Sunday, December 23, 2007

W-12 BP65

1. NORTH CAROLINA (ACC)
1. MEMPHIS (CONFERENCE USA)
1. KANSAS (BIG 12)
1. UCLA (PAC 10)

2. MICHIGAN STATE (BIG 10)
2. GEORGETOWN (BIG EAST)
2. TENNESSEE (SEC)
2. Duke

3. Pittsburgh
3. Texas
3. Marquette
3. Texas A&M

4. Indiana
4. Washington State
4. Louisville
4. USC

5. BYU (MWC)
5. Ohio State
5. Arizona
5. Villanova

6. Oregon
6. XAVIER (ATLANTIC 10)
6. Wisconsin
6. Florida

7. UConn
7. Syracuse
7. Illinois
7. SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (MVC)

8. GONZAGA (WCC)
8. Kansas State
8. BUTLER (HORIZON)
8. Clemson

9. Vanderbilt
9. Stanford
9. California
9. Mississippi

10. Creighton
10. West Virginia
10. Boston College
10. Arkansas

11. Missouri
11. Miami (Fl)
11. Virginia
11. Rhode Island

12. GEORGE MASON (COLONIAL)
12. DAVIDSON (SOUTHERN)
12. Florida State
12. Oklahoma

13. NEVADA (WAC)
13. MIAMI (OH) (MAC)
13. WINTHROP (BIG SOUTH)
13. WESTERN KENTUCKY (SUN BELT)

14. HOLY CROSS (PATRIOT)
14. MARIST (MAAC)
14. ORAL ROBERTS (SUMMIT)
14. MONTANA (BIG SKY)

15. SAM HOUSTON STATE (SOUTHLAND)
15. BELMONT (ATLANTIC SUN)
15. YALE (IVY)
15. VERMONT (AMERICA EAST)

16. AUSTIN PEAY (OVC)
16. MORGAN STATE (MEAC)
16. PACIFIC (BIG WEST)
16. LIU (NORTHEAST)
16. MISSISSIPPI VALLEY STATE (SWAC)


Other teams considered, but that just missed the cut:
Georgia Tech, Maryland, Dayton, Duquesne, Massachusetts, Notre Dame, Providence, Minnesota, Purdue, Nebraska, Bradley, Drake, San Diego State, Alabama, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Saint Mary's

Other teams with a decent shot, but that need to improve their resume:
NC State, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, St. Louis, Depaul, Seton Hall, Penn State, Baylor, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Drexel, James Madison, VCU, UAB, Akron, Missouri State, Northern Iowa, UNLV, Arizona State, Washington, Auburn, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico State

Other teams I'm keeping an eye on, but that need to drastically improve their resume:
Fordham, George Washington, Temple, Rutgers, St. John's, Iowa, Michigan, Old Dominion, UTEP, Wright State, Valparaiso, Central Michigan, Kent State, Ohio, Illinois State, Indiana State, Wichita State, Colorado State, Air Force, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon State, LSU, South Alabama, Fresno State
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3 comments:

WB said...

Good to see Davidson slipping in to the 12 spot. We'd expect better if we had been able to pull off a win in one of those big non-conference games this season.

I'm just crossing my fingers that Davidson doesn't stumble in the conference tournament and not even get into the NCAAs. An at-large bid for Davidson is not going to happen. It's all about winning the conference tournament in order to get a bid.

Go Wildcats!!!

December 23, 2007 10:06 PM
Evilmonkeycma said...

A few comments:
West Coast Conference. You have Gonzaga as a 6, while St. Mary's is not in your seed list at all. What gives? St. Mary's is 9-1 with a (rapidly decreasing in) quality win over Oregon and a road loss against a decent SIU team. Gonzaga is 9-3 with their best win coming against a weak UConn. If each team were to win the rest of their games, split with each other, and lose to Texas/Memphis respectively, it would seem that St. Mary's would have a slightly stronger resume. In any case, I don't see how there is 6+ seed lines of difference between the two in a "predict the future" seeding situation. In the "if the season ended today" situation, I would argue that St. Mary's has the better resume.

Big West Conference. You list Pacific as the predicted champs, and going as a 15 seed. All I can reply is "UCSB?". UCSB has a quality win over UNLV that shows that they have some strength, and are above Pacific in both the RPI and Pomeroy Ratings. I don't see how you can justify Pacific over UCSB, and I don't see how you can justify UCSB as low as a 15 (they have only lost to Stanford and UNC).

Florida St.
With the loss on Saturday to Providence, Florida St. dropped to 10-4. Wins over Minnesota and Florida are mostly toothless thus far. Losses to Cleveland St. and South Florida tarnish their resume. I think many other teams could work here, but not FSU. Furthermore, playing in the killer ACC, the conference schedule will not be nice to them.

You responded nicely to my criticisms last week. I look forward to your responses again this week

December 24, 2007 1:19 AM
Jeff said...

Okay, I'll take these one at a time:

First, you're right that St. Mary's has a better resume than Gonzaga so far. But I talked about this earlier in the season when St. Mary's took out Oregon. They are a very, very good team at home. But not nearly as good on the road. So far they're 8-0 at home and 1-1 on the road. Coming up they have to head to Texas and Fresno State, where they might lose both games. And I expect them to lose a bunch in conference. Let's recall that Gonzaga doesn't really lose at home either, although they did drop a 4-pointer at home to Washington State this season (not a bad loss by any means). So, again, this is a case of me trying to predict the future. I think St. Mary's will get a bunch of losses and drop onto the wrong side of the bubble once they have to head on the road.

As for the Big West being a 15 seed... I think there is a just a lot of competition from these lower-level conferences this year. I've also gotten grief for making Sam Houston State a 15. There are only so many 13 and 14 seeds to go around. If the winner of the Big West ends up with an RPI in the 70s (like UCSB is now) then they'd get a 13 or 14. But I'm sure that RPI will drop once they play the conference schedule. As for Pacific over UCSB, I'm not getting strong feelings either way. UCSB has that UNLV win, but one 3-point win at home doesn't really mean anything. Pacific has had some impressive wins as well. This early in the season I rate a lot of decent wins over one or two really good wins, since anybody can pull an upset on any one day. Either way, this will work itself out when conference play starts.

Now as for Florida State, I actually got grief earlier in the year for keeping them out of my bracket, but now I have them back in for two reasons. First of all, it amazes me how many people who make brackets don't count how many teams they take from each conference. Some people put in 4 ACC teams, or 10 SEC teams. They don't realize that after these teams start playing each other, somebody has to win and lose. So, I think the ACC will end up as the highest rated conference. Which says to me that they should get 7 teams, with a margin of error of one. And there seems to me to be no doubt that FSU is one of the seven best teams in the ACC. They'll end up something like 9-7 in the ACC, which should be good enough. In addition, their out of conference resume isn't getting enough credit. They had those two really fluke losses back to back on tiny courts very early in the season to Cleveland State and South Florida. It absolutely killed their RPI. But despite that, the RPI is already back up to 39th. I expect that to only get better as they play more games and those two early games count as a smaller and smaller percentage of the calculation. The win at Florida will look good, and FSU will get shots at good upsets with teams like UNC and Duke at home. I think that will be enough for FSU to finally get themselves in the Tournament.

December 24, 2007 9:41 AM

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