Accuracy Alert

Every effort has been made to locate, cross-reference, and verify all information presented within this wiki. However, due to occasional haphazard recordkeeping, the difficulty of locating indisputable sources, and a desire to have as much information as possible within these pages, on occasion an article may contain information which can be described either as "unintentionally inaccurate" or "intentionally perhaps-not-accurate".

The situations described generally fall under one of the following categories:

Two or more primary sources disagree. For example, records regarding the outcome of a game may differ among sources. If there are more than two sources, and the majority of available sources list one outcome while a minority list a second, the majority will hold. If there are only two sources, and one of the two sources is an official NCAA or NAIA document, that official document will hold sway unless there is good reason to believe that official source to be inaccurate. This will only occur if the official source is itself inconsistent (for example, if a given NCAA annual record book lists two different scores for the same game, a third non-official source may clear up the discrepancy).

While this rule does apply to many game outcomes detailed in this wiki, it is actually more prevalent in regard to the dates on which games are played, the sites at which games are played, and occasionally the seeding of teams within tournaments. In most of these instances, the official NCAA or NAIA records do not even list this information, and it is the goal of this wiki to attempt to provide it; the discrepancies most often occur when the involved teams list different information within their media guides. In these cases, every effort has been made to clarify the discrepancies using news reports and other sources, but these sources may also have discrepancies. In such cases, the general editorial rule here is "lean toward the most reliable source". This is, admittedly, a rule which might be prone toward bias, but in many cases the "most reliable source" is fairly apparent.

For example, a contemporary news story which explicitly lists a date for a contest which has already been held is probably more reliable than a team media guide listing a date for a game 23 years in the past; indeed, any contemporary source is probably more reliable than a historical record. Even so, during our research we've noted some contemporary sources to play fast and loose with reality, so that is also taken into account.

In short, if there's a discrepancy, we've done our best to clarify it as best as we possibly can, which means it may not be wholly accurate.

Due to a combination of known inaccurate sources, a discrepancy has been found which does not bear logical scrutiny. Occasionally, due to improper transmission of contemporary records, information has become ingrained in history, but is still invalid. This tends to involve cumulative historical records, most specifically things like a team's conference record in a given season. A common example of this might be a team for whom 23 games are "known" to have been played, and the team's record is commonly held to have been 15-8... but the actual records of those games indicate an actual record of 14-9. Or, in this hypothetical, the actual records also indicate 15 wins and 8 losses, yet their conference record is commonly held to be 10-3 even though they played in an eight-team conference and played each other conference member twice.

When such a discrepancy is noted, every effort is made to solve for the discrepancy. In some cases, the discrepancy is allowed to stand because evidence explaining it has been uncovered (the most common example being that a contest was vacated, yet the result remains a part of the record). When this occurs, a note will be made to such effect.

Occasional deduction and guesswork. This is the aspect of this project which may cast some doubt in some quarters, but we've only resorted to this when the information in question is the only logical conclusion, and in general terms it does not affect the primary relevance of any information.

A primary example would be the seeding of a tournament which we know is seeded, and in which the higher seed almost universally hosts the lower seed. If it is known that Team A played at Team B, and this game must be the game between the fourth and fifth seeds, then we can deduce that Team A is the fifth seed and Team B the fourth. Likewise, if we do not know where the game was played, but we know that Team A was the fifth seed and Team B was the fourth, we can deduce that Team B hosted the game. There are some cases where the sites of all games are known, but the seeding information is not explicitly available in any source; in an eight-team field wherein one finalist played three home games, and the visiting finalist played home games in the first two rounds, we can deduce that they were the #1 and #2 seeds, and from there all eight seeds become apparent on completing the bracket. It is, however, possible that this information is in fact inaccurate; there have been instances in such tournaments where the lower-seeded team hosted due to facility conflicts. In some cases, we've found this information and incorporated it; otherwise, we accept the possibility that the brackets may in fact be incorrect. If you are aware of such an instance, by all means let us know so that we can correct it. (It should go without saying, however, that we'll need some sort of citation to verify.)

Similarly, the dates for a team's football games may be unknown, although the order in which their games were played is known. If Team A plays Team C, then Team B, then Team D, and through other sources we know their game against Team C to be on October 7 and their game against Team D to be on October 21, we'll assume the game against Team B was on October 14. If Team A and Team B are in the same conference, and our certain knowledge is that there was a series of games in which the home team is A-B-A-?-A-B-A, we'll assume that the "?" is "B", since it's clear that the general rule was to alternate sites. Again, both of these situations may result in information which is actually incorrect; perhaps that game was on October 12 or 13 or 15 instead, and perhaps they played that "?" game at Team A's home field or at a neutral site. But we'll err on the side of logical deduction if such logical deduction is fairly airtight, and include the information without comment. If it's not, we'll either leave a gap in the information, or explicitly explain the logic so that the reader can be fully aware of the potential issues.

Having warned the reader of this, at the same time if we simply don't know something and cannot in any way deduce it, then we don't make it up. The purpose of the "deduction and guesswork" protocol here is simple: if we know most of what was going on with something, and we can make a reasonable conclusion which makes logical sense toward the remainder, we'll do so. If there are simply too many gaps in the information, we'll tell you and be done with it. If we can't logically construct the entire bracket's seedings, for example, we'll include the ones we know and leave the remainder blank; we won't throw out a wild unsupportable guess just so we have numbers there.

Some sources are just wrong. Over the last several years, we've seen our own sources correct their own data on numerous occasions, so it should be no surprise that it's possible for this data compilation to have errors which are themselves adequately verified at the present time but which may be corrected in the future.

A final note: this is not Wikipedia. For starters, editing is closed to authorized editors who actually are experts (if only hobbyist experts) in the field of sports research. There are two reasons for this: one, it is vitally important that the data itself not be subject to vandalism or editorial conflict; two, those editors are allowed to present a point of view within the editorial content which accompanies data. The data itself, however, is as inviolate as it possibly can be given our source materials. Aas the reader you need not be concerned that someone has inserted information here which is just flat-out wrong. While there may indeed be errors here, at the same time there is no relevant information which is patently false.

Additionally, we do not follow the Wikipedia formula of providing citations. Our bibliography of source materials is extensive, including over half a century's worth of Official NCAA Guides for football and basketball, literally thousands of school-produced media guides, and tens of thousands of hits on web and news archive searches. The vast majority of these sources are effectively unavailable to you, the reader, without going to considerable expense; indeed, that exact situation is the very reason for this entire project to begin with. It's something we're interested in enough to compile, and something we want to make available to you. But it should be stressed that because our personal interest in this project is in and of itself a key reason why we want it to be as accurate as possible, it follows that you, as the reader, should accept the information in that same spirit.