Sunday, March 10, 2013

W-1 BP68

Sorry for all of the late posts tonight. Blame the St. Mary's/San Diego game and daylight savings time for basketball ending after 3 AM eastern time.

Anyway, I kept my at-large teams the same for this bracket. I thought seriously about moving Boise State in, but I think they're going to lose their Mountain West tournament quarterfinal game. If they win that game then they'll probably get moved in. Three auto-bid teams changed, though. Harvard is in for Princeton in the Ivy League and Florida Gulf Coast is in for Mercer in the Atlantic Sun. Also, my new favorite in the NEC is LIU, replacing Robert Morris.

The bubble expanded on Saturday, so I suddenly have 11 seeds that seem fairly iffy. In fact, even those 10 seeds could still fall out of the NCAA Tournament. The 1 seeds did get flipped around - I think that if Gonzaga beats St. Mary's in the WCC title game then they'll earn a 1 seed. Duke and Indiana still control their own destiny. Things get a bit iffier with Kansas and Louisville, should both teams win their conference tournaments. Because I think Kansas has the easier path, they are my final 1 seed... for now.

Outside of the bracket, it feels like half the SEC is on the bubble. I just can't move Alabama, Ole Miss or Tennessee in the bracket right now, though. All need to play well in the SEC tournament to get in, and I don't really believe in any of them right now. Three more teams were eliminated from at-large contention altogether: BYU, St. Joseph's and Washington. That leaves 19 teams not in my bracket that still have a chance at an at-large bid. That number will probably halve over the final week.

Note that for the final week of the regular season, as usual, there will be three bracket projections instead of two. The next one will be posted after Wednesday night's games. there will be another after Friday night's games, and then the "Final" bracket after all the action is done on Selection Sunday.

Remember, this is a projection of the final bracket on Selection Sunday, rather than of how I think teams would be seeded if the season ended now. There's a difference.

Here we go:

1. INDIANA (BIG TEN)
1. DUKE (ACC)
1. GONZAGA (WCC)
1. KANSAS (BIG 12)

2. LOUISVILLE (BIG EAST)
2. FLORIDA (SEC)
2. Michigan State
2. Miami (Fl)

3. Georgetown
3. Oklahoma State
3. Ohio State
3. Michigan

4. Pittsburgh
4. Kansas State
4. Marquette
4. New Mexico

5. Wisconsin
5. Syracuse
5. North Carolina
5. ARIZONA (PAC-12)

6. MEMPHIS (CONFERENCE USA)
6. UNLV (MOUNTAIN WEST)
6. Colorado State
6. VCU (ATLANTIC TEN)

7. Notre Dame
7. St. Louis
7. CREIGHTON (MVC)
7. Butler

8. Missouri
8. Iowa State
8. NC State
8. Wichita State

9. UCLA
9. San Diego State
9. Cincinnati
9. Villanova

10. Oklahoma
10. Oregon
10. Kentucky
10. Illinois

11. St. Mary's
11. Minnesota
11. California
11. Temple

12. BELMONT (OVC)
12. MIDDLE TENNESSEE (SUN BELT)
12. La Salle
12. Virginia
12. Colorado
12. Iowa

13. AKRON (MAC)
13. BUCKNELL (PATRIOT)
13. DENVER (WAC)
13. VALPARAISO (HORIZON)

14. STEPHEN F AUSTIN (SOUTHLAND)
14. SOUTH DAKOTA STATE (SUMMIT)
14. HARVARD (IVY)
14. DAVIDSON (SOCON)

15. WEBER STATE (BIG SKY)
15. STONY BROOK (AMERICA EAST)
15. NORTHEASTERN (COLONIAL)
15. NIAGARA (MAAC)

16. FLORIDA GULF COAST (ATLANTIC SUN)
16. LONG BEACH STATE (BIG WEST)
16. CHARLESTON SOUTHERN (BIG SOUTH)
16. LIU (NEC)
16. NC CENTRAL (MEAC)
16. SOUTHERN (SWAC)

Teams seriously considered that just missed the cut:
Baylor, Boise State, Ole Miss, Alabama, Tennessee

Decent resumes, but not good enough:
Maryland, Southern Miss

Long shots, but still in the at-large discussion:
UMass, Stanford, Arkansas, Louisiana Tech

Still alive, but pretty much need a miracle:
Florida State, Charlotte, Xavier, Providence, St. John's, Air Force, Arizona State, LSU

4 comments:

Phil said...

I'm sure you are sick of answering Missouri questions, but what the hell, they're my team, so: Why does everyone think UNC is a mortal lock and a 4-6 seed, while Missouri is 8-10 and has work to do? If you strip away the names, here's what I see:

UNC is #30 KenPom, #19 Sagarin; MU is #18 KenPom, #16 Sagarin. Advantage MU.

UNC is 22-9; MU is 22-9. Draw.

UNC has 2 wins against KenPom Top 50; MU has 5. Advantage MU.

UNC's best win is Virginia; MU's is Florida. Advantage MU.

UNC is 7-9 against KenPom Top 100; MU is 10-9. Advantage MU.

UNC has one bad loss (@Texas), MU has two (@LSU, @TA&M). Advantage UNC.

UNC is 7-7 away from home, MU is 5-9 - but UNC's away wins include Mississippi State, Chaminade (!!), Long Beach State. Still, advantage UNC.

Now admittedly, the ACC is better as a whole than the SEC ... but that is already generally factored into the computer ratings via SOS, etc.

So other than one being a blueblood and one not, why is there such a huge disparity in how UNC and MU are being perceived? As best I can tell, they are nearly the same team.

Jeff said...

First, KenPom doesn't matter and neither does any derivative like "Record vs KenPom Top 100". It's never been seriously considered by the Selection Committee, because they're looking at resumes rather than how good teams are, and for "records vs Top 100" and the like they use RPI.

The biggest reason UNC is the better seed is because their conference is much better and they had a better record in it. There's a decent chance that Missouri will end up in the SEC standings behind one or two NIT teams.

I agree with you that head-to-head Missouri would be favored and is probably the better team. But that doesn't matter.

Phil said...

Fair points, although using RPI instead of KenPom, there's really no difference ... UNC went 2-7 against RPI Top 50 and 8-8 against RPI Top 100, where MU went 3-4 and 9-9, so again, basically the same team. Where it gets dicier for MU is when you look at games against 101-200, where UNC is 17-9 and MU is only 12-9. In other words, UNC did much better job of gaming the system and scheduling "less bad" bad teams than MU.

And I'm really getting weary of the whole "SEC sucks" thing. Yes, the SEC has three horrendous teams (Auburn, USC and MSU) where ACC has only one (VT). But that aside, look at the numbers: SEC has 3 Top 50 and 9 Top 100; ACC has 4 teams in RPI Top 50 but only 7 in Top 100. So I'd say the ACC is marginally better, but not enough to justify the current disparity in how UNC and MU are perceived. Seems to me it comes down to name and reputation.

Anyway, thanks for the conversation. You seem to really be making a difference in how "name" analysts are viewing the game and it's refreshing.

Phil said...

When I say "look at games against 101-200" above I meant "include" ...