W-9 BP68

I don't think I've talked all season long in a BP68 post about why I do projected brackets rather than "as they stand now" brackets. And there are two reasons:

The first reason is, I don't know what purpose is served by having teams in stupid positions in my bracket. What purpose was served by joining other bracketologists and giving 4/5 seeds to the likes of TCU and Washington when we all knew they would regress once they hit conference play?

Joe Lunardi makes it even more bizarre by automatically taking as his auto bid the team leading the standings (he's not the only person to do this), causing him to put DePaul in his bracket this past week. Lunardi defended that as a demonstration of what happens when teams steal bids, but that makes no sense. Why put all these "bid stealers" in your bracket early on in the season and then take them out late in the season, when reasonable teams will be leading every major conference? Why do we only practice "bid stealing" in early January? And since you are ranking your last four teams in the bracket, we already can all can see who you'd drop out if a bid was stolen anyway. It just serves no purpose.

The second reason I don't do "how things stand now" is because I don't know how one does it objectively. For one, we all have some projection in our brackets early in the season. If a top team loses to a Sun Belt team in November, they don't drop out of every bracketologist's bracket. So when do we stop projecting? Even in early January a lot of bracketologists still include some projections for top teams that have faced soft schedules (like West Virginia this season, for example).

Also, how would we even know how a Selection Committee would deal with the results so far? For example, we know that the games that happen late in the season matter more than the games earlier on Selection Sunday, so... do we apply that thinking to mid-January? Do we count the games that happened last week more than the games that happened a month ago? How do we credit teams for winning their conferences, since we know that teams get a boost in the bracket for winning their conference's tournament? I don't know how any of us can pretend to accurately project such an unrealistic scenario. To me, it makes far more sense to try to project to the end of the season and then use the Selection Committee thinking that we all know so well.

Anyway, to talk about the actual bracket below, there are three changes to the projected Field of 68. Dayton moves in as an at-large team, replacing Washington. Also, two auto bids have new projected winners. Louisiana Tech replaces UTEP as the Conference USA projected champion, while Hofstra replaces Northeastern in the Colonial.

Next week is the first week of the Full Bubble. So starting next week I'll begin eliminating teams from at-large contention. That's always fun, so stay tuned.

Remember, this is a projection of what the bracket will look like on Selection Sunday, and not a measure of where teams would be if the season ended now.

For now, here's how I see things ending up on Selection Sunday:

1. KENTUCKY (SEC)
1. WISCONSIN (BIG TEN)
1. DUKE (ACC)
1. ARIZONA (PAC-12)

2. VILLANOVA (BIG EAST)
2. Virginia
2. TEXAS (BIG 12)
2. GONZAGA (WCC)

3. Kansas
3. Louisville
3. North Carolina
3. Oklahoma

4. Utah
4. Iowa State
4. Ohio State
4. WICHITA STATE (MISSOURI VALLEY)

5. VCU (ATLANTIC TEN)
5. Oklahoma State
5. UCONN (AAC)
5. Maryland

6. West Virginia
6. SMU
6. Notre Dame
6. Georgetown

7. Syracuse
7. Arkansas
7. SAN DIEGO STATE (MOUNTAIN WEST)
7. Northern Iowa

8. Butler
8. Florida
8. Stanford
8. Michigan State

9. Iowa
9. Baylor
9. Cincinnati
9. Providence

10. St. John's
10. HARVARD (IVY)
10. Xavier
10. Illinois

11. Seton Hall
11. Colorado State
11. Michigan
11. BYU

12. Miami-Florida
12. Dayton
12. Pittsburgh
12. Minnesota
12. LOUISIANA TECH (CONFERENCE USA)
12. TOLEDO (MAC)

12. GREEN BAY (HORIZON)
13. UC SANTA BARBARA (BIG WEST)
13. IONA (MAAC)
13. GEORGIA STATE (SUN BELT)

14. HOFSTRA (COLONIAL)
14. EASTERN WASHINGTON (BIG SKY)
14. MURRAY STATE (OVC)
14. STEPHEN F. AUSTIN (SOUTHLAND)

15. FLORIDA GULF COAST (ATLANTIC SUN)
15. DENVER (SUMMIT)
15. NEW MEXICO STATE (WAC)
15. WOFFORD (SOCON)

16. STONY BROOK (AMERICA EAST)
16. NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL (MEAC)
16. COASTAL CAROLINA (BIG SOUTH)
16. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY (PATRIOT)
16. TEXAS SOUTHERN (SWAC)
16. ST. FRANCIS-PA (NEC)

Teams seriously considered that just missed the cut:
Temple, NC State, Davidson, George Washington, Indiana, Wyoming, UCLA, Washington, South Carolina,

Other teams with a decent shot, but that need to improve their resume:
Tulsa, Rhode Island, Purdue, TCU, Old Dominion, UTEP, California, Colorado, Oregon, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Mississippi, Vanderbilt

Other teams I'm keeping my eye on, but that need to dramatically improve their resume:
Memphis, Tulane, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, La Salle, Richmond, Creighton, Marquette, Nebraska, Penn State, Kansas State, Western Kentucky, Valparaiso, Evansville, Illinois State, Loyola-Chicago, UNLV, New Mexico, Arizona State, Oregon State, Auburn, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Saint Mary's