From drothman1@juno.com  Fri Feb  6 08:26:25 2004
Subject: Final Basketball Commentary 2003

	The final standings this year show a problem in single
	elimination tournaments when the teams were already in
	so many games that a single loss usually won't lower a
	team enough to fall below some lesser team which moved
	up by winning the tournament:

====================================================
 Rank Team         W  L     PF   PA    LOGIT
====================================================
    1 Kentucky    32  4    2782 2309   39.25
    2 Arizona     28  4    2725 2262   37.63
    3 Pittsburgh  28  5    2473 1955   36.98
    4 Syracuse    30  5    2785 2435   36.95 Champion
    5 Kansas      31  8    3242 2607   36.33
    6 Texas       27  7    2711 2343   35.56
    7 Duke        26  7    2677 2298   35.18

	By winning those 5 games against opponents of approxi-
	mately equal ability, Syracuse went home with the NCAA
	national championship, but showed standings which were
	appreciably lower that those of Kentucky (yet not sig-
	nificantly lower).

	I still advocate a triple elimination tournament among
	the top four teams at the end of the regular season, a
	playoff this year which should have included Kentucky,
	Arizona, Pittsburgh, and Duke (although the latter two
	might not have been chosen by other systems).  Nine to
	eleven games among those teams would have produced the
	highest level of play.  The incentive to get into this
	top four would be huge, and, as long as some objective
	system of standings were used, teams would know exact-
	ly what they had to do to get in.

	Well, thanks to all of you for listening to my nagging
	this season.  See you when football starts up again.

     Dave, 310-676-4032
     David Rothman
     14125 Doty Avenue, #23
     Hawthorne, CA 90250-8042