Sunday, March 06, 2016

W-1 BP68

For most of the season we thought that the most interesting resume on Selection Sunday would be LSU, but with their fade it now looks like the most interesting case will be Wichita State. In terms of a traditional resume, Wichita State really looks like an NIT team. The Missouri Valley was weak this season, so that 16-2 conference mark doesn't mean much. They went just 1-4 against the RPI Top 50 (the win came over Utah), and just 4-7 against the RPI Top 100. For the moment, their RPI is sitting 47th.

That said, Wichita State has two things going for it. First of all, they played much better in the second half of the season after getting their full roster together, and the Selection Committee has always weighed late season games more than early season games. Second of all, we saw for the first time last season that analytical ratings like Pomeroy were taken into account a little bit. You can read my analysis on that latter point here. In short, it's not that their Pomeroy rating (currently 10th) will be given a heavy weighting. They're not earning a 3 seed, or anything close to it. But what we saw last year was that Pomeroy was used as a tiebreaker, to slide teams up or down a line. Basically, some members of the Selection Committee finally realized that good ratings of team strength exist and wanted to incorporate them a little bit. If Wichita State and another team have otherwise very similar resumes, Pomeroy could be used as that tiebreaker to put Wichita State in.

So does Wichita State end up getting in? At this point it's close to a coin flip, and it's going to come down to how strong the bubble looks a week from now. But it would be a mistake to say "They only have one quality win, so they're not getting in". The evidence from last year says that simply is not true anymore.

Assuming Wichita State does get in, that eats an at-large spot. I also have Oregon State moving into the bracket, which means that two at-large teams dropped out: Michigan and Syracuse. There were also, naturally, some upsets in one-bid leagues. So there is a change in projected winner in the Atlantic Sun (Florida Gulf Coast replaces North Florida), Big South (UNC-Asheville replaces Coastal Carolina), Ohio Valley (Austin Peay replaces Belmont), and Patriot (Lehigh replaces Bucknell).

In addition, here were 4 more teams eliminated from at-large contention since Saturday: Arkansas, Boise State, Georgetown, and Marquette. That leaves just 24 teams currently out of the projected bracket that still have a chance for an at-large bid, and we will eliminate a bunch more next week.

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. Texas Tech

7. Wisconsin
7. Colorado
7. DAYTON (ATLANTIC TEN)
7. Notre Dame

8. Seton Hall
8. UCONN (AAC)
8. Providence
8. St. Bonaventure

9. Saint Joseph's
9. USC
9. Vanderbilt
9. Butler

10. Saint Mary's
10. Wichita State
10. Oregon State
10. GONZAGA (WCC)

11. Tulsa
11. VCU
11. Cincinnati
11. MONMOUTH (MAAC)
11. South Carolina
11. Pittsburgh

12. ARKANSAS-LITTLE ROCK (SUN BELT)
12. VALPARAISO (HORIZON)
12. SAN DIEGO STATE (MOUNTAIN WEST)
12. STONY BROOK (AMERICA EAST)

13. AKRON (MAC)
13. SOUTH DAKOTA STATE (SUMMIT)
13. NORTHERN IOWA (MISSOURI VALLEY)
13. CHATTANOOGA (SOUTHERN)

14. YALE (IVY LEAGUE)
14. HAWAII (BIG WEST)
14. UNC-WILMINGTON (COLONIAL)
14. UAB (CONFERENCE USA)

15. STEPHEN F. AUSTIN (SOUTHLAND)
15. NEW MEXICO STATE (WAC)
15. UNC-ASHEVILLE(BIG SOUTH)
15. MONTANA (BIG SKY)

16. LEHIGH (PATRIOT)
16. TEXAS SOUTHERN (SWAC)
16. AUSTIN PEAY (OVC)
16. FLORIDA GULF COAST (ATLANTIC SUN)
16. WAGNER (NEC)
16. NORFOLK STATE (MEAC)

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

Decent resumes, but not good enough:
Florida State, George Washington, LSU

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

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

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