Our resident Bracketologist, The Bracketeer, has returned to give his predictions for the 2015-16 season. He is a long time contributor to White & Blue Review and matches up with some of the best bracketologists in the nation. Follow him all season long as Creighton looks to get back to the NCAA Tournament.
A few guidelines for everyone looking at the bracket and how I came to my projections (thru games of February 21):
- 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.
- 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., Providence can’t play in the “Providence” site) or if they are the host institution (e.g, Iowa State can’t play in the “Des Moines” 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, KenPom and RPI Forecast.
- Below the bracket, I’ve also listed the “Last Four In”, “First Four Out” and “Next Four Out”.
Now for the bracket projection (February 22)…
LAST FOUR IN: George Washington, Michigan, Tulsa, Cincinnati
FIRST FOUR OUT: Washington, Oregon State, Alabama, LSU
NEXT FOUR OUT: Butler, Clemson, Vanderbilt, Stanford
MULTIPLE BID LEAGUES: ACC (7), Big Ten (7), Big 12 (7), Pac-12 (6), Atlantic 10 (5), American (4), Big East (4), SEC (4)
Next bracket projection: Monday, February 29
5 Things About This Week’s Projection
1) Remember when the Pac-12 was projected to have as many as 9-10 teams into this year’s field of 68? It was only four bracket projections ago for yours truly where I had 10 Pac-12 teams “dancing”. A significant factor over the season long calculation of a teams computer metrics is road/neutral non conference record. Take a look at the top 8 leagues as far as road/neutral non-conference record:
Road/Neutral non-conference record by league
- Big 12: 29-15 (.659)
- Big East: 31-20 (.608)
- ACC: 41-27 (.603)
- Big Ten: 35-30 (.538)
- Pac-12: 25-25 (.500)
- Atlantic 10: 25-33 (.431)
- American: 21-28 (.429)
- SEC: 27-40 (.403)
Don’t get me wrong, the Pac-12 is having a great season and the current projected six bids that I have for them would equal their 2014 entries. If they get one of their “bubble” teams in, a seven-bid Pac-12 would be it’s first since 2009. However, their road non-league numbers have caught up with them – at least compared to other leagues – meaning seven bids is probably their best case scenario for this season.
2) In spite of losing 3 of its last 5 games, I kept Oklahoma in as my final #1-seed for this projection. The reason the Sooners stay on the top line? The teams on the #2/#3-seed lines have also sputtered in recent weeks.
- Oregon – lost 2 of last 3
- Iowa – lost 2 of last 3
- North Carolina – lost 3 of last 6
The exception to this is Xavier – who has won 8 of its last 9 contests. So why not move the Musketeers onto the top-seed line? The 8 wins don’t contain any top 25 victories. All of the teams mentioned do have quality to the one or two wins they do have over the last few games.
XU will have it’s chance to get onto that #1-seed line – as they host Villanova on Wednesday. A win over the Wildcats, along with other teams continuing to trade wins and losses, should have Xavier in a good spot to move onto the #1-seed line. XU does have history against it, though, as I could not find any example of where the regular season 2nd place team from the #4-RPI league ever received a #1-seed.
3) The American and Atlantic 10 conferences are going to be interesting to watch as they currently have nine teams into the projected field (AAC – 4, A-10 – 5). However, 6 of those 9 bids are seeded at #10 or lower. These two leagues will certainly be rooting for Wichita State, Monmouth, Valparaiso and Arkansas-Little Rock to take care of business in their respective conference tournaments.
4) In the opposite situation, the Big 12 and Big Ten appear to have the most stable situations when it comes to number of bids. Barring drastic changes, each league should end up with seven teams in the Big Dance.
5) In reviewing this week’s projection, I once again don’t feel that I have any team “under-seeded”. This may be due to teams who would have been no-brainers for the field of 68, SMU and Louisville, won’t be dancing. Here are three teams that I feel are “over-seeded”.
(#4-seed) Maryland – The computer numbers are nice (RPI – 9, KenPom – 20, 5-3 vs Top 50), but the Terrapins to me seem like the team “most likely to be upset as a #4-seed or better”. They have some star quality players, but they don’t play together as a team.
(#2-seed) Utah – I think the Utes have an excellent team and can do a lot of damage come March, maybe this falls more under the “I don’t think the Selection Committee will give them a #2-seed”, rather than over-seeded…
(#7-seed) Florida – I’ve had them in my projections as a #6 to #8-seed throughout the whole process because, on paper, that’s where they fit. The Gators 2-7 record vs the Top 50, though, has me thinking I might have them a line or two higher than they should be…
Thanks for reading. The next edition of “The Bracketeer” will run on Monday, February 29…