to put those two teams on a collision course in the Round of 16, when that's a final- or semifinal-caliber match. (Of course, we shouldn't have been seeded in the top handful of teams, though, even if you account for Lord's injury. Take the Texas and Florida losses and turn them into wins (I still think we lose to Vandy in Nashville--I still can't believe we lost that match 7-0), and we're top 8 at 20-1, but we still didn't schedule hard enough to deserve to be seeded at the very top. But we should've been higher, certainly.) I'd be all for an approach that used the ITA rankings as a cutoff to establish the tournament field, while then adjusting seeding to reflect the kind of roster issues you mention. 

There is absolutely a downside to tough scheduling, and Cal experienced it last year. Even though they played some very good teams close (they lost 4-3 to Texas and UCLA), they didn't turn close losses into wins, and they were left outside the NCAA tournament field for the first time in program history. They doubled up with USC and UCLA and lost 3 out of those 4 matches. They lost to Pepperdine, and had the bad luck to have a match against a good Texas Tech team rained out. They also gambled that they'd make it to Indoor Nationals and get a couple wins, but they got upset by Texas (it's really been a meteoric rise for the Longhorns) at Kick-Off Weekend, meaning they had that weekend off. But if they'd taken care of business in the Pac-12, they still would have made the tournament and could have played spoiler to some regional host. They didn't, losing 4-0 at Arizona State, 5-2 at Washington, 4-3 at USC, and 4-3 vs. Washington State in the conference tournament. Win two of those three and they're in. Or beat Texas to make it to Indoor Nationals, and win one of your three matches there, and you're in. It was really a combination of bad luck and a certain approach to scheduling, but that Florida road win gives Cal's case this year a big boost, and they seem improved this year anyway. 

It helps to have a good--but not too good--conference to bail you out if you schedule too hard but lose a lot of those matches closely. If you're, say, a top-10 caliber team who can reliably beat teams in the 20s and 30s, you'll still be OK even if you swing and miss when you play the other top 10 teams. (In terms of making the tournament, that is. You're not getting seeded without some better wins than that. Beating UCLA last year in early March was absolutely necessary for us getting seeded; we probably don't even host a regional without that one.)

Stanford's approach has generally been to do just enough to get into the top 16, but not have too many early-season tests, and betting that we'll win the few ranked matchups that we do schedule. Rather, we build throughout the season so we're in peak form at NCAAs. I don't know that this year's schedule is robust enough to absorb many more ranked losses and still see us make the top 8 (now that it's super regionals rather than the final 16 making the final site), but lucky for us, we get Vanderbilt and Texas at home. We play at UCLA, at USC, and at Cal, though, so our road to another Pac-12 title will be tougher than usual, especially since UCLA is still good and USC and Cal look to be good again. I think we're the best team in the conference, to be sure, but road conference matches are tricky things.