The Bracketeer is a new contributor to White & Blue Review, but a familiar face. The Bracketeer made his first appearance on Patrick Marshall’s old blog back in 2009. After long hiatus, The Bracketeer has returned for the 2014-15 season.
A few guidelines for everyone looking at the bracket and how I came to my projections (thru games of January 11):
- I tried to seed teams as if it were actually Selection Sunday. So some teams may seem a bit high or a bit low compared to what others have presently. However, based on the numbers to date, that’s where I believe they would be seeded when you factor in SOS, Top-50 wins, Top-100 wins, etc. With most teams still having half of their regular season games remaining, there are a lot of “incomplete” resumes this early in the process.
- Since we are early in the process, there will be some teams that appear in the bracket that have below .500 records in their conference. Although the common thought that below .500 in your league = no at-large bid, since 2000, 10 such teams (all from “power” conferences) have received an at-large nod. Most conferences are only a handful of games into league play – so some teams with sub-.500 league records will be in the field of 68, presently.
- As the NCAA selection committee is supposed to do, I attempted to avoid match-ups that would involve rematches from this season and teams from the same conference potentially playing each other (generally until the Sweet 16). Also, teams cannot play in their home arena (e.g., Creighton can’t play in the “Omaha Region”, Louisville can’t play in the “Louisville Region”, Dayton can’t play at the “Dayton First Four site”). If necessary, the committee in the past has allowed for a “one-seed” movement from a team’s “true” seed to help in putting together the bracket.
- I’ve used information from the various RPI/efficiency sites out there in compiling my somewhat educated guesses but will mostly site RPI and KenPom.
- Below the bracket, I’ve also listed the “Last Four In”, “First Four Out” and “Next Four Out”. I’ve also done a brief capsule on each multi-bid conference.
Now for the bracket projection (January 19)
LAST FOUR IN: St. John’s, Mississippi, Tennessee, Indiana
FIRST FOUR OUT: BYU, Alabama, Syracuse, Texas A&M
NEXT FOUR OUT: UCLA, Temple, Ohio State, St. Mary’s
MULTIPLE BID LEAGUES: ACC (7), Big East (7), Big 12 (7), SEC (6), Big Ten (5), Pac-12 (4), Atlantic 10 (3), American (3), MVC (2), MWC (2)
Next bracket projection: Monday, January 26
Conference Capsules
American Athletic Conference
Tulsa continues to impress with a 5-0 league mark, but still lacks that marquee win (0-3 vs RPI top 50). Even though they are only 3-2 in conference play, Cincinnati appears to be the AAC’s best bet to earn a high-seed as they have three wins vs the RPI top 50 and absolutely destroyed conference mate Temple (84-53) on Saturday.
Atlantic Coast Conference
The overall résumé of Duke is still really solid – even after its recent stumbles against North Carolina State and Miami (FL) – but still not enough to keep them as a #1-seed, presently. The win by Miami on Duke’s home floor catapulted the Hurricanes into the bracket (one of six new teams into the field this week).
Atlantic 10 Conference
I’m still very high on VCU (RPI: 4, SOS: 2). However, even though its RPI and SOS say #1-seed, the Rams record vs the top 50 (2-3) and top 100 (5-3) speaks more to a #3- or #4-seed at this stage of the game. I think that I have VCU seeded higher than most bracket forecasters (currently a #2-seed). They are likely more of #3- or #4-seed by the time March rolls around. However, if the season ended today, I think they would barely fall into that #2-seed line.
Big East Conference
Villanova has deservedly moved up into a #1-seed from last week’s bracket. The Wildcats are the cream of a salty Big East crop as the league has every right to believe they can get seven teams into the Big Dance this season. In today’s bracket, I have St. John’s as my last team into the field of 68. Their win at Providence earlier in the week outweighed the loss at DePaul yesterday. Make no mistake though, at 1-4 in Big East play, the Red Storm is on the brink of the NIT. Statistical nugget: The Big East is the only conference this season to have every team in the league with at least one RPI top 50 victory.
Big Ten Conference
Although this league had five teams make it into the bracket this week, three of those teams – Michigan State, Iowa and Indiana – were among my last eight teams into the at-large portion of my projections. Wisconsin and Maryland appear to be the only teams that can count on Selection Sunday bids at this point.
Big 12 Conference
If I gave you nine guesses as to who is currently in first place of the Big 12, you still might not get it correct without peeking at the conference standings. Yes, at 4-1, Kansas State (RPI: 95) is actually the first place team in the #1-RPI conference. Yet, I still don’t have the Wildcats anywhere close to an at-large bid. I admittedly had trouble gauging where to put Kansas in this week’s bracket. I didn’t think that Gonzaga did enough to merit moving into a #1-seed and the week that Duke had was slightly worse than KU’s.
Missouri Valley Conference
The Valley is on track for its 3rd two-bid NCAA Tournament in the last four seasons. Wichita State and Northern Iowa won’t have many chances for quality wins the rest of the way, though, until they play each other (Jan. 31 and Feb. 28).
Mountain West Conference
One week later and I still don’t know what to do with Colorado State. The Rams are 16-2 overall and have yet to play an RPI top 50 opponent. Their best wins are against MWC foe Boise State, UTEP and at Colorado – all of which are likely NIT at this stage. I still have them in my bracket (#10-seed), but won’t hesitate to drop them out. The Rams face their first real test of the season on Saturday when they host San Diego State.
Pac 12 Conference
Arizona had a very impressive showing against Utah over the weekend – catapulting the Wildcats from a #5-seed to a #3-seed in the latest bracket projection. Washington also appears to be out of its funk as the Huskies posted solid yet unspectacular wins over Oregon State and Oregon to get onto the right side of the bubble, for now.
Southeastern Conference
If you like bubble teams, this is the place to be. It is really tough to split the differences in the résumés between Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas A&M. They all have parts that say “I should be in the Big Dance”. They also all have parts that say “Is our NIT home game on Tuesday or Wednesday night?”. The current separator is that Tennessee and Mississippi can point to a quality non-conference win (TENN vs. Butler, and MISS vs. Cincinnati). Alabama and Texas A&M cannot. Therefore, I have the Vols and Rebels slated to go to Dayton for some “First Four” action, while the Crimson Tide and Aggies are just on the outside looking in.
West Coast Conference
I currently only have one team in from the WCC at this point (Gonzaga). BYU and St. Mary’s will likely be in the bubble conversation over the next seven weeks. However, as a tease to next week’s version of “The Bracketeer”, I will attempt to sway the masses as to why St. Mary’s should rarely be considered for an at-large bid based on their consistent lack of non-conference scheduling over the years.
The One-Bid Leagues
The following conferences (21 of them), pretty much no matter how you dissect it, will provide only one team to the 2015 NCAA Tournament… A top 5 of “could get an at-large if they don’t get the league automatic bid” would be – Old Dominion (C-USA), Wofford (SoCon), Buffalo (MAC), Harvard (Ivy League) and Long Beach State (Big West)…
- America East – Albany
- Atlantic Sun – North Florida
- Big South – Coastal Carolina
- Big Sky – Eastern Washington
- Big West – Long Beach State
- Colonial – William & Mary
- Conference USA – Old Dominion
- Horizon – Green Bay
- Ivy league – Harvard
- MAC – Buffalo
- MAAC – Iona
- MEAC – North Carolina Central
- Northeast – Bryant
- Ohio Valley – Eastern Illinois
- Patriot – American
- Southern – Wofford
- Southland – Sam Houston State
- Summit – North Dakota State
- Sun Belt – Louisiana-Monroe
- SWAC – Texas Southern
- WAC – New Mexico State
Thanks for reading. The next edition of “The Bracketeer” will run on Monday, January 26…