Wednesday, March 09, 2016

D-3 BP68

The first few days of Championship Week are always a bit quiet in the major conferences. Most of the teams in the top half of the projected bracket haven't played a game since my last bracket projection. And so because of that, the top few seed lines are all mostly unchanged.

Where we saw action was in the smaller conferences, where we picked up quite a few surprise auto-bid winners, and also where we created a couple of interesting bubble cases in Valparaiso and Monmouth. At this point, however, I think both teams are likely to miss out.

In all, there were four changes to the projected bracket since Sunday. Green Bay enters as the Horizon champ (replacing Valparaiso), Iona enters from the MAAC (replacing Monmouth), Fairleigh Dickinson enters as the NEC champ (replacing Wagner), and Holy Cross (Patriot League) replaces Lehigh.

The result of this small conference carnage is two-fold. First, it weakens the teams at the bottom of the bracket while sliding up the best small conference teams to higher lines. The 1/16 games are going to feature a lot of gigantic Vegas lines, while teams like Northern Iowa and Yale have a shot at a 12 seed. The other result is a strengthening of the Tournament bubble. Not only do teams like South Carolina and Cincinnati likely need to win at least one more game to get in, but even a team like USC or Butler could be in a little bit of trouble if they go one-and-done in their respective conference tournament. A team like Monmouth is now there to steal a bid if other bubble teams don't firm up their positions.

In addition, here were 4 more teams eliminated from at-large contention since Saturday: BYU, Clemson, Florida State, and Stanford. That leaves just 22 teams currently out of the projected bracket that still have a chance for an at-large bid. Nearly a dozen more will be eliminated over the next three days.

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. Teams capitalized are the projected auto-bid winners for their respective conferences.

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

1. KANSAS (BIG 12)
1. VILLANOVA (BIG EAST)
1. NORTH CAROLINA (ACC)
1. Oklahoma

2. Virginia
2. Xavier
2. MICHIGAN STATE (BIG TEN)
2. Miami-Florida

3. West Virginia
3. Oregon
3. KENTUCKY (SEC)
3. Duke

4. ARIZONA (PAC-12)
4. Utah
4. Indiana
4. Iowa State

5. Maryland
5. California
5. Purdue
5. Texas A&M

6. Texas
6. Baylor
6. Iowa
6. Wisconsin

7. Colorado
7. DAYTON (ATLANTIC TEN)
7. Notre Dame
7. Seton Hall

8. Providence
8. St. Bonaventure
8. Texas Tech
8. Saint Joseph's

9. UCONN (AAC)
9. USC
9. Butler
9. Oregon State

10. Vanderbilt
10. VCU
10. Tulsa
10. GONZAGA (WCC)

11. Saint Mary's
11. Wichita State
11. Pittsburgh
11. Cincinnati
11. South Carolina
11. ARKANSAS-LITTLE ROCK (SUN BELT)

12. SAN DIEGO STATE (MOUNTAIN WEST)
12. STONY BROOK (AMERICA EAST)
12. AKRON (MAC)
12. SOUTH DAKOTA STATE (SUMMIT)

13. NORTHERN IOWA (MISSOURI VALLEY)
13. CHATTANOOGA (SOUTHERN)
13. YALE (IVY LEAGUE)
13. UNC-WILMINGTON (COLONIAL)

14. HAWAII (BIG WEST)
14. UAB (CONFERENCE USA)
14. IONA (MAAC)
14. STEPHEN F. AUSTIN (SOUTHLAND)

15. GREEN BAY (HORIZON)
15. NEW MEXICO STATE (WAC)
15. UNC-ASHEVILLE (BIG SOUTH)
15. MONTANA (BIG SKY)

16. TEXAS SOUTHERN (SWAC)
16. AUSTIN PEAY (OVC)
16. FLORIDA GULF COAST (ATLANTIC SUN)
16. NORFOLK STATE (MEAC)
16. HOLY CROSS (PATRIOT)
16. FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON (NEC)

Teams seriously considered that just missed the cut:
Temple, Monmouth, Florida

Decent resumes, but not good enough:
Syracuse, Michigan, Valparaiso, LSU

Long shots, but still in the at-large discussion:
George Washington, Ohio State, Washington, Alabama

Still alive, but pretty much need a miracle:
Houston, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Davidson, Creighton, Northwestern, UC-Irvine, Hofstra, Princeton, Georgia, Mississippi

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

First, I hope the move to the new job is going well. I am glad you have found some time to keep posting and updating your predictions.

The last few spots on the bubble this year will be interesting. The committee has stated they want teams to play good schedules out of conference. That will severely hamper both St. Mary's and South Carolina while rewarding Temple, Monmouth, Tulsa and a few others. The first two basically played top teams within conference only, while the latter have at least played good teams outside of conference. Monmouth even won a couple. Do you think the committee will hold true to their word?

Jeff said...

Thank you!

In years past, they have cared about non-conference strength of schedule, but only on the extremes. By that I mean that if one team has a NCSOS that is 100th and another is 150th, that's not going to make any difference when comparing them. But when teams have extremely good or bad NCSOS, the Selection Committee has tended to reward/punish them to make an example of them (SMU a couple years ago being a clear example). So South Carolina would be a glaring example of a team that could be on their way to being punished.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the answer. South Carolina will be an interesting case this year, especially with the loss last night. Not much of a resume other than the TAMU win, but they are in a "power conference". Even that is the lowest rated out of the conferences.