The next BP65 comes out after Saturday night's games:
1. NORTH CAROLINA (ACC)
1. PITTSBURGH (BIG EAST)
1. OKLAHOMA (BIG 12)
1. UConn
2. MICHIGAN STATE (BIG TEN)
2. Louisville
2. MEMPHIS (C-USA)
2. Duke
3. Villanova
3. Kansas
3. Missouri
3. Clemson
4. Wake Forest
4. Florida State
4. UCLA (PAC-10)
4. LSU (SEC)
5. Arizona State
5. Marquette
5. GONZAGA (WCC)
5. West Virginia
6. Purdue
6. Washington
6. Illinois
6. UTAH (MWC)
7. XAVIER (ATLANTIC 10)
7. Texas
7. South Carolina
7. California
8. Syracuse
8. Tennessee
8. Wisconsin
8. Ohio State
9. Boston College
9. Dayton
9. Florida
9. BUTLER (HORIZON)
10. Arizona
10. Kentucky
10. BYU
10. Minnesota
11. SIENA (MAAC)
11. UTAH STATE (WAC)
11. UNLV
11. DAVIDSON (SOUTHERN)
12. Maryland
12. Oklahoma State
12. Temple
12. Miami (Fl)
13. CREIGHTON (MVC)
13. VCU (COLONIAL)
13. WESTERN KENTUCKY (SUN BELT)
13. MIAMI (OH) (MAC)
14. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY (PATRIOT)
14. VERMONT (AMERICA EAST)
14. NORTH DAKOTA STATE (SUMMIT)
14. WEBER STATE (BIG SKY)
15. ROBERT MORRIS (NORTHEAST)
15. CORNELL (IVY)
15. STEPHEN F AUSTIN (SOUTHLAND)
15. RADFORD (BIG SOUTH)
16. LONG BEACH STATE (BIG WEST)
16. EAST TENNESSEE STATE (ATLANTIC SUN)
16. MORGAN STATE (MEAC)
16. AUSTIN PEAY (OVC)
16. JACKSON STATE (SWAC)
Other teams considered, but that missed the cut:
Virginia Tech, Rhode Island, Providence, UAB, San Diego State, Saint Mary's
Decent resumes, but not good enough:
Cincinnati, Michigan, Penn State, Kansas State, Texas A&M, New Mexico, USC
Long shots, but still in the at-large discussion:
NC State, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Baylor, Nebraska, George Mason, Northeastern, Houston, Tulsa, Niagara, Illinois State, Auburn, Mississippi, Mississippi State
Still alive, but pretty much need a miracle:
Duquesne, Saint Joseph's, Saint Louis, Seton Hall, Hofstra, UTEP, Cleveland State, Wisconsin-GB, Buffalo, Northern Iowa, Wyoming, Stanford, Washington State, Alabama, Vanderbilt, Portland, Boise State
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4 comments:
Nice bracket. However, I've got two questions.
1) Why is Davidson an 11 and Creighton a 13? Assuming both are auto-bids, I'd rather flip the two around. Creighton has a better record 24-6 vs. Davidson 21-6, plays in a better conference, has a better RPI 45 > 57, has 9 top 100 RPI wins vs. 2 for Davidson, and is on fire (9 straight wins whereas Davidson is cold.) Why shouldn't one just flip the two teams' seeds?
2) What's it going to take for Rhode Island to get in? They're winning every game they play now and just got a nice RPI-boosting victory (best of the year in fact) over Dayton. I expected to see them on the 12 line tonight. Do you forsee a road loss at Duquesne, or what's your thinking there?
Good questions.
1) Remember that there is more to record than just conference games. Davidson is 16-2 in conference while Creighton is 13-4. The difference is that Davidson lost to Duke, Purdue and Oklahoma out of conference. Remember, Creighton didn't play anybody out of conference. Now as for overall resumes, I do think that the two teams are basically equal right now, but I'm putting Davidson ahead for one reason: Stephen Curry. The committee wants him to make another Tournament run so they want to give him a nice seed, and I think they'll use his injury as an excuse to discount two of their losses. I actually talked about this a couple of weeks ago (before the injury) when I thought Davidson would get a higher seed than Siena even though Siena is unquestionably the better team.
2) Rhode Island is still being held back by their schedule. They are 5-7 against the RPI Top 100, which isn't as good as other teams that still are out of the Tournament. And right now they have a Sagarin rating of 61st, and there is no chance of any team getting an at-large bid with a Sagarin of 61st. You've got to get into the Top 50. As I said before, they've got to keep winning. The win over Dayton was huge, but they've got to keep going. If they can win the rest of their regular season games then they'll have an excellent shot at the Tournament if they play solid ball in the A-10 tournament and there isn't too much bubble carnage (i.e. teams like Georgia and San Diego winning auto bids).
Jeff,
I'm absolutely shocked that you have only 7 Big East teams in. Wait... no, thats actually right. I think you may have Syracuse a little too high, when it is somewhat clear that they are closer to providence/cincy/ND than to West Virginia.
More important, however: knowing that they've still got two of their hardest in-conference games coming up, how can you justify Utah as a 6 seed? Their resume at 12-4 in conference just isn't that good.
Keep doing what you're doing. I enjoy your site a lot.
Thanks for the nice words.
I have Syracuse up there because of their remaining schedule. They have two home games that they should easily win, plus a potential big scalp on the road at Marquette to end the season (which looks much more manageable now that James is out). So the way I see it, they're going to go 10-8 or 11-7, and they should make it to at least the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament. They might be more of a 10 or an 11 seed if the season ended now, but I think they'll be up around a 7-9 seed when all is said and done.
As for Utah, I think people need to think of the Mountain West as the SEC, because essentially those two conferences are equally good this year. The RPI of 9th for Utah might be a bit silly, but the Sagarin PREDICTOR has them 26th. They have wins over Gonzaga and LSU to go with an 11-2 conference record. It is fair to say that their remaining schedule is tough, but I think the expectation value should be two wins in those three games. And I project them to win the Mountain West tournament. If they fall in the tournament then you're right that their seed will drop into the 8-10 range.
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