Here is my UPDATED NCAA Tournament field broken down by conference. Yes, I know I have 9 teams from the ACC in my current field. How do you deny any of the teams at this point? I will cover this in a future blog, possibly tomorrow.
65 Teams
America East (1)
Proj. Champ: Vermont
At-Large: None
Bubble: None
ACC (9)
Proj. Champ: North Carolina
At-Large: Duke, Maryland, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Florida St., Virginia, Georgia Tech
Bubble: None
Atlantic Sun (1)
Proj. Champ: East Tenn. St.
At-Large: None
Bubble: None
Atlantic 10 (1)
Proj. Champ: Xavier
At-Large: None
Bubble: None
Big East (6)
Proj. Champ: Pittsburgh
At-Large: Marquette, Notre Dame, Villanova, Georgetown, West Virginia
Bubble: Syracuse,Providence, Louisville
Big Sky (1)
Proj. Champ:Montana
At-Large: None
Bubble: None
Big South (1)
Proj. Champ:Winthrop
At-Large: None
Bubble: None
Big Ten (4)
Proj. Champ:Wisconsin
At-Large: Ohio St., Indiana, Illinois
Bubble: Purdue, Michigan St.
Big 12 (5)
Proj. Champ: Kansas
At-Large: Texas A& M, Oklahoma St., Texas, Texas Tech
I have been doing my own bracket projections for over 10 years now and I have decided to start posting them here on a blog. I know there are other “bracketologies” out there but if you are looking for another opinion on where your team(s) stands take a look at my “bracketology”. It is just a hobby of mine, but I try to give each team as strong as consideration as possible. I update my projections after games through each Sunday. Normally, I begin making projections in early to mid January. I will continue to post them each week and feel free to leave me some feedback. Tell me why I am crazy for leaving teams out, where I have teams seeded, or why I have certain teams in the field of 65. Or if you have any questions I would love to answer them. I base my projections using as close to the NCAA Selection Committee’s process as possible. Factoring into these projections are a combination of RPI, SOS, W/L Record, W/L vs RPI Top 50, conference strength, road/neutral court W/L, last 10 games, quality wins, and bad losses. Below is my bracket through games of Sunday, February 11th.
For those of you who love this stuff, meaning Bracketology, there is some good reading out there today. Pat Forde and Andy Katz of ESPN have articles on dot-com giving insight on the selection process. Along with 18 other sportswriters across the nation, they were given a shot to go through the "selection process" and come up with a mock draft. To sum things up, they compacted 5 days of breaking down teams into a 24 hour period. Check out the bracket they came up with. Some of the teams they have in the field, (Evansville, and Houston among a couple of others) will be longshots to actually make the tournament. In their selection, they were thrown some curveballs to show what the actual committee might have to deal with come selection time. For example, Houston beating Memphis to win the Conference USA tournament. This then eliminates an at-large bid that now goes to a team already in the field. Some other things that jumped out were how low they had Georgetown (10 seed), how high they had USC (4 seed), and New Mexico St. (11 seed). As of Monday, I had Georgetown a 7, USC a 6, and New Mexico St. on my bubble. Georgetown has done nothing this week to hurt their seed after beating Louisville in Freedom Hall. USC pretty much has kept their position in my bracket for now after losing a heartbreaker the other night to their cross town rivals UCLA. Reggie Theus and Crew are sliding further down the bubble after losing this week to Utah St. Of course every Bracketology you see, there are going to be some differences. The articles also discuss how the # of teams from a certain conference who get in the Big Dance is irrelevant. The topic is not even brought up through the process until the last stage of seeding the teams. I try and go by the same logic when I make my projections. It should be about the teams, not about the conferences.
There is an article on Yahoo today regarding how meaningless the W/L in the last 10 games is to the selection criteria. The reasoning is because if a team plays a brutal schedule down the stretch like Michigan St. does, they are at a huge disadvantage when compared to a team like New Mexico St. While I agree with this to an extent, you have to look at the whole picture. Tom Izzo is quoted in this article in opposition to this being a component the selection committee looks at. Well Tom, if your Spartans hadn't lost games they should have won, the rough finish to your schedule would not look so bad. The entire body of work is what the committee looks at in the end. The "last 10 games" is just a small component. Win games you should win in the middle of the season, you won't be haunted by losing tough games at the end of the season.
One last thing I wanted to cover today is the Colonial Athletic Conference. As of Monday I had only one team from the Colonial in my projected field(projected Champ Virginia Commonwealth). Hofstra, Old Dominion, and Drexel all have legitimate claims to be in the field. The mock bracket I discussed at the beginning of this blog has only one team in the field as well (Hofstra). I'm not sure how they came up with Hofstra, since VCU is the projected champ right now at 21-4, and 13-1 in conference. In other mock brackets I have seen these teams are sometimes in, sometimes completely out, and sometimes on the bubble. Last year the Colonial had a strong showing in the Big Dance, however, the committee does not take anything into consideration that does not have to do with THIS SEASON. When you compare other bubble teams to the Colonial teams, the facts just don't add up in their favor. Let's look at some factors:
Hofstra- RPI 77, SOS 160, RPI Top 50 wins 2 (Both in conference)
Drexel- RPI 47, SOS 103, RPI Top 50 wins 1
Old Dominion- RPI 62, SOS 116, RPI Top 50 wins 3
While these are just some of the factors when going through the selection process, it gives an insight on some that are working against these Colonial teams, and other small conference teams. The SOS is the big one. Drexel has the best RPI, but only 1 win over an RPI top 50 team (at Villanova which is a good win). And they are currently 10-4 in conference which is good for 4th place right now. Old Dominion won at Georgetown, beat Drexel twice, but is still a longshot because of weak other #'s including a possible 3rd place finish in conference. Hofstra has the worst RPI, worst SOS, and has 2 wins vs RPI top 50 teams (VCU, and a split with Drexel). No big non-conference wins. I do think the Colonial could possibly get 1 at large bid, but anything more than that is a longshot. Though the right question would be, WHO would be the at large team??
This weekend should be fun, and of course will give us more insight into who is in, and who is out. I have started working on my new projections that I will finish at some point on Monday (but may not post until Tuesday morning). Of course, this weekend could make things even more cloudy, if that is at all possible.
Last night provided some insight on some of our bubble teams. First, Michigan St. got absolutely hammered at Purdue. The 26-26 halftime score soon turned into a blowout. The Spartans managed just 12 points in the 2nd half while Purdue lit it up from all over the floor. An acquaintance of mine was at this game and he told me Izzo was sitting the ENTIRE 2nd half. Sounds like he knows what is ahead of him. Can you say N.I.T.? I'm not sticking a fork in State just yet but they are in BIG TIME trouble. They still have Wisconsin and Michigan twice, and both Iowa and Indiana at home. Purdue meanwhile kept their hopes alive with a win they had to have. They have the Buckeyes in Columbus this weekend, and are home against Indiana next week. If they at least get a split, they will still be alive.
Louisville had a chance to get a marquee win but lost at home against Georgetown. I have had my doubts about the Hoyas, but they just keep on winning. Clemson kept their spot in the field with a win over Florida St. West Virginia had a chance to enter my field of 65 but lost on their home floor to a more talented Pitt team. They will get another chance when UCLA comes calling to Morgantown this weekend. Speaking of the Bruins, they got all they could handle from USC last night. The Trojans look like they are for real.
I saw most of the UNC at Duke game and was really impressed with Tarheel youngsters Ty Lawson and Brandan Wright. That drive Lawson had at the end of the game was unbelievable. Like I discussed in my last blog, Duke has a really rough stretch ahead. It is not a sure thing they will finish over .500 in the ACC.
