A few guidelines for everyone looking at the bracket and how I came to my projections (March 13 – Final Projection):
- 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 (March 13 – Final Projection)…
Next bracket projection: Sometime in 2017
5 Things About The Final Projection
1) I think it’s easy at this time of year to get caught up in how teams are playing recently instead of looking at an entire body of work. The pundits seem to have done this with Villanova and Michigan State. Over the last 24-36 hours, I’ve heard many calling for Villanova to fall to a #2-seed in large part because they lost to Seton Hall in the Big East Tourney semifinals. However, when taking a look at the Wildcats overall résumé, they are an obvious #1-seed – trailing only Kansas as a sure-fire #1-seed a few moments from now.
As for Michigan State, they’ve had another tremendous season under Tom Izzo and appear destined for another Final Four. Truth be told, the Spartans are my pick to win it all three-plus weeks from now. However, it doesn’t necessarily make them a #1-seed as many of the “experts” have said they should be. MSU went 13-5 in the 5th-rated RPI league – playing the 8th most difficult league schedule out of the 14 Big Ten teams. Yes, they were without Denzel Valentine for four games – including two Big Ten wins over Illinois and Minnesota. So, even with their best player, Michigan State went a pedestrain 11-5 against a weaker-than-usual Big Ten. Sparty’s résumé says #2-seed to me, and that’s what I’m sticking with…
2) As for the other #1’s, Kansas is a lock. No need to really even explain why… Although I’m not as bullish on North Carolina as others are, there’s no denying that the Tar Heels won both the ACC regular season and tournament titles and did so impressively. UNC certainly gets a lot of credit as well for the “eye test” as they look the part of a #1-seed. They only thing light in the Tar Heels résumé is top 50 wins (5) – which would be the least for a #1-seed that I can find since the Ratings Percentage Index became part of our winter vocabulary. I was certainly questioned by a few when I made Oregon one of my four #1-seeds last week. The Ducks followed, through, by winning the Pac-12 Tournament in impressive fashion. No turning back now, as I have Oregon as my last #1-seed.
3) The only major adjustment that I made from last week’s bracket was dropping South Carolina all the way out of the projected field (I had them in an 8/9 game last week). The Gamecocks résumé has taken a beating over the last few weeks. Top 50 wins that were there 14 days ago (Alabama and Florida) are no longer – leaving the other USC at just 1-1 vs the top 50. Add in that they lost all three meetings to Georgia (including twice in the last 8 days – once at home and once in the SEC Tourney), who is not considered to be an NCAA Tournament caliber team by anyone, and the Gamecocks are probably headed to the NIT.
4) For me the last two slots came down to four teams (Michigan, San Diego State, Cincinnati and Syracuse). Michigan got the big victory of the weekend when it upset Indiana in the Big Ten Quarterfinals. Although Michigan, Cincinnati and Syracuse have similar numbers when it comes to top 50 wins, the Wolverines résumé stands out a little more because their “Top 50” wins are actually of the top 25 variety. Michigan has three wins vs the top 25 and another just on the outside (vs. Texas, RPI 27). Syracuse has two top 25 wins, while Cincinnati has just one.
As I’ve said on these pages previously, the Selection Committee has also shown in the past that it will reward teams who were dominant regular season conference champions. San Diego State fits that description as the Aztecs went 16-2 in the Mountain West Conference – beating second place finisher Fresno State by three games.
So, I went with Michigan and San Diego State as my last two teams in…
5) I will say ahead of time that my only beef will be if the Selection Committee gives one of the 36 at-large bids to St. Mary’s – who once again, scheduled softly and played one road non-conference game which they didn’t even leave the state of California to play. The Gaels, in part because the West Coast Conference is pretty bad outside of Gonzaga and BYU, racked up 18 wins vs the RPI 200+!! The thing is, St. Mary’s schedules like this every year and “expects” to get rewarded… Until they start scheduling better in their non-conference slate, St. Mary’s does not deserve an at-large into the Big Dance.
Thanks for reading. The next edition of “The Bracketeer” will be a post-selection recap prior to the start of NCAA Tournament games.
