Sunday, October 16, 2011

Post-Midnight Madness BP68

Midnight Madness is in the past and the college basketball season is here. All of the top teams have had at least one team practice, and the first exhibitions will begin in just a little bit more than a week. Here is the upcoming schedule after that:

Monday, November 7th: First regular season games (Coaches vs Cancer Classic)
Friday, November 11th: First regular season games allowed for teams not in Coaches vs Cancer
Sunday, November 13th: Next bracket projection (the "W-17 BP68")

Even before games begin on November 7th there will be a lot of posting here as I help you get ready for the new season. I'll update you on any news of note. I'll also have previews of the first week's games. Even the first week of the season will have games that matter for Tournament resumes (even on that opening night of November 7th we'll have a pair of games with two quality teams: Arizona vs Valparaiso and St. John's vs William & Mary). And even some games where top teams play cupcakes will have something to watch for, be it new freshmen, new transfers, players who will be seeing new roles or playing times, etc. I'll fill you in on what you need to know.

But for now, I owe you a new bracket projection. As always, this is my projection of where the final bracket will end up on Selection Sunday:

1. NORTH CAROLINA (ACC)
1. SYRACUSE (BIG EAST)
1. OHIO STATE (BIG TEN)
1. KENTUCKY (SEC)

2. Duke
2. Louisville
2. TEXAS (BIG 12)
2. ARIZONA (PAC-12)

3. Florida
3. Pittsburgh
3. GONZAGA (WCC)
3. UConn

4. Vanderbilt
4. Kansas
4. Wisconsin
4. UNLV (MWC)

5. Alabama
5. TEMPLE (ATLANTIC TEN)
5. Purdue
5. Texas A&M

6. UCLA
6. West Virginia
6. Marquette
6. Baylor

7. GEORGE MASON (COLONIAL)
7. MEMPHIS (CONFERENCE USA)
7. New Mexico
7. Xavier

8. BUTLER (HORIZON)
8. Michigan State
8. Florida State
8. Michigan

9. BELMONT (ATLANTIC SUN)
9. Georgetown
9. Virginia Tech
9. Illinois

10. BYU
10. Oklahoma State
10. Cincinnati
10. San Diego State

11. HARVARD (IVY)
11. Notre Dame
11. Washington State
11. California

12. South Carolina
12. Villanova
12. Washington
12. Miami (Fl)
12. Saint Louis

13. CREIGHTON (MVC)
13. Missouri
13. Indiana
13. FAIRFIELD (MAAC)
13. UTAH STATE (WAC)

14. BUCKNELL (PATRIOT)
14. OAKLAND (SUMMIT)
14. DAVIDSON (SOUTHERN)
14. MONTANA (BIG SKY)

15. BALL STATE (MAC)
15. LONG BEACH STATE (BIG WEST)
15. VERMONT (AMERICA EAST)
15. AUSTIN PEAY (OVC)

16. FLORIDA ATLANTIC (SUN BELT)
16. ROBERT MORRIS (NEC)
16. LIBERTY (BIG SOUTH)
16. STEPHEN F AUSTIN (SOUTHLAND)
16. MORGAN STATE (MEAC)
16. ALABAMA STATE (SWAC)

Teams seriously considered that just missed the cut:
NC State, Virginia, Duquesne, Rutgers, Iowa, Northwestern, Kansas State, Drexel, VCU, Tulsa, UAB, Northern Iowa, Wichita State, Stanford, Saint Mary's, Nevada, New Mexico State

Other teams with a decent shot to get onto the bubble:
Clemson, Maryland, George Washington, Seton Hall, St. John's, Minnesota, Nebraska, Old Dominion, Central Florida, Marshall, Cleveland State, Detroit, Indiana State, Colorado State, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi State, Tennessee

Other teams I'm keeping my eye on:
Boston College, Georgia Tech, Dayton, South Florida, Iowa State, Oklahoma, James Madison, UTEP, Valparaiso, UW-Milwaukee, Princeton, Iona, Drake, Arizona State, USC, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi, Charleston, San Francisco, Fresno State

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi jeff, how i can know what team is better?. For example you think or you said in your previews that penn state its the worst team in his conference. But do you think that penn state its better than the all teams of the swac conference?.

Jeff said...

Well, I'm not going to rank the teams from 1-to-345. That's why I've got all of the teams outside the bracket separated into categories, rather than explicitly trying to separate team #97 from team #98.

That said, the SWAC is truly awful from top to bottom, so it's reasonable to think that Penn State is better than any of those teams.

But being better than every team in the SWAC isn't saying much. Penn State is still the worst team in the Big Ten by quite a bit, in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your answer. How do you know or what do yo do to compare a team of the bcs conferences to teams of the non bcs conferences? For the 2011-2012 season do you think that austin peay can win to wake forest or de paul?

Anonymous said...

Xavier as a 7 is a stretch.They're the best team in the A-10 which is probably around the 8th best conference in the country not to mention that Tu Holloway is filthy.They're better then Temple, which is probably a 5 seed as you put.X-Men should be a minimum of a 5 but probably a 3-4.

Jeff said...

Anonymous, I do expect the A-10 winner to probably be in the 4-6 seed range. Right now I've given the slight edge to Temple, but certainly I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Xavier win. That conference should be a great battle this year.

As for the other "Anonymous", I'm not sure it's worth expending the brain power to figure out Austin Peay vs DePaul or Wake Forest. Both DePaul & Wake Forest are going to bad, and Austin Peay just has to worry about winning the OVC. In my opinion, Austin Peay is the clear favorite, though you can never count out Murray State.

Des said...

I dont see Xavier as the 8th best team in the country, top 15: possible , top 25: likely. They have absolutely no proper depth behind Kenny frease and if they play teams with gigantic frontlines and a decent enough backcourt; they might get slaughtered when Kenny fouls out (a team like syracuse) And they are a terrible 3 point shooting team other than brad redford so they'll see a lot of zones thrown at them.

a couple of their guards are pretty big long and wellbuilt (ala temple and butler these few years; dez wells is built like a tank) so they might be able to get away with a guard heavy lineup I guess.

Des said...

Although the duel between Xavier and temple for A-10 will be absolutely entertaining as it has been these past few years.

Jeff said...

Yeah, the A-10 is always lots of fun. It's my second favorite non-BCS conference to watch after the Missouri Valley.

Frease is the big question mark, though. Is he going to be allowed to play or not? It's hard to get a clear story on what's going on with him.

Ken Miller said...

I was a little surprised to see that you think Texas will end up winning the Big 12. After such heavy losses to the NBA, is this because you think the incoming freshmen class is exceptionally strong?

Jeff said...

I do. I think Myck Kabongo is going to be a star from day one - in fact, I'm depending on that. If he has a mediocre freshman year then I'll drop them quite a bit.

It's also a statement on the weakness atop the Big 12. I don't think the conference as a whole is that bad, but who's going to win it? Kansas is really thin right now, Missouri lost Bowers, Texas A&M has issues with Billy Kennedy not coaching, etc. I don't think Texas is a top ten team, but I think they'll win the Big 12, and that will be enough to get them a 2 seed.

I don't think anybody in the Big 12 is remotely in the same class of a team like Kentucky or Ohio State or North Carolina.

Anonymous said...

You are crazy putting South Carolina in the tourney. Pretty sure they are the worst team in the SEC East this year.

Jeff said...

I've already said I don't feel great about any of those last few at-large teams. None of them are very firm, and I won't hesitate to drop any of those last 8-10 teams out of the bracket if they get off to slow starts.

I expect South Carolina to be quite a bit better than they were last year, though. They have a very good coach and were very young last season.

The SEC East clearly has two tiers. You've got the top three teams that are all elite (Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt) and then there's the bottom tier. I do think South Carolina is going to best of those bottom three, though. Georgia's overrated because of their athletes (they're the poor man's Baylor), and Tennessee has all sorts of problems. Cuonzo Martin is a good coach, but it's going to be a few years before he gets that program back on track.